Transcript

Welcome. Good afternoon and welcome to the hybrid screening of the safeguarding communities and wellbeing committee meeting. I'm Councillor Jeremy Kent, vice chair of the committee and I'll be chairing the start of today's meeting. In the event of a fire alarm, please evacuate this room by the nearest available marked exit and congregate on the green in front of the guild hall reception. Please ensure that any mobile devices including iPads are turned to silence or off. I would like to remind everyone present that this meeting will be broadcast live to the internet and will be capable of repeated viewings from archived recordings. The first item on the agenda is the appointment of the chair for the committee and I will hand over to the facilitator, Dave, at this point. Thank you. Hi. I'm Dave Chisnold, facilitator linked to the safeguarding and wellbeing committee. Before we start the committee formally, we need to appoint a chair going forward. The chairs of scrutiny committees are allocated in accordance with provisions of the local government act relating to the appointment of chairs. A total of five scrutiny chairs are appointed using specific formula. To date four of five chairs have been appointed. The chair of this committee, however, remains unallocated. When this happens, legislation states that the position must be appointed by members of that committee at the first meeting. The groups represented on the executive board are not entitled to this chair. Therefore, the position has to be appointed from groups not represented on the executive board. In this case it is either from Labour or from Plaid Cymru. Can I ask if we have any nominations? Thank you. I propose councilor Derek Wright. >> Thank you. Do we have any other nominations at all? It might be best if it was somebody else. >> I don't know if you can second yourself. You can. >> Thank you. >> I notice it goes around the parties. It might be an idea perhaps if we spread it around a little bit. I'm going to propose Mr. Mark Jones as chair, please. Sorry. As I understand it, something Labour or Plaid can actually be nominated. That's my understanding. Do we have any other nominations at all? No. I'm sorry. Seeing that we've got two nominations, can we go to a vote? If we go with a vote, and obviously we have to stick to members of the committee in terms of voting. Can we vote for councilor Derek Wright? Do we have any on line? Again, it has to be committee members. >> I can't see any on line. >> No. I think you can just take it for four and then for the other person. >> And for councilor Mark, sorry, sorry. I'm now able to say that councilor Mark Jones has been appointed as the chair of the safe garden well being committee. Obviously at this stage we'll hand over to you to take your place as chair. >> Thank you for that. Whilst the chair makes his way up to the top here, just like as the vice chair, to thank again councilor Derek Wright for his work over the previous years and welcome councilor Mark Jones into his position as chair. I look forward to working with you. Thank you very much for that. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you very much for that and thank you to Jeremy for chairing so far. We'll now move on to the next item on the agenda, which is apologies for absence. Do we have any apologies? I think we've got a full house, haven't we? >> We have to. We have councilor Ronda Roberts and councilor Martin King. >> Thank you. So we'll move on to item three, which is confirmation of minutes. Are we happy to sign that these are the correct record? Happy to propose those as correct record, chair. >> Thank you. There's a seconder. Thank you, Trevor. And then we'll go on to declarations of interest. Any declarations of interest? Claire. In relation to item seven, it details the cross party working group for the cost of living with officers and just declaring personal but not prejudicial that I'm chair of that group. Okay. Thank you. Are the others online? No. Okay. We'll move on then to Jeremy Needham. Yes, I'm also on the cost of living crisis and deputy chair. Thank you. Okay. We're now entering obviously the last couple of months with regard to the work program for 2324. The report regarding an update on grants will be taken alongside an item on the early help partnership at the September meeting. And that will provide a focused start to our 2425 work program. Next month we have our annual session with both Betsy and the Welsh ambulance service and they will be providing reports for those meetings. At the scrutiny coordinating group in March, a light touch process for budget monitoring was agreed with the chief officer to finance. There's a little bit more detail about this in your pack. Essentially the process will utilize CPR and G committee as a conduit for budget related information to and from the executive board. Scrutiny committees will follow will following quarter one and quarter three financial reports consider relevant departmental budgets. For safeguarding this will be October and January as interim reviews with a fuller review taking place in April. >> Thank you. Any comments? Observations? You'll forgive me if I'm slightly flying by the seat of my pants because obviously I've not been in any premeetings to discuss this. But if anybody's got any observations on the forward program. No. I don't see anything online either. One thing, Mr. Chair. If we've got Betsy Cudwell coming to speak to us, can I suggest we ask them why they don't comment on the planning applications that will make such a difference to the number of people needing health and care in Rexham and the state of the A&E because the more houses go up obviously bigger pressures will be on them and it's concerning that there's never any comments coming to the planning committee on these big planning applications and I think it's something they need to address really. Perhaps we can ask them that in advance of the meeting. Thank you. >> Okay, Trevor, forward warning. I could, Chair, if it helps circulate that question to my contact at Betsy and hopefully they might be able to give us a detailed answer. >> Excellent. Okay. Well, therefore, we'll move on to item 6, which is the unpaid carer report. And I think the lead member is John Pritchard. So away you go, John. Thank you. Thanks, Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. Unpaid carers are invaluable to our society and provide care and support to friends and family members across Rexham. The report focuses on both the adults' unpaid carer's provision and the young carer's provision in Rexham. As a council, we are committed to supporting our unpaid carers and making sure they get the services, advice and information they need and are entitled to. Some highlights of the ongoing work over the last 12 months include the Unpaid Carers Roadshow, the Unpaid Carer Survey and supporting our workforce through the Employers for Carers membership. The report details the work that has been taking place over the last 12 months to support young carers and adults' unpaid carers in Rexham and details and plans for the future work and projects. Recommendations, we ask scrutiny to note the report. An update will be provided in an annual report to the committee on the progress of the work to support unpaid carers. Diok, thank you. Thank you. Alwyn, do you want to say something? Thank you, Chair. I don't have a great deal to add. What