Issue - meetings

Sufficiency Report

Meeting: 04/02/2020 - Cabinet (Item 17)

17 Sufficiency Report 2019-20 PDF 240 KB

Additional documents:

Appendix 1 - Sufficiency Strategy 2019-20, item 17 PDF 2 MB

Minutes:

Background:

This report provided details of the annual refresh of the statutory Sufficiency Report. This detailed how the Council, through working with all its partner agencies, would meet the placement needs of current and future Children in Care and Care Leavers and improve their outcomes in light of the Council’s understanding of their needs and current provision.

The report explained that numbers of children looked after remained stable, with the largest cohort being 10-15 year olds and the numbers of 16-17 year olds coming into care continuing to rise. The report recommended that Medway plan its sufficiency needs over a five year strategic period, accompanied by a detailed action plan to ensure sufficiency needs would be reviewed and actions refreshed annually.

The Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee considered this report on 9 January 202019 and its comments were set out at section 5 of the report.

Decision

number:

Decision:

The Cabinet noted the comments of the Children and Young people Overview and Scrutiny Committee, as set out in section 5 of the report.

The Cabinet noted the 2019/20 Sufficiency Report, as set out in Appendix 1 to the report.

34/2020

The Cabinet instructed officers to develop a five year sufficiency strategy, to be accompanied by a detailed action plan ensuring sufficiency needs and actions are reviewed and refreshed annually, as detailed in section 3 of the report.

Reasons:

Publication of the updated Sufficiency Report will enable the Council to fulfil its statutory requirement to take steps to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, sufficient accommodation for Children in Care within the local area and will enable Medway to act strategically to address gaps in provision.

The shift towards older children coming into care and the overall increase in complexity of need makes this an opportune moment to take a longer term strategic look at how the care system in Medway intends to address the changing need.