Agenda item

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Children's Services and Neighbourhood Working, the Interim Strategic Director – Children and Young People’s Services and the Assistant Director - Children’s Social Care attended the meeting to present a report on re-referrals and repeat child protection planning.

The report stated that referrals to children’s social care and second and subsequent periods of child protection planning were both performance indicators that were reported by the Council to the Department for Education and that as the rate of referral was a key indicator of need a high number of re-referrals could be seen an indicator of the right services not being provided at the time of the first intervention.

Members of the committee had previously expressed concern regarding the numbers of re-referrals being made and children becoming subject to a child protection plan for a second or subsequent time. The officer’s report sought to provide assurance to the members of the committee regarding these concerns.

The Assistant Director advised that in Rotherham the performance indicators that were measured were the re-referral rate, the percentage of children becoming the subject of a child protection plan for a second or subsequent time ever (which was also national performance indicator) as well as measuring the percentage of children becoming the subject of a child protection plan for a second or subsequent time in previous last two years which was a regionally agreed performance measure and as such was not reported to the Department for Education.

The Assistant Director advised that on reviewing Rotherham’s performance in relation to referrals and for second and subsequent child protection planning, the data at Rotherham compared favourably against regional and statistical neighbours as well as against national data.

The Assistant Director advised that a re-referral wasn’t always a cause for concern or an indication that the initial intervention had been ineffective as there were occasions where the first referral and a period of intervention could lead to a subsequent referral, such as when the circumstances of a family’s situation changed. There were however situations where a re-referral was the result of the original intervention being ended when the needs of the children and families had not been fully resolved which resulted in the same concerns being raised in subsequent referrals.  The Assistant Director advised that concerns in relation to this type of re-referral had prompted the senior leadership team in social care to undertake a piece of audit work during late 2019 and early 2020 that focussed on re-referrals.

The Assistant Director advised that the audit work undertaken in relation to re-referrals had indicated that there was a need to strengthen procedures around the safety planning work that identified families own support networks prior to the ending of formal social work involvement. It was noted that this approach and effect safety planning would ensure that the changes made by families were sustainable, and that when challenges arose in the future these support networks could then be accessed for support instead of needing a re-referral and further formal intervention.  The Assistant Director provided information on how the audit had been performed.

The Assistant Director noted that while overall the data indicated that Rotherham’s performance in relation to referral rates and second/subsequent child protection planning activity was comparable or better than data from other local authorities it still showed that about around 1 in 5 children in Rotherham had been referred to children’s social care. The Assistant Director advised that this was too high, and that areas for improvement identified by the audit, especially surrounding safety plans and their production and testing were needed in order to reduce this figure so as to ensure that the lived experience of vulnerable children in the Borough was maximised. It was noted that the key findings from the audit had been collated and would be used to develop learning for social work teams and managers, and that to ensure and monitor improvement, future audit work was planned.

Members asked if the audit had highlighted any key themes that had led to re-referrals. The Assistant Director advised that safety plans not being tested as rigorously as possible before formal intervention ended was a common cause for a family requiring subsequent intervention. The Assistant Director noted that family network meetings should be used in order to develop strong safety plans that identified a family’s existing support networks that could be accessed should further support be needed in order to ensure that changes made in a family were sustainable.

The Assistant Director advised that it was important that during an intervention that social workers should always be open and honest with a family regarding their concerns so that the right actions could be implemented at the first opportunity. In ensuring effective support was implemented at the first opportunity the likelihood of a family needing a re-referral, as the original problem had not been identified and addressed would be greatly reduced.

The Chair asked how family network meetings differed from family group conferencing. The Assistant Director advised that they were a much-simplified version but were essential in order to help families identify their own support networks and reduce the need for subsequent social work support.

Members asked if they were ever situations where manager thought a family’s case should be closed but where the case social worker disagreed. The Assistant Director advised that caseloads were regularly discussed with managers, and that managers would always look to ensure that interventions moved forward in timely manner, however if there was a significant disagreement, processes for resolving a situation were in place.

Members asked for further information on the authorities which had been used in the officer’s report to compare performance at Rotherham against. The Assistant Director advised that the regional comparison had been made against Yorkshire and Humber authorities and that the “statistical neighbours” were drawn from authorities nationwide that had similar characteristics to Rotherham.

The Interim Strategic Director noted that the audit or re-referrals had been a very useful exercise that had highlighted areas for training and development and advised that a further report on the implementation of the lessons learned from the audit, and from future audits could be brought to a future meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission.

The Chair thanked the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Children's Services and Neighbourhood Working, the Interim Strategic Director – Children and Young People’s Services and the Assistant Director - Children’s Social Care for attending the meeting and answering member questions.

Resolved - 

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That a progress report on re-referrals and repeat child protection planning be provided at the December 2020 meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission.

3)    That information on the outputs and development opportunities highlighted by the audit work completed in relation to re-referrals be circulated to members of the Improving Lives Select Commission.