Issue - meetings

Consideration was given to the report of the Head of Children’s Services which was presented to provide an update on the work of the My Support Team for the period January 2020 - January 2021.

The Head of Children’s Services spoke to the report and highlighted the main points contained therein.

A Member commented on the excellent work carried out by the team and the figures highlighted in the report were a significant saving that would help some of the cost pressures within the service.  The Head of Children’s Services said that the MyST team had been set up on a permanent basis and with the budget contribution of just £300,000 provided good value for money.

The Chair emphasised that these were safe measures that improved outcomes for Children Looked After and provided savings.

In response to a Member’s question regarding recruitment of foster carers, the Head of Children’s Services said that despite the pandemic a significant amount of work had been undertaken nationally, regionally and locally around the recruitment of local authority foster carers.  There had been a presentation at the Corporate Parenting Board and the intention was to launch a national local authority brand to market foster carers for local authorities in May 2021.  A significant amount of work had been undertaken with the Council’s Communications Team and a Regional Marketing post had been appointed to support this work, such as television publicity, social media and local radio etc. to help increase the numbers of local authority foster carers.

A Member congratulated the MyST team on the work they were doing to support children with complex needs before and during the pandemic putting the needs of the children first was to be commended.

A Member enquired if Blaenau Gwent’s foster carers foster children from outside the borough.  The Head of Children’s Services explained that the majority of Blaenau Gwent’s foster carers lived in the borough, only a small number lived outside the borough but all looked after Blaenau Gwent’s children.  On occasion Blaenau Gwent looked after children from other local authorities in Gwent for example Monmouthshire may require a baby placement and Blaenau Gwent may have one available.  There was a reciprocal arrangement in place in Gwent to offer each other’s foster carers.   Those placements outside the borough would need to be paid for, however, it would be less expensive than an independent fostering agency and outcomes for the children with local authority foster carers was far better than with Independent foster carers.

The Committee AGREED to recommend that the report be accepted and endorse Option 1; namely that Scrutiny Members acknowledge the positive work MyST has undertaken in demonstrating good outcomes for our children looked after and the positive impact the work of the team has had on the Children’s Services budget.