Issue - meetings

That the Committee requests a progress report be submitted to the

meeting of the Committee to be held on 3 March 2016 on the action plan to

include barriers, challenges and risks.

The Chief Officer (Social Services) introduced a report  on the findings of the Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales (CSSIW) concerning their Inspection of Children’s Services in Flintshire.  The report also sets out the Council’s action plan in response  to the report.  He thanked Katy Young, Lead Inspector CSSIW, and her team for the detailed inspection of services during May and June 2015 and invited her to present the report.

                        The CSSIW Lead Inspector gave an overview of the Inspection of Children’s Services Report which was appended to the report and referred to the following 4 key areas of service:

§  Access arrangements

§  Assessment

§  Safeguarding and Care Management

§  Leadership and Governance

                        The CSSIW Lead Inspector reported on the key findings and recommendations as detailed in the Report.  She advised that the Report reflected some areas of strength in the Service, notably examples of good social work practice, strong political and corporate support for Children’s Services, timely, well managed, child focussed child protection conferences and importantly a committed, suitably trained and qualified workforce. However inspectors also found significant areas for improvement. The Council was yet to translate their strategic direction into a strategy for service delivery. Early intervention arrangements were insufficiently developed and this impacted on the timeliness of early help. The application of thresholds, the timeliness and quality of assessments, care planning, and partnership working as well as management oversight and quality assurance were all highlighted as inconsistent and in need of improvement.  Inspectors welcomed senior manager’s recognition of the issues raised in the report and their statedcommitment to achieving improvements in the support for children and families.

The Chair thanked the CSSIW Lead Inspector for her presentation.

The Chief Officer (Social Services) advised that based on the conclusions of the report, 12 recommendations for required change in the Service had been made for which the Council had prepared a robust action plan.  He reported on the actions and outcomes to be achieved in the action plan and explained that a number of the recommendations acknowledged that the Council had identified the areas concerned as requiring support and had started to make progress in response to the key issues raised.   The CSSIW Lead Inspector explained that the CSSIW would be monitoring the action plan on a monthly basis.  The Chief Officer advised that a workshop would be held late November/early December to discuss the report in terms of partnership working. 

                        The Chair invited Members to raise questions.

                        Councillor Hilary McGuill  asked how the Committee could ensure that the required outcomes/recommendations  were being properly dealt with.   The Chief Officer referred to the Climbie visits which take place once a year and said consideration could be given to further developing the visits.   He also commented on the new approach to performance indicators across Wales and said that Senior Managers would be willing to discuss the matter of monitoring of outcomes with the Committee. The Senior Manager Safeguarding/Lead Children referred to the Single Assessment Works Stream and emphasised that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37