you've got in front of you is a report detailing the support that we have in place for both adult carers and children's carers. Clearly what you can see there is the range of things that we are trying to do. We have to recognise that unpaid carers are really, really important to society. The role they play is absolutely essential, both in terms of sustaining people within their own homes, supporting ourselves as public services and maintaining services and some of what you've got there is actually the work that goes on to try and support, to provide assessments, provide that support. It also is titled their adult carers report but actually it is our offer across the board. What you've also got there is a description of some of the work that goes on in terms of supporting young carers. It's really, really essential as part of supporting young carers that we support young people to be young people and actually when they're carers that actually can be very challenging and difficult on occasion and actually the contract that we hold with Credly which we operate with partners which is still in place for a number of more years is really, really essential. We have to make sure that young people actually get time to be young, to be a child and so actually that contract is extremely important as well. It's important to note that the report does note that we will go through work in terms of the tendering exercise for our adult contracts. Some of that has not progressed in the way that we wanted but actually we will now take stock. We're working with the current provider in terms of the way forward and actually we can respond to any questions in relation to that chair. So at that I won't say great deal more. Hopefully all the information is there for colleagues about what actually goes on. There's some good work goes on. It will always be a challenge because actually the role of being a carer is a challenging one alongside normal life. Thank you. I think we're all very well aware of the challenges you face and very grateful for the work that is being done in those difficult circumstances. Do I have any questions? Brian. Yeah it's a question to Alvin. You just on the back end of what you just said Alvin in relation to page 34.7 it talks about respite and I think it's important that particularly young people do have a chance to have a life. What type of respite do they normally get time wise and how is it handled? Sorry in terms of respite there's a number of different options. We've got groups that young carers can attend. They can access them independently of their families. There are also wider opportunities for them to access trips, days out, work-based opportunities. They also provide some volunteer opportunities to upskill the young carer to develop their knowledge and potentially be able to support other young carers in the future. The value that we've got around the contract that we've got at the minute also enables us to facilitate some peer-to-peer support across counties. So we work with our Conway and Denbyshire colleagues as well in terms of how we can make contact with young carers that have got some like-minded viewpoints, interests, special opportunities that they can attend over all three counties as well. So in essence the way I understand that then it could be a day here and a day there? Yeah so it could be a day here or a day there. That is the bigger opportunities, the days out, the trips, the weekly groups. They happen on a weekly basis. They happen across the county so they're not just based in Wrexham. There is some that happen in Kevin and other local areas within the county to facilitate that ability to attend that doesn't require additional transport. If there is a transport requirement our commission service also provides that transport wherever they're able to to enable young carers to attend. Any other questions? Claire and then Trevor. Thanks Sharon, thanks for the information. It's in relation to the evaluation appendix one relating to the publicity and the promo of it all. Obviously the road shows have been happening and that's just one means of trying to get people in and the attendance at that varied quite a bit. In terms of engagement I'd like to know more about really what you're doing to capture those that aren't already open to other services. Obviously there's a lot of people with everything that slip through the net that aren't on the social media, aren't seeing that side of things, so not just in terms of of the young people and referrals from sort of youth teams, schools, that type of facility where you see yourselves getting to the more vulnerable that aren't connected already. So during the COVID pandemic we launched a young carers ID card that was in partnership with Welsh Government. We were provided with some funding to put that together and to work with partners to do that. COVID wasn't the best time in which that could have been done and we recognised that actually there were opportunities that if we had not been in in COVID we would have been able to increase the engagement within schools and other areas that young carers would be accessing outside of accessing services, so for example swimming pools, communities, colleges, things like that. We are in a position at the minute where we are planning again the relaunch of the young carers ID card which will take place around September time and part of that will be provision of additional resources, publications and things that we can support in education especially in terms of how to identify a young carer, what support we can put in place and how they can be referred into that service. In addition to that from a social care perspective we've got our networking event that takes place in June this year so in a couple of weeks time where the theme of that networking event for social care is young carers and then part of that is explaining to people and training them in terms of supporting other people to identify young carers. Thank you for that, in terms of the adult side obviously sometimes it's easier to capture those that are of education age and in different formats in terms of the adult side with that and getting to those people who don't know they're actually in need of help themselves. What means are you using with that really? Yeah we've got a communications plan for adults and children's young carers and one of the main things in that is identification of unpaid carers that might not realise they are already. So some of the work we do and we do work closely with our frontline services across the council giving them training on how to identify unpaid carers and that includes our community agents as well and we work closely with libraries too and our community resource centres and that's what the roadshow is about so we are going to extend that later in the summer and go across more venues across the county and we do work closely with our recs and council communications department as well to put general communications out in the press. Okay next I've got Trevor and then Jeremy online and then Stella. Thank you chair Claire stole my question actually but Bethann I was going to ask you didn't introduce the team I'll be today and I can see from the report that we've now got a an unpaid carer development officer and I was going to ask which one of you it was congratulations I don't know how long you've been enrolled perhaps you can tell us a little bit about your