Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): In attendance, we have Eilís McDaniel, director of family and children's policy in the Department of Health; Maura Dargan, director of children's services and executive director of social work in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust; Colm McCafferty, executive director of children's services and executive director of social work in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust; and Michael Burns from the office of social services in the Department of Health. We have about an hour for the session. I invite officials to make some brief opening remarks, and then we will open it up to questions.

Ms Eilís McDaniel (Department of Health): I will start, and then I will hand over to Maura and Colm.

Good afternoon, and thanks for a further opportunity to brief the Committee on progress made in connection with the independent review of children's services and the associated reform programme. Chair, you have introduced the directors, so I will not do that again.

We provided the Committee with a briefing paper in advance of today's meeting. The paper sets out what is being done across all areas of the reform programme and how that work relates to recommendations from the children's services review. Some 27 of the 53 recommendations have been formally assigned to the reform programme, and a further seven — including those that are workforce-related — are being taken forward by the Department. It is accepted that much, though not all, of the ongoing work has not, as yet, translated into tangible benefits for children and families. That is partly because the review indicated what needed to be done but did not specify how. Through the reform programme, we are determining how best to implement the review recommendations. In some cases, that involves gathering evidence about things that are done currently, identifying best practice here and elsewhere and calculating costs.

I move to the key developments. Work continues on the establishment of a multi-agency front door and introducing a greater skills mix into our front-line social work teams. Those different approaches are intended to deliver a better and more effective and efficient way of delivering services and, in so doing, address waiting lists. Over the past two years, we have fast-tracked more than 400 newly qualified social workers into trust employment and invested in 40 new social work training places, and, today, we are launching a new social care strategy. That is happening as we speak. Detailed work is being undertaken on how we pay foster carers, how we recruit them and how we support them. New models of residential care are being explored, including multi-site children's homes and smaller two- to three-bedded children's homes.

In October, the Minister announced investment of around £13 million per year in services for children with a disability. Work continues to address unnecessary bureaucracy in social work; to look at new fostering regulations and standards; to strengthen relationships between children's social care and the voluntary and community sector, including the youth sector; and to develop a new family support model for Northern Ireland.

In response to recommendation 53, we successfully hosted a conference in late November that involved children, families and carers. Professor Jones attended the conference and spoke at it. Among other things, the conference created the opportunity to showcase excellent practice in trusts and challenged us to think about how we roll out that really good practice across all areas. The general mood of the conference was one of optimism, tempered with the realism that much remains to be done.

Last month, the Minister sought the views or support of his Executive colleagues on the recommendations that are significant and cross-cutting: the establishment of a children and families arm's-length body (ALB) and the appointment of a Minister for children and families. There was little support for the idea of a Minister on the basis of the potential repercussions of an appointment, and there was no consensus on establishing an ALB. The Health Minister has confirmed publicly that he remains supportive of establishing an ALB and is considering his options.

That is a very high-level account, Chair, of what we have been doing over the past three months. I have brought along a number of directors to give you a deeper sense of the work that they lead in relation to tackling waiting lists and fostering. With your agreement, the intention is to repeat that for other areas of the reform programme at future meetings.

At this point, I will hand over to Maura.

Ms Maura Dargan (Northern Health and Social Care Trust): Thanks, Eilís. Good afternoon. Thank you, everybody, for the opportunity to talk a little about the waiting list work stream that I co-chair with Catherine Cassidy from the strategic planning and performance group (SPPG).

Professor Jones found that there was a record high of more than 4,000 children on waiting lists for social care at the time of his review. The work plan of the waiting list work stream is in response to that. Recommendations 16 and 24 were assigned to the work stream, which focuses on bringing about the strategic change that is necessary to reset our social work offer to children and families, moving to a position where we offer earlier and more prolonged support and reduce the number of social workers who are involved in children's lives.

The work of the work steam initially focused on understanding how each of the trusts configured their services. Subgroups of middle and senior managers from across Northern Ireland examined areas such as the Gateway family support and intervention service, our looked-after children teams and our children with disability teams. They looked at and scoped the team make-up, staffing levels and demand, which included caseloads as well as numbers on waiting lists, and they audited the thresholds for access to services and the types and nature of the social work response provided across Northern Ireland.

That work provided a level of assurance on some of the areas. For example, on the Gateway service, which is our front door, we found that the response to referrals was similar across Northern Ireland and, on the whole, there were robust systems in place at the front door. There is more work to be done in that area. Trusts are progressing to streamline the front door processes as much as they can to reduce bureaucracy and prepare for the development of the Encompass system for children's services.

The work identified variances in how service areas operate and function across trusts, including some innovative approaches to service provision. As a result, some trusts are assessing the impact and/or taking forward changes in how teams are configured and the services that they deliver. That is not an easy task. Each trust needs to ensure that there are no unintended consequences for other service areas and that they do not create unmet need somewhere else. They also need to consider the potential impact on our staff. The move to an arm's-length-body-plus would provide the platform to support those changes more readily than our current configuration across five trusts.

In the more recent reporting period, there were highlights to bring to your attention. The management of unallocated cases policy, which is really about our governance arrangements and ensuring that children waiting for a service are as safe as possible, continues to be developed and is almost complete. It will be considered by the waiting list work stream in due course. A big area for us at the moment is the review of multi-agency front door models in children's services across the UK and internationally. That is progressing really well. There has been a field visit to Camden, which provided an opportunity to consider its model in detail. A further field trip involving multi-agency and multi-professional colleagues is planned for February, I think. That will allow an opportunity for interested parties to consider possible opportunities and challenges in considering that type of arrangement for Northern Ireland. We continue to review other models. There are many out there. Stockport is another area that we are particularly looking at. It has received really outstanding Ofsted reports, so we will look at it in more detail. All of that work will inform a detailed options appraisal that will then be brought for consideration by the reform board.

