Agenda item

PERFORMANCE UPDATE REPORT - QUARTER THREE

Report and presentation attached.

Minutes:

The Sub-Committee received the quarter three performance report. The presentation detailed that fifteen of the seventeen corporate performance indicators that fell under the remit of the sub-committee.

 

The Sub-Committee was informed that the three indicators that were reported to the Overview & Scrutiny Board were rated at red:

·         Total number of in-house foster carers

·         Percentage of looked after children placed in in-house foster care

·         Percentage of young people leaving care who are in education, employment or training at ages 18-21

 

The Sub-Committee noted the following highlights

 

·      That 24 children had ceased to be looked after due to the granting of an adoption order or Special Guardianship Order. It was noted that it gave a   year to date outturn of 26.7%, an improvement on 2016/17 outturn of 14.7% and also above the target for 2017/18. The numbers of family and friends placements have also increased from 24 to 31 since April 2017.

·      The percentage of looked after children who leave care at 18 and “Stay Put” with their foster carers had improved and was above target.

·      The percentage of Looked After Children (LAC) placed in Havering Foster Care had reached the highest for the year and was above target at the end of Q3. The In-Care strand of the Face-to-Face Pathways Programme was focusing on enhancing the in-house resources to ensure that in-house options were available for all LAC, whatever their needs are.

·      The was a steady reduction in the proportion of children becoming the subject of a Child Protection Plan for a second or subsequent time within 2 years

·      The proportion of families showing continued overall progress after their initial assessment was significantly better than the target set for the year.

 

The Sub-Committee noted that the following areas that required improvements:

           

·      As at the end of December, there were 80/139 (57.6%) of care leavers aged 18-21 years old in education, employment or training. Whilst the figure was lower than the set target, Havering was surpassing the national average and many other London boroughs. The Council had been awarded funding from the DWP to set up a Work Club at The Cocoon. An application had also been made to the DWP Community Budget to enable the service to deliver a programme aimed at supporting young people to attain employment or embark on further education.

·      It was stated that even though a positive increase in the number of new foster carers and the percentage of LAC placed with in-house carers, the total number of in-house carers in the service cohort had not changed significantly.

·      The proportion of Care Proceedings completed in under 26 weeks remains significantly below target, it was noted that Havering had four long-running case which have gone beyond 50 weeks.  These cases would significantly skew the council`s average case duration for the whole year 2017-2018. The Sub-Committee was assured that cases were been tracked from the pre-proceeding stage where a child was assessed as being at risk of significant harm.  It was also stated that updated legal planning and pre-proceedings review procedures would be circulated to all social care staff.

·      The proportion of children attending Good or Outstanding schools was currently slightly below target, but figures were expected to improve over the coming months once school resumed and inspection of more schools were undertaken.

 

The Sub-Committee noted the contents of the report and presentation.

Supporting documents: