Archived decisions
Contact: Joanna White, 01962 847229, [email protected]
5. 5.1 |
Departmental Restructure The Children's Services Department was formed in August 2005 with the appointment of the Director. The directorate is responsible for the provision of services to children and young people across Hampshire. |
5.2 |
Area and District Structure |
The Department is organised in 3 main branches: · Performance and Resources · Education and Inclusion · Children and Families The County is divided into 3 Areas: North and East, Western, and South East. Each has two Area Directors responsible for the delivery of services in their area for education and inclusion and children and families. The areas are divided into Districts which mirror District Council boundaries. Ten of the eleven have separate District Managers for Children and Families, and Education and Inclusion. The eleventh, Hart, has a single District Manager. This is a two year pilot to evaluate the feasibility of moving to fully integrated district management. | |
5.3 |
Progress on the reorganisation |
5.3.1 5.3.2 5.3.4 |
Appointments have been made to the senior management teams across all branches, with final appointments taking up post at the beginning of April. Appendix 2 shows a summary of the workforce changes associated with the reorganisation and agreed in principle by Members in 2006. Appendix 3 shows the proposed and planned changes to posts for 2007/08. |
6. |
Key emerging issues |
6.1 6.1.1 6.1.2 |
Common Assessment Framework (CAF) and Locality Teams The CAF provides a nationally established `common' assessment tool for children and young people who have needs that cannot be met through universal services. Each CAF will inform what action is required to achieve earlier intervention for each child or young person. By using the CAF process, earlier intervention services will become `joined up' in a more coherent and integrated way. Multi-disciplinary, targeted, Locality Teams are central to this. They are designed to provide an infra- structure that `bridges the gap' between universal services, targeted preventative services and specialist services. A major factor in the restructure is the formation of Locality Teams working in districts and bringing together expertise centred on the needs of individual children and involving expert interventions as required. Locality Teams will initially be made up of a team manager with core team members from the existing Education Welfare Service and Inclusion Social Workers, together with new Family Support Workers. The latter are funded by the School's Forum. Alongside this core team will be `virtual' team members who will allocate time to the Locality Team. For example, Educational Psychologists, Behaviour Support Team staff, Primary Mental Health Workers, Health Visitors, and Youth workers. The work on rolling out the Locality Teams is already well underway and will be completed during the year 2007/08. |
6.2 |
Primary Care Trust (PCT) |
6.2.1 |
The reorganisation of the NHS and the creation of a single Primary Care Trust (PCT) for Hampshire provides an opportunity for Children's Services to work closely with colleagues in Health to ensure that the parallel restructures and modernisation programmes provide real and sustainable outcomes for vulnerable children and young people. The new area structures in Children's Services mirror those for the PCT. This should facilitate effective partnership working, both formal and informal |
6.3 6.3.1 |
Joint Area Review (JAR) The Department is preparing for its first JAR. The JAR will be looking at all services for children and young people across Hampshire with the inspectors carrying out the fieldwork visits in May. To coordinate this massive exercise a temporary Project Manager was seconded to work with the Management Team on the preparation and coordination of the inspection. |
6.4 |
Integrated Youth Services |
6.4.1 |
In April 2008 the DfES grant to the Connexions service will transfer to the Local Authority. This is an outcome of the consultations during 2005 on the government's proposals detailed in the Green Paper `Youth Matters'. In preparation for this funding transfer Hampshire County Council commissioned a scoping exercise in early 2006 to identify options for future service delivery. Following extensive consultation the report concluded that an Integrated Youth Support Service should be established. |
6.4.2 |
Work is underway to finalise a service specification for an integrated youth support service including options for management structures and cost analysis of these options. There will be significant staffing implications depending on the option or mix of options chosen for delivery of the service. Staffing implications will be considered as part of the development and approval of the specification. |
6.5 |
Review of Administration and Support Services |
6.5.1 6.5.2 |
As part of the formation of the new department a review of the way administrative support is provided is underway. This will ensure administrative support best meets the needs of the new departmental structure including reviewing the current allocation of administrative support. The current Adult Services Administration service provided support to both the Adult Services department and the Children & Families branch of Children's Services until April 2007. The budgets have now been split and as part of the review administrative staff will transfer to the appropriate department. However, Adult Services are now beginning a review of their administrative arrangements and parts of the Children's Services review will be delayed to ensure staffing implications can be considered across both departments. |
