Contact: Janet Féat Ext: 7183 email: [email protected]

4 The Children Act 2004

4.1 The Children Act 2004 embeds in legislation the five outcomes for children first introduced in Every Child Matters and sets out the duties of all agencies to work in partnership to safeguard children and promote their welfare. The proposed changes to the FGC service in Hampshire should be seen in this context, and particularly address the two outcomes "staying safe" and "making a positive contribution", in empowering families, children and young people to make key decisions about their lives.

4 Background

4.1 Some of the benefits for stakeholders in using FGCs arise from the fact that families and their communities participate fully in making key decisions affecting their lives and that, together with child welfare professionals and other agencies working in collaboration to produce better outcomes for their children. The process is based on the premise that families know more about their own circumstances and needs than professionals necessarily do, and should have a greater say in deciding what help, support and services they need.

4.2 FGCs originated in New Zealand, where they are part of the legal framework so have become routine policy and practice in the care and protection of children. Hampshire has developed a well-established relationship with key figures in New Zealand, including the use of Mike Doolan, formerly Principal Social Worker (i.e. national chief officer), as a consultant. His recent work with Hampshire and other local authorities has underlined the importance of developing greater consistency in the provision of FGCs by improving the knowledge, operational understanding and availability of the service and its benefits to children and families amongst practitioners and first line managers. This is of particular relevance in a large county like Hampshire with its diverse characteristics.

4.3 Family Group Conferences were first introduced in Hampshire more than ten years ago in one area as a good practice approach, with the lessons learned shared through the Department's training programme. Subsequently as the use of FGCs was adopted across the county, service provision was formalised by contracting with a voluntary sector organisation, Daybreak, to run the service.

4.4 The role of the coordinator is central to the FGC process: this person may have a social work background, but may equally be a teacher, or youth worker or hold a related qualification or relevant experience. The coordinator will, on receiving a referral, visit the child and the family and explain what happens in a FGC: that all significant close and extended family members, with the child, will get together with the professionals involved and the coordinator, hear what the concerns and difficulties are, and what help is available should the family need it. The family members (and friends, if they are involved) then have time on their own to make a plan which addresses the problems set out by the professionals. The plan is presented to the professionals and the co-ordinator, and as long as it addresses the issues of care and protection for the child, and is practicable, it is endorsed and worked with by all concerned, forming an integral part of the care plan.

6. The Family Group Conference Service

6.1 FGCs in Youth Justice have been provided since 1996 by the Hampton Trust working to the Wessex Youth Offending Team, and FGCs for schools have been managed in the Education Department since 1998. Since 2000, child welfare FGCs have been provided to Hampshire by a voluntary organisation, Daybreak FGC, as noted above, and account for up to half of their business, which also provides FGC services to five other local authorities.

6.2 Analysis has identified the benefit to stakeholders of unifying the provision and management oversight of FGCs, taking into account the views of Social Services staff, the current providers and the current FGC coordinators, some of whom are used by all the projects. Analysis of three options was undertaken: 1) Stay as we are (i.e. 3 separately provided FGC services) 2) Unify with an external provider 3) Unify with a County Council provider (see table below):

6.3 The main arguments for an externally-provided service (options 1 and 2) are addressed by line management of co-ordinators being independent of Social Services, and by the observation that because of their years of experience Daybreak has provided the service efficiently and well, but for the last two years, the referrals for FGCs have neither met the target nor increased in volume (200 referrals target, 175 received in both 2003/4 and 2004/5). While 175 referrals represents an increase over earlier years, it has been concluded that Daybreak's ability to impact sufficiently on the numbers of referrals, as an external provider, is limited. The assertion that funds are more readily available to voluntary organisations was addressed by a comparison of the cost of provision of FGCs in other authorities, whether provided in-house or by a voluntary organisation, which showed that costs were similar.

6.4 Arguments against in-house provision, such as the stigma involved in working with Social Services, are addressed by the fact that the focus of FGCs on children on the brink of care would always involve Social Services. Service user involvement would be in the hands of co-ordinators whose line management will be independent of the social work teams with which they are working.

6.5 The conclusion that a change in management arrangements is necessary in order to move FGCs from the margins to the mainstream of work, and to target their use more rigorously with children over 10 years old on the brink of the care system, is the basis for seeking approval for the proposed change of management and function. It is primarily a policy and practice issue supporting the core business of the Department- the move towards preventing children from entering public care: in the short term it is not expected to make financial savings. Though this report focuses on the child welfare FGCs, as the first phase of change, the other projects are included in the later phases (see para 7.2).

6.6 The most recent figures for all children looked after is 1,053, while those under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 (accommodated at the request of parents, and meeting the care threshold of the Act) with a single period of care, is 316. Of these, 253 are over ten years old (see table below).

Children looked after	Whole county	North District
Section 20 (single period of care) of which Children over 10 years	316 253	89 69
Other	737	314
Total children looked after	1053	403

6.7 It is proposed that within children's Social Services, the focus for FGCs should be on such children, to prevent them, where at all possible, becoming looked after, or if they are looked after under Section 20, FGCs should be used to explore the possibility of a return to the family or extended family.

