Agenda item

The Executive Director of Children’s Services introduced the report.  The report informed the Committee on progress that had been made on the Children’s Services Improvement Programme which had been put in place following an Ofsted Inspection in August 2011.  The progress report had been a regular report to the committee and the last update to the committee had been in September 2012.   Highlights of the report were:

·         Strong performance continued on timeliness in the referral and assessment service. The year to date figures in September showed 97.6% of initial assessments had been completed within 10 days and 88.8% of core assessments within 35 days. There were few outstanding assessments and those completed out of timescale only missed the due date by a few days.
 

·         After a peak of referrals at the start of the new term, work volumes had appeared to have stabilised again. Referrals and initial assessments had continued to be generated at or around the statistical neighbour average; the volumes of core assessments continued to be higher than similar authorities.

·         There were now 73 permanent social workers in the front-line teams – a remarkable shift from 49 only six months ago. The establishment continued to run slightly over-establishment with agency staff to provide an overlap for new staff to be appropriately inducted. The new arrivals were of a high calibre.

·         Sue Westcott was appointed as Executive Director of Children’s Services last month and would commence her new role in the New Year.  There would be a robust hand-over plan to secure the transition.

Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

·         What security will the Local Authority have with regard to the sustainability of recruitment of social workers in 5 – 10 years time?  Members were informed that the recently appointed social workers had been attracted to work in Peterborough by putting a first class marketing campaign together to promote Peterborough as a good place to work and by putting in a very slick and efficient recruitment process in place.  The recruitment time had been reduced from 18 weeks to 8 ½ weeks.  Peterborough had a significant programme in place for putting own employees on training programmes.  It would be difficult to say where recruitment would be in 5 – 10 years time but it was a healthy platform for the next few years because of the match of existing experienced staff and the ability to attract newly qualified staff.

·         Would you say the Ofsted report was preventing good quality middle managers coming to Peterborough?  The Director of Children’s Services doubted that this was the reason.  There was a national shortage of good team managers.  Sue Westcott would be advertising for permanent Heads of Service shortly.

The Chair noted that the interim Director of Children’s Services would be leaving the authority at the end of the year.  The Chair congratulated Malcolm Newsam on behalf of the Committee on the progress and achievements that had been made under his leadership.  The Chair also welcomed the new Director of Children’s Services, Sue Westcott and wished her success in continuing with the progress made.

ACTION AGREED

The Committee noted the Safeguarding Improvement Plan and the progress that had been made since the last report in September 2012.