The third ongoing area relates to the detailed plan of work focused on the family support and intervention service. That is about looking at the team structures and the broader strategy of trying to get involved with families earlier and in a more prolonged, supportive way.

Finally, one of the key recommendations from the review was around introducing skill mix to provide more practical, supportive assistance to families and, by so doing, removing some of the non-professional work from our professional social workers. To that end, a new, enhanced support role for front-line teams — a children's family senior support officer — is being progressed through the normal Agenda for Change processes. We are engaged with the Department to finalise the role, and we are developing a support and training framework to support that new role so that, when they come into the system, they will be well supported and have training and development opportunities available to them.

I finish by thanking the many staff who have been fully engaged in and committed to that work. There are significant numbers of staff involved in doing that. Whilst progress is steady, the landscape remains challenging, because we still manage vacancies and absence levels that continue to impact on our front-line teams. Some areas face greater challenges than others. That reduced capacity, alongside the increased demand, means that teams will need to continue to prioritise those most at risk and in need, so targeting families who will be best served with an earlier, supportive and prolonged offer of help, while challenging, remains the goal of the waiting list work stream.

That is all I will say at this stage. I will pass on to Colm now to talk about fostering

Mr Colm McCafferty (Southern Health and Social Care Trust): Thanks, Maura. First, by way of a couple of opening comments, I genuinely thank the Committee for taking an interest in this really important element of our health and social care delivery, namely foster care. We have approximately 3,500 children in Northern Ireland living in substitute family care, either with trust foster carers, with independent sector carers or in kinship care. I also acknowledge the role played by our social work staff, our support services and, indeed, many other multi-agency staff across education, placing service and a range of voluntary and community sectors, all of whom we depend sorely on in relation to supporting foster families and looked-after children. I make particular reference to and genuinely thank the 2,500 foster care families or foster care households across the region on whom we are almost wholly dependent for caring for in excess of 90% of the looked-after children population in Northern Ireland. It is really important to acknowledge the 24/7, selfless, continued dedication of those foster care families.

To set a wee bit of context for the Committee, as with all elements, this is a service that is challenged at the moment. There have been fairly unique circumstances, which I have talked about previously, but we are in a situation of continued upwards trajectory with regard to looked-after children. There has been a 40% increase in the child-in-care population over the last 10 years, and we have just breached the 4,000 mark of children in full-time care in Northern Ireland. That was clearly articulated in Professor Ray Jones's report as an issue of significant challenge and, indeed, risk with regard to how we manage services.

The foster care sector was significantly impacted on by the COVID pandemic in the sense that, for understandable reasons, not as many people came forward to become foster carers, and we are still in a phase of recovery from that. We have not got back to the same level of recruitment and approval that we would have had pre COVID. Putting that in the context of increasing numbers of children in the care system, we increasingly ask the same carers to do more and more for us, and it is important that we acknowledge that.

Under the auspices of the reform board, I co-chair a fostering work stream with a director colleague from the SPPG. Its make-up is multi-agency and cross-sectoral, with trust representatives and other relevant fostering stakeholders. There are clear links with foster carers as regards engagement and getting information from them, testing ideas and so forth, and with care-experienced young people. In brief, there are key priorities that are linked directly to recommendations 26 and 27 in Ray Jones's report. Recommendation 26 is about improved recruitment processes and expanding the range of available foster carers, and recommendation 27 is about ensuring that our foster carers become valued and supported components of the care system.

I will briefly update the Committee on the priorities from the fostering work stream. Number one is reviewing the foster care service model across the region with the objective of improving our recruitment, streamlining processes and so forth, and there are important elements to that. Foster carers need to be valued and supported, and an element of that is how we support them financially. They bring children into their houses, and they receive allowances. In the cost-of-living context and everything else, we need to ensure that they are adequately supported in that regard. One of the challenges that we have identified is that, until this year, there was a 12% disparity between the standard boarding-out allowance paid here and that paid across the water, particularly in England. All of that is considered in the context of available finance and so forth, but we have been able to close that gap somewhat, in the sense that DH has agreed a 3% uplift this year with a commitment to further balancing that out. Obviously, however, that is related to finances and so forth.

Another significant piece of work that had been undertaken and led by SPPG is on the fee-paid model. Most of our foster carers receive a standard weekly boarding-out allowance. Increasingly, however, we place more complex children in foster care, and there are fees attached to those placements. There is significant variation throughout that, so we have to get a standardised model across the region so that carers understand exactly the financial support that is available. SPPG leads on that, and we hope to have an agreed finance framework for foster care that will be standard across each of the five trusts by the end of next year, so we have a target of December 2025.

There are other elements of that. We have not only to look at recruitment, which is one element, but to ensure that, when foster carers come into the system, they are adequately supported so that they remain with us in the long term and for the length of time that children need to live in substitute care. There is a lot of focus in the work stream on different support models, with particular emphasis on peer support: getting foster carers to support each other. We are looking at different models locally in Ireland and across the water in England. There is some stuff that we definitely want to develop with our foster carers over the next while.

The second priority — I mentioned it to the Committee when I was here last month to talk about children who are using disability services — is a regional commitment to set up short-break foster care across each of the five trusts so that we can significantly upscale short breaks and overnight provision for children with a disability and their families. With the appropriate focus and particularly in the context of the ministerial announcement of investment in that area, there is significant potential for us to make gains there, certainly over the next year.

The third priority from the fostering work stream — all this is linked to placements efficiency — is the considerable untapped potential about scaling up models of supported lodgings for 16- to 17-year-olds and care-experienced young people. Again, we are at different places across the region with regard to that, but getting that maximised provides another really good alternative of support for young people who are transitioning out of care and assisting them on their journey towards independence.

There has been excellent buy-in to the work stream. As chair of the work stream, I get good support from the various stakeholders. Along with Maura and my other directorate colleagues, there is absolute commitment to the three areas of supporting, investing and developing it.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): Thank you, Colm. Thank you all. That was useful, as was the briefing. I have a number of questions. As I said, two of my colleagues are missing, so I am asking on all of our behalf.

There is strong support for the ALB, particularly from Professor Jones but also from the Reimagine Children's Collective and others who have come out strongly on that. You may or may not be able to provide information on this, but, given that there was no consensus in the Executive, do we have an understanding of the key concerns and why people maybe felt that they were not in that position at this stage? To my knowledge, no one has said, "Absolutely no", but I am sure that there is some discussion around what the concerns may be or why they cannot yet put their support behind it.

Ms McDaniel: Some of the concern is based on other attempts at restructuring in the past —

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): OK.

Ms McDaniel: — and some of the challenges that that has created. There was specific reference to the Education Authority (EA): I think all of us know that there have been challenges with the implementation of that arrangement. I think that there were also references to the reduction in the number of councils from 26 to 11. Comparisons were made with other attempts at restructuring and maybe those attempts not delivering what they intended to deliver. Some of that is reasonable and needs to be considered.

Professor Jones, in response to that, made the point that we are not trying to do the same thing. It is not about reducing something from five to three, for example; that is not what we are trying to do here at all. He has always been honest with anybody he has spoken to that the ALB is not the solution to absolutely everything. I think that he continues to refer to it as a platform on which everything else gets built, and that includes all the work that we do under the reform programme. That is a synopsis of the concerns.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): That is fair enough, Eilís. Thank you for that. It was just to get an understanding. As elected representatives, we want to get this right and make sure that, whatever way this works, it has children and young people and families at the centre of it. It is about not just pushing ahead but getting a good understanding of all possibilities so that we can mitigate anything like that as well. I was just keen to hear a wee bit about that.

My next question — I know that there is no one here with regard to the workforce work stream —

Ms McDaniel: Not in terms of the workforce work stream, but Michael

workforce initiatives

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): Potentially you, Michael. I raise this at almost every Health Committee meeting: there is a real crisis, particularly in children's social work services. We have seen the strikes, and there is potential for more industrial action and other escalations. We had officials in from workforce a few weeks back, and I put some of these questions to them. I am a complete advocate of encouraging and making it easier for more people to get into social work, be it through a fast-track route, Open University (OU) or other opportunities, and also people who are experienced and have maybe been working as a social work assistant — absolutely, but we have to look after the staff that we have. For me, retention is a massive part of what we should be doing. I feel that, at the minute, there is a real crisis of confidence among staff, and I do not say that lightly. I know that from speaking with staff across all trusts and unions.

I do not underestimate the huge amount of work that is being done and continues to be done, but how confident are you that we can resolve the existing pressures, and what work is being done to address the concerns of existing staff? Yes, a huge part of the solution is attracting more people into social work, because we need to build that up for the longevity of the services, but, if we have lots of new social workers without that mix — we talked about the skill mix earlier — of experience and support that we all need, it will be counterproductive.

I have heard, as you will all have, the examples of newly qualified social workers leaving the workforce prematurely because of the experiences that they have, particularly in Gateway teams and family intervention, where there is huge pressure and they have to deal with really complex cases due to the capacity issues. As a newly qualified social worker, you are meant to have a protected caseload and all of those things, but that is just not happening on the ground. For me, the cornerstone of delivering on the recommendations is our workforce, and it is about preventing children from ending up in situations where it is a child protection case.

I am kind of going off on one a wee bit. I do not mean to; it is just to link it to why this is so critical to everything else that we are trying to do.

Mr Michael Burns (Department of Health): There are two things that I will say about that. One is that my role has been in the recruitment and retention piece for the newly qualified. I will defer to my colleagues, who will know more about their existing workforce, which is the point that you raised. I understand that totally. From my point of view, we have had to concentrate on building the workforce, because we started at a low base. There were a huge number of vacancies not only in children's services but across services in all the trusts, and there was an overdependence on recruitment agency social workers.

We have managed to do a number of things in the past two to three years. As you know, the decision was taken to stop the use of recruitment agencies completely. That decision was taken in December 2022, and, between December 2022 and summer 2023, we tried to recruit into trust posts. That was a piece of work in itself. There were around 200 at that stage, and we managed to get about 160 of them into post. There was a bit of a loss there, but, at the same time — we did a number of things, but this was the primary one — we created what you described as a "fast-track" approach to how, as people leave, we recruit from our universities. At that stage, we were training 260 social workers per year. The most that we have ever trained is 300. I am glad to say that, since then, we have been able to increase that, including with the OU initiative, which is new. We brought the OU into the delivery of the social work degree in Northern Ireland for the first time. It was previously aligned with England, but we got it aligned with our degree. We now have 25 OU commissioned places. The trusts commission places on top of that, and there are DH-commissioned places. This year, we have been able to secure another 40 social work places, and that brings us, for the first time, to 325 social workers being trained, which is substantial.

