Agenda item

To seek the Committee to scrutinise the Director of Social Services Annual Report (copy attached) on the Council’s performance in delivering children’s and social care services during 2018-2019, prior to its submission to Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW).  The report also provides the Committee with an opportunity to identify any performance issues or concerns that may benefit from further scrutiny

10.10am – 11am

The Corporate Director:  Communities introduced the draft report (previously circulated) which provided the public with an honest overview of social care service provision in Denbighshire during 2018-19 and which sought the Committee’s views on the Director’s assessment of the service provision and the challenges that lay ahead prior to the report’s submission to Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW).  The report, written by the Corporate Director in her capacity as the Council’s Statutory Director of Social Services, was a statutory requirement under Part 8 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (SSWB Act) and was intended to demonstrate to the public that the Council had a clear understanding of its strengths, and more importantly its weaknesses and the challenges that lay ahead.

Introducing the report the Director paid tribute to the dedication and commitment of staff at all levels within both Adult and Children Social Care Services.  Whilst every effort had been made to keep the report short, snappy and reader-friendly, due to the wide range of services delivered to all age groups by the Service, this was extremely difficult to achieve.  The Director thanked elected members for the continued support that they provided for social care services in the county and ensuring that these important services were not used as a political tool by any of the political groups.

Responding to members’ questions the Corporate Director:  Communities and the Cabinet Lead Member for Education, Children’s Services and Public Engagement, (the Lead Member for Well-being and Independence unfortunately could not attend due to another portfolio commitment):

• advised that in relation to the ‘Have Your Say Survey’ the 71% of children surveyed who said they were happy with the people they lived with equated to 7 children. Whilst at first sight this did not seem very positive it was important to bear in mind that these were children who had been removed from their parents and placed in foster care for their own safety.  They were therefore going through a traumatic experience which was causing them some considerable distress.  Where children were placed once removed from their parents depended on the circumstances behind their removal.  Sometimes it would be appropriate to place them with family members or with family friends, other times it would be in their best interest to the placed with foster carers.  Each case was assessed on its own merit, with the decision taken with the child’s best interest in mind.  Cost implications of their placement was never a factor.  Whilst the Council did not have any children’s homes of its own, there were a number of private homes operating in the county and another one, which was proposing to adopt a new and fresh approach to caring for looked after children was awaiting its licence to operate;
• advised that whilst the Council did aim to have its looked after children registered with a dentist within three months of them being taken into care this was not always possible, as they may have other more intensive needs which required to be met within the first three months of becoming looked after; 

•        advised that it was pleasing to report that Welsh Government (WG) transformation funding had been secured regionally for North Wales for the purpose of establishing a children’s assessment centre and for developing Learning Disabilities work.  North Wales was unique in identifying and securing funding to progress learning disabilities work;

•        confirmed that the profile of ‘safeguarding’ across the Council had been raised quite considerably in recent years.  The Council had a Corporate Safeguarding Policy which all staff were expected to abide by, each Service had its own designated Safeguarding Officer who reported to their Service on training provision etc. and who were responsible for reporting to the Safeguarding Board on compliance and on issues of concern within their Services.  Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks were undertaken and monitored on a regular basis etc.  All Council staff were also required to complete e-learning modules on Safeguarding and Violence Against Women.  All of these measures were in addition to the Council’s statutory safeguarding responsibilities.  The Council had adopted a corporate approach to safeguarding, consequently responsibility for safeguarding featured in three Cabinet portfolio holders’ sphere of responsibility – the Lead Member for Education, Children’s Services and Public Engagement, the Lead Member for Well-being and Independence and the Lead Member for Planning, Public Protection and Safer Communities;

•        confirmed that the Council did have strategic and local operational input into North Wales Police’s work around ‘County Lines’ substance misuse work.  The Council’s interaction with this work was illustrated to the Committee in the form of a number of recent examples of work undertaken with partner organisations.  It was emphasised that the ‘children’ involved in ‘County Lines’ investigations were themselves victims and extremely vulnerable.  Consequently, every effort was made to support and safeguard them;

