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Bank holiday information - Easter

Bank holiday information for our services, including opening times and emergency contacts. All recycling collections will take place on the usual days.

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 5, Guildhall, Swansea. View directions

Contact: Liz Jordan 01792 637314 

Items
No. Item

1.

Disclosure of Personal and Prejudicial Interests.

Minutes:

No disclosures of interest were made.

2.

Prohibition of Whipped Votes and Declaration of Party Whips

Minutes:

No declarations were made.

3.

Notes of meeting on 25 February 2019 pdf icon PDF 370 KB

To receive the notes of the previous meeting and agree as an accurate record.

Minutes:

The Panel agreed the notes as an accurate record of the meeting.

4.

Public Question Time

Questions must relate to matters on the Agenda and will be dealt with in a 10 minute period.

Minutes:

No members of the public were present at the meeting.

5.

Performance Monitoring pdf icon PDF 56 KB

Julie Thomas, Head of Child and Family Services

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Chris Francis, Principal Business Development and Commissioning Lead attended to take the Panel through the performance report for March 2019, identifying areas of improved performance and areas where improvement is required, and answering the Panel’s questions.   

 

Discussion Points:

·       Page 10 – Wellbeing – The number of repeat referrals in the month has increased.  It was identified that a family of 7 was re-referred to the department which accounted for this increase. 

·       Page 11 – Supported Care Planning – Assessments – Progress is being made in increasing the percentage of 42 day assessments carried out within timescales.  This is positive.

·       Page 16 – Safeguarding – Reviews and Allocations – Panel concerned that percentage of children on Child Protection Register that have been registered previously, is increasing.  The ‘emotional abuse’ category is increasing and we need to understand why.  Panel interested to see how ‘Emotional Abuse’ is categorised.  It is very subjective.

·       Page 17 – Safeguarding – Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), Missing Children and Professional Abuse – There has been a big increase in number of children managed under the CSE Protocol and the number of children going missing/absent without authority.  A new officer has been appointed to look into these areas, so increase may be due to better identification and recording.  This is a concern to the Panel and they will want to monitor this closely going forward.

·       There is going to be an increase in number of independent children’s homes in the area.  Panel concerned there could be a child protection threat if the Authority and police cannot deal with the number of LAC as a result.  There is no regulation on number of children’s homes.  The issue has been flagged with Welsh Government.  

·        Page 23 – Permanence – Leaving Care – Glossary of classifications would be useful for Panel.

 

Actions:

·       Add item to Work Programme on ‘Why children become looked after’.

·       Glossary of classifications to be provided with next Performance Monitoring report.

6.

Update on Welsh Government's Local Authority Looked After Children Reduction Expectation pdf icon PDF 524 KB

Julie Thomas, Head of Child and Family Services

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Julie Thomas, Head of Child and Family Services attended to present this item and answer the Panel’s questions.

 

Discussion Points:

 

·         Welsh Government (WG) representatives have visited the Authority and been briefed on plans to safely reduce the number of Looked After Children (LACs).

·         Panel emphasized how important schools are in driving this forward.  There is concern that more and more children are being home schooled.  This issue has been raised with WG

·         WG were really impressed with examples provided of Service development

·         Panel would like to see some examples of tools and techniques employed by frontline staff in family engagement to encourage parents and children to discuss issues, feelings, relationships and to plan a way forward to improve their situations. 

·         Panel congratulated Julie Thomas and her team for all their hard work in managing the business.  WG acknowledged how good this is.

 

Actions:

 

·         Add item to work programme ‘Examples of tools and techniques employed by front line staff in family engagement’.

7.

Work Programme Timetable 2018-19 pdf icon PDF 81 KB

Minutes:

The Panel considered the Work Programme.

 

Actions:

·       Add to work programme 2019-20, ‘Briefing on Youth Offending Service’.

·       Panel Members to inform Scrutiny Officer of any items to be considered for work programme 2019-20.

8.

Letters pdf icon PDF 262 KB

a)    Convener’s letter to Cabinet Member (25 February 2019 meeting)

Minutes:

Letter received and considered by the Panel.

Letter to Cabinet Member (29 April 2019 meeting) pdf icon PDF 175 KB