Children & Families Overview & Scrutiny Committee

6.1 The Chair introduced the item, it was noted that all in attendance had read the report thoroughly, therefore the Committee moved on to complete the scrutiny activity. 6.2 Following questions by the Committee, the Strategic Director for Education, Children & Families, Head of Children Services and Head of Torfaen Customer, ICT and Digital confirmed the following points: · There were currently eighteen children and young people in residential care and two in unregulated placements, representing a small reduction from the previous reporting period. One child was scheduled to return home this month, and three young people were being considered for step‑down to therapeutic foster placements. Although the two placements were classed as unregulated, full plans, monitoring and safeguarding arrangements remain in place. · No additional emerging issues had arisen outside those already reported. The key areas of focus continue to be demand, the recent service restructure and ongoing work to reduce the looked‑after population. · The WCCIS system was nearing end‑of‑life, and work at national level was underway to shift authorities towards a more modern, interconnected replacement as part of the Connecting Care programme. Whilst no clear timescale had been provided by Welsh Government, this development aligned with the Single View of the Child project. · Previous attempts to create shared electronic care records were hindered by concerns around data protection and by technical limitations within earlier systems. Future work would focus on using legislation to enable information sharing lawfully rather than viewing it as a barrier. No specific technical obstacles were currently known. · Extensive technical testing, assurance and due‑diligence processes were being applied to ensure that new systems, including Mosaic and the Single View of the Child project, are robust and fit for purpose. · Mosaic would replace WiCCIS as the primary case management system for children’s and adults’ social care, offering improved structure, functionality and digital capability. The Access Group had been appointed following a rigorous regional procurement exercise that involved technical and practitioner input. The provider offers additional modules, including options that may support education functions, though these would be considered separately and subject to cost. · Interim operational continuity would be maintained through an extension to the existing WCCIS arrangements to ensure safe service delivery until Mosaic became operational. · Current systems do not interface with each other, which leads to practitioners spending large amounts of time gathering information manually from a number of agencies. This reduces the time available for analysis and assessment, and the Single View of the Child programme was intended to address this issue comprehensively. · No significant negative impact had been identified following the police decision to co‑locate staff in east and west hubs. Whilst daily presence in the MASSH team had reduced, the rationale was understood and the police intended to review the arrangement, with the possibility of reinstating officers in future. · A detailed discovery exercise reviewed national practice and concluded that no existing product met the region’s needs. · External specialist support from Simpsons, ANS and InfoShare was being used to fill temporary capacity gaps in technical areas such as data engineering and Power BI development. The intention was to transfer these skills to SRS over time. · The dashboard would incorporate alerts and flags to highlight issues such as declining school attendance or other changes in risk. These would be tailored to practitioners’ roles so they only access information appropriate to their responsibilities. The design of these flags were being informed by direct engagement with social workers. · Work was now underway to determine which datasets should be included in the operational dashboard. Initial datasets include children’s social care, education, youth justice, early years and play services. Early discussions with health and police colleagues have commenced to identify possible future data contributions. · Delivering the system regionally offers significant benefits, particularly for children with involvement across several local authorities. The cloud‑based Fabric platform is scalable and can support wider partners, including health, police and potentially neighbouring authorities, should the project expand. · Delivering the system regionally would offer significant benefits, particularly for children with involvement across several local authorities. The cloud‑based data management “Fabric” platform was scalable and would be able to support wider partners, including health, police and potentially neighbouring authorities, should the project expand. · The technical proof of concept for the Single View of the Child project was complete. Although an initial target of April had been considered for the Torfaen‑specific dashboard, this was now unlikely, and officers were resetting the implementation timeline while finalising design work, dataset requirements and funding arrangements. · Key enablers included improving data quality, developing internal technical capability, providing practitioner training and ensuring strong information governance. Data Protection Officers across the region were actively involved to support lawful information sharing. · Practitioner training and adoption support will be delivered by SRS implementation and skills team, supplemented by external support where needed. Officers stressed the importance of ensuring the system is embedded effectively rather than launched prematurely. · Adult services would be included in relevant aspects of the work, particularly around transition points, as Mosaic serves both adults and children. · Funding for the unified data platform and the Single View of the Child proof of concept has been provided by the SRS. A business case for the next phase is progressing through the Finance & Governance Board and the Strategic Board, and officers expressed confidence in securing the necessary investment. Any future involvement of additional partners would require separate cost‑sharing agreements. 6.3 The Chair thanked all officers for their contributions and they left the meeting. 6.4 RECOMMENDATIONS: On completion of their scrutiny activity, the Committee concluded by offering the following comments and recommendations for consideration: Recommendation 1:- The committee welcomed the assurances given setting out the sources of insight being used to develop the single view of the child, however recommended this be robustly reviewed regularly to ensure complete coverage. Consideration should also be given to alternative sources of insight for example, data sources available for children EOTAS where school based data may not be available. Recommendation 2:- Greater priority should be given to engaging at the earliest opportunity, with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, GP’s and Gwent Police to identify required data to further strengthen the insight available in the Single View of Child dashboard and to mitigate any potential barriers relating to GDPR. Recommendation 3:- The committee welcomed the benefits the dashboard will bring to practitioners, particularly with time management, and recommended a suitable, structured training programme for all users, accompany its roll out. Recommendation 4:- The successful implementation of the Single View of a Child requires ongoing and active involvement from multiple partners who hold critical data and insight. It was recommended Adult Service be included within internal stakeholder involvement, to ensure coverage for those children who may need to transition on to adult services Recommendation 5:- With consideration of a business case being currently developed to outline additional investments required to operationalise the Single View of Child Proof of Concept, the committee recommended longer term funding consideration be included to future proof the operation of the system. 6.5 Additional Comments: The Children & Families O&S Committee commended the team for developing the new Single View of the Child dashboard, and felt assured that through thorough development, with all relevant partners, it would be a robust way of sharing data among professionals responsible for safeguarding children from harm. The committee would welcome further updates following implementation of the dashboard and would look to review its progress following a suitable period of operation. Members suggested this also be opened up to a Member Seminar, to demonstrate to all members the value of this system.

7.1 The date of the next meeting was noted. 7.2 The meeting ended at 11:04