Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence.

To receive declarations of interest from Members.

The Committee received the following Declarations of Interest from Members relating to items to be considered on the agenda:

Cllr Gareth E Jones declared an interest as a trustee to Builth Wells Community Support. This was a personal interest, not prejudicial interest in accordance with Paragraph 12(a) (ii) of the Members Code of Conduct 2016.

To receive disclosures of prohibited party whips which a Member has been given in relation to the meeting in accordance with Section 78(3) of the Local Government Measure 2011.

(NB:  Members are reminded that, under Section 78, Members having been given a prohibited party whip cannot vote on a matter before the Committee.)

The Committee did not receive any disclosures of prohibited party whips which a Member had been given in relation to the meeting in accordance with Section 78(3) of the Local Government Measure 2011.

To authorise the Chair to sign the minutes of the previous meeting held as follows as a correct record:

-       11^th April 2024

-       23^rd May 2024

-       18^th July 2024

The minutes from the previous meetings held on the 11^th of April 2024, 23^rd May 2024, and the 5^th of May 2024 were accepted by all Committee members present as an accurate and true account.

To receive and consider the Annual Report of the Director of Social Services.

Background:

The report…

• Was a requirement from the Director of Social Services from the Social Services and Wellbeing Act (2014).
• Had been presented to full Council in July 2024.
• Had been translated into Welsh and would be published soon. Copies would be shared with Welsh Ministers and Care Inspectorate Wales and be published on Powys County Council’s website. It was noted that translation costs had been reduced by piloting an AI translation tool.

• Work had been aligned to the Council’s vision; Stronger, Fairer, Greener and contributed to regional and national agendas of prevention, intervention and collaboration.
• Positive Feedback and recognition were received from external regulators, including the Joint Inspection of Child Protection Arrangements, which praised multi agency partnership working and safeguarding practise.
• The report noted a reduced reliance on agency workers and improved staff engagement and retention.

Challenges:

Challenges, post COVID included an increased:

• Demand on services,
• Complexity of care needs,
• Cost for commission.

Children’s Services Performance:

• Children’s Services had seen an improved position over the previous year. A revised and updated improvement plan continued to be implemented following self-evaluation.
• The number of Children on the Child Protection Register decreased by 15% from 309 at the end of March 2023 to 263 at the end of March 2024. This reflected improved decision making, risk management and increased use of alternative plans and interventions.
• The total ‘Looked After Children’ had increased by 11% from 213 to 236, mainly caused by an increased number of Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children who arrived in Powys as part of the UK Government’s resettlement scheme.
• The number of ‘Children in Need’ had decreased by 5%. This reflected the improved application of threshold criteria and the stepping up and stepping down processes.
• The service had enhanced its early help and prevention offer through the development of the Family Support Service and expansion of the Flying Start Programme.
• Timeliness of statutory assessments had increased from 79% to 84%, which exceeded the national average.
• The percentage of children with an up-to-date care and support plan had improved.
• The percentage of ‘Looked After Children’ who had three or more placements had increased, which was over the national average, this was mainly due to the increased number of Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children. A placement sufficiency strategy and an action plan were being put into place to improve this.
• The percentage of ‘Children Looked After’ participating in reviews had improved to 91%, again above the national average.

Children’s Services Priorities were to continue to:

• Embed and sustain improvements in safeguarding practice.
• Develop and implement early help and prevention.
• Improve the timeliness and quality of assessments, care plans and reviews.
• Improve placement stability and permanence for Looked After Children.
• Promote the participation and engagement of children and young people.

Adult Services Performance:

• 4.5% increase in contacts that came into the service from the previous year.
• Improvement of proportion of assessments completed within the 42 days from 84 to 88%, exceeding the national average.
• Adult services delivered significant savings through efficiency measures over the last  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To receive and consider the Corporate Safeguarding Board Activity Report.

Background:

• A follow up meeting was held on the 12^th of September and the Health & Care Committee would receive that activity report shortly. The next Corporate Safeguarding Board meeting was planned for the 12^th of December.

Review of Progress against Actions in the Safeguarding Regulatory Tracker:

• Excellent progress had been made with item 96, showing member compliance at 100% and staff compliance at 95.5%. Mandatory training had become an embedded item across the service in terms of performance monitoring. It was agreed that this item would be marked as closed and completed.
• Tracker item 97 was agreed to be closed and completed.
• Tracker item 99 would be kept open and reviewed at future board meetings.

Regional Safeguarding Board Update:

• Scrutiny members were welcomed to attend the 2024 Regional Safeguarding Board Conference hosted by Ceredigion Council on Thursday 14^th November. The theme would be ‘right place, right time’.
• It was agreed that Child Practice Review and Adult Practice Review summaries be brought to future Board meetings as a standard agenda item to take on a summary of learning.
• Positives of National Safeguarding Week were noted.

Safeguarding in Housing, Including Young People (16/17-Year-Old) Housing:

• The Board discussed the Council’s use of Bed & Breakfasts and emphasised the importance of minimising time spent in these and other temporary accommodations, in line with the rapid rehousing approach.
• At the end of October 2023, 46 households were placed in Bed & Breakfasts, by the end of June 2024 this had reduced to 12 which resulted in £20,000 savings per week.
• The Board reiterated that there was zero-tolerance around 16–17-year-olds being placed in bed & breakfasts. The Housing Service agreed that was the goal.
• Assurance was requested from the board that if a 16 - 17-year-old in education had to be placed into temporary accommodation, everything would be done not to affect their learning. It was confirmed that wherever possible, the wider needs of the household would be taken into consideration and the best would be done to keep people local.

