Agenda item

To recommend that officers should carry out a further review of the data management systems in children’s social care and return to the Committee with a timeline for improvement.

5.1        Tom Brown (Executive Director of Adult Social Care and Health) introduced the report – noting the key aims of adult social care, the duties contained in the care act and the pressures facing adult social care.

5.2        Tom Brown and Councillor Paul Bell (Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Social Care) responded to questions from the Committee – the following key points were noted:

·         One of the benefits of paying the London Living Wage and the ‘maximising wellbeing at home’ approach taken by the Council meant that the delivery of care in people’s homes was relatively stable – in contrast to much of London.

·         The payment of the London Living Wage had benefits beyond the immediate renumeration of the staff involved. It reduced staff turnover and improved overall outcomes for service users.

·         Staffing of care home provision was slightly more challenging (but still better than the situation nationally)

·         All of the Council’s home care was provided by external providers – there were very few services provided internally. All suppliers had to have a local focus – and they usually recruited locally.

·         Some care homes were small family businesses – but some were much larger national organisations.

·         The adult social care market was more stable than the children’s social care market. The Care Quality Commission carried out enhanced regulation for the largest care providers in the market.

·         The Council had an enablement approach to social work – to support people to live as independently as possible.

·         The Council did not have the resources to monitor all of the care providers in the market. The CQC also had a large backlog of providers to review.

·         For the organisations that the Council contracted with, regular checks were carried out to ensure compliance.

·         The Council was well prepared for the implementation of fair pay agreements in the care sector.

·         The cost of increasing all care provision to the London Living Wage would be around £5m.

·         The Council did not use care providers that were rated as less than ‘good’ (or were on their way to being rated so) by the Care Quality Commission.

·         Consideration had been given to the costs of providing free homecare in line with the recommendations of the Lewisham Disability Commission report but this was currently unaffordable.

·         The funding to provide more staff would be welcome but there were also challenges in accessing sufficient social workers.

·         The quality of systems and data being used by the Council had been improved and was currently working well.

·         There had been interest from other boroughs in the approach being taken by Lewisham and the successes being achieved.

5.3        Councillor Chris Barnham (Cabinet Member for Children and Young People) introduced the section of the report on children’s social care – noting the challenges facing the sector and acknowledging the financial pressures in Lewisham.

5.4        Lucie Heyes (Director of Children’s Social Care) introduced the report – outlining the numbers of children in contacts with care services, setting out the environment in which the service was operating and highlighting the key costs.

5.5         Lucie Heyes and Councillor Chris Barnham responded to questions from the Committee – the following key points were noted:

·         Meetings were due to take place with representatives of the new government and London Councils about the cost of social care market.

·         40% of children entering care went home (or to a family member) in the first year.

·         The cohort of 16- and 17-year-olds was the last legacy of previous poor practice – which had bought an unnecessarily large number of children into care.

·         The development of an integrated adolescent service would help to support families with complex needs.

·         The profile of entries of children into care was changing – 80% of children of secondary school age children were presenting to the service (rather than younger children – who were more likely to be brought into care with a care order, for their protection)

·         A number of local authorities were entering the care market – and creating their own care provision.

·         There were ongoing negotiations with the NHS to share costs.

·         The concern about the history of problematic care homes was recognised. The new provision that was being created would be bespoke, small scale and necessary to ensure that the level of acute need could be met.

·         The provision at Amersham and Northover were different than secure accommodation for children in care – they were larger units for older children due to leave care, as a step to independence.

·         Consideration was being given to the assets available to the Council to provide future provision.

·         There was a dedicated placements team to identify the most suitable placements for children.

·         There had been a range of improvements to the invoicing and payments systems used by the Council.

·         Work was taking place to cleanse the data in the Council systems to ensure future assurance around reporting.

·         There was a weekly panel to review high-cost placements and the movement of children from higher cost to lower cost placements.

·         There was a breakdown of costs from placements provided through the Commissioning Alliance.

·         The Commissioning Alliance faced the same challenges as local authorities facing the power of providers in the market. It was difficult to determine how successful the Alliance had been in containing costs.

5.6         In Committee discussions the following key points were also noted:

·         Members welcomed the improvements in the provision of services in adult social care.

·         Members highlighted the legacy of problems with the systems used by children’s social care to manage data and payments.

·         The Committee also placed on record its thanks to Tom Brown (who was due to enter retirement).

5.7         Resolved: to recommend that officers should carry out a further review of the data management systems in children’s social care and return to the Committee with a timeline for improvement.