Issue - meetings

The Committee considered a joint report of the Director of Children and Family Services and Director of Corporate Resources which provided an update on progress made within the Children and Family Services department in implementing its interim recovery in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and to set out initial proposals for longer term recovery planning and strategic change in accordance with the Council’s Recovery Strategy.  A copy of the report marked ‘Agenda Item 13’ is filed with these minutes.

It was stated that decisions had been made at the beginning of lockdown that all services within the department were critical and that the majority of functions needed to maintain a safe service delivery.  During the pandemic, the department had reviewed services daily to determine how they should be delivered and to monitor staffing levels to ensure services for the most vulnerable children and families were maintained.  Most services had continued to operate and deliver work with families and communities, albeit in a different format.

The Director reported that the department had learnt a number of key lessons including the use of technology to enable remote working, the ability to work virtually with families, improved engagement with young people, parents and carers and reduced costs.  The success of connecting virtually with families meant that this would continue as standard practice.

The cost of Covid-19 for the department would only be fully understood later in the year or into the next financial year.  Nationally, it had been recognised that it was highly likely that there would be pressure on children’s services when schools returned and the impact of the pandemic on children and families was fully understood.  The department would continue to monitor a number of key risk areas over the coming months.

The Lead Member for Children and Families thanked staff in the department for the hard work they had undertaken to ensure services continued and she also thanked families and service users for adapting to the different ways of working.  She expressed her confidence that high risk children had been safeguarded appropriately during the period and that everyone would embrace what had been learnt.

Arising from the discussion, the following points were raised:

i)                The impact of the pandemic on the health service and the knock-on effect on children and families would need to be identified.  This had not yet been quantified but would be monitored and children would need to be assessed as required.  A main area of concern had been children not being in school.

ii)               The Director reported that approximately 50% of Leicestershire schools had reopened at the end of last week and all were open as of today.  Attendance was at around 98%.  In terms of exams, the national guidance was that they would go ahead next year as planned.  However, there was currently no information on how they would look.

iii)             In response to a query around Children and Family Wellbeing Centres reopening, it was reported that approximately 18 were still closed.  However, these were currently being risk assessed to enable them to be reopened.  Lots of work had been undertaken alternatively during the pandemic to enable the services to continue.

iv)             It had been possible to make direct payments to families to allow them to continue to access services more flexibly.  This had been achieved within the same budget as the short breaks programme and had been welcomed.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.