Agenda item

To consider an update on matters supporting children’s services performance in Northamptonshire and the outcomes of the latest Ofsted monitoring visit.

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

a)     Requested to have access to information provided to the commissioning authority giving a greater level of detail about children’s services performance against key targets and about the Children’s Trust staffing establishment in time for the Committee meeting on 25 April 2022.

b)     Agreed that the Committee should take a continuing interest in the direction of travel for children’s services and how children’s services contributes with other services to dealing with cross-cutting issues in West Northamptonshire.

c)     Agreed to confirm at the Committee meeting on 25 April 2022 whether it would schedule further scrutiny with Children’s Trust representatives at the Committee meetings on 21 June 2022 or 30 August 2022.

The Chief Executive of Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT), together with the Assistant Director, Quality Assurance and Commissioning and the Assistant Director, Corporate Parent Services introduced the report updating the Committee on progress with achieving consistently good quality practice, the outcomes of Ofsted monitoring visits and measures to further improve recruitment and retention of social workers.

The Chief Executive emphasised that West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) had provided outstanding support for NCT during its continuing evolution.  Performance was improving, which was recognised.  The current Department of Education commissioner was stepping down in February 2022 and would not be replaced.  Ofsted had advised that following the November 2021 monitoring visit there would be no further monitoring visits but a full inspection with grading would take place in summer 2022.  This would be a two week process with preparation in the three weeks beforehand.  Although work to support improvement in priority areas was continuing it was likely that the best Ofsted grade that could be expected at this point would be ‘requires improvement’.  This reflected that Ofsted would consider the position in Northamptonshire back to 2019 and would need to be convinced that recent improvements could be sustained. 

The Assistant Director, Corporate Parent Services highlighted action being taken to improve the quality and consistency of professional practice and to ensure that services were informed by the voice of the child.  A skilled workforce was needed to achieve this.  The majority of posts in NCT from team leader level upwards were now filled by permanent staff members.  More tailored continuous professional development helped to maintain focus and show what was good practice.  The NCT Improvement Plan was monitored monthly by an Improvement Board.  NCT continued to implement and embed a strengths-based, child-focussed practice model intended to achieve sustained outcomes for children.  The Assistant Director, Quality Assurance and Commissioning further advised that NCT had implemented revised procedures and practice standards that gave managers and practitioners greater clarity about expectations and support.  The Quality Assurance Framework was now seen as a collaborative process, not a punitive one. 

In relation to recruitment and retention of social workers, the Chief Executive and Assistant Director, Corporate Parent Services advised that Northamptonshire’s position relative to other areas had improved compared to pressures experienced in 2020.  NCT’s vacancy rate for social workers was 22.5% and the rate of agency social workers was 16.6% in December 2021.  There had been more starters than leavers in the last year and NCT managers were being contacted by people looking to work in Northamptonshire.  A further 10 international social workers were due to join NCT in May 2022 with a good package of support.  The NCT Workforce Strategy set a clear vision and priorities that provided a framework for action to support recruitment and retention.  It reflected that NCT was still on an improvement journey but there was an absolute commitment to act when issues needed to be addressed.

The Committee considered the report and members raised the following points:

·         The overall numbers of social workers joining and leaving NCT in the year to October 2021 included in the report represented a net loss.  How could this be described as a positive trend? 

·         The report referred to 47 existing social workers moving to new roles within NCT.  This meant that the recruitment of 48 new social workers in the past year did not address the overall shortage.  How did retention rates for social workers compare with those in other areas and were other areas at full capacity?  What was the situation regarding non-social work vacancies within NCT?

·         Was there any correlation between agency social worker numbers and areas with a higher cost of living?  Were any steps being taken to assist those who wanted to work as social workers in Northamptonshire but for whom the cost of living was too high?

