Agenda item

Work programme

The work programme was noted.

Ofsted inspection of children’s home

Prior to the meeting, there had been a request to add an item to the agenda for the meeting. The Committee’s attention was drawn to the report of an Ofsted inspection that took place in March 2019 which highlighted failings in a children’s home. The children’s home had declined in effectiveness since the previous inspection in December 2018. Members were reminded that corporate parenting was a personal responsibility of all Members and officers, and generally thought that corporate parenting should be cross party.

The following points resulting in the Ofsted Inspection failings were highlighted:

·         Three out of four recommendations had not been addressed and more than half of the recommendations had been ignored.

·         A series of issues were identified including poorly maintained stairs and unrepaired damage in living rooms.

·         Issues were raised with the requirement to file monthly returns from independent monitoring.

·         The home had not advised Ofsted of significant events.

·         Four members of staff were on sick leave and there were four vacancies. The Manager had not been present at the home for a period of three months. Concerns were raised about poor staff morale.

·         Staff had not been adequately supervised.

·         Behaviour management issues were raised.

·         No accessible recording mechanism for bedrooms searched was recorded.

·         There had been reports of young people going missing without adequate monitoring the return to care.

·         There were issues with the engagement of managers with young people and engaging young people during the day.

It was questioned whether the new system for corporate parenting posed risks as there was reduced oversight. Corporate parenting matters had been raised previously at two POC meetings.

The Chairman noted that the issues had been rightfully raised and that the results were unacceptable. However, the Chairman confirmed that this did not amount to special circumstances to allow the item to be added to the agenda at short notice. Following investigations into the matter, the Chairman had spoken with officers who confirmed to her that:

·         Officers were working closely with both the local inspector and the regional and relationship managers at Ofsted to monitor and improve the service. Ofsted had expressed their confidence in the Leadership team and would monitor and inspect the service again shortly.

·         The service had relocated to a new building and long serving staff members found the transition and increased complexity of the challenges they faced with the young people they were working with difficult, several were absent in the early part of this year.

·         The majority of staff had returned to work and recruitment in this type of setting was challenging. However, there were now three new staff members in post.

·         The Ofsted action plan had been implemented and a new line management structure was in place to support staff and improve practice.

·         Senior Management oversight of the improvement plan was now in place and regular contact with Ofsted was maintained.

The Chairman explained that given the above actions over a period of time, an urgent review at the meeting (with less than 48 hours notice),would not enable the Committee to consider the matter in a comprehensive way, particularly given the short notice for all the necessary information and witnesses that would be required to do so properly.

The Chairman considered that in order to ensure that Members upheld the Committee’s duty of monitoring the performance of statutory children’s services, she had requested a comprehensive report to be prepared for the Corporate Parenting Panel in May and for the report to go to POC in June 2019.

The Chairman informed Members that a site visit to the childrens home would also be arranged.

The Committee considered children’s safety to be paramount and endorsed the Chairman’s course of action. Members also requested the attendance of the Corporate Director of Adult, Children and Young People Services and Cabinet Member of Childrens’ services at the meeting in June 2019. This was to ensure the transparency of the steps being undertaken.

RESOLVED –

That the Committee:

1)    requested that an update report on the childrens home in question be provided to the Corporate Parenting Panel in May 2019 and to the Committee in June 2019.

2)    requested that the Cabinet Member for Education and Children’s Services and the Corporate Director – Adult, Children and Young People Services attend the POC meeting in June 2019.