Impact of low staffing and 'lack of collaboration' on children’s services laid out in new report
A new report reveals staffing problems and a lack of collaboration between agencies providing children’s services in Dudley borough.
The document, from Dudley’s Safeguarding Children Partnership Group, was presented to the council’s Social Care and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee at their meeting on November 10.
Social care is a major cost pressure on local authorities and the report highlighted successes including positive feedback for staff and family hubs but also issues with low staffing levels which impacted services.
The report said: “There have been local staffing challenges within the business unit and across all partner agencies. Alongside this several of the key organisations have undertaken comprehensive restructuring.
“The combined effect of this has delayed some aspects of the partnerships’ work and progress against some of the identified priorities.
“The partnership recognises that, strategically, as yet the impact of activity undertaken to understand the size and scope of issues affecting children in Dudley is minimal, especially given in the absence of a data analyst and a true multi-agency dashboard.”
Cllr Kathy Bayton asked the report’s author, independent scrutineer, Vicky Buchanan, ‘what good would look like’.
Ms Buchanan said: “It is hearing directly from children and families about their experiences. It is having a really strong multi-agency data set that helps us to see things improving – numbers are an indicator but they will never do the whole thing.
“There is a willingness as a partnership to come together and improve but we don’t work as collaboratively as we could do.
“There is a strong commitment and a recognition that we need to do more.”
An emotional Cllr Alex Dale shared an example of why he believes there is a need for staff to closely monitor carers looking after vulnerable young people in the community.
He told the committee about a young person placed with carers who locked themselves in an attic, leaving the young person to feed and take care of themselves.
Eventually the carers asked for the young person to be removed claiming they were disruptive, abusive and damaged property – a claim Cllr Dale said was ‘not this child at all’.
Cllr Dale said: “The reason why we need to make checks like this robust is because placements like this still exist, our care service is not adequate and we need to improve.
“These placements are still out there and these people are still getting paid.”