Prior to what we did in 2023, social workers were qualifying and not being recruited very well, and our processes were poor. That has changed in the past three years. We are now into year 3. Of the 260 that came out in 2023, not counting the OU people, because they are slightly different, being employees already, we were able to recruit over 200 — 202, I think it was — in our first year, and those newly qualified people went into posts.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): From 260, did you say?

Mr Burns: Yes, 260.

Obviously, there are other employers in probation, youth justice or the Education Authority. People do not always want to work in trusts, which is perfectly reasonable.

There were over 200 in the first year, and, in the summer of last year, we had 221. We managed to do that by closing off the option of going to recruitment agencies and forcing that movement into trusts, which helped to stabilise the workforce. That is exactly what we wanted to do.

My colleagues will talk to you about the experience that newly qualified social workers have. I am pretty close to the final-year students. I meet them regularly and describe to them what will happen in the recruitment process, and then we follow through. Each of the trusts has an first assessed year of employment (AYE) lead. I make contact with them regularly. Now, in the trusts, lots of things designed to support our newly qualifieds go on, and those were not there previously to the same extent. There is a fantastic range of supports in place in each of the five trusts.

We have no problem at all in getting newly qualified social workers to talk to our final-year students and tell them what a positive experience they have had. People queue up to do that in both institutions: the University of Ulster (UU) and Queen's. So, there is a counter to what you say, in that there is a positive experience, including that of social workers who have gone into front-line family and childcare teams. It works both ways. It depends entirely on the team that you go into, your manager, the capacity and the demands. The intention was that, as we raised the number of social workers in post, the pressure would diminish.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): I take your point, Michael. I am not saying that every team is having that experience, but we heard stark figures on the number of vacancies, particularly in children's social work teams. That is my concern. As a social worker, I think that it is excellent that more and more people are going into social work; it is fantastic. However, not all are going into children's social work, for a start, which is where we have the real crisis. There is a crisis in children's disability as well, not just in family and childcare, as in child protection and family intervention. My real concerns are around the situations that are so complex and so high-risk.

When I look back to when I first qualified, I can see that the risks that present in homes now are much greater, given the huge changes that have taken place in society in that period. Those are the experiences that both newly qualified and experienced social workers now face. We see the figures that Ray Jones quoted: at the time of the review, 4,000 children were, I assume, unallocated. Correct me if I am wrong.

Mr Burns: That is right.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): That number is growing, not reducing.

Ms McDaniel: That number is reducing. The number of unallocated cases reduced by about 15% between March and October .

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): This year?

Ms McDaniel: Yes, this year.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): The last figure that I got was 4,100, which is why I want to —.

Ms McDaniel: The number of unallocated cases has come down.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): OK. It would be good to get those figures, Eilís, though it is still high. That is in disabilities and children's disabilities. Obviously, that is due to workforce pressures. On the one hand, it is good to hear that we are getting lots of new social workers and that they are being recruited. Recruiting 202 out of 260 is brilliant, but how many stay? That goes back to our conversation in the last briefing about data collection. How many are we keeping?

Also, we hear about staff who are off on sick leave and things like that due to stress. They are experienced, but we see the real impact on them. What are we doing about that? You understand what I am asking: it is important to come at it from all angles.

Mr Burns: Absolutely. We want to know that social workers are staying. It is not about filling posts and leaving people with difficult caseloads and no support. This is about a lifelong career in social work. That is what we are trying to provide.

Ms McDaniel: Work on safer staffing is also going on. The Chief Social Worker is leading on that. Initial research was done on baseline analysis. The next phase of the work will look at caseloads: what people are carrying; what caseloads are composed of et cetera; and how much of a caseload is about professional social work tasks.

A number of things need to happen to address the problem. Recruiting is one of them, and retention activity is another. Work around safer staffing is another. No one thing will resolve the issue.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): That is the point that I am making.

Ms McDaniel: It requires a package of measures, and I think that we have a package of measures in place. Some will take time to deliver. Not everything will be delivered overnight.

Is there anything that you want to add, Colm?

Mr McCafferty: It might help the Committee to know that the work that Michael outlined has been beneficial in at least enabling us to stabilise to an extent. Workforce supply, for sure, remains a challenge. The fast-tracking of students into the system has been positive. In my trust, the Southern Trust, over the past 12 months, going back to the 2023-24 year, through the fast-track initiative, we appointed 34 newly qualified staff to the system, the vast majority of whom are still with us; in fact, nearly all of them are still with us. However, alongside that, we lost almost 20 other social workers for a combination of reasons, including career progression, personal choice and the increasing issue of young people travelling and so forth. It is slow, incremental gain, so we are hugely mindful of the need to retain as best we can.

Unfortunately, we have high numbers of unallocated cases in the system because, as directors and social work managers, we know that we can ask only so much of staff, so we are mindful of not overloading the skills mix. We are moving at pace to upscale that so that we are able to deploy the available social work resource on absolutely the most-needed and best-targeted areas. We are mindful that our newly qualified staff are in their assessed year in employment. My trust — I know that this is being replicated elsewhere — is putting in place dedicated wrap-around support, including mentoring, supervision processes, coaching and additional support from outside the immediate team, with a focus on enabling them to receive as much support as possible in dealing with the hugely complex family situations that you have just outlined.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): That is it, Colm: you have kind of captured what I was saying. Yes, we have plenty of social workers coming in, but are they touching the sides of what is needed when you still have a flow going out the back door? The most important part of that is continued engagement with the unions and staff through the Chief Social Worker's office. We really need to get a grip on that, because nothing will work as well as we want it to unless that is addressed.

