SOME tough love has been given to the Children Services (CS) department by its portfolio holder, Cllr Rachel Powell, who says they must improve.

This comes after the department missed a number of performance targets for the first quarter of this financial year.

At cabinet on Tuesday, July 30, councillors discussed  Powys County Council’s (PCC) performance from April 1 to July 1, against a number of indicators.

Overall the report was deemed by finance portfolio Cllr Aled Davies, (Conservative – Llanrahaeadr-ym-Mochnant/Llansilin)  to be “average.”

But according to the report CS had missed  targets in a number of areas –

  • Child protection statutory visits carried out within time-scale of 95 per cent was missed, although all children on the register have been seen
  • Assessments completed for children within statutory time-scales was supposed to be 90 per cent – but it was 80 per cent
  • The target for the number of placements with in-house foster carers, is 70 per cent but the figure for quarter one was 60 per cent

Cllr Powell, said: “I think what’s really important is the narrative that lies behind a lot of the data.

“Our current stats are not good enough.”

On statutory visits, Cllr Powell, said: “We want to get to 95 per cent – the measure is red at the moment.

“We are getting towards the end of a restructure and we knew that this would unsettle part of the operational mechanics.

“We have seen staff move to a new structure, also holding previous caseloads and  it’s impacting the timelines of visits.”

“I have made my expectations clear, that this needs to be improved with immediate effect.”

But it’s not all bad news for the department as they strive to improve on their “journey to excellence.”

The data for the newly formed early help service was marked green, as 79 per cent of referrals were dealt with by this service.

Keeping children closer to home was also deemed green, as eight children have had their placements “stepped down,” and two children have returned home.

Cllr Powell praised the early help service for taking over the burden of referrals which would have gone directly to individual teams, and those who worked on getting the children home.

“A small sentence but behind it’s a huge amount of work from the teams supporting the families,” added Cllr Powell.

In October 2017, Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW), produced a damning inspection report into PCC Children’s Services department, which revealed missed opportunities to safeguard children, poor risk assessment and serious performance issues with front line services.

In the wake of the critical report, a new director of Social Services, Ali Bulman and a head of Children’s Services, Jan Coles, were appointed.

After a follow up inspection in October 2018, Children’s Services were told by CIW that they still had “serious concerns” but some improvements were acknowledged.

Following the report in 2018, £6 million was pumped into the department to turn things around.

Another £6 million has been added to that and there are fears that the department will need more money in this financial year.