Meeting documents

To consider a report by the Director for Children, Adults & Communities (attached).

 The Committee considered a report that summarised the activity and outcomes during the past 12 months to recruit children's social workers and the associated issues affecting caseloads, continuity of care and cost pressures.

The report was introduced by the Joint Director for Children, Adults & Communities who explained that an element of safeguarding vulnerable children effectively was to ensure that Social Worker's (SWs) were not overwhelmed by unmanageable caseloads.  This helped to reduce the numbers of children coming into care and potentially higher costs in relation to adolescents with complex needs.  Since his arrival in October 2017 the average caseload had reduced and was now 1 SW to 16.4 cases. Changes had also been made to how the teams were arranged and the creation of assessment pods within those teams. The service had recruited 26 new SWs and 27.5 SW vacancies were currently being held as part of the children's social care budget would be diverted to the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council (BCP) in respect of Christchurch. 

Members asked about the context of the 27.5 SW vacancies, the £1m investment made for the recruitment of SWs given those vacancies, the number of SWs allocated to the Christchurch area and SW caseload work ratios.  It was noted that if the number of vacant SW positions were filled, this would further reduce the caseload ratio when this target had already been met.

The Joint Director confirmed that there was no dedicated team for Christchurch and that no SWs would transfer to BCP under TUPE arrangements.  The number of SW vacancies would ensure there were no stranded costs and that the establishment was commensurate with the budget on transfer of the service to Dorset Council.  However, it would be important to not lose any SWs during the transition.  Part of the investment that had not been used to recruit SWs would contribute towards the overspend in other areas of the service.

The Chairman asked about SW involvement in pre-emptive work with the Family Partnership Zones (FPZs) and was informed that the FPZs included family workers and ex youth workers who brokered services from other agencies.  SWs were included in the family support teams to provide support around children who were in danger of coming into care.

The Joint Director stated that it had not been possible to safely reduce the number of children in care from 440 to 390 that had been assumed in the budget.  This might be an indication that a minimum level had been reached at the present time.  These pressures had been further exacerbated by a small number of high cost placements since December 2018.

The Chairman stated that this could be an opportune time to reinstate some of the pending South West Audit Partnership (SWAP) internal audits.

The Joint Director advised members that the18/19 programme of audit work had been agreed with SWAP, based on emerging issues.  Upon his arrival he had instigated a programme of independent external audit.  Subsequently with the support of the Department of Education's Innovation Fund, the County Council had partnered with Essex County Council under the "Partners in Practice Scheme" to address the issues which arose from the audits.  An Improvement Plan had been developed that was overseen by an Improvement Board which included all relevant partner agencies.

The Chairman asked whether the outcomes of the social care audit activity had been reported to the Overview and Scrutiny Committees.  The Joint Director stated that it would be a matter for the Overview and Scrutiny committees to determine what was considered as part of the committee workplanning process and that work should continue to maintain the focus and momentum on improving performance during the transition to the Dorset Council.

Members remained concerned that the outputs of the social care activity and subsequent assurances had not fed into the existing systems and sought reassurance that this could be achieved in a more streamlined way, given the existing pressures on the Director and officers.

Noted