initial how long you've been there and what your initial feelings are thank you. Yeah so I've been in the world since January last year and I came to Scrutiny last March it's okay I also met you at the roadshow in Glencairia but lots of the work that I've been doing has been on engagement with unpaid carers to start with and gaining that feedback from them so that was a big aspect of the roadshow that we did but also a survey online and consultation and we had over 300 respondents to that and that then has been really good to to sort of shape our our services going forward and the work that we're doing and one of the big areas is identification and marketing communications. If I can just come back I just just to explain I haven't got my carer with me tonight so she might have reminded me of who you were I do apologize thank you very much perhaps we'll test the committee members on facial recognition in future I've got Jeremy next and then Stella. Yes thank you just going back on Brian's point on the respite care the respite breaks for carers what sort of uptake by young people are taking the respite issues thank you. It can vary the Credy arrange a number of different opportunities throughout the year and they are based on on the voices of the young carers themselves so there may be opportunities that that some young carers won't want to attend but they're not excluded from attending any of the events that are arranged so through consultation they will tend to determine the most appropriate things that that that they as an organization would like to arrange and then all young carers are invited to those so it's it's a co-produced offer of of respite specifically for the young carers. So the uptake is quite good would you say? It is yes. I think that's good thank you. Thank you Jeremy and Stella. I just wondered chair how widely the council's own respite facility that's got overnight accommodation is used in cases like this you know because to have an overnight respite or a weekend respite would give these youngsters a bigger break I know we've got I know of one facility I don't know if with more but I wondered how widely that's used in cases like this. So our our our council facilities aren't necessarily used for that but our service provider will arrange trips to places like Llanding they will do camps they will do festivals and they will do things that are more suited to the young carers so that they can arrange events and it doesn't feel like a clinical opportunity that it's more of a of a fun positive well-being opportunity to be able to access some some activities that they wouldn't typically normally access. It's possibly me being a little bit quiet apologies yet so we don't typically use the the the council respite venues we we ask our service provider to offer trips such as opportunities to go camping to go to Llanding they deliver festivals they celebrate young carers they do celebrations where they'd camp in the woods and they do silent discos and it's it's holistic offers more than than a respite overnight stay they look at a bigger picture to improve their well-being rather than just the overnight stay. It's tailored towards the child's wants and needs isn't it yeah thank you I could hear that better as well. Sorry are there any other questions? No okay do we have any recommendations I mean we we can nub the report and obviously to thank the officers for the work they're doing. Claire? One of the recommendations on it really is when it comes back again is comparison obviously that there are a few points in it we used to drop back to numbers from prior all the information is there and it's possibly just myself but I find it quite difficult to read on the report sort of jumping back into comparing things and not so much duplication but a lot of crossover I suppose with that and it would be potentially to look at a format on the next report coming back to us as to where we were where we are now in each of the sectors and I know it's it's huge it covers so many different aspects of what you do and it's it's such an involved team but potentially on the on the layout of that. Just to be clear it's a few indicators around how we performed maybe last year current year and when we come in 12 months time so you can see a pattern maybe some core indicators like contacts respite provided two or three key contacts three three indicators around how things have progressed is that right when is that correctly yeah so we can find a few areas where in what we've done in adults in terms of contacts same in children level respite provided and maybe some of the services we provide is that okay so that you have two or three tables which show you that very simply yeah lovely thank you okay are we happy with that okay I don't think we need a vote but just again to thank you and we'll see you again in 12 months and we'll make sure that Trevor knows who you are next time okay thank you very much. We will move on therefore to the next item on the agenda which is child poverty and I think Rob the lead member is going to take us through that. Thank you Rob. Okay well thank you chair um come just wait for um officers to take their seats and then I'll make a start. Would it help to introduce the officers as well? Yes is it possible for me to give a short introduction first about the task of the topic request form came to be is that in order let's let's take the report first and then then we can discuss the task and finish which which uh I don't think that'll be a problem. Oh I my apologies yes okay that that would be fine yes yeah can I say I'm more than happy to defer to the council the rights to introduce the first bit. Yeah myself and Malcolm after seeing the budget deficit that we had in children's services of 11 million we started trying to look in what was causing this and we felt that we needed an in-depth report of child poverty I know a report goes to EBIS on poverty in general but not specifically for child poverty and we felt that child poverty was being lost in the main report and hence we filled in the topic request form and that's how the report come here today so thank you for allowing me to say that thanks Rob. Thank you Derek I my apologies for that by the way okay no thank you very much um I'll let Alvin introduce all the officers once I finish if that's okay um but no the this information report is about childhood poverty and is primarily an information report based on the topic request form which was submitted by Councillor King and Councillor Wright and let's say big thank you to both for doing this for because this is clearly a very important subject um those who have read reports will will have seen obviously that it's this it's very um very sobering with all the information within there and um and I need to pay massive tribute to Lisa Huxley who's joining us online so she's provided the bulk of the information here so I'm very grateful uh to you Lisa for that because the report clearly highlights uh the main issues of being like the negative consequences of children being brought up in poverty also highlights the link that exists between children in care and also expensive interventions but then again also highlights the ongoing work we're doing in Wrexham to support affected children and families and also how we support them and also for the future work plan to to give them uh the support particularly for those worst affected families so