Agenda and minutes

None.

None.

To confirm the minutes of the last meeting held on 25 July 2019

The Committee confirmed the minutes of the meeting held on 25 July 2019 as a correct record and they were signed by the Chair.

Councillor David Mellen, Leader of the Council, and Alison Michalska, Corporate Director for Children and Adults, presented a report on the published findings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). The following points were discussed:

(a)  IICSA was established as a statutory inquiry in March 2015 and launched thirteen investigations into a broad range of institutions. It was announced that inquiry would look into the failures to protect children in the care of the Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County Councils in November 2015. A significant number of allegations of historical abuse in children’s homes were made, including physical and sexual abuse, dating back to the 1940s. Across this period, the homes had been operated by both Nottinghamshire County Council and Nottingham City Council, amongst other organisations. As a result, there have been a significant number of both criminal and civil cases;

(b)  the initial scope of the inquiry was to investigate children’s homes, in response to disclosures of allegations of sexual abuse since 1967 at the Beechwood children’s home, and the barriers to the disclosure of these allegations. It then expanded to cover the disclosure of allegations of child sexual abuse by foster carers, and the disclosure of allegations of sexual abuse carried out by children in care against other children in care. The investigation in Nottingham ran from 1 to 26 October 2018 and collected a wide range of evidence, including statements from survivors and both senior Council officers and elected members. The Council invested a great deal of staff time into participating with the investigation, to ensure full openness and transparency;

(c)  IICSA published its findings on 31 July 2019. It put forward two specific recommendations to the Council, to be responded to within six months. Firstly, the Council should assess the potential risk posed by its directly employed current and former foster carers, in relation to the sexual abuse of children. The Council should also ensure that current and former foster carers provided by external agencies are assessed by those agencies. Any concerns that arise should be referred to the appropriate body or process, including the Disclosure and Baring Service, the local authority designated officer or equivalent, the fostering panel and the Police;

(d)  secondly, the Council and its child protection partners should commission an independent, external evaluation of their practice concerning harmful sexual behaviour, including responses, prevention, assessment, intervention and workforce development. An Action Plan should be set up to ensure that any recommendations are responded to in a timely manner and progress should be reported to the City’s Safeguarding Children Partnership;

(e)  a draft Action Plan has been produced to address these recommendations for agreement by the Safeguarding Children Partnership on 30 September, and to be approved by the Executive Board at its meeting in October;

(f)  in relation to the first recommendation, the records of all staff who worked at Beechwood have been reviewed and all of the decisions made at the time in relation to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13.

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People, presented a report on the creation of the new East Midlands Regional Adoption Agency (RAA). The following points were discussed:

(a)  the Department for Education published ‘Adoption – A Vision for Change’ in March 2016 with the aim to join up individual, smaller adoption agencies around the country into larger, combined agencies with shared resources, to provide more options for children and adopters. Since 4 April 2019, Nottingham City Council has joined with Derby City Council, Nottinghamshire County Council and Derbyshire County Council to form an East Midlands RAA. The RAA is designed to prepare both children and adopting families for the adoption process, and to ensure that all placements made (including fostering, fostering to adopt, and adoption) are both timely and sustainable. The RAA is in its early stages, but it is working well with partners to ensure that the process for the children in care is effective and efficient;

(b)  the transfer of staff from the member authorities to Nottinghamshire County Council has gone well and personnel are integrating into the new working arrangements – though they remain in close contact with all of the member authorities. Clear governance arrangements are in place, though there have been some teething IT issues in setting up the integrated systems. There is on-going liaison with the other East Midlands authorities, which are working towards establishing a RAA in early 2020;

(c)  a grant from Government was made to help develop and establish the RAAs. The RAA is then funded from the member authorities’ individual budgets, with funding pooled in some areas. The creation of the RAA has resulted in a reduction in the duplication of services and enabled opportunities for savings and reinvestment, with the improved coordination of the effective deployment of scarce resources;

(d)  18 matches have been made as of 23 September 2019, with one further awaiting confirmation from the Agency Decision Maker. Of these, two were sibling groups and two were relinquished babies. The RAA as a whole takes the lead on preparing those carrying out the fostering or adoption, with the Council leading on working with the children to be fostered or adopted;

(e)  the Council has around 625 children in its care and assesses the needs of all of them very carefully, with Adoption Orders given for children when this represents the best outcome – whatever the age of the child. In some cases, a Special Guardianship Order is used. There are up to 100 children in the adoption process at any given point and 38-47 children are adopted each year. The average time from the making of the Adoption Order by the Courts to the date of actual placement with a family is 234 days, currently, so there is still potential for improvement;

(f)  a permanent placement is always the preferred outcome and all potential matches are reviewed by an independent panel and are authorised by an external person. The rate of disruption to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

Jane Garrard, Senior Governance Officer, presented the proposed work programme for the 2019/20 municipal year.

RESOLVED to:

(1)  consider the report on the Ofsted inspection of Children’s Services at the meeting to be held on 28 November 2019;

(2)  consider the issues relating to 16/17-year-old children in care with semi-independent living arrangements at the meeting to be held on 30 January 2020.