The other issue that I want to raise is children with additional needs, particularly in relation to transition. I had concerns raised with me across trusts around cases that are sitting unallocated, and there is that gap for children, even from about age 14 onwards, depending on where they are in the system. As they start to get closer to the age of 18 and are getting ready for the transition into adult services, there are lots of issues around capacity and assistance: for example, if they need a mental capacity assessment to enable them to access universal credit or need help with other financial things that start to change. There seems to be a real gap there. In the work that is happening, is that being looked at, particularly around transition?

Ms McDaniel: Under the disability work stream, one thing that has been developed is a transitions protocol that will track children who are making the journey from children's services to adult services from the age of 14. I think that the staff on that work stream have already created an easy-read version of that protocol that they want to test with families. The intention, subject to everything being OK, is to pilot that early in the new year. The whole purpose of it is to improve planning for those children and to deliver a more consistent regional approach, because it is another area where things are done differently across all of the trusts.

We can get some more information on the transition protocol for you.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): I had seen that there was a transition protocol, which is why I raised it. The easy-read resource is interesting. I recently met a group of parents from across south Armagh, south Down and the Newry area who have children and young people who are at that kind of stage. They said that, when your child is first diagnosed, your whole life is consumed with navigating what is out there and where to go. It really depends on who your key worker is. You are very dependent on someone giving you information. Having a resource such as that at the start of the journey is something to consider. It came into my head as we were talking. It would help people to navigate. Could I get more information on that, particularly on what happens post 14?

Given the huge capacity issues in special schools, a lot of children who would normally have gone to a special school are in a mainstream school. If your child is in a special school, they are there until they are 19. If your child receives specialist provision in mainstream schools (SPiMS) or whatever, they are there only until they are 16 or maybe even a bit younger, depending on their circumstances. There is a massive gap. That leads to another issue: there is no provision in Health for children who are not at school. There is a gap in that regard.

Ms McDaniel: Another piece of work that is being led by work stream 6 is the development of a children and family charter. Michele Janes from Barnardo's and I co-lead that work stream. That is intended to do exactly what you have just described: to help children and families to navigate their way through children's services. That work has already started. Work will take place early in the new year with a number of groups to ensure that we get the charter into an appropriate shape.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): Thank you for that, Eilís. I meant to say during the workforce piece that the social care workforce strategy was launched today. Will we get a copy of that at some point?

Ms McDaniel: Yes. Michael, I think that you brought copies with you.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): There is one for everybody in the audience.

Ms McDaniel: We will ensure that you get that.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): I have met NISCC and others. I sponsored its event some time ago. Given the questions and issues that I raised, it would be good to see what is included in that. Thank you. That was useful.

Mr Donnelly: Thank you very much for that comprehensive overview. It was very good.

I have a couple of questions, starting with one about foster carers. The work that foster carers do across Northern Ireland is absolutely invaluable. What interaction are you having with foster carers on the co-production of policy? Are you involving them and inviting them in at the policy design stage so that they are able to shape policy?

Mr McCafferty: Yes. As I said, there is an extensive process of direct engagement with foster carers through the work stream. For example, each trust has its own foster carer forums and groups for local engagement. Also sitting on the work stream is the Fostering Network, whose raison d'être is, essentially, to support, engage with and use foster carers when it comes to feedback and information about policy, strategy and all of those matters. Direct engagement is an absolutely central component of what we do through the work stream. For example, extensive engagement on the regulations and guidance around fostering is led by the Fostering Network. It has sessions to dissect those, go through them and seek feedback. A key component of the priorities that I identified in the work stream that I chair is recurrent and ongoing engagement with foster carers.

Mr Donnelly: One of the issues that you raised was the regional variance in the uplift to fees and allowances for foster carers. I have been approached about that. There are, it seems, stark differences between trusts. Will you speak to that? I know that you said that work is ongoing. Why are there such stark regional variances, and what is being done to equalise them?

Mr McCafferty: The uplift is standardised across the piece. That is what I talked about earlier. The 3% uplift that was secured is being applied to all boarding-out allowances, so there is no ambiguity or inconsistency in that. What is much more complicated is the fee-paid model. There is the standard boarding-out allowance, which is, essentially, a living and support allowance for foster carers. It has an approximate range of £145 to £220 a week, depending on the age of the child.

An additional fee depends on the level of complexity. The Committee will be well versed in the challenges that are faced. Children who come into the care system have varying degrees of trauma and background experiences. Our direct intention is that we manage the vast majority of those children in foster care. In acknowledgement of complexity, we have to get an increased level of specialism and capacity in foster care, so those foster carers will attract certain levels of fee, depending on complexity and, indeed, on the ask from trusts with regard to what a child needs.

Each of the five trusts differs in how it uses residential care and other models. Therefore, there has been significant divergence in the level of fees paid. Currently, that is generally decided by the respective trusts' family placement services. We are committed to having a Northern Ireland-wide fostering finance framework that will standardise that. That will be significant in providing clarity for prospective foster carers on the supports available. We acknowledge that divergence, and we very much need to standardise it.

Mr Donnelly: Thank you very much for that.

Liz spoke about retention in the social work workforce. We have heard about people leaving mid-career, as is the case in other areas in the health service. It appears that a pool of people who left mid-career have significant experience and are not working in the service any more. Is there an attempt to engage with them and possibly re-recruit? Is that possible?

