Robert Fordyce gave an update on performance
data to 31st December 2025:
- Children’s Social Care
Assessments – The percentage of assessments completed within
45 days was improving, but needed to increase by a further 6% to be
in line with statistical neighbours. Service managers were writing
weekly performance reports which kept a clear focus on the overall
performance of teams. Where teams were performing less well,
support had been put in place, and social workers were being
offered protected time to record their assessments on liquid
logic.
- Children’s Social Care
Caseloads - Vacancies in some social work teams had impacted the
caseloads of social workers in the Assessment and Intervention
Service. This was being addressed through a variety of pathways
into social work, including apprentices, frontline students, the
step-up programme, and hosting university students on placement.
Over the next 24 months there were a number of students due to
qualify, with the first social work apprentices qualifying in July
2026.
- Section 47 Assessments - A section
47 assessment was completed when a multi-agency strategy meeting
had taken place to discuss concerns that a child may have suffered
significant harm. In December it was noted that more than 50% had
an outcome of “other” which covered a range of
different options eg: a child may already be on a child protection
plan or may be a looked after child but there was enough risk for a
strategy meeting to take place. These were monitored to ensure that
children were put through that process only when necessary.
- Core Groups – Timeliness and
rate of core groups changed according to the month; staffing
levels, school holidays and other staff taking leave over Christmas
could impact figures. The aim was to ensure that education
representatives attended core groups where appropriate. Timely
recording should improve these figures as social workers used their
protected time.
Jo-Anne Sanders gave an update on
December’s EHCP performance data and highlighted the
following key points:
- The number of EHCPs held was over
400 more than the same period in 2024.
- 38 plans were issued in December,
with only 5.3% issued within the statutory compliance time frame.
This was partly due to a spike in requests for assessment in June
and July which had impacted the EHCP team and those who provided
statutory advice.
- Cumulatively across the 12 months of
2025, there had been 50.8% compliance (issued within the 20 weeks)
which was more than double the previous year’s
performance.
- The new IT case file management
system provided data to pinpoint where the challenges were.
- Pressure on the educational
psychology team due to maternity leaves and retirement had been
identified. The existing team had been bolstered with locums to
ensure compliance increased.
- It was important to balance
compliance with quality to ensure that the plans were of good
quality when they were issued.
- Less than five plans in December had
been complex cases whereby families were waiting more than 52
weeks.
- A very small number had been waiting
30 weeks.
- The vast majority of EHCPs were
issued between 20 and 30 weeks, and most of those were issued in
week 21 and 22.
- Low percentages of compliance could
continue into January and February but the partnership were working
together to improve timeliness.
- A new head of service had been
recruited and was working on communication with families on waiting
times, which had been identified as an important issue.
In answer to questions from the Panel it was
advised that:
- Caseload numbers for social workers
was monitored, and although the number (18.6 in December 2025) was
useful for benchmarking, it was the complexity of the cases that
had more of an impact on social worker’s workload. To address
this, nuanced conversations took place weekly between social
workers and team managers to identify any flash points and address
these. Allocation of cases was being reviewed so that the most
experienced workers were working on the more complex cases.
- Re-referrals at 20.1% was due to a
variety of reasons, one of which was that when families were
working under a child in need plan, this was voluntary, and there
were occasions when families chose to stop the involvement. When a
further incident arose, and another referral was made, this then
impacted on re-referral figures.
RESOLVED –
That the verbal reports be noted and officers
thanked for their contributions.