Issue - meetings
Resilience in Children's Social Care
Meeting: 29/06/2017 - Cabinet (Item 10.)
10. Resilience in Children's Social Care 
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The report by the Director of Children, Families and Education reviews our current strategy for ensuring children's social care is both safe and sustainable financially. It makes recommendations for additional investment in social work capacity to manage rising cost pressures around alternative care.
RECOMMENDED that Cabinet endorse:
An increase in social work capacity, through an investment of £462K, in order to improve our offer to teenagers and their families in particular, working more proactively within the community to effect whole family solutions and avoid external residential care placements. The increase in social work capacity will be created as follows:
(i) Increase front-line Social workers staffing numbers by eight so that social work caseloads can be brought down to a level (15 children per FTE) that affords pro-active, timely and risk sensible intervention. This will enable us to drive the highest possible quality social work support to vulnerable children and families, to avoid the need to take them into our care; and
(ii) Increase service leader numbers by three; reducing the size of three teams and providing better management oversight.
Decision:
Cabinet endorsed an increase in social work capacity, through an investment of £499K, in order to improve our offer to teenagers and their families in particular, working more proactively within the community to effect whole family solutions and avoid external residential care placements. The increase in social work capacity will be created as follows:
(i) Increase front-line Social workers staffing numbers by eight so that social work caseloads can be brought down to a level (15 children per FTE) that affords pro-active, timely and risk sensible intervention. This will enable us to drive the highest possible quality social work support to vulnerable children and families, to avoid the need to take them into our care; and
(ii) Increase service leader numbers by three; reducing the size of three teams and providing better management oversight.