Mr Burns: It is a difficult thing to do. We have looked at it. It is possible to keep track of people through the NISCC register. The register is universal, so we are able to see when people leave the register. It is updated daily. There will always be movement in that workforce. Currently, there are about 4,800 social workers in the trusts and about 6,500 on the register, so, as, you can see, the difference in those two figures reflects those who are with other employers. We have found reaching people who have left posts difficult. However, we are mindful that, in planning for the future, 30% of the social work workforce of each of the trusts are over the age of 50. That is across all five trusts, so that needs to be part of our workforce planning.

I do not want to be disparaging towards my social work colleagues — I am a social worker — but there can be a natural time when you have done enough front-line social work. We have to acknowledge that and see that there are other roles that people can undertake that are not necessarily in front-line social work. That is my experience. We are looking to see whether we can do that. However, trying to reach people is the most difficult part.

Ms McDaniel: We did some of that during COVID. We brought staff who had left the service back to support trusts during COVID. I cannot remember how successful it was, but we could think about doing it again.

Mr Burns: Each of the trusts

about retire and return.

Ms Dargan: I would not say that that is the biggest problem for us. We are retaining staff in trusts, but there is movement within trusts. There are promotional opportunities, maternity leave and, for example, moves from children's into adult services, so there is that movement within trusts.

Our attrition rate in the Northern Trust is low. We keep our staff, but they do not necessarily stay in our front-line childcare teams. Our recruitment happens only annually. When we get our influx of newly qualified social workers, we are into June and July and we are healthy, our waiting lists come down and everything looks good. However, promotions come up, movement comes up, maternity leave comes up, retirements come up and staff move, but we have no further opportunity to bring in newly qualified staff until the following year. The period between this time of year and into the summer is always an awful time for teams, in that, if one person leaves, the teams know that they will not get somebody in to fill those gaps.

I would not flag up people leaving the profession entirely, such as at middle age or whatever, as a big issue. In fact, we have quite a number of staff who come back post retirement to undertake a couple of days of specific pieces of work. They remain in our bank and are a stabilising influence on some of our teams. They are really helpful.

One achievement this year was that we were able to retain the AYE social workers for a year. There were no advertisements for band 5s this year, which meant that our band 5s — our newly qualified social workers — were retained in the job to which they were recruited in the summer. They have been retained there for a year. They are now in a position to apply for qualified social work jobs, but, now that they have had a year of being in teams, they are choosing to stay, which is positive. Our previous experience was that newly qualified staff moved into front-line teams, and, due to facing vacancy levels, high caseloads and a level of anxiety, they immediately wanted to move on. However, because that door was not open to them for this past year, they have settled with teams and have been really well supported and maintained by our training teams and in their team, and they have chosen to stay.

There has been some good progress, but we have a long way to go. It remains challenging, specifically for children's services.

Mr McCafferty: We have excellent support from our respective HR departments re maximum flexibility in enticing and facilitating anybody in the circumstances that you have described who has expressed an interest in coming back. There is not a lot of evidence of high demand for that, but, if you know of anybody, send them in our direction, and we will absolutely accommodate them.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): Danny, may I come in quickly on the vacancy piece?

Mr Donnelly: Yes.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): I am sorry; I do not want to hog your time.

I am concerned about the vacancies created by newly qualified social workers who have come out of social work altogether and by staff who have been off on leave. We ask the Department all the time for vacancy figures, but it is able to give us only those that are being recruited for. We have repeatedly raised concerns about the ones that are not being recruited for. Those are still vacancies, but that data is not available. That is what has an impact on teams. I have been in teams in which, although there were vacancies for a long time, recruitment did not happen. That adds to the pressure.

I accept that you, Maura, said that there are still significant issues. Those are critical issues that we really need to address. I know what you mean about promotions — that is natural in teams — but there is a still a really severe issue, particularly in front-line services and children's services.

Ms Dargan: Certainly, for maternity leads, we know that we will not fill maternity cover.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): Some people do not come back.

Ms Dargan: We used to be able to, but we cannot do that any more.

Mr Burns: There is a bit of a changing culture because of the removal of recruitment agency availability. Team leaders and heads of service are much more attuned to the fact that they have to make sure that any vacancies are progressed as soon as possible, because that is the only way in which they will be filled; there will be no temporary social worker from a recruitment agency.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): I am sorry, Danny, for intervening.

Mr Donnelly: You are grand. I appreciate that you were expanding on a point.

I also wanted to raise the issue of unallocated social workers, particularly for children in transition. That is a big issue, and I know that there are lots of worried families, so I was glad to hear about the work that is being done on that.

The Committee believes that there is an urgency regarding the implementation of the recommendations of the review. Is there a timetable that you can share with us so that we can see when recommendations are planned to be met?

Ms McDaniel: There are 53 recommendations, and I will park 10 of those because they relate either to the ALB or the children's Minister. There are also a couple of recommendations that are the responsibility of other Departments, and those Departments are acting on those recommendations. Of the remainder, 34 recommendations have been accepted, and 27 of those have been located with the reform programme. I have said that the further seven are the responsibility of the Department. The purpose of these sessions is to give you a sense of the progress that is being made. I assure you that the reform programme is now the mechanism through which we will deliver the majority of the review recommendations, and, through these briefings, I hope that you will have a sense of when recommendations have been acted on fully.

We have closed a number of recommendations already, because we have taken them as far as we can. I will give you an example. One related to making case management reviews quicker and more participative. We have already undertaken a review of that process. We have a report that made something like 18 recommendations, and we are now acting on those recommendations. There are a couple of others —

Mr Donnelly: On that, you have closed that recommendation, but the recommendations in the report are still being made: is that correct?

