Agenda item

The Committee considered the report of the Director of Transformation and Partnerships which presented progress against the council’s corporate performance framework for the Altogether Better for Children and Young People priority theme for the second quarter of the 2017/18 financial year (for copy see file of minutes).

The Corporate Scrutiny and Performance Manager presented the performance report and highlighted that attainment 8 results were in line with regional but lower than national averages, under 18 conceptions continued to reduce, an improvement had been seen in completed EHCPs but still below the national target. He went on to report that caseload levels per social worker had improved but that reported casefile quality had deteriorated, the number of looked after children had plateaued but remained high compared to the national average.  Breastfeeding prevalence had improved slightly but smoking at the time of delivery for mothers had increased.

Councillor Patterson passed her congratulations to the Stronger Families team as the trend was positive and the adoption and foster placements was positive too.  She referred to page 46 of the report and was disappointed that the percentage of care leavers in education, employment or training was not higher.  She asked if this was a difficult cycle to get out of in terms of need.  The Head of Early Help, Assessment & Safeguarding explained that it was difficult to tell a strong story with the quarter two figures which corresponds with the end of the school year when there would be a spike in young people leaving education.  However, we did well compared to other authorities with care leavers.  She added that DurhamWorks target those children who struggle and that Durham would not be complacent.  Councillor Patterson went on to add that she was concerned about the not knowns and was advised that this figure had reduced to a very small percentage of 2%.

Councillor Durham was interested to understand the quality of cases.  The Head of Early Help, Assessment & Safeguarding explained that some teams had been unstable with many agency staff but that the figure on caseloads was improving although it was noted that demand was also increasing.  The new restructure would address these issues and ensure the fairer distribution of work, including the workload of managers.  Members were advised that there were very few vacancies and that was helping to improve stability in the teams.  With regards to looked after children casefiles it had been recognised that Durham were overgrading them.  This had been addressed and would improve.  The Head of Early Help, Assessment & Safeguarding assured Members that she was confident that the quality was improving.

Resolved:

That the report be noted.