Venue: Committee Room 5, Guildhall, Swansea. View directions
Contact: Liz Jordan 01792 637314
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Disclosures of Personal and Prejudicial Interests. Minutes: No disclosures of interest were made. |
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Prohibition of Whipped Votes and Declaration of Party Whips Minutes: No declarations were made. |
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Minutes of Previous Meeting(s) PDF 322 KB To receive the minutes of the previous meeting(s) and agree as an accurate record. Minutes: The Panel agreed the minutes of the meeting on 28 October 2019 as an accurate record of the meeting. |
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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. |
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Update on Regional Adoption Service PDF 201 KB Nichola Rogers,
Regional Adoption Manager, Western Bay Adoption Service Additional documents:
Minutes: Nichola Rogers, Regional Adoption Manager for Western Bay Adoption Service attended, to update the Panel on the work of the service, improvements in performance and plans to address areas for development. Discussion points: · Independent review report expected in January 2020 on whether Bridgend remains as part of Western Bay Adoption Service. · Improvements in performance in many areas over last year since new adoption manager has been in post. She should be congratulated. · Panel noted mostly women in the structure and children need a male role model. Informed not a significant issue in adoption as staff don’t work directly with children. · Currently no white children placed with BME adopters. Adoption is driven by the adopters. Culture is taken into account but care and wellbeing of children comes first. · Update on Life Journey Data – New framework introduced. Framework worker recently appointed to work with Authorities to improve quality of work and to work with social workers to help children understand about Life Journey data. · Work been done on Western Bay’s ‘offer’ and how it will support children and adopters going forward. · There were issues with ‘letterbox’ but been resolved. · All areas meet regularly to share practice. Some of the good practice by Western Bay has been shared. · There was concern about shortage of adopters in this region but the gap has got smaller and the project manager thinks it will continue to reduce. · Adoption manager will bring this year’s performance results back to the Panel early in next municipal year. Actions: · Schedule item on ‘Western Bay Adoption Service Performance Results’ on work programme early in next municipal year. |
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Corporate Parenting Board Update PDF 2 MB Gemma Whyley, Child & Family Services Project Manager Minutes: Gemma Whyley, Child and Family Services Project Manager
attended to update the Panel on activity undertaken this year including
timeline, work plan, projects and next steps. Discussion Points: •
There have been 6
opportunities for corporate parents to engage with children this year. •
Best Start Book Project,
undertaken this year, has been praised by Children’s Commissioner. Hope to expand on this next year. •
Bays+ is currently working well. New bespoke performance report for Bays+ is
being developed in new year. This will be added
to Performance Monitoring item in future. •
Participation Task and Finish Group has been nominated for an award. •
Joint Corporate Parenting Board workshop
held. This will feed into annual
Corporate Parenting Board Plan. •
Welsh Government Ministry Advisory Group
discussing changes to legislation. This
could be very positive. •
Big Conversation very successful at linking in
with schools. •
No performance data provided in this
report. Panel was concerned about
educational attainment for Looked After Children in
previous report. Annual Report,
including performance data, will come to this Panel in next municipal year. •
Panel queried if partners are participating
as they should. Informed Housing and
Culture and Leisure are now taking corporate parenting role seriously and are
participating well. •
Cabinet Member keen to improve attendance and
engagement at Board meetings and believes changing from objectives to themes
will help with this. •
There has been a push to involve children in
Board meetings but structure of the meetings needs to change. Panel suggested Cabinet Member speak to Head
of Democratic Services about changing format to more workshop style. Actions: •
PDF copy of Book project to be
circulated to Panel by email. •
CFS Performance Monitoring Report item to
include Bays+ performance in future. • Schedule item ‘Corporate Parenting Board Annual Report’ in Work Programme for next municipal year. |
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Performance Monitoring PDF 2 MB Julie Thomas, Head of
Child and Family Services Minutes: Julie Thomas, Head of Child and Family Services updated the
Panel. Discussion Points: •
Extremely busy 3 months with lots of activity
around Looked After Children population including some serious issues and some
really complex issues. •
Workforce Wellbeing Strategy is being
developed. Really important to keep
experienced staff especially senior practitioners. •
Vacancy monitoring policy is not being applied
in CFS as it delays recruitment of staff. •
Retention policy approved to enable progression
of staff through to senior social workers. •
Big drive towards targeted early work and early
help hubs are in place. •
Head of Service will bring caseload information
to each Panel meeting in future to reassure Panel. •
Child protection activity has increased. Undertaking work to slow this down. Police will be working with us on this and
should see a reduction in figures. •
More activity around county lines recently. Police asked to up their disruption activity. •
Department doing piece of work with Lancaster
University on ‘Born into Care’ project. •
Working with Housing on providing housing for
care leavers with complex needs who still need this support. Actions: • CFS caseload information to come to each panel meeting. Verbal update from Head of Service. |
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Work Programme Timetable 2019/20 PDF 311 KB Minutes: The Panel considered the Work Programme. Actions: · Confirm if draft budget proposals will be an additional item at 24 February Panel meeting or if extra meeting needs to be arranged. |
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a) Response from Cabinet Member (28 August 2019 meeting) b) Letter to Cabinet Member (28 October 2019 meeting) Additional documents: Minutes: Letters received and considered by the Panel. |
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