if we look at the report it has the key points which stare out uh the fact that um that in Wrexham just short of 27 percent of children are living in poverty okay slightly below the Welsh average but still still a very high high number so that's we're talking just under 8 000 children here um it also highlights that um just over five percent of Wrexham's whole population are accessing food banks the eighth highest in all of Wales so I think what's what's come clear from the report is the negative consequences of children being raised in poverty uh the um it highlights um not having access to basic levels of hygiene um poor and developmental and uh health outcomes um educational attainment levels are generally lower and also the tight quality and size of homes for those in poverty and are able to access is limited so uh the type of homes which are ideal are actually limited to those who fall in this bracket um but also as I stated the positive work which is highlights obviously the prevention and earlier intervention that's highlighted in the report financial support for care leavers um the drafting of the new tackling poverty strategy and the development of the tasking finish group for individuals with no public for no public funds so despite all the work we are swimming against a tidal bit because there have been reductions in key grants which fund some of these services from outside bodies so this is undoubtedly going to have a knock-on effect so it's not going to be it's not going to be easy and so we have to as a council have to decide what's the best the best way forward um as Councillor Wright mentioned obviously the budgets obviously our budgets in social care is very very high and long-term that's not sustainable so we need to get on top of that but more importantly we need to do what's right for the children because um children in poverty don't have the best best starting lives many don't but also at the same time if many of those children end up in care um then it's a double whammy really so so yeah it's not going to be easy but we need to find out where we go from here um really for the benefits of the most vulnerable children and also generally for our budget going forward um as you can see we've got a team of officers here on standby ready to answer any questions you might have on on the clarity of the report and also any any thoughts or questions about how we go forward so if it's okay chair I'll hand over to Alwyn to introduce the officers thank you thank you very much chair if it's okay the range of officers that we've got here reflect actually the importance of this and actually that it has um it's actually the work of lots of the departments of the council in terms of supporting um families and children who live in poverty uh as the lead members so rightly noted Lisa did all the work drawing information together so I'm going to ask Lisa who's um that who's um that coming in remotely to just introduce herself so Lisa put this together and then we'll introduce colleagues who assisted okay thank you Alwyn so I'm Lisa Huxley I'm interim business information officer based in social care so primarily my role is involved in performance information so in terms of the lead performance I support the department with pulling in together any information reports and strategies and policies etc thank you Lisa so as I said chair how we work this was yes there is a big role of social care in terms of how we contribute but actually a number of our departments who work across the council actually come into contact with some really excellent work and actually I'm more than aware in terms of the issues that we're dealing with in terms of poverty within Rexham so those colleagues fed into the report and have come today because actually I envisaged that this is a wide topic isn't it in terms of the areas that we're covering so I'll ask colleagues to introduce themselves I'll start on my left with Andrew good afternoon Andrew Herradine I'm the regeneration and business investment lead in economy and planning which is where the overall tackling poverty strategy sits within the council Donna Dickinson head of service for prevention and support in the education department and obviously I'm here to represent the education department itself but also I work really closely with Andrew on the tackling poverty and with Alvin in terms of prevention and early health partnership Good afternoon, Penanda Alguin-Jones from housing Good afternoon, I'm Carl Possel also from housing I also sit on the cost of living working group and represent housing on that group If I'll just say a few words I won't say too much but if I just say when we first had the topic request in relation to this subject I think actually I recognised along with Lisa that this actually was quite a difficult subject of tackling one report so what we tried to do what Lisa has done and I think she's done well here is to try and give a little bit of national background to actually what the position in the UK is it tries to give you some insight into what research tells us about the impact of poverty in terms of children being brought up in that circumstances and what the impact of that will may may be and how that can negatively impact upon childhood and actually upon young people being brought up in there but also I think it was really important that we talk about actually what we currently do to try and support families who are in a position where there are challenges in terms of their income and their ability to maintain lifestyle in a way that is appropriate so and actually that's what colleagues around here assisted us to do so listen there are challenges there is a national picture there is a local that national picture is then hopefully you get some insight into what that means locally and then what you get in there is a number of interventions which are carried out centrally in terms of the work we're doing about tackling poverty there's the work that we do as children's services and it goes into a number of areas there the work of TAC our family information service it then goes into the work that is carried out in education and through schools because schools are in a very privileged position that they see every child in the in the main they see every child and they have a really big influence and actually fundamentally in terms of the well-being and the status is housing and actually lots of the good work that is happening housing goes here we know that there are challenges nationally it's well versed in terms of the media in terms of what goes on but actually there is a lot of positive work goes on in terms of officers who work with families a the work we're doing in terms of trying to enhance the housing available but all of this makes up the picture in terms of of young people and families in a position where they're considered to be poor i hope that's okay chair it is a very detailed report i know there's a lot there for people to take in but i do think hopefully that we've captured some of those things in the reports absolutely uh thank you for that and before i throw it open can i just thank lisa for the report is there's a lot of detail in that and it's so good to see the joined up thinking across departments because i think too often we've we've tended to think in silos and it's really encouraging to see us working across departments and seeing this as the so the big picture problem