6.6 |
Children Looked After |
6.6.1 |
The Director of Children's Services is leading a project group to consider how services can be aligned to better meet the needs of this group of young people.. It is expected this will result in some changes to staffing arrangements with less reliance on a central team of staff and more support to children looked after through other teams such as the parenting team. As a result of this approach some savings are identified for 2007/08. |
6.7 |
Absence Management |
6.7.1 |
The effective management of absence continues to be a priority. Absences per full time equivalent are: Children and Families: 9.82 days Education non schools: 7.71 days. These are against a corporate target of 7.5 days. The rollout of the absence management toolkit will support further work in this area. Accuracy of recording continues to be challenging particularly for staff who work non standard hours, such as those in the residential units. The planned introduction of the Rota Planning tool should assist with this. |
6.8 |
Residential Units |
6.8.1 6.8.2 6.8.3 6.8.4 6.8.5 6.8.6 |
In the new structure responsibility for all residential units is brought together under a single service manager. This approach will allow for greater consistency in the way care is provided and an increased ability to identify and implement best practice. A report into provision at one of the units, Stonecroft, in Havant, a short stay residential care unit for 6 young people was considered by the Executive Member in October 2006. The report identified options for re-providing the service and determined that a period of consultation should commence with a view to closing the unit and developing alternative service to meet the needs of local young people. It is proposed that the existing building is retained in the short term as a working base for the new community based service. It is not intended to offer `day care' as a core element of the new service but it is possible that the building might be used on an occasional basis for working with young people and their carers. The team would continue to operate on an extended day basis broadly within existing residential care contracts between 7:30 am and 9 pm for six days a week, with a more limited `cover' service on Sunday and Bank Holidays. There will be an impact on staff who, whilst retaining many of the features of a residential care work pattern, may not be able to claim the same level of allowances for week end working or sleeping-in and arrangements to protect their position will be negotiated. It is not anticipated that there will be any redundancies as a result of the proposed changes as staff will be able to be redeployed to other units. It is apparent there is a high level of absence in some units and absence is generally higher than in other areas of the department. It is intended to pilot the County's new Attendance Management Toolkit in the Residential Units in order to better manage and reduce absence levels. Managers are working with Occupational Health Practitioners and HR on a combined approach. |
6.9 |
Hantsdirect Customer Contact Centre |
6.9.1 |
Hantsdirect is the new customer contact centre due to open in the 2nd quarter of 2007. Phase one of the corporate project (of three) is currently scheduled for 'go live' in the 2nd quarter of 2007, with the remaining services phased in over the next 18 months. A number of the services carried out by Children's Services, including Reception and Assessment, are in the second phase and work is already underway to identify how this will work. It is expected that a number of staff will transfer into the Contact Centre. A considerable amount of work is needed to establish the extent of change. Members will be kept informed of developments. |
6.10 |
Hampshire Inspection and Advisory Service (HIAS) |
6.10.1 6.10.2 6.10.3 |
The present structure of Hampshire's Inspection and Advisory Service (HIAS) is no longer sustainable from April 2008 as a result of funding changes. A process of consultation with stakeholders is just starting and is the subject of a separate consultation paper. The restructure proposals will mean reducing the scope of curriculum policy advice available to the local authority from within its own employees. This will need to be coupled with an increase in the outsourced provision of some functions, like monitoring of health and safety for 14 - 19 placements, monitoring ethnic minority provision, as now, or the inspection of home-education, as now. The resources the LA does hold will need to be focussed on the LA's statutory functions and the implementation of the policy for school improvement and of the Children's and Young People's Plan (CYPP). The review and proposed arrangements for using a reduced core budget indicate the need to restructure the advisory service and reduce the number of staff where the strategic judgement is that income streams cannot be secured after April 2008. Any reduction in HIAS staff will require a commensurate reduction in overhead costs, including IT charges and general HCC overhead recovery as well as direct support staff costs. Every effort will be made to minimise the effect on existing staff and to redeploy affected staff. |