Mandatory Safeguarding Training, Including VAWDASV:

• The Board noted that mandatory safeguarding training in schools had dropped. It was confirmed that priority was given to the completion of mandatory training and networks had been set up to support governors that had safeguarding responsibilities to help ensure compliance was achieved.
• Powys sat second in completion of ‘ask and act training’. It was felt that an e-learning module like Ceredigion Council’s would not be appropriate to replicate but other options were being explored.

Adult Social Care Safeguarding Performance, including Deprivation of liberty Safeguarding Update:

• The Board picked up on a delay in DBS checks and certificates from Dyfed Powys Police. Work was being done with Dyfed Powys Police to understand these delays. 

Annual Private Fostering Report:

• The Annual Private Fostering Report was presented to the Board and would be added to the Governor’s Newsletter.
• Information sharing with Powys Teaching Health Board was confirmed to be ongoing.
• The Children Missing Education Pilot that Powys County Council were undertaking with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To receive and consider the Child Exploitation Strategy and Implementation Plan.

Background:

• Child Exploitation Manager presented the report and noted that the Child Exploitation team ran Parent and Community Internet Safety Sessions through schools in North and South Powys. Promoted by schools, all parents and community members could attend, and the sessions would be running next in October 2024.
• In June 2021 the first Powys Child Exploitation Strategy and three-year Multi Agency Implementation Plan was implemented with the aim of creating harsher communities for perpetrators and safer non-blaming communities for children. This would be achieved through strong leadership and multi-agency collaboration under three sections; prevent, protect and support.
• In 2022 the exploitation strategy was utilised to develop the Regional Exploitation Strategy and the new implementation plan presented today aligned with that document.

Prevent:

• A collaborative learning approach was embedded to support practise and development through the multi-agency community of practise learning sessions.
• Seventeen learning sessions had been facilitated with consistent good attendance and positive feedback.
• On average between fifty and eighty professionals across various agencies attended those sessions.
• The sessions explored:
  • Increasing awareness of different forms of exploitation and how these interlink.
  •  Understanding thresholds, supporting parents and young people as partners within assessments,
  • Interventions and measuring change
  • Supporting a greater understanding of disruption tactics and responsibility (e.g. national referral mechanism).
• Data recognised increased disruption tactics followed on from those community practises such as a Slavery and Risk Trafficking Order which had been issued in the county.
• The team increased visibility of their work by facilitating 12 awareness raising sessions in collaboration with the Youth Service, PCSO teams, college licensing and Bernardo’s Counter Trafficking Service, mostly around internet safety.
• Participated in 8 multi-agency outreach sessions that focussed on spaces and places and raised awareness within areas that young people congregated and spent time together across Powys.
• Awareness raising videos had been created for children, parents and carers through collaboration with the Youth Service. These videos were re-utilised throughout the year for Child Exploitation Week in March and Safeguarding Week in November.
• Funding was secured for an Arad Goch production called ‘Crossing the Line’ which was rolled out across all high school sites.
• In 2022 online and in-person parent and community learning sessions were implemented. Further sessions would take place in Machynlleth and Ystradgynlais in October 2024.
• The team attended a Pan Powys Sixth Form Pupils Voice Group where sixth form students considered a Child Ambassador Programme and feedback was used to develop the programme. This had been piloted at two high school sites with the aim of implementation across all high school sites in Powys.

Under the ‘Protect’ element of the paper the team…

• Embedded the Exploitation Safeguarding Strategy meeting process, which was held weekly and attended by agencies.
• Invited Parents to Safeguarding Strategy Meetings as partners.
• Created a consistently attended Strategic MACE and implemented cross-partnership data collection which had allowed the development of understanding of the scale and nature of exploitation in Powys.
• Collected data on a quarterly basis and supported the monitoring of the effectiveness of responses to children,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

To note the received Monthly Performance Reports for both Adult Social Care and Children’s Services into the Committees dedicated Microsoft Teams Channel.

The monthly performance reports would be a standard agenda item going forward.

The Chair explained that the Committee received monthly performance reports retrospectively. Going forward, councillors would review these reports for ongoing themes and questions would be sent from Scrutiny Officers to the relevant Directors and Heads of Service, who would present answers at the next available scrutiny meeting. This would ensure consistent scrutiny of performance.

To note the scrutiny forward work programme.

The Forward Work Programme was updated prior to the meeting.

RESOLVE to exclude the public for the following items of business on the grounds that there would be disclosure to them of exempt information under categories 1, 2 & 3 of The Local Authorities (Access to Information) (Variation) (Wales) Order 2007).   

The Monitoring Officer has determined that categories 1, 2 & 3 of the Access to Information Procedure Rules apply to the following items. His view on the public interest test (having taken account of the provisions of Rule 14.8 of the Council's Access to Information Rules) was that to make this information public would disclose information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).     

These factors in his view outweigh the public interest in disclosing this information. Members are asked to consider these factors when determining the public interest test, which they must decide when considering excluding the public from this part of the meeting.

RESOLVED to exclude the public for the following item of business on the grounds that there would be disclosure to them of exempt information under category 3 of The Local Authorities (Access to Information) (Variation) (Wales) Order 2007).

The Monitoring Officer has determined that category 3 of the Access to Information Procedure Rules applies to the following item. His view on the public interest test (having taken account of the provisions of Rule 14.8 of the Council's Access to Information Rules) was that to make this information public would disclose information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).

These factors in his view outweigh the public interest in disclosing this information. Members are asked to consider these factors when determining the public interest test, which they must decide when considering excluding the public from this part of the meeting.  Proposed by Cllr C Robinson and seconded by Cllr D Edwards with all Committee Members in agreement.

To receive an update presentation on the Direct Payments Review.

The Senior Strategic Commissioning Manager and the Strategic Commissioning Manager presented an update on the Direct Payments Review including the progress, outcomes and next steps.