that it is i'll throw it open now to uh members to ask questions i know there are some questions or they were claire thanks chair and thanks again for the report a lot of information and um yeah makes makes very interesting somewhat very sad reading as well um one of the details on carl will probably actually hit me for this now um is uh breakdown by entitlement for school meals page 74 obviously following the rollout of the free school meals and the assessments no longer there for ability to pay how accurate is this information obviously parents guardians aren't having to provide confirmation of benefits or um or their status to the school in order to get the free school meals so how are you managing to capture this data because it's always been used as as quite a point of reference and always being quite accurate previously i'm just wondering how the changes affected is with that thank you yeah obviously with the introduction in primary of free school meals that makes life much easier in terms of that and in terms of secondary we receive the data through so it's as accurate as we would expect it to be i think the issue is and we're hoping the the primary free school meals will address this but it will still remain an issue in secondary is the number of parents who actually do take up their entitlements and the number of children who take up their entitlement we're aware that isn't always the case it's easier now in terms of any stigma attached because obviously the system used in schools are cards and that takes away the stigma of it but it is an area where we need to make sure that parents are aware of the entitlements for their children are taking them up so that we you know that helps to alleviate any poverty or any cost cost of living issues for them so we we have the data easier with it coming into primary because everyone's entitled to it it removes stigma etc um but it is something that we keep a close eye on yeah it's obviously great that there's there's more kids getting fed and unless that stigma around it i suppose what i'm interested in is how you gather those figures now of children that would have previously had to have submitted eligibility criteria in the primary so you're you don't know how many children are entitled to what was previously free school meals under assessment i won't be able to answer that question but i get the information from you for you from our team that deal with this with that and how it's managed now okay trevor and then derek thank you chair uh can i just thank derek right for bringing this to the committee and my apologies i meant to thank him for his work as chair over the last few years he's worked very hard at the job um a couple of observations really i mean reading the report um i've been speaking to one of the people two people in the ward and it's noticeable that universal credit is lower for the under-25s um the minimum wage is lower for under-20s and it's just that you put that cycle of poverty there and it's so difficult to get out of when you get into it tomorrow um and i think it's worth highlighting really the problems that people have when they they are in poverty um i was speaking this morning to a young lady who uh has child care and she gets 17 and a half hours as long as she works more than 16 hours a week but it's just dropped below there so she's having the child care allowance taken from her and then it's difficult for her to go out to go to interviews and and get the time to go and try and find extra employment again um below 16 hours she has to prove that she earns over a certain amount or she's about to earn over a certain amount the universal credit comes in monthly and it's paid the child care within that is paid in arrears please correct me if i'm wrong but most of the child care providers now aren't paying in advance so you're just stuck in this position that you can't get out of um we've seen uh on page 72 you list the um that the problems that 50 percent 57 percent of people in poverty have with food 58 paying for heating and gas basic furniture that people are without they end up in rent areas no doubt and and that the children end up they lack the it equipment which leads on to better qualifications in school but it goes beyond that um in in our village i noticed that some of the parents don't come down to free events because their kids might be expected them to go and buy a burger at the stall even though the rest of the event is free so they end up going without mixing with society and all kinds of things so it has a knock on it's like a domino effect isn't it and i haven't really got a question other than what can we do about it because i know we're starved of ourselves we're starved of money these days um we feel in poverty in in our occupations now i think don't we um if you've got any answers please throw them out there but some of these systems actually need changing or they will never get out of that cycle of poverty and i don't know if you want to respond thank you i i'm not sure i've got a great response for that counselor base but but i think the point you're making about certain things being stigmatized if i'm below the poverty line and the like i think the role that all of us in housing in education and across economy are trying to do is actually take away some of that stigma i saw that there's a number of references in the report to uniform exchange of school there are aspects there there's work that the housing officers do in terms of working with families it's not an easy solution um all of our departments have got a role in terms of some of that de-stigmatization so that we peak children and families don't miss out simply because they are concerned about not having a pound to buy a burger and not having enough money to buy a uniform not having enough money to buy lunch there are things there that we are trying to do actively and obviously the work around tackling poverty is about actually how we do support families so they don't miss out on things which you as you rightly know it's really important being able to socialize in the community for young children i'm not here saying that it's easy i don't think it is but actually um i think collectively hopefully there's some indication in the report that we are talking together as departments in terms of how we do it um i don't i don't think there's one um fix it solution in terms of this and i think you describe in some sense it's a benefits trap there didn't you in terms of a trap probably not the right word but actually where they don't work in favor of an individual and clearly that's not easy but um i hopefully there is some evidence in the start some strong evidence in here about what we are trying to do to counter some of the worst effects in terms of poverty and support families yes derek yeah thank you uh to be honest i was shocked when i saw this report the last time i saw figures on deprivation was when they set up the urban villages uh community first uh campaign and kevin in general then was only in around number 15 place in that time it's fallen it's now number four in the in the children going into care percentage and i just feel that i've represented this ward all of that time and i've never been told any of this information before it's the first time i'm seeing any of this and for that one part of it and i just feel that more information should be available to counselors and it's a good job that