Agenda and minutes

None.

The minutes of the meeting held on 4 October 2017 were considered.  Councillor Linton advised that he had sent his apologies for the last meeting but they hadn’t been included.

Agreed:

The minutes of the meeting held on 4 October 2017 were approved as an accurate record of the meeting, subject to Cllr Linton’s apologies being included.

The Committee welcomed Sally Jenkins, Head of Children and Young People Services and James Harris, Strategic Director - People.

The Head of Children and Young People Services advised the Committee that links to further background information had been included in the Agenda and reports circulated to Members.  She advised that the Fostering Team has been in place since the Council had been formed and currently have well supported and respected in house foster carers who provide quality care in a family home for children who have suffered significant trauma and who can be highly vulnerable. In 2015 / 16 across Wales 76.1% of children that were looked after were cared by foster carers. Fostering service providers across Wales include public services, independent commercial providers and independent not for profit providers. This has been replicated in England but Scotland differs as they do not have a private sector provision, as they are unable to profit. In 2015/16, as a region Newport performed better with 72.4% of children being cared for by its own Local Authority foster carers.

The table on page 14 of the Agenda Pack showed the differences of average weekly cost between in-house provision and independent fostering agencies and explained that the cost is significantly higher if the Council places via an independent provider. The Authority tries to secure placements within Newport first, but if this cannot be done then a placement in another authority; such as Monmouth or Vale of Glamorgan would be explored, which can cause issues. It was also advised that the vast majority of children in care are older, and children between 11-14 have been known to want to make their way home to visit family, which can be a risk.

The spend on fostering and the care needs were rapidly increasing so there is a national need to look at how to increase the number of carers and realistically keep money within the public sector.

The following was discussed:

Members praised the Head of Service and the Social Services team for their hard work compiling the report and advised that the background information was really helpful, in particular the information and recommendations included in the National Fostering Framework Report Phase Two Report, which give a clear understanding of the strategy from the Welsh Government, that is helpful to Members.

Members asked for clarification on the comparative spend and noted the chart demonstrated a big difference in the average weekly cost and also the numbers of children. It was also queried how well the recruitment of foster carers was currently going. Members were advised that the Council always use in-house foster carers first and only use independent foster carers as a last resort. Six years ago the Children’s Commissioning Consortium Cymru (4C’s) ran a framework arbitration which brought down prices on the Council’s behalf and that NCC’s in-house foster carers had come out best in terms of quality and were paid the best rates. The purpose is to try and ensure NCC can grow more  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

At the meeting held on 4 October 2017, the Committee had requested that Sophie Howe, Future Generations Commissioner for Wales be invited to this meeting to provide an update on how the PSB is progressing on meeting the requirements of the Act.

Members were advised that although the Commissioner’s general duties included monitoring, this was limited to monitoring and assessing the extent to which Well-being Objectives are met. The Wellbeing Objectives would be included in the Public Service Board’s Draft Wellbeing Plan being developed, so monitoring the objectives would be premature at this stage.  The Future Generations Commissioner was therefore not invited to attend this meeting.

In the meantime the Council’s Regulator; Wales Audit Office (WAO) would undertake a Fit for Future Review, to look at how Authorities are responding to current challenges including the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act. The Review would include speaking to Chairs, Members and Officers in separate focus groups and some Members had been invited to attend these Focus Groups by the Senior Overview & Scrutiny Officer.  WAO would also be attending and observing meetings including the Performance Scrutiny Committee - Partnerships to be held on 10 January.  Arising from the Review there would be a Report including any recommendations and an action plan, which could be reported to this Committee.

The Overview and Scrutiny Officer presented the Forward Work Programme to the Committee in particular the items that would be discussed at the next two meetings, and advised there were no amendments to the programme to report. Members were also referred to the attached minutes of the Public Service Board meeting held on 12September 2017 when the Chair of the Committee attended to feed back the Committee’s comments.  The Chair advised that representatives from the Public Service Board would be invited to attend future meetings for related reports.  He reminded Members that the Wales Audit Office would be observing how the Committee conducts scrutiny of the PSB at the next meeting of the Committee on 10 January.

Finally, the Chair mentioned the training session that had been run by the WLGA which had been open to all Scrutiny Committee Members upon questioning techniques and how to approach scrutiny. He advised that he was disappointed with the lack of turn out especially with the two options of training dates offered and stressed the importance of training especially for this new Committee. The Overview and Scrutiny Officer confirmed that slides of the training session would be circulated to Members of the Scrutiny Committee.  The Chair encouraged Members of the Committee to make every effort to attend the training upon the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act that would be scheduled for early in the New Year.

Agreed:

The Committee noted the information provided above and approved the forward work programme for the next two meetings.