6.11 |
Early in 2008 Children's Services staff based in various buildings in Winchester will move to the new offices in Ashburton Court. This is a major opportunity to achieve the co-location of staff and to benefit from accommodation specifically designed to support flexible working. It is a major project, involving over 200 staff and will be supported by the corporate working group. To provide specific Children's Services expertise and knowledge it is intended to create a temporary post from filled from within current staff, to work alongside the project team. |
7. |
Recruitment and Retention |
7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 |
Recruitment is carried out for Children's Services by the HR Resourcing Centre. The Resourcing Centre managed the internal appointments process for the restructure as well as the national advertising campaign to fill senior posts as part of the restructuring of the department. As a result of the restructure a number of internal promotions have taken place which have offered development opportunities to existing staff. A common trend across all sectors is that recruitment is more difficult in the north of the county. This appears to be for two main reasons, firstly North Hampshire may be less attractive to those relocating from outside of Hampshire, and secondly for those who already live in North Hampshire they are within commuting distance of Surrey and London Boroughs where salaries are, in general, higher than Hampshire. Some difficulties have been experienced in recruiting and attracting good quality, experienced applicants for Qualified Social Workers/ Care Managers. The ongoing work to determine the future structure of local teams and the impact of Hantsdirect will also be looking at the appropriate skill mixes within teams including the level and nature of the staff. The switch from the DIPSW to the BA (Hons) Degree will start to have an impact this year and it is expected that in the summer we will see a significant increase in supply of newly qualified social workers. However given that many lack previous work experience, as they have gone straight from school to university, managers have expressed concerns that they are not performing well enough to get through the interview process and those that do require more support and take longer to become fully effective. Therefore as part of our recruitment strategy we have been running application and interview training courses for the students on final placement with us. To date over 40 students have signed up. Recruiting experienced social workers and higher grade social workers remains very difficult. With regard to senior practitioners this has also proved to be extremely difficult and we have been advertising vacancies for well over a year in certain locations and teams without success. Several campaigns for Assistant/ Deputy Unit Managers in the residential sector did not result in appointments. This is not unusual and has been the case for a number of years. A review of the role is currently underway and the recruitment is on hold. Extreme difficulty in recruiting Team Managers continues. In the new pay framework there is greater earning potential for staff in the new grades and this will hopefully impact on the ability to recruit effectively. |
7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14 7.15 7.16 |
The tight recruitment market for experienced social workers and team mangers is likely to be a reflection of the restructuring that is going on in many authorities and it is expected this will impact on the recruitment market in this area in 6-12 months. However on the positive side recruiting to unqualified Social Service Assistant positions remains relatively straight forward and there is usually a good pool of suitable candidates. National shortages continue to present complexities in the recruitment of a variety of vacancies in the Education and Inclusion and Performance and Resources branches in particular: EOTAS (Education other than at school) Teachers Specialist Teacher Advisers Early Years Advisory Teachers Youth Workers Education Welfare Officers Inspector/Advisers EdICT ( Education IT services) vacancies Children's Centre Teachers Quality and Curriculum Development Officers Area Leader/Senior Leader Bilingual Assistants Teacher shortages within EOTAS continue to create pressures although the current shortage appears to be restricted to Andover, Winchester and the Forest. These shortages arise partly as a result of the nature of the role and the lack of quality, skilled and experienced Teachers from mainstream schools who possess a desire to work in an EOTAS establishment. Given the specialist knowledge requirements, ie hearing impaired, visually impaired, etc, Specialist Teacher Advisers (STAs) vacancies are extremely hard to fill. Primarily, STAs come from specialist schools which is in itself a restricted pool. In the past difficulty has been experienced in filling Youth Worker vacancies, partly due to the national shortage. However, over the last 12 months we've seen a slight improvement in recruiting to these posts, particularly in the