Ms McDaniel: No. I am just using that as an example. The recommendation was to look at that process and make it a better process than it is currently. We have done that. That has been reviewed, and we now have a pathway to improvement through the recommendations made by that review. That is just an example of a recommendation that we have closed.

Mr Donnelly: It strikes me that it should not be closed until the recommendations in the report have been implemented.

Ms McDaniel: If that is what the Committee would like to see, we can do that. That review made 18 recommendations. Some of those were for the Department, and some were for other bodies. We can continue to report on that particular recommendation, if that is what the Committee would like.

Mr Donnelly: No problem. OK. I think that it would be a bit clearer for us, but I appreciate that progress is being made. Thank you.

Mrs Dodds: Thank you for the presentation. My first point may be a more niche area for Colm. I was recently speaking to our colleagues on the Justice Committee, who were receiving some information on the concept of bail fostering. My understanding is that the Southern Trust has a pilot project on that and that a foster carer in the Southern Trust will have an allowance of around £27,000 a year but someone involved in the bail fostering scheme will have an allowance of £36,000 a year. I understand the concept. That is an incredible thing for someone to choose to do, so I understand the difference in pay scales. I get that. Can you expand on that for the Committee? I am not sure whether anybody has heard about that; I had not. I am not sure how much is known about the concept. Do you intend to introduce it across all the trusts, and will you seek a contribution from the Department of Justice in relation to the cost of that as it progresses?

Mr McCafferty: Thanks, Diane. The context is that it started quite a number of years ago, and, yes, it is specific to the Southern Trust. You will know from speaking with Department of Justice colleagues that children being remanded to the Juvenile Justice Centre (JJC) should happen in absolutely exceptional circumstances. Unfortunately, on occasions, they will be remanded, but it should for the shortest time. On occasions — thankfully, not hugely often — young people, almost exclusively non-care-experienced young people, are arrested and remanded into the JJC because there are complexities. For various reasons, family cannot offer a bail address, and the young person ends up being remanded because there was no exit for them. In the Southern Trust, we had a particular challenge because of perceived complexities — anxieties of carers and so forth — and that is understandable because most of the cases are on an emergency basis. It is difficult to get a standard foster carer to agree to a placement of that nature, so the young person ends up being remanded.

It has gone beyond a pilot now. We mainstreamed it, but we had excellent support from the Youth Justice Agency in putting the support networks and so forth in place. One very experienced foster carer agreed to come into the scheme and make themselves available for emergency bail placements. It is important to point out that the cases are hugely complex.

Mrs Dodds: Yes, I imagine so.

Mr McCafferty: There is usually no school provision. There is usually significant trauma and significant complexity, including risk-taking behaviour and so forth. It is a massive ask for what is essentially a family to offer a bail address. For example, you almost exclusively need to have one foster carer at home on a full-time basis. Immediately, when you do that, there has to be significant financial support to enable them to do it. The fee that we pay is reflective of all that.

As I said, we got excellent support from the Youth Justice Agency, and that continues, because securing bail and placing the young person is one thing but it is about having the appropriate supports. Usually, when bail is granted, there are fairly significant conditions attached to that that require the involvement of social services and bail support via the Youth Justice Agency.

It is important to point out that it was not easily set up. It took us probably the best part of two years to successfully identify and put all the processes in place for that placement, but it has been successful in the sense that we have not had young people from the locality remanded into the JJC and we have been able to exit them out of it. To answer your question: yes, that will form part of the overall strategy in that we want every trust to have that bail fostering option.

Mrs Dodds: Will there be a request for a funding contribution for that work from the Department of Justice? It seems to me that it is an amalgamation of Health and Justice. You have explained the complexity. I am full of admiration for someone who can take on such a difficult role and maybe give someone a start that they might not otherwise have. It is an incredible thing for someone to do. From a procedural point of view, will Justice be involved in that, not just as advisers but as financiers?

Mr McCafferty: The Youth Justice Agency has absolutely been more than just involved in an advisory capacity — the practicalities — but your question probably needs to sit at an interdepartmental level in the sense that I am not sure —.

Ms McDaniel: We can raise that with the Department of Justice.

Mrs Dodds: I just think that it is interesting. It is equally a Justice issue, but that is an amazing thing to do.

I have two other questions; you may not have the answer to the first one. I appreciate that the Committee will probably want to know the answer as well. There is £2 million of additional money for respite breaks that goes to the end of this financial year, and there is then the additional £13 million. I know, Colm, that you are planning how that will work out. Can we get an idea of what that additional £2 million buys us? How many children will it help? What additional respite breaks does it give for children? You will know the cases that you and I talk about. It is just so that we have a sense of that. Then, can you tell us how you plan for the following years with the additional £13 million that is coming? That should make a significant difference to a complex and difficult problem.

Ms McDaniel: Can I take that one?

Mr McCafferty: Sure.

Ms McDaniel: The plan is to have a regional plan setting out what that money will be spent on and by when, and there will be outputs and outcomes associated with that.

Mrs Dodds: Will the Committee get to see that?

Ms McDaniel: I think that officials will be coming before the Committee in March, so you will probably have a better sense then.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): I think that we wrote to the Department to ask for a breakdown. We raised that on the back of a meeting with the trusts.

Ms McDaniel: The regional plan is the answer to your question.

Mrs Dodds: So, there will be a regional plan.

Ms McDaniel: Yes, a regional plan.

Mr McCafferty: Just to add to that, we are moving at pace with in-year upscaling. I provided the Committee with an update on upscaling our residential short breaks provision. We already have agreement with a number of voluntary and community sector organisations on what they can do in-year in relation to day opportunities. The Chair will be aware of particular unmet need in the Newry locality —

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): Yes.

