Agenda item

Resolved: that the Committee would continue to regularly review spending pressures in the directorate.

5.1    Sara Williams (Executive Director for Children and Young People) introduced the report, the following key points were noted:

·         The report followed from previous updates to the Committee about social care. It reflected the attention the Committee had given to this issue over an extended period.

·         Councils across the country were facing pressures in children’s services. 91% of councils were overspent on children’s social care.

·         Representations were being made by local government to central government about these pressures.

·         A great deal of work had been done over the year to stabilise the children’s social care budget.

·         Improved budget monitoring and a range of service improvements had taken place.

·         Detail had been provided in the report about placements for children - which was where the most significant pressures were.

·         A new fostering strategy had been developed.

·         There had been a wholesale ‘remapping’ of staffing levels, which was led by the new Director for Children’s Social Care.

·         A new ‘safe space’ team would work with young people to develop solutions to types of complex and interrelated issues - that may not typically be best addressed through traditional social care practice.

·         The ‘signs of safety’ practice model had also been adopted.

·         Work to redesign systems (previously criticised by OFSTED) had been taking place. Better data was available, which helped improve decision making.

·         Further work was being carried out to improve the use of the Council’s financial monitoring systems.

·         The numbers of permanent to agency staff compared quite well against benchmarks for other London Boroughs.

·         It was predicted that the directorate would be on track to deliver its savings for this year.

·         There was still more work to do.

5.2    Sara Williams and Mala Dadlani (Group Finance Manager, Children and Young People) responded to questions from the Committee, the following key points were noted:

·         The figures in the Council’s budget book were different from those in the report - due to differences in the way that income was reported. Expenditure through the ‘no recourse to public funds’ budget had also been moved between budgets.

·         The tables in the report illustrated averages and trends over time. The data was provided to enable a snapshot of changes over time.

·         One of the key areas of spending was on residential placements.

·         Percentages of permanent (as opposed to agency) staff remained similar from this year to last. However, a major recruitment (delayed by the work being done for the current OFSTED inspection) was taking place to recruit to a number of management positions.

·         The issue of the finances of children’s social care was moving up the local government lobbying agenda.

·         Lewisham was recognised for its good practice on high needs block spending.

5.3       In the Committee discussion, the following key points were also noted:

·         There were some discrepancies in the ways in which the finance figures were presented in the report and in the Council’s other financial reporting.

·         Members noted the improvements that had been made.

5.4       Councillor Chris Barnham (Cabinet Member for School Performance and Children’s Services) was invited to address the Committee about the work of the improvement board, the following key points were noted:

·         He was still chairing the improvement board - but these meetings had been changed from fortnightly to monthly. This enabled officers to carry out their day to day work without having to ‘feed the meetings’ with information and updates.

·         The Board was overseeing the improvement programme - which was progressing well.

·         The work of the Board would need to adapt based on the outcome of the OFSTED inspection.

·         The programme that had been delivered so far had resulted in significant changes - including the setting up of new teams and new ways of working. It was likely that the work taking place from now on would still be important but it would result in less immediately noticeable changes.

·         Ensuring that the ‘signs of safety’ approach was firmly embedded in the Council’s ways of working would remain of primary importance to the Board.

·         Cabinet members were meeting with senior officers on a regular basis to review finances in CYP.

·         The Directorate had carried out a self-assessment in advance of the OFSTED inspection and it predicted that Lewisham would still be rated as ‘requires improvement’ so the service still had a long way to go.

5.5      Resolved: that the Committee would continue to regularly review spending pressures in the directorate.