we came up with the the topic request from and talking about the budget for children's care it went up 11 percent over budget my understanding is please correct me if i'm wrong and i would imagine a lot of that is for the cost of residential care for our children and if it's if it is 11 million there are only 32 children in this report on page 107 that are in residential care so that makes an awful lot of money per child and i just feel that we need as elected members we need to be updated on this what's happening in our wards like if you look on on the one uh johnstone pant are only uh is it two percent on that one table and then you go to the next one the tak table on the top of it was six percent and i just i don't know where the correlation is between all these things and i just feel that more information should have been given previously to elected members on this subject because it's obviously having a devastating effect on the people we represent the most vulnerable in society and the even more vulnerable their children thank you alwin i'll come back in i might actually bring lisa in if that's okay so um in relation to the information i think we're more than happy to share that information in terms of with members we do have to be careful in terms of highlighting children or families per ward because actually we can't share any information that can actually become recognizable because actually there is a level of privacy that we have to maintain for all the families that we work with and support um in relation to the point you make um towards the end that um um counselor writes in relation to the tables those tables refer to different interventions that we have as children's services so if it's okay i will bring lisa in lisa can you just highlight what some of the some of that data that we've got towards the end of the report refers to different type of interventions at different stages of the social work process doesn't it it does alwin thank you i'll just run you through it now so in terms of page 107 and that page is referring to our data on our looked after children so that's children who are in the care of the local authority and it provides a breakdown there in terms of our current number of looked after children and this is data as of 1st of december 2023 and then it's got data there also in terms of our children coming into care so that's the numbers coming into care broken down by reason and then also the current number of looked after children both broken down by placement type and again that's data from december 23 and then what you'll see then on page 108 the difference with that data that's looking at our children on the child protection register so that's where there are child protection concerns in relation to the children those children are not looked after children they're subject to our child protection concerns and then the data that's broken down by ward which is on page 109 and 110 that is looking at our referrals that were opened so that's a snapshot as of time so that was taken on the 8th of january and that's looking at our open referrals for our assessment and intervention team so that's the team that is undertaking assessments about those referrals that have come in come into children's social care we're looking at those analyzing those making assessments into into whether we need to have an intervention in relation to those children so that's the difference in terms of that data and what we've done with that is broken down by electoral ward in terms of where those percentage of cases were by electoral ward and then lastly the table that is on page 111 and 112 that's then looking at our attack team so together achieving change so this is um where we've got cases that are not open to um statutory social care and these are a sort of a prevention early intervention stage and these are then looking at those cases broken down into a number of um current cases open to attack their reasons for referral and then we've again broken that down in terms of their cases by electoral ward but those those are cases intact which are not subject to statutory social care intervention so i hope that helps to provide some clarity for the data thank you thank you for that report i still think there's a lot of information that elected members need on this but i'll leave that and allow others to ask questions thank you okay trevor yeah sorry to come back yeah you did just what derek was saying now we're looking at the attack intervention um there's a lot of wards there with zero percent and um it implies that there is no poverty in those wards but we we know for a fact that there is but i i don't know whether how you can provide that in a better report listen i don't think it does imply there's no poverty in those wards what it implies is that we're working with families from the team together achieving change team and if there's a zero there implies at this moment in time we're not intervening there it doesn't imply there's no poverty there um what it implies is that we we haven't got any cases of families or individuals in that area where we're working with them with a together achieving change team so they're two slightly different things this is social care data um social care data we cannot just say everybody who's involved in social care is as a result of poverty we have to be careful in terms of this there is a link there is a link and there's an established link there but please let's not let's not draw a conclusion around um the fact that anyone who's involved in social care by definition is is in in relation to the poor that that's not a link we can make there's obviously a link and there's a um you know there's some evidence to suggest there is a reason there's a strong link between the two things but it doesn't mean that it's always the case councilor baits i hope that's okay i just want to make that point because we have to be careful to go that we do not we do not in in children's social care intervene in families from a very different um perspective on the social scale because we do we absolutely do so i just want this committee to understand that we're at risk of saying the problem is only within one part of or certain elements of of this the challenges we have and that's why we need to be careful the challenges we have if that's not the case we work with people across the whole social spectrum in terms of um social care so i hope you don't mind me making that point chair but i think it's important to make it council rob wiles wanted to yeah no thank i just wanted to back up what alwin has just said in terms of the actual information which has been shared with elected members to this report as a lead member i wouldn't be against sharing something similar on a regular basis just to see what the stats are so but if it did become a case where elected members working something oh is there more poverty in my ward than i realize then those conversations can happen with the the officers um simply because we don't a situation as alvin said where we jump to the conclusion where there's are these many cases then it's then there must be poverty uh it might be but those conversations need to be had um with officers just just to be certain because again we've got to be careful that we don't end up particularly in smaller cases identifying individuals but but but the premise of what council rights said i do understand so maybe sharing