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There is no summary of this meeting yet. Summaries are written once the council publishes the minutes, which are its official record of what a meeting decided. They usually appear a few weeks after the meeting.
No disclosures of interest were received,
No declarations were made.
Panel agreed the Minutes of the meeting on 1 April 2025 as an accurate record of the meeting.
Letter to Cabinet Member following the meeting on 1 April 2025 was noted.
No questions were received.
Julie Davies, Head of Child and Family Services and Louise Beckett, Learning and Innovation Manager briefed the Panel on the Performance Monitoring Report for February 2025, which included highlights against Welsh Government, Care Inspectorate Wales and local indicators and provided an overview of child and family’s contact from the front door, Supported Care Planning and Looked After Children’s teams, Bay+ and the Youth Justice Service. Discussion Points: • Early Help Hubs are experiencing a significant increase in contacts. To try and mitigate waiting, families who are waiting to receive a service are now given advice and support and may decide this is all they need. • Learning and Innovation Team has started to look at analysis of trends within the child protection area as numbers on the register have been going down. More information on this will be provided in future reports. • Director of Social Services stated Cabinet and Council have agreed to base budget planning on delivery of Target Operating Models going forward. • In terms of the Looked After Children population, in February six were in unregistered provision, being housed in an Airbnb whilst searching for registered provision. CIW have expressed no concerns about these arrangements and four of these children have now returned to their homes. • Panel asked questions about the analysis of contact data for Early Help Hubs, reasons for increased numbers contacting single point of contact, the need to increase in-house foster carers, platforms used to generate interest in fostering, and adoption waiting times. Actions: • Briefing on Target Operating Model to be added to Work Plan for 2025-26.
Louise Gibbard, Cabinet Member for Care Services attended to update the Panel for each relevant policy commitment on the activity undertaken and progress made during 2024-25. Informed it continues to be a challenging time in terms of demand and complexity of demand, but good progress is still being made due to the hard work and commitment of staff, and the Directorate is committed to switching the target operating model. Panel commented that it looks forward to hearing more detail about the target operating model at a future meeting and having the opportunity to comment on it.
Panel Members reviewed their year on the Child and Family Services Panel. Director of Social Services reflected on the importance of this Panel. He commented that it is a really important additional safeguard for the Council to maintain this particular focus and added it is important the Panel continues to be challenging in a constructive way. Director also stated that CIW take considerable assurance from the tact the Panel focuses specifically on children’s services, so when they reflect on whether the Council has good governance and good corporate safeguarding, they reflect on the work of this Panel. Panel feels the Department is working very well and is innovative in many ways and it is important the Panel continues to try and improve that process going forward through being a critical friend. The Work Plan for 2025-26 will be drafted and circulated to Members. Final version to be agreed at next meeting on 22 July 2025.
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