This will specifically include children with disabilities, opening up alternatives to public care for parents (there are links here with the School Home Integrated Projects where parents have positive perceptions of help to manage their children at home and within their community). It will be obligatory under these circumstances for social workers, assisted by FGC coordinators, to put to families who are requesting accommodation for children over ten that we expect them to agree to a FGC being convened as a way of dealing with their request in the best long-term interests of the child.

6.8 Additionally, although timescales imposed by the courts are necessarily tight, social workers will be expected to use the FGC process early in the their assessment in order to be sure that all alternatives to Care proceedings have been explored where this is consistent with the child's safety and welfare. The department's Performance Assessment Group will monitor compliance and outcomes.

6.9 Targeting the use of FGCs will help to emphasise the rigorous focus on children and families most at risk of not being able to make alternative care arrangements when in crisis. Research into practice (in which Hampshire has been a leader) has confirmed that it is cost effective to support children and young people and their extended family in identifying the best ways to look after children. The Kinship Care project has shown that family members can be effectively supported to provide care for children who might otherwise have been looked after. It is hoped that, over time, the targeting proposed in this report will further reduce the numbers of children for whom the only option is to be looked after in public care.

7. Implementation

7.1 The move towards in-house provision of FGCs will be in two phases, starting with one District in October 2005, followed by the other two Districts from April 2006. The rationale for this is that it enables the change of management to begin earlier and at the same time gives Daybreak time to replace the Hampshire contract as it stands with other work, in line with the Hampshire Compact with voluntary organisations. In addition, any learning from the first phase can be used in the second.

7.2 It is also proposed to unify (that is, link provision and management) with the FGCs in Education project and the Youth Justice FGC project, at the same time as concluding the contract with Daybreak for child welfare FGCs, in April 2006. By that time, Education and Children's Social Services will be part of the same department, and the Youth Offending Teams will have carried out a review of where in their process to prioritise FGCs. (The referrals from the Youth Offending Teams have never met the targets for which funding has been provided.) Integration of management will be picked up in the implementation of the Children Act integration of services in Hampshire.

7.3 The North District (Basingstoke, Alton and Aldershot) has made over one third of the referrals (65.5 average) for FGCs over the last few years and would provide the best conditions to initiate the change to in-house provision. Most recent figures show that, of the total number of children looked after (1,053), 89 are from the North District of which 69 are over 10 year olds looked after under Section 20 for single periods of care. (see table following para 5.4) It will be expected that, in the first phase, there would be a 5% increase in the referrals for FGCs over six months with 10% over a year, and that this will be reflected in a decrease in numbers of children newly looked after.

8. Workforce

8.1 Negotiations have been taking place with Daybreak on the proposed changes, supported by HCC Human Resources Adviser. The obligations of the department under TUPE regulations are to take, on secondment initially, the 2 coordinators (1 full time equivalent), who are currently employed to work in the North District, from 1 October 2005 and the other 2 full time equivalent coordinators from 1 April. In addition one third of the Daybreak FGC programme manager's time will be seconded to supervise the coordinators in the North District from October and the post will transfer full time under TUPE from April. Negotiations are in progress about the Director's time, one half of which is currently devoted to managing the Hampshire contract though the Director may have rights under TUPE as well. One finance and one admin officer post will also transfer under TUPE with effect from April 2006. The terms and conditions of staff are similar to those of Hampshire and in some aspects less favourable. Discussions are underway with Hampshire's Pensions department to assess the options with regard to transfers of accrued benefits and membership of the Local Government pension Scheme.

9. Costs

9.1 As stated in the summary, the proposed changes will be managed within the current budget resources. The table below provides a comparison between the cost of the 2005/6 contract with Daybreak for a full year and the cost of full in-house provision 2006/7, with shared half year costs between Daybreak and the North District in-house service.

* costs based on 05/06 prices

Note 1 - Director is not transferred under TUPE

Note 2 - Director is transferred under TUPE for 37 hours, not 18.5 hours included in the contract

Note 3 - Cost of finance post included under TUPE for 18.5 hours not 13 hours included in the contract

Note 4 - no costs included for appendix E travel for manager and co-ordinators moving from working at home to an office based environment

9.2 Further negotiations with Daybreak are to be finalised on the provision of training and evaluation and clarify the position regarding the transfer of the Director. Whilst it is anticipated that the director will not transfer under TUPE regulations, the calculations include this post because it must be assumed that TUPE applies until it is proved otherwise.

10. Conclusions

The phased changes proposed to the function and management of FGCs in Hampshire are designed to encourage a more targeted use of FGCs within children's Social Services, and to ensure integration of FGC system and practice into case management and decision-making to ensure full consideration of the care needs of children in families whose difficulties are such that children are on the brink of, or already being, looked after. In addition, they place the FGCs used by the department in a position to take the opportunity to integrate with the Education FGC Service in 2006.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1 Published works

2 Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act

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Ref/Initials/5-Jul-05