North of the county. In relation to professional posts, such as Inspector/Advisers, vacancies rarely attract more than one person who has the quality and range of skills and experience required. There continues to be a salary difference between Headteachers and Phase Inspectors, such that it is disadvantageous for Headteachers to move across. This is particularly marked at secondary level. Identifying and attracting qualified skilled staff in the ICT area is especially difficult. SIMS (Schools Information Management System) expertise takes years to accumulate and often resides with teaching staff with much higher salary expectations than EdICT can meet. This is not expected to ease during the coming year and private sector activity may lead to difficulties in retaining key staff. The planned review of market supplements relating to IT posts is due to report during the year and should positively impact on this area. |
7.17 7.17.1 |
Choice Advice We are currently looking at the best ways of implementing the Dfes Choice Advice initiative. There is a limited amount of funding available for this programme over the next 18 months. This will probably require a short term contract. This will be taken to the Executive Member in July. |
8. |
New Pay framework |
8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 |
The County Council's new pay framework will hopefully be implemented in July 2007. This is the culmination of several years of work and represents a significant investment in its staff. A significant number of employees primarily in the former Education Department and the Educational Psychology Service are on Soulbury national terms and conditions. Staff in these groups have recently voted to remain outside the new pay framework and as such will be unaffected by any change. The new pay framework has fewer, broader bands, and will drive flatter organisational structures. This in turn will have an impact on staff development both within role and in terms of succession planning, the development of career pathways and on policies for social work and other vocational training. The implications of the broader pay bands are significant for the Social workers, where all social workers and Senior Practitioners, are now in the same pay grade. Work is continuing to ensure experienced staff who carry out specific additional duties within the roles, such as practice teaching, receive due recognition. Market supplements for social workers are reviewed at least annually. In the light of the new pay framework and prevailing market forces adjustments have been made and market supplements in the north of the County have been reduced in line with those in the south for qualified Social workers and Senior Practitioners. The situation will continue to be monitored as part of the overall recruitment and retention package. The stating salary for a newly qualified social worker will be significantly higher and this should impact on recruitment issues. 6 graduate Social Work trainees were recruited in 2007 and are due to graduate in early summer. These individuals represent a significant investment and it is anticipated they will all be offered posts within either Adults or Children's Services dependent on their particular interests and competencies. 12 employees are training as social workers through the traditional employment based route and will be entering the workforce at intervals over the next two to three years. |
9. |
Turnover |
9.1 9.2 |
During the year a number of vacancies have been held or covered on a temporary basis whilst decisions were being made on the structure. Efforts were directed at maintaining operational staffing levels during a time of budget. pressures. Turnover rates for Children and Families and Education non schools are 13.3% and 16.9% respectively. The effect of changes to the market supplements for social workers will be carefully monitored. |
10. 10.1 |
Workforce Development Planning Learning and Development |
10.1.1 10.1.2 10.1.3 |
The Change for Children programme continues to be the key driver and provides the overall framework for improving services to children. Hampshire Learning Centre's Learning and Development Team for Adult and Children's Services develops strategy and commissions social care training for all social care staff in both Children's Services and Adult's Services. It is now working in an holistic way across the whole of Children's Services, supporting the development of integrated strategy and approaches across the directorates and partner agencies. An Organisational and Personal Development Group has formed, bringing together all the training providers across the department with the aim of developing integrated, joined up approaches that can eliminate duplication in the provision of training. It will also strongly contribute to the analysis of development needs in various parts of the organisation. |
10.2 |
Multi-agency Children's Workforce Development Strategy |
10.2.1 10.2.2 10.2.3 |
