Agenda Reports Pack (Public) 15/10/2012, 19.00 - Meetings ...

assessments are repeated or new assessments undertaken. Thispractice effectively slows down the ability of social workers to ensurethat, when children are eventually removed from parental care, thereare clear plans for permanency in place. Courts have been taking anaverage of 65 weeks to conclude care proceedings and there arefrequent delays in progressing cases in a timely way.4.11 In response to this, we have undertaken a significant piece of work –The Care Proceedings Pilot, with the Judiciary, the Clerks to theJudiciary and Cafcass, the organisation which represents the child incourt, and agreed a new framework for managing cases in careproceedings which it is hoped will see care proceedings cases resolvedwithin a timeframe of 26 weeks.4.12 In addition to this, we have been one of the 4 Local Authorities whohave commissioned assessments from the Family Drugs and AlcoholCourt (FDAC). This is a specialist court, delivered through the InnerLondon family Proceedings courts, which works with parents who havesubstance misuse issues. A family identified for the FDAC process willhave more direct contact with the judge in proceedings and will beoffered intensive treatment within the court proceedings to managetheir addiction issues,. To date, we have referred 6 families for FDACintervention and the early signs are the process is resulting in improvedoutcomes for parents managing their substance misuse issues andtherefore increased likelihood of children being able to remain withintheir family.5. UPDATE ON WORK PLAN5.1 The authority underwent its safeguarding and looked after childreninspection in June 2011 where children’s services were rated as one ofthe very best in the country with all of the inspection criteria receiving agood or outstanding assessment. We also underwent a thematicinspection of our children with disabilities service. This was alsopositive, though no actual ratings are given in thematic inspections .5.2 As has been reported in preceding pages we have safely reduced thenumber of children on the child protection list. This has been achievedboth through improvement in the confidence and experience of theworkforce, particularly in the front-line services, and closer supervisionand support to staff and managers. There have been changes to howchild protection conferences are organised/recorded and monitored,which has allowed a move away from verbatim minutes for everymeeting towards a summary record. We were successful in creating asystem where the Safeguarding Unit took over the convening of reviewchild protection conferences, freeing up social workers from this task.5.3 We changed how child protection plans are formulated so that theyfocus on risk and express a clear sense of what outcomes are beingPage 206