Agenda and minutes

Councillors R Howells and C Townsend

Councillor W Routley declared an interest as the Chairperson of the David Bomber Pierce Charity.

The minutes of meeting held on 11 July 2023 were accepted as a true and accurate record.

1.     Appendix 1 – Children’s Services

2.     Appendix 2 – Adult’s Services

3.     Appendix 3 – Prevention and Inclusion Services

Invitees:

Sally Ann Jenkins – Strategic Director for Social Services

Mary Ryan – Head of Adult Services

Caroline Ryan-Phillips – Head of Prevention and Inclusion

Rhianydd Williams – Service Manager for Integrated Family Support

Appendix 1 – Children’s Services

The Strategic Director for Social Services and the Cabinet Member for Social Services presented the report.

Questions:

The Committee noted that the Eliminate agenda was compounding the situation regarding placements and this was highlighted through Children’s Services report. The Committee felt that although a regional team was being developed, the Eliminate agenda was having a negative effect. The Committee asked for further explanation on this.

·         The Strategic Director stated that the Eliminate agenda was a strong policy driver and the regional team was in place. The Strategic Director informed Committee that Newport managed the team, ensuring the 5 Local Authorities in the Gwent area are ready for the Eliminate agenda and build our fostering capacity.

·         The Strategic Director noted that this was a challenging environment regarding placements and foster carers were always sought after. The Strategic Director explained that working in partnership was key.

·         The Cabinet Member for Social Services highlighted that Newport was one of the only local authorities in Wales that had applied for and received grant funding that allowed for innovation in Social Services to assist service delivery.

The Committee highlighted the section that noted the aftermath of the pandemic continued to emerge with the complexity of referrals but also states that number of children looked after remains stable which was this a contradiction. The Committee queried whether this increase been dealt with in a different way.

·         The Strategic Director stated that a lot of work had been done with data on referrals coming in versus how many converted into ongoing work with families so there did seem to be anomaly. The Strategic Director noted that CLA numbers remained the same as well as the number of children on the Child Protection Register but this was not wholly reflective of what’s being done as these numbers change where children move on and off of the register. The Strategic Director highlighted that these figures recognise the quality of work being done in services, but this is not an easy position to maintain and has an impact on staff.

·         The Cabinet Member for Social Services noted that during the pandemic, children were home-schooled, so these figures had an upturn when schools reopened and there was more contact which resulted in more referrals.

The Committee noted that while it was saddening to have to fund Asyulm Seeking Children, Committee wanted to commend Social Services for their continued hard work in this area.

The Committee noted that 40% of staff had accessed training and asked whether there is a problem or was this due to the timing of the action.

·         The Strategic Director noted that it was an issue of timing within the action, and this was not an area of concern. 

The Committee requested an update on the Rapid Response Team.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Following the completion of the Committee reports, the Committee will be asked to formalise its conclusions, recommendations and comments on previous items for actioning.

The Committee were content with reports and wanted to note their thanks to all staff for their continued hard work.

The Committee recommended that in the interest of presenting fairer and more accurate information, the Action regarding Prevention and Inclusions’ data for assistive technology (Objective 1 Reference 1) be altered to reflect their collaborative working with other service areas, which show a higher completion percentage of a similar Action within the Adult Services’ Report (Objective 1 Action 4).

The Committee recommended sharing an all-Member communication regarding the current position of Deprivation of Liberties Safeguards (DOLS) and Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS).

The Committee welcomed and accepted the Officers’ suggestion of a setup session for Members on the assistive technology available and asked for a site visit to Newport Market be arranged.

The Committee asked for an update in writing regarding the status and work of the Rapid Response Team and on Specialist Fostering Placements.

The Committee asked for an information report regarding Child Exploitation be provided.

The Committee asked for further information regarding youth provision be shared with Committee to show what services are available in all wards.

The Committee asked that information regarding the upcoming tournament be shared with all Members as soon as possible.

The Committee asked for further data to be shared with Committee to demonstrate the impact on service users of the merging of the Prevention and Resilient Community teams.

a)      Actions Arising (Appendix 1)

b)      Forward Work Programme Update (Appendix 2)

The Scrutiny Advisor noted that there were no actions to report on.

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