The aim of the strategy will be to develop an integrated workforce capable of delivering a quality service that meets the needs of the department, partners and the community of Hampshire through the establishment and maintenance of a sufficient and appropriately competent workforce. This has two complementary layers. One is the internal departmental workforce development plan and it is aimed to have a high level version of this plan for 2007-8 available for Children's Services Management Team (CSDMT) by the end of April 2007. The second is the Multi-Agency Children and Young People's Workforce Development Strategy which will be developed with partner agencies across the footprint in line with Every Child Matters. An initial workshop to bring the partners together on this piece of work was held on 20 March 2007. Process will be as important as product in this work so as to gain the involvement in the development and the commitment to implementation across the partner agencies. |
10.3 |
Induction |
10.3.1 10.3.2 10.3.3 |
New national induction standards have been introduced by the Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC). These will be used across the Hampshire Children's Services Department for all new staff who are engaged in face to face work with children and young people on a regular basis who are recruited from January 2007. To help workers achieve the induction standards, the following have been developed: An e-learning package: Modularised 4 day taught programme Induction workbooks Managers take responsibility for ensuring new staff undertake the required training. The introduction of this new induction programme is intended to: _ Ensure all new staff have a common baseline of knowledge and skills to work with children and young people. _ Improve staff retention. _ Promote interdependence between the three branches of the CSD. |
10.4 |
Induction for existing staff |
10.4.1 10.4.2 10.4.3 |
The creation of the Children's Services department and the appointment of existing staff to new posts in the structures requires new ways of working for everybody and new knowledge areas. A series of induction events, briefings and personal development plans will ensure staff are able to work effectively together. Additionally regular briefing events for senior managers and all staff are supporting the process and doing much to encourage integration at all levels. The work will be supported by a full time Organisational Development Adviser on a temporary contract to the end of March 2008. In the interim the initial programme of induction events for the Senior Management teams ( including Area and District Managers from both Education and Inclusion and Children and Families) is rolling out with events planned for February and March. These events will help influence an ongoing programme aimed at building knowledge and encouraging behaviours which create holistic teams across the department and with partners. |
10.5 |
Individual Performance Planning (IPP) |
10.5.1 |
The County Council is rolling out a system of individual performance planning (IPP) linked to the achievement of key objectives and targets. Managers and staff received initial training during the year and further training is planned to assist in target setting and in managing any challenging conversations arising from the performance reviews. It is planned that from April 2008 pay progression will be linked to the IPP process. |
10.6 |
Investors In People |
10.6.1 |
The County Council achieved the IiP award in 2003 and will be reassessed in May/June 2007. The award has changed slightly and the new standard is significantly more challenging in a number of areas. The Children's Services Department will be assessed in June 2007 and Hampshire Learning Centre are supporting the process. |
10.7 |
Management and Leadership competencies |
10.7.1 |
Effective management and leadership are key to creating a high performing organisation and in meeting corporate priorities. The Management and Leadership Competency Framework identifies five competencies that can be used to support the development of managers and formalises the skills, competencies and behaviours required of managers: _ Vision and Direction _ Stakeholders and Partnerships _ Developing Capacity _ Business and Services _ Political Awareness This Framework will be rolled out across the department in 2008 and will underpin aspects of the IPP process for managers and well as clarifying for staff what they can and should expect from managers. |
10.8 |
Financial Implications The posts in the Schedule of Working Changes 2007/08 (Appendix 3) have been reflected in the development of the Children's Services Department budget for 2007/08 and the planning of the use of specific government grant and all are funded as shown. Posts are either graded according to existing levels or have been evaluated according to standard practice. |
11. |
Impact assessment |
11.1 |
Race and equality impact assessment has been considered in the development of this report and no adverse impact has been identified. |
12. |
Crime prevention issues |
12.1 |
The Children's Services Directorate works in many ways to reduce crime and key to this work is an effective workforce. |
13. 13.1 |
Conclusion The Children's Services Department is undergoing significant change as it seeks to deliver an effective and efficient service to the children and young people of Hampshire. |
LINK(S) TO CORPORATE STRATEGY | ||
Yes |
No | |
Hampshire safer and more secure for all |
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Maximising well-being |
_ |
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Enhancing our quality of place |
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