that more regularly if that's all right with the officers yeah i i think it's really important that we realize that this is a county-wide problem although there are concentrations it's really important to realize there's rural poverty there are problems in so-called affluent areas but they're all obviously hot spots as well which are long-standing where where there's issues with housing education attainment and poverty and children having to go into care i i before i bring in derek with some recommendations um i was i had perhaps a stupid question but i i would like some clarity um on 107 when it talks about the current number of looked after children by placement type obviously the majority are in residential care and foster care but there are two categories i'd like some clarity on one is placed with parents now that seems very clear but if they looked after children that would seem to be something of a contradiction to to my uneducated view and the other is connected carers which i'm assuming is a is a family member of some sort but just for the record it would be useful to get that cleared up i might bring in lisa a minute because i'm sure she'll help me in terms of the definition but um where we've got a placement which is listed as placed with parents it's a case where we potentially worked with parents we develop we've had concerns and we've actually worked through some of them and for a period of time we almost operate that we have a contract where we have joint parental responsibility for the child working alongside the parents in terms of working the aspiration in the cases where they are placed with parents is that eventually we withdraw that would be the aspiration in cases such as that however by having that category and listen come in after i finish and tell tell you what i have said incorrectly or not that effectively we work in a way that we work in partnership and we'll have a regular structure monitoring the support so that that family and that was child the children get the best possible support in terms of connected carers you're absolutely correct that is exactly it so it is potentially where we have uh announcing uncle grandmother grandparents other who supports in terms of the care so that child is placed with connected carers we we continue to have a corporate parenting responsibility for the child but we work alongside the relative who supports to keep that child safe and well so yes they are what you what you read into them chair is exactly what they are um can i just bring lisa into check that i've described that well i'm sure there's a better yes alwin alwin you were correct in your response in terms of the placement with parents we have specific placement with parent regulations and that we would place a child with parents as alwin mentioned that is typically um where we're looking to step down our care proceedings at some point so that child may have been looked after for example with foster care for a period of time we've seen some improvements in terms of parental and roles and then we'll be look to place parents and then eventually hopefully to step down to actually discharge the care order in relation to the child so specific set of regulations in relation to placement parents and alwin is correct in terms of our fostering and for connected carers it would be where it is with a for example an auntie and uncle it's where there's a connected person but it could also be a close family friend and those and carers are assessed as part of the fostering regulations in terms of obviously whether that's an appropriate placement so they go through and as rigorous as an assessment as a local authority carer thank you lovely thanks uh councilor paul blackwell has his hand up yeah thank you chair thank you for allowing me to speak i wasn't gonna speak i'm just gonna observe the meeting really but there's just a few there's one thing that's come on my mind really and that is with housing uh you know prior to coming to this meeting i've had a phone call from a resident you know she's been without heating for two weeks even though she's got a young baby and it's an all too familiar story uh i've emailed to lee roberts but i don't know if housing i've got any kind of system where they can identify if the house has got children in it and if there's any damage to that house the lack of heating damp that that house is prioritized above all other houses just that question and the fact also that reading the report is quite a devastating report and i agree with a lot of the comments that members have made today but i'm concerned about housing and if we prioritize repairs for children thank you okay i think it's an issue to to take up with your housing office but as we have housing here yeah what i would suggest is that you you would contact your local housing estate office they would be the first port of call normally these sort of situations are prioritized if there's children when there's no heat and it's usually an emergency call out i'm unsure in this sort of situation why this one's been overlooked you know if you feel like if you want to send the information on to me please feel free to do so and i can have a look into it for you and then speak to my colleagues in the repairs team find out what's going on for you i've said i've already thank you i've already sent it to lee roberts but as i say it's an all too familiar story i get this quite a lot you not just familiar but during the winter especially and it doesn't seem to be any kind of treehouse system where if you've got children young tools and that's fast tracked compared to or you know other other people who are more robust you could say okay thanks for that derek did you want to before we went on to the recommendations yeah yeah please um so sorry hang on a sec derek if i may and sorry uh counselor um i think just in terms of my my role today obviously we've appended the the report that went to the the ebisc meeting a couple of months ago and that was positioning the the council's tackling poverty strategy which is is required um the current one is is coming to the end of its life and we were also in possession of recommendations from ordic wales as a council which we're needing to respond to in relation to poverty um i think in terms of writing that report it would be really interesting to see how this committee wants maybe ebisc to look at some of those issues again because obviously that's currently where it sits i think the the important point that's really come across through this report um and and you know is that it's everywhere it's it's not an economic response it's not a children's services response it's how the whole organization comes together and and that's kind of the the interesting part but also the challenging part because actually coming up with the interventions that are going to make a difference uh means a lot of partnership working and even the council doesn't own or have opportunities to switch all the levers here we need to work in partnership outside of the organization as well so it was just to sort of make that contextual point around the fact that there there is a standalone tackling poverty strategy um we we've had that as a very much a partnership at a local service board level in in years gone by the last iteration was very much an internal council document and a major part of that was trying to to work with with the workforce to raise awareness