Agenda item

The Medway Sufficiency Report sets out how Medway Council will meet the needs of Looked After Children and Care Leavers in such a way as to ensure improved outcomes. This is an updated version of the 2015/16 report and is the final draft. Any comments from this committee will then be reviewed before a final version is presented to the Cabinet for approval

Discussion:

The Assistant Director, Partnership Commissioning introduced the report which provided the Committee with the latest Sufficiency Report, setting out how Medway Council would meet the needs of Looked After Children and Care Leavers in such a way as to ensure improved outcomes.  She explained that she would liaise with Democratic Services about timetabling future Sufficiency Reports to Overview and Scrutiny and Cabinet in a way that would hopefully reduce the lag of data information.  She emphasised that the report demonstrated how the local authority was exercising its sufficiency responsibilities.  She added that the number of looked after children (LAC) was reducing and if sustained would be reported in neat year’s report.

Members then raised a number of points and questions which included: -

·         Information relating to LAC that are not in education, employment of training (NEET) – A Member expressed the view that it would be helpful to see the number of LAC that were NEET when broken down into age and ethnicity groups.  Officers undertook to look to include this detail in future versions of the report.

·         Learning from Care Leaver feedback – In response to a question about what learning there had been from the feedback received from Care Leavers, officers confirmed that there was now engagement with young people in procurement processes for supported accommodation.  In addition, some Care Leavers had met peers in Brighton to discuss with them their experiences of being involved in procurement.  It was added that Care Leavers were very confident and able to share their opinions and help inform service development and delivery.  Site visits by young people would be undertaken as part of the performance and quality monitoring regime of supported accommodation, starting in Summer 2016 and Members asked that feedback from this be included in future sufficiency reports.

·         Provision of high quality supported accommodation with intensive support – in response to concern raised that gaps continued to exist in relation to the availability of this type of supported accommodation, officers explained that during the tender process, from an original 28 providers, only 4 could provide supported accommodation with an enhanced level of specialist support which was not sufficient to meet Medway’s need.  Discussions were therefore taking place with quality providers elsewhere in conjunction with work to stimulate the market locally.  Support was also being provided to enable young people to stay at home where it was safe to do so.

·         Crash Pads – In response to a question about the provision of a crash pad officers confirmed that this was expensive and difficult to provide and had therefore not been implemented in Medway but other options to provide emergency placements were being explored as well as other ways to provide support to vulnerable young people that may benefit from some time out.  It was added that flexible local provision with wrap around support and intensive family work was more likely to result in a young person returning home within six weeks.

·         Recruitment of Foster Carers – Officers confirmed that Medway was successfully recruiting foster carers but had recently had difficulty retaining them, which it was believed related to instability in the social care work force and the number of cases in proceedings.  Work was being undertaken to look at a buddying system for foster carers to provide peer support and analysis of feedback from foster carers was underway to develop ways to support and retain foster carers in house. 

·         Options of accommodation – Officers explained that work was ongoing to develop a range of accommodation options that were flexible and included support.  The point was made that a mind shift was needed as a 16/17 year old presenting as homeless would not necessarily be provided social housing and that other options would be explored, including the possibility for that young person to return home or to remain with a Foster Carer.

·         Definition of unsuitable accommodation – in response to a request for the definition of unsuitable accommodation, officers undertook to provide this to Members.

·         Low rate of adoption of children over the age of 5 years - in response to a question about why this was the case, officers explained that children put forward for adoption presented challenges but as a child grows older those challenges were at risk of becoming bigger and older children often came as a sibling group which also presented a challenge to match with adoptive parents.

Decision:

The Committee recommended the Cabinet to approve the Sufficiency Report 2016-17.