Agenda item

Further to Minute No. 22 of 27^th April, 2016, Sue Wilson, Performance and Planning, presented a report detailing recent and current external audits and inspections including the details of arrangements that were in place regarding the accountability and governance for implementing any recommendations that arose.

The following update was given:-

Adult Social Care

-          Treefields Close (Learning Disability Respite Service) – The outstanding recommendation regarding the Manager’s registration had been completed and confirmed by the CQC in July, 2016

-          Quarry Hill Road (Learning Disability Respite Service) –The jointly management arrangement with Treefields Close had been formally signed off and confirmed in July 2016 when the current Manager’s registration was finalised

-          Netherfield Court (intermediate care provider) - Closed in September 2016 with Lord Hardy Court and Davies Court taking on the role of providing residential intermediate care.  Netherfield’s last CQC inspection had resulted in it being awarded an overall rating of Good with 1 action recorded with respect to the way consent was obtained and recorded.  Immediate action was taken to ensure client files recorded this.  Staff from Netherfield had been redeployed to Davies and Lord Hardy with both Managers being made aware of the actions taken by Netherfield with respect to the CQC requirements and had adopted them in their own services

-          Park Hill (Learning Disability Residential Care Provider) – Service currently managed by the same person who managed Treefields and Quarry Hill.  An application had been made with CQC to add Park Hill to her registration

-          Home Enabling - Inspected on 7^th July 2016 and rated as Good overall.  No recommended actions

-          Davies Court (Elderly Residential provider) – Inspected on 24^th August, 2016, and awarded an overall rating of Good  although improvements were identified in the recording of its response to service users who have a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding (DoLS) in place.  The service had undertaken an audit of files to ensure the correct documentation was in place

-          Adult Services had a good compliance record with standards subject to inspection.  Governance arrangements remained under ongoing review and the Directorate’s development programme was not subject to the enhanced governance arrangements applied within the Transformation Board

-          Housing Service – no inspections or recommendations since the last report in April 2016

Children and Young People’s Improvement Plan

-          Improvement Plan revised in May 2016 following an intense period of change and improvement within Children’s Services

-          Revised Improvement Plan provided a refocus on the priority actions to ensure they mapped against the Ofsted judgements/ recommendations/findings and provided the opportunity to ensure that realists RAG ratings were noted for each action

-          The 26 recommendations from the OFSTED inspection would remain in place and “open” in the refreshed Plan until the Secretary of State for the Department of Education had made a decision for Rotherham to come out of intervention and satisfied that all the requirements had been met

-          Focus of the Plan to put in place a sustainable approach enabling CYPS to meet aspirational objectives and provide a continuous improvement cycle to enable movement to become a child-centred Borough with outstanding services

-          Introduction of “focus on” agenda items at meetings of the Improvement Board

-          Governance of the CYPS Plan by the Children’s Improvement Board at its monthly meetings which also oversaw progress through monitoring, challenging and supporting the actions of the Plan

-          Establishment of a Performance Board in May 2016

Ofsted Improvement Visits

-          There had been 5 visits since August 2015 as part of their improvement offer looking at the MASH, Duty and Assessment, Child in Need, Child Protection, Leadership, Management and Governance, CSE, Missing Children and Early Help.  This had been supplemented by 2 regional Sector Led Peer Reviews looking at Leadership management and Government in June 2016 and Looked After Children and Care leavers in October 2016

-          The first Monitoring Visit took place in October.  Looked After Children had been the subject

-          It was likely that there would be 4 formal Monitoring visits before an Ofsted re-inspection (expected to be in Autumn 2017)

Rotherham’s Residential Children’s Units

-          The care offered across the whole of Rotherham’s residential care services for children and young people had been reviewed

-          Aspiration of the Council to reduce the numbers of children placed in residential care

-          Consultation had taken place with affected stakeholders regarding the proposed closure of Cherry Tree House and Silverwood Children’s Residential Care Homes.  Commissioner Bradwell had approved the closure of both Homes on 13^th September, 2016

-          Liberty House Short Breaks Children’s Home had received a full inspection on 2^nd/3^rd November within the current inspection cycle.  An aspirational improvement plan had been in place which was expected to take the Home from Good to Outstanding.  

Economic Development Services and Housing and Neighbourhoods Services

-          Feedback from the LGA peer health checks programme was being using positively throughout the Service to improve performance and quality and deliver service improvement

-          Review of structures in Waste Management

-          No further external inspections or audits had been undertaken

Finance and Corporate Services

-          The External Auditor issued a range of reports each year which were presented to the Audit Committee e.g. External Audit Plan, Annual Audit Letter

-          1 medium and 1 low priority recommendations made in relation to the ISA260 report regarding the 2015/16 financial year

-          Audit of the Council’s 2014/15 claim was completed.  The Council received only very minor qualifications resulting in amendments being made to the final claim in accordance with the DWP arrangements

-          The audit of the Council’s 2015/16 claim was underway

Resolved:-  (1)  That the governance arrangements that were currently in place for the monitoring and managing of recommendations from external audits and inspections be noted.

(2)  That regular reports in relation to external audit and inspections and progress in implementing recommendations