of poverty signs and symptoms of poverty we have a mandatory module on our on our learning pool for staff about poverty so so people can particularly in frontline services can be more aware of of the types of things they could be looking out for the next iteration of this poverty strategy is in a very different world than than even three or four years ago um and i think the work of the the prevention and early health partnership and the the the massive steps that they've made in terms of the management of information the the portal um i think that that from the work that we've done so far seems a really good model for expanding out in terms of how we all work together as a single organization um but again that's just where i am as an officer in terms of picking through it at the moment the cost of living um officer member working group member officer working group has has been you know really at the sharp end of making some some quick decisions around those emergency responses but we've also got to deal with the long-term aspects as well so i just in terms of just intercepting before the recommendations knowing where you would like the e-risk committee obviously for the chair and the right governance to to work through that but as an officer reporting to that committee how how we sort of link this up derek yeah i think we've looked at this from a totally safeguarding point of view as this committee is and the recommendations i would like to make today are as follows i can give copies out after if it's accepted by the committee i'll read them out now recommendations three one child poverty is to believe one of the main reasons for children being taken into care costing rexham council social services department most of their overspend for the last several years in millions of pounds with 11 million plus in the past financial year a task and finish group should be set up to include heads of service from both social services alwin jones on education karen evans on the lead member for children's services with members of the safeguarding scrutiny committee the aim of the task and finish is to review the leadership of anti-poverty strategy on integrated impact assessments and excuse me consult with the appropriate welsh government minister the wlga and the relevant best practice exemplars emphasizing actions to prevent entry into care and poverty three two the task and finish should target the areas with the highest poverty where more children are going into care such as the most deprived areas of the borough with resource both financially and physical with officer time as this subject appears to be greatly affecting the overall wc budget we request the task and finish group returns to this committee with a report within eight months to give clarification of any unanswered questions that may arise during the group meetings on three four we heard last month that at the safeguarding committee the mean the meaning of play is vital for all our children but particularly particularly poorer children therefore we implore rexham council to do everything possible to keep the gwenborough valley adventure playground scheme open as recorded in the previous recommendation minutes attached to the reports we've had today specifically looking into the lease agreement and consequences of not having a long-term lease so those are the recommendations i proposed today okay that's an awful lot to take in and i have not cited this beforehand um i know i've got a copy now but i've actually just received it so it's difficult to digest uh on the fly uh i i i don't have a problem with the principle i think the danger is if we're making uh demands on uh both uh alwin jones and karen evans to attend the task and finish group with a deadline of eight months to turn this around that's a that's a very big ask i think i also have a concern um that we are going into specifics on one issue but but this this needs to be a general county borough-wide response i think you know because otherwise we're talking about specific issues again i'm seeing this for the first time it's difficult to respond uh council rob walsh would you have a view on this sorry sorry sorry yeah no only again far be it from me to to influence any scrutiny recommendations that's completely up to us committee members i think the general principle from what i've heard i haven't managed to note down everything um sounds very very positive and it's it's along those lines i'd like to go down but until i see it in front of me and discuss it with the office i just want to make sure it's practical because my only concern as lead member is i wouldn't want to i wouldn't want to support anything which now which i couldn't deliver uh later on down the line so so in a sense i need more time to adjust and maybe discuss the office just to make sure it's practical rather than anything else but that's not my only concern but i'll leave with the committee thank you uh i'll bring jerry kenton so i think obviously there's um you know obviously we've got these recommendations that have been put forward and with the proposal of setting up a task and finish but i think obviously everybody kind of wants a bit of time to to kind of look what look what exactly is being asked and how that's going to fit in so maybe the recommendation be to explore the possibility of a task and finish and then make a make a further recommendation to the group at a later date as to whether that is a possibility and how we take that forward so it's it's to explore the setting up of a task and finish uh is what i would recommend yeah could that be accepted as the proposal of the recommendation i think uh i would allow that and obviously the time limit would have to move because march is in is included in there so if it's discussed at next month's meeting as a matter of rising then that would have to be extended at least through till april or maybe later because i was hoping if it was agreed today then we could find out who was interested in being in the task and finish and maybe get the scoping meeting out of the way before the august break but obviously that can't happen now but i'd be quite happy for that to to uh to go through was with the careful consideration of this committee the lead member on uh alwin and current departments thank you for that i think we're all agreed with the the thrust of it i think it is the detail and how we can um work the detail out and if we put it on the agenda for next month uh and by that time we can have formulated what can and can't be done um in the time scale uh that you you would like it to be done within because we're looking at eight months aren't we is that acceptable okay uh yes i think we do need a vote um but on the on the general principle rather than on the the four points you've put forward is that clear to officers chair i think that gives us some time to shape it a little bit doesn't it in terms of it i'm being consistent with work that's already going on as well so i can understand the need so um i think what we can do is look to put some shape around it and bring it back here in terms of the acceptability of that is that okay chair and councilor right yeah that works for me um so on the general principle and to put it on the agenda for next month are we all agreed that seems to be unanimous thank you so i don't have any other items on the agenda therefore thank you for coming to the meeting and see you next time