·         Although current children’s services performance improvement work was more focussed on outcomes than in the past in Northamptonshire many young people still did not feel safe and experienced mental health issues.  It could be helpful for NCT to build connections with the local community to help to identify vulnerable young people, for example, by engaging with the Youth Summit run by a network of youth groups in Northampton, which aimed to produce a Youth Manifesto.

·         Concern was expressed about wider issues raised by serious case reviews in Northamptonshire concerning the risk of professionals becoming desensitised to the effect of poverty, the confusion that could result from public sector organisations using different definitions of disability, and the effectiveness of work with fathers compared to that in other areas.   

·         Did NCT social workers receive any clinical supervision to support their social and emotional wellbeing?  This was very positive and could help staff retention.

·         In recent tragic cases involving the deaths of children there had been many warning signs that had been missed.  Could NCT assure members that it had appropriate arrangements to enable staff members to raise concerns and to ensure that these would be addressed?

The NCT representatives provided additional information during the course of discussion as follows:

·         The report aimed to be open about NCT’s overall position on recruitment and retention: further improvements had been seen since October 2021.  The majority of the 47 social workers who had moved to new roles within NCT had become senior social workers and therefore still had a caseload.  NCT currently had 528 social worker posts with 380 social workers in-post.  It would need to consider what was the right headcount to have in future.  No local authority had all of its social work posts filled all of the time.  Staff turnover was still a challenge for Northamptonshire and NCT had an overall turnover rate of 15% compared with the national average of 12.9%.  Demand for social workers outstripped supply nationally and added to the need to attract and retain staff.  Non-social work vacancies at NCT were very low.

·         Average caseloads at NCT were broadly in-line with targets. 

·         NCT provided a retention payment and relocation expenses to new social workers.  The employment offer from Northamptonshire was now comparable to that in other areas.  Trust was also a key factor in attracting applicants: whether prospective employers trusted that they would be paid fairly, would not have an excessive caseload and would be able to do their best for young people.  Changing organisational culture took time but NCT was seeing positive effects.

·         The Chief Executive was confident that issues raised by serious case reviews in Northamptonshire were being addressed.  Better professional practice should prevent the risk of social work being carried out in a functional way that could cause issues to be overlooked.

·         There continued to be different definitions of disability within the public sector.  NCT had clear eligibility criteria for services.  The key issue was to understand which young people were eligible for support, carry out a timely assessment and work with service users and families to identify how best to provide support.

·         There was scope to improve work with fathers in Northamptonshire, although this was a national issue.  It could take skill and tenacity to find and engage with absent fathers.  NCT’s practice model helped to address this issue by focussing on the whole family. 

·         Social workers currently received case supervision, personal supervision and group supervision in teams as well as learning and development relating to emotional support.  It was intended that clinical supervision would be part of the new organisational culture of NCT but there was a significant amount of work to do to get to that point.

·         Mitigations were in place to ensure that failings identified by serious case reviews in other areas were not replicated in Northamptonshire.  However, even the best care services sadly could not always prevent the death of a child.

Committee members raised the need for the Committee to have access to more information on matters such as caseloads, staffing and decisions affecting service delivery to support effective scrutiny of the performance and development of children’s services.  It was highlighted to the Committee that the two Northamptonshire councils were responsible for deciding the budget and priorities for NCT.  The Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Education also emphasised that NCT worked very closely and collaboratively with WNC.  It was subsequently highlighted to the Committee that there was scope for it to give further consideration to the focus for future scrutiny of children’s services and what information would be needed to support this.

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

a)     Requested to have access to information provided to the commissioning authority giving a greater level of detail about children’s services performance against key targets and about the Children’s Trust staffing establishment in time for the Committee meeting on 25 April 2022.

b)     Agreed that the Committee should take a continuing interest in the direction of travel for children’s services and how children’s services contributes with other services to dealing with cross-cutting issues in West Northamptonshire.

c)     Agreed to confirm at the Committee meeting on 25 April 2022 whether it would schedule further scrutiny with Children’s Trust representatives at the Committee meetings on 21 June 2022 or 30 August 2022.