Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director of Children’s Services

The Chairman having resumed the chair, Members received a report of the Corporate Director of Children’s Services which set out progress towards delivering a new operating model for Children’s Services from 31 October 2011.

The Corporate Director outlined the background to the re-organisation of Children’s Services, which was driven not only by the need to make efficiencies, but also the changing nature of children’s services, the new relationship with schools and the need to address areas of poor performance.  The Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services, who was also present, acknowledged that this was a major re-organisation, but stressed that the focus was on providing the best possible services, and having only one point of contact for children and families.

Members considered that this was a high risk project, given the scale of change and the potentially life-threatening impact of any service failures, and that the report should have provided more detail on the risks, in order that Members could be satisfied with how they were being mitigated.  In response, the Corporate Director of Children’s Services stated that she was happy to share the risk register with the Committee, and that the biggest risk was at the point at which staff moved offices.  However, she stated that there would have been huge risks had the re-organisation not gone ahead, as the Department was unsustainable in its existing format:  it had a budget overspend of £2m, there was no appropriate commissioning, and quality assurance mechanisms were lacking when she joined the Department in March 2010.

Members sought assurance with regard to the equalities impacts of the re?organisation.  It was advised that there were two aspects to this: the impact on staff and the impact on service users.  In relation to staff, best practice in HR procedures was being followed.  In relation to service users, equalities impact work had focused on the vulnerable and analysing gaps in services.  Officers were also doing a lot of work on the joint commissioning strategy with the Primary Care Trust to identify inequalities.  Members highlighted the need, however, not only to carry out equalities impact assessments but also to ensure that the resulting information was submitted to the decision-makers, in line with the recent Birmingham judgement.

In response to Members’ queries, clarification was provided on the scope of the re-organisation, and a detailed structure chart was tabled.  Excluding special needs transport, over 300 staff were affected, and the re?organisation was likely to result in the loss of 12 FTE staff.  In addition, some staff had already been lost the previous year due to savings and there would be a further reduction in the Achievement and Inclusion Service, in light of the transfer of some schools to Academy status.  The Department had a budget of £40.8m, which included purchasing a whole range of services such as foster carers and placements, besides staffing costs.  The Department would continue to provide the same services but be organised more holistically: for example, there would be multi-disciplinary teams providing prevention services, rather than discrete youth and early years services.  This would result in the Department having one ‘front door’, for example, for information sharing with the police.  The Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services added that the Department dealt with complex cases, and that there were families that had multiple issues such as Special Educational Needs (SEN), domestic violence and substance abuse; this model would better address those cases.

The re-organisation would result in savings of £552K per year, once the new model was fully implemented in three years’ time, of which £452K was from reductions in staffing and £100K was from reductions in premises costs.  £1.4m in savings was already being delivered this year.  The staffing reductions were predominantly in management.  There was £120K in training and change management costs in 2011/12 that was not reflected in the figures as they would be funded from in-year savings.  However, Members were assured that only real cost savings had been assumed in the savings figures.

During the discussion, the following points and queries were also raised:

·                    in response to questions, it was advised that there had been a targeted consultation on the changes with users who had been nominated by individual services.  Officers had also gone back and tested out the proposals for the new model, and there was a review period built in to go back to service users;

·                    a Member congratulated officers on the report, and felt that the re?organisation had a clear concept.  She was concerned, however, as to whether the vision put the business model before emotional and social capability.  In response, it was advised that there was a real focus for the new teams around the family, and on emotional resilience, that was not reflected in the narrative around the vision;

·                    there was concern as to whether the model of multiple single pathways leading to one ‘front door’, would result in deficiencies, but it was advised that a multi-disciplinary team had been involved in the proposals for the re-organisation, and the model of multiple single pathways had been proposed by the staff themselves;

·                    it was queried whether the re-organisation represented a cultural shift across the Council.  It was advised that it represented a culture change in Children’s Services, and would also be a challenge for other agencies;

·                    whether users had been involved in the renaming of the early intervention service was also questioned.  In response, it was reported that this was a more common name for the service but users had not been involved in the re-naming; officers would take this on board when doing the review and consultation;

·                    the number of statemented children, and the expenditure on Special Educational Needs (SEN) were queried.  It was reported that there were around 1,000 statements, and the Department was looking at amalgamating the assessment processes for families.  Officers did not have details of SEN expenditure to hand at the meeting.  The Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services added that the number of children with SEN was difficult to quantify.  Children’s Centres could pick this up early, but sometimes what was perceived as SEN was in fact a social issue;

·                    further information was sought on the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), with which there was some dissatisfaction, and on the Parent Partnership service.  With regard to CAMHS, the Council was working with its providers to re-negotiate the services received.  The service was jointly commissioned with the Primary Care Trust (PCT), but the Council had ended up subsidising primary CAMHS.  The Parent Partnership service had gone out to tender following a £30K reduction in its budget the year before last, which had made the in-house service unviable.

RESOLVED:  That the progress towards delivering a new operating model for Children’s Services, and Members’ comments thereon, be noted.