Councillor S Little, Cabinet Member for Children’s and Adult Social Care, introduced the report and stated how pleased she was to be presenting her second report as Portfolio Holder. Councillor S Little publicly thanked all officers for their continued support and all the hard work and effort put in.

Councillor S Little updated Members firstly on the following Adult Social Care services:

Thurrock First – Now based at the Thurrock Hospital and had brought staff from all three providers to work together under one service.

Shared Lives – Where adults with complex long term needs can live in a family setting in the community and hoped to have 5 placements by April 2018.

Local Co-ordinators – Continued feedback received from residents across the borough on what excellent work had been carried out by the local co-ordinators.

Chichester Close - in November 2016 the Council, with the support of the Clinical Commissioning Group, was awarded approximately £500k from the Housing and Technology for People with Learning Disabilities Local Authority Capital Fund to develop 8 homes for young people with learning disabilities who may otherwise have to live in residential care outside the Borough.

Councillor S Little stated that significant progress in Thurrock Children’s Social Care Services had been made over the past year with the service continuing to make improvements following the 2016 Ofsted Inspection and on its way to outstanding.

That Thurrock families deserved the best and that Councillor S Little was passionate to ensure that Thurrock Council delivered the best possible services to vulnerable children and their families.

The number of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children had dropped considerably to 35 following the work undertaken with colleagues in the Eastern Region authorities to establish a transfer protocol.

That a further 20 applications from potential new foster carers had been received and commended the good service undertaken by the Youth Offending Service.

Councillor Snell thanked the Portfolio Holder for her report and commended her on the good work that had come out of such a large portfolio. Councillor Snell requested further information on the Home from Hospital Initiative and asked whether the processes in place for domiciliary care were robust enough. Councillor S Little stated that problems with domiciliary care had been inherited from the previous administration and that some services had to be taken back in-house. That a new initiative was planned to be introduced on the basis of what people actually want and that panel would consist of 2 residents who already received domiciliary care.

Councillor Gerrish questioned the overspend in Children’s Social Care and how confident the portfolio was in delivering the services. Councillor S Little stated that the service was £1,885 million overspent but Members must understand the challenges and the complex cases with children in care and that it was a statutory duty of the Council to look after them. Reductions elsewhere in budgets had been made such as the cost of agency staff.

Councillor Okunade thanked the Portfolio Holder for the report and asked what the Portfolio’s retention strategy was. Councillor S Little stated that her strategy was to keep people happy in a stable environment with a good network of staff and employing more staff as required.

Councillor Spillman stated his concern on those social workers working with the homelessness families with children rather than with looked after children and that changes should be made to the Social Act to ensure that these cases are dealt with by the homelessness team and he would support this as his role of Chair to the Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee. Councillor S Little stated that this was being looked into and to be assured as a duty of care this was being addressed.

Councillor S Little summed up by thanking all in Adult and Children’s Social Care for all the fabulous work undertaken.