The Board considered the
latest Children’s Performance
Highlights Report in respect of the performance monitoring data for
Children’s Services.
Vicky Metheringham, Service Director - Family Support and Child
Protection highlighted the following points
in relation to :
- During the
12-month period from Jun 22 to May 23, the number of children
looked after peaked at 64.3 (630 children) in Oct 22 and has since
decreased to 61.3 (601 children) in May 23. The current 12-month
average for Kirklees is 62.4 (612 children), marginally above the
31 March 2022 published rate of 62.0, but below the England 2022
rate of 70.0 and significantly below our Statistical Neighbours
2022 rate of 92.0.
- Of the 68 children placed outside of Kirklees and
more than 20 miles from their home address, the large majority are
placed in fostering.
- The Heads of Service
continue to have oversight of permanency planning through Legal
Gateway and Permanence Panel. The panels are held weekly to ensure
consistency regarding decision making and care planning for
children and young people. The panels
also provide a quality assurance framework and opportunity to
evidence good practice and areas for development.
- Senior Leadership
Team (SLT) maintains oversight of children and young people placed
in external placement through review panel held monthly and chaired
by the Service Director. The purpose of the panel is to ensure
better oversight of children who are not placed in Local Authority
provision and provides a quality assurance function in that it
provides high support and challenge as required to avoid drift and
delay in care planning for children and young people.
- The number of social
work changes remains a focus to ensure we are minimising the impact
on children and young people children as it is important that we
maintain and continue to strengthen relationships. This will remain
a challenge due to the recruitment of Social Work Practitioners, of
which is not just specific to Kirklees Council. We are mindful of
the impact this has on our children and young people and to address
this we recruited youth engagement and family support practitioners
who continue to develop relationships and provide additional
support and stability for the children and young people they are
working with. In addition, all young people aged 17 now have an
allocated personal advisor, to ensure earlier planning to adulthood
and independent living. We will also continue to focus on staff
retention and consistency in case allocation.
- There had been a
slight increase in relation to the number of children who have had
3 or more home moves. This remains a focus to ensure stability is
provided to our children and young people. It was reported that work across service is taking
place to address this.
- With regard to
convictions it was reported that there
had been zero in quarters 3 and 4 due largely to the focus and
positive work of the sub groups.
- 17
requests for Initial Review forms were received by the Child
Protection and Review unit for Children to become Looked After in
May 2023, relating to 30 children in total - an increase on the previous month. 9 of the
requests were for sibling groups of 2 or more, which is also higher
than usual. For all the referrals received, children and young
people were allocated an Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) within
24 hours and Initial Child Looked After Reviews were arranged
within 4 weeks of the children and young people becoming Looked
After. One child ceased to be Looked After within one week as their
parents ended their agreement to Section 20, and the Local
Authority agreed with this decision.
- With regard to contact with care
leavers there has been
a decrease in relation to the number of Care Leavers we were in
touch with during this month This also has, to be viewed in the
context of this group being aged 18 plus and, in some situations,
young people do not wish to keep in contact with their Personal
Advisor. The team continue to work innovatively to keep in touch
with all young people and we are confident that our post 18
young people all are aware of the support of offer if
required.
Louise Hallas, the Virtual School Head Teacher
provided an update in relation to
Children Looked After Educational Outcomes and
explained that:
Gill
Addy, the Designated Nurse for Looked After Children and Care
Leavers updated the Board in relation to the health data, which
provided both twelve- month rolling and monthly figures:
- LA rolling 12-month data showed
that 75.8% of initial health assessments were completed in the
statutory timescale.
- Locala
monthly data
for May showed that 92% of initial health
assessments were completed in the 20-day timescale. 2 breaches of
timescales due to placement of children in another LA delaying
arrangements.
- With
regard to review health assessments (RHA), Kirklees rolling 12-month data
showed that 89.2% & 89% of the ‘Developmental’
assessments (under 5yrs old) and ‘Annual’ assessments
(over 5 yrs. old) respectively, were completed in statutory
timescales.
- Locala monthly data for
May shows that 50% & 68% for under
and over 5 years olds respectively, were completed in timescales.
16 breaches (7x staff sickness in Locala, 4x difficulty arranging, 1x referred back to specialist team, 2x capacity, 1x
unable to engage, 1 unknown)
- The Business Case to consider additional nurse
resources remains under commissioner
consideration.
- With
regard to dental checks at the point of their RHA, Kirklees rolling
12-month data shows that 56.2% of children aged 1+, had attended
the dentist. Several factors affecting the
recording have been found and are being followed
up.
- Locala monthly data for May shows that 100% of children
age 18months to under 5 yrs., and 94% 5 years+, had attended the
dentist at the point of their RHA.
- Locala data shows 88% & 96% of
children age 18m to 4 years and 5 years+ respectively at the point
of their RHA, were registered with a dentist.
- The use of the
‘Flexible Commissioning Project’ has supported CLA and
care leavers to register with a dentist.
During discussion of the performance report and data, Board
Members raised the following issues and questions:
- Board Members welcomed the 100% PEP rate and enquired about
confidence in maintaining this level of performance. In response,
Louise Hallas highlighted the strength of the team and explained
that strong performance in this area had continued over the
previous 2 years.
- In
response to a question relating to preventing absenteeism, Louise
Hallas explained that work was ongoing to ascertain whether the
data was accurate in all cases as often incorrect coding of
absences can result in unauthorised absences being recorded
wrongly. Where cases of unauthorised absence are highlighted work
is done on an individual case basis to improve
attendance.
- With regard to the issue of substance misuse, the Chair acknowledged the
relatively low numbers and the work that was ongoing with all
services.
- The
Chair highlighted the importance of Directorates and partner
organisations being encouraged to offer opportunities through work,
training and apprenticeships
- Board Members acknowledged to good fostering offer in Kirklees
in terms of the support given to foster carers. The Chair
re-iterated the importance of all Board Members encouraging people
to come forward as potential foster carers.
RESOLVED – That
the report be noted.