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0081 2024/25
27/01/2025
Children and Young People
All wards
To Introduce a Commissioned Arrangement for the completion of Kinship Carer Assessments
The proposal seeks to enter into a commissioned arrangement to enable 100 Single Assessments of kinship foster carers to be completed by Independent Social Workers and the introduction of an unqualified link worker. The proposal which will be funded by retaining 3.5 supervising social worker posts as vacant and ensure the service is delivered within budget by the reduction in use of agency workers social workers whilst meeting its statutory obligations.
To reduce the reliance at this time of agency social workers and to operate within the current allocated budget and to consider the two options below.. Option 1 To continue with the current service structure and to seek suitably experienced and skilled social workers to join the service on a permanent basis. Option 2 To seek to commission a service to undertake up to 100 single assessments over a 12 month period and to for the same period suspended recruitment to 3.5 social worker posts (which would include one adoption social worker posts currently being used to fund the social worker with lead responsibility for recruitment of mainstream foster carers) and give notice to the current agency social workers. It is additionally proposed that in current model of co-allocating the assessments undertaken by Independent Social Workers to Supervising Social Workers is replaced by the creation of a Support Worker who would act as a link to the team but also take on additional duties to support approved foster carers in maintaining their registration for example in ensuring that they access relevant training or in providing direct training. To reduce the risk associated with the loss of a dedicated social work recruitment lead it is further proposed to review the role of the Children's Services Development Officer to undertake initial visits to prospective foster carers.
The Fostering Service is currently comprised of a Head of Service, a Specialist Lead, 3 Team Managers (2.2 FTE), 2 Assistant Team Managers (1.5 FTE) and 11.5 Supervising Social Workers. In addition, the team is supported by a Children's Services Development Officer. The team is responsible for supporting 125 fostering households and at the time of writing 10 temporarily approved foster carers, undertaking Viability Assessments Form F assessments and single assessments of connected carers. In addition the DfE funded Designated Family Judge Trailblazer Pilot has been launched which is intended to reduce family court delays, improve outcomes for families going through the Family Justice System and reduce costs. The 9 Cheshire and Merseyside local authorities successful proposal related to a Cheshire & Merseyside (C&M) Assessment Hub to undertake quality and timely Independent Parenting Assessments and Fostering Assessments requested during proceedings. One social worker is being released from each local authority to form the assessment hub. These Social Workers will be deemed independent of their employer authority. The Judiciary will make the requests for the Independent Social Worker assessments direct to the C&M assessment hub. The current pressures in respect of the demand for single assessments is noted to be impacted by Care Proceedings and the need to assess various family members to ensure that all permanence options within the extended family are being explored. The quality of in house assessments are acknowledged as being consistently better than commissioned ISW assessments however, the Court directs an independent assessment due to parties within proceedings arguing that the local authority has an established position and seeking a ‘second opinion’. For example where the local authority has deemed a connected person as unsuitable during the viability assessment stage. The C&M Trailblazer Pilot will not be available for children subject to pre-proceedings where single assessments are also requested to ‘front load’ all assessments to appropriately plan for children and young people. The C&M Trailblazer Pilot went 'live’ in October 2024 and is time limited in respect of DfE funding however, further work is being considered in respect of extending this beyond the life span of the pilot. The Trailblazer Pilot will bring capacity to the 9 local authorities and will also ensure quality assessments are being undertaken to ensure the right outcomes for children and young people. The remaining funding for the commissioned service would be taken from the wider fostering service budget as outlined above and demonstrated in appendix 2.
The Fostering Service continues to experience difficulties in recruiting to permanent vacancies and is therefore reliant upon the use of agency social workers to meet its statutory duties. The cost of using agency social workers means that the service does not operate within budget. Retaining vacant posts without using agency social workers leaves the Department at significant risk of not meeting its statutory function. To commission the service proposed would enable budgetary constraints to be met whilst meeting demand and compliance with statutory guidance. In adopting this approach given the potential
The risk is that in continuing to employee agency workers to cover posts within the service the service continues to exceed its allocated budget and the vacancies not filled in this way means that Court ordered assessments whilst prioritised are at risk of not being completed within the timescales ordered by the Court. In commissioning a service to undertake kinship carer assessments there is an additional risk of a reliance upon one external provider and previously this has caused some issues in terms of quality of assessments when compared to an in-house option.
In commissioning a provider for a period of 12 months the savings on agency workers would be immediate as the commissioned service could be contained within the existing budget. The commissioned service would also be subject to robust monitoring to ensure that the service is delivered within the specification agreed.
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Please contact Fiona Woods on 01744 676410
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