•        explained that with respect of ‘Elective Home Education’ Denbighshire was one of the best local authorities for accurately reporting these figures, some authorities had a tendency to mask the figures.  In recent years the Council had undertaken substantial work in order to identify all home-schooled children and actively engage with them and their families with a view to persuading them to re-enter mainstream education.  Denbighshire’s Director of Education was the Association of Directors of Education (ADEW) Wales’ Lead Director for the North Wales region and its lead for home schooling.  The Council had an excellent Home Education Service, a fact that had been recognised by Estyn in a recent inspection report;

•        advised that if children were absent from school on medical grounds it was the school who was responsible for providing their education in the short and medium term.  If their absence from school on medical grounds was deemed to be long-term the Council’s Education and Children’s Services would make provision for them to be educated;

•        explained that the ‘Measuring the Mountain’ project was a Wales-wide initiative aimed at evaluating the impact of the SSWB (Wales) Act 2014 and understanding people’s experiences of social care in Wales.  Denbighshire had an insight into this project as a carer from the county was a member of the Panel.  She was due to give a presentation on the Panel’s work and its findings to the Regional Partnership Board in the near future.  The Director undertook to furnish members with the national report when available;

•        agreed that whilst the terminology in the report at times may seem unfamiliar i.e. citizens etc. they were now commonly used in the field of social care and preferred compared to previously used terminology, such ‘client’ or ‘service-user’;

•        confirmed that the work of the Homelessness Prevention Service was county-wide and not confined to the north of the county, although the greatest demand on the Service was in the northern coastal area;

•        advised that the Council was obliged to work with Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) as the local health board for the area.  Whilst working in partnership with the Health Board was not always easy or ideal, it was continually improving with each partner now acknowledging each other’s priorities and pressures;

•        confirmed that Partnerships Scrutiny Committee would be examining safeguarding and meeting the needs of the homeless in the county as well as Children and Adults Mental Health Services (CAMHS) during the forthcoming months;

•        acknowledged that Dementia was an area of growing concern.  Grass root support and local services were very often the best course of action to support dementia sufferers and their families and carers.  However, with an increase in the number of older people living with dementia it was anticipated that Wales would soon be at crisis point, similar to what happened in England a few years ago;

•        emphasised that the Council had not secured additional funding from WG in order to address and fund identified pressures within social care and Children’s Services.  However, through shrewd and prudent financial planning as part of its Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) it had been able to release an additional £2m to support the delivery of social care services  in 2019/20.  In addition the Council was quite effective at drawing down specific grant funding to help deliver certain elements of the services provided.  However, due to the very fact that these grant monies were time limited being dependent upon them in the long-term would be an extremely risky strategy to follow, and whilst the SSWB (Wales) Act had changed early intervention and prevention work from being discretionary services to statutory ones, the Act had not recognised this by ensuring that the funding for them was included in the Revenue Support Grant (RSG).  This continued to be paid in the form of grant funding, without any long-term security on its availability;

•        confirmed that ‘whistleblowing’ in relation to social care services was always a challenge, despite the fact that it could be done anonymously.  However, the new Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016 (RISCA) Framework would assist in such matters.  The Council had a very good relationship with the unions in relation to whistleblowing matters;  and

•        advised that they were confident that a two week public consultation period on the Council’s County Conversations portal was sufficient time for residents to respond to the report’s contents

The Director agreed to include a definition, explanation and contextual information in the final document on terms such as ‘Social Prescribing’, ‘Moving the Mountain’ etc.  It was also agreed to expand the wording in the second paragraph of the ‘Have Your Say Survey’ section on page 4 of the report to read “…feel supported to continue to care”, and to re-word the paragraph on ‘Elective Home Education’ on page 22 of the report in order to clarify that the “increase from 50 to 100 pupils who are no longer home educated” actually meant that they were now in mainstream education.

Following an in-depth discussion it was:

RESOLVED: - subject to the above observations and the inclusion of the requested amendments, that

(i)            the report provided a clear account of performance in 2018-19; and

(ii)          the issues of concern raised during the discussion on the report were already scheduled into the forward work programme of the Council’s Partnerships Scrutiny Committee