Mr McCafferty: — that, again through a voluntary provider, we are now able to secure additional provision for in the knowledge that that in-year money is available. Significantly and really welcome, however, is that it is recurrent, so there is immediate capacity for scaling up in this financial year.

Mrs Dodds: That is one of the brighter things that we have experienced.

Mr McCafferty: Absolutely.

Mrs Dodds: All of us will have been reading the terrible story of the little girl in England — Sara Sharif — and the equally awful story of the little boy from, I think, Dundalk, who seemed to just disappear. No one has traced that child, and that is enormously sad. Do we have procedures in place so that that cannot happen within our network? That is an awfully hard question to answer, I know.

Mr McCafferty: But a very relevant one.

Mrs Dodds: It is a very relevant question.

Mr McCafferty: Absolutely.

Mrs Dodds: That child was abused, possibly from when she was born. She died probably a horrific death, and we have lost a six-year-old boy.

Ms Dargan: The answer to your question is yes. The Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland (SBNI) has policies and procedures that all professionals and agencies are signed up to. The circumstances of that child in England will be subject to a case management review, so we do not know yet the full range of potential missed opportunities in that case. The Children's Commissioner has identified legislative changes that would assist. For example, one was around homeschooling. There were a couple of others that I cannot remember. She identified big legislative pieces that would support greater interrogation and inter-agency work than currently exists.

We have policies and procedures, but sometimes we continue to get it wrong. Sometimes, our environment does not support our front-line social workers to always get it right, because of all the issues that we talked about. However, we work hard to learn as much as we can from those cases, and that is what the case management review process is about in SBNI, and all trusts and agencies participate in that. However, we cannot say, "Never".

Mr McCafferty: What is important, which we touched on earlier, was the site visit to Camden, which talked about the multi-agency front door, and that would include education colleagues, police colleagues and numerous others. As a director, I know that I speak on behalf of my director colleagues when I say that we are absolutely enthused about and committed to introducing that here.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): The other issue is that we live on an island. When you look in particular at that little lad Kyran, part of the issue there was that they said that, potentially, he had been moving North. It is not something that I am aware of, but is there all-island work ongoing on tracking children, particularly if they are already known to either Tusla or social services in the North? There might be a gap in that regard. From my scant reading of that case — I do not know the ins and outs of it — I think that, potentially, someone said, "They have moved", but nobody followed that up. I do not want to make assumptions either; I just want to have an understanding of that kind of cross-border working.

Ms McDaniel: There is a cross-border protocol that sets out how authorities in Northern Ireland work with those in the South of Ireland. That was developed under the North/South Ministerial Council child protection arrangements. I think that the protocol has been updated and reissued in the past number of months. There has been a lot of training on everything around the operation of that protocol on both sides of the border. Again, if that is something that you are interested in, we can get you more information on it.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): It came into my head as we were talking.

There is another issue that was raised with me recently, and I wrote to the Minister about it: if a child who is known to social services in one trust — they could be on the child protection register — presents in a hospital in another trust area, the trust is not necessarily informed. Is that the case?

Ms McDaniel: That is the purpose of the child protection register.

Mr McCafferty: They should be informed.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): So, in that case, that should have happened. A councillor raised that issue with me; I must go back to them. I provided information, but it was not overly clear. Sorry; I am digressing again, but these things are important. Given all the challenges that we have outlined today, we do not want to see a case such as that happening. Thank you for that.

Alan Robinson, thank you for your patience.

Mr Robinson: Thanks, Chair. Colm, I have a question about the conversation that you had with Danny about the financial model for foster carers. There are, obviously, pressures in foster care. Diane rightly highlighted the work that foster carers do and said that there is a need for a reward for them. Did you say that the financial model between the trusts will not be in place until December 2025, which is a year away? Is there any reason why it would take that long? Will you talk about the body of work that is involved and why foster carers will have to wait for a year before they see the outworking of a new financial model?

Mr McCafferty: To be clear, it has no immediate impact on the financial support that foster carers get. Trusts come from different places. Up to this point, fee models were, by and large, managed in the existing five trusts, and, because of different local needs, different ways in which children's residential care is deployed and so forth, the ask of fostering was different, so there has been significant divergence over the past number of years in that regard.

It is hugely complicated. There are payments that have been historical and particular to specific children. Diane correctly pointed out the issue of bail fostering, which is unique to the Southern Trust. That is but one example. There are numerous examples of intensive support fostering schemes and specialist fostering schemes right through to a small minority of fee-paid — probably bordering on professional — fostering households. The work that we are talking about seeks to standardise, define and analyse that variation across the region. It will take the best part of the next year to get a really clear handle on that. It also requires specific engagement with existing foster carers. We do not want to apply a scheme that does not resonate with our carers and is not attractive for carers coming into the scheme and so forth. It requires that level of analysis and detail. However, it will not impact on carers at the moment.

Mr Robinson: That is good, Colm. Do you see December of next year as the hard and fast deadline?

Mr McCafferty: I am optimistic. It is being led by SPPG and is very much linked to the fostering work stream, and we are putting tight timelines on that. So, yes, that is the commitment that we have given, and I feel optimistic that we should be able to wrap that up.

Mr Robinson: OK, thanks for that, Colm. I really appreciate it. It has been a good session.

Mr McGrath: I have two questions. I have asked the Minister about issues to do with non-compliance in terms of children. I ask more for information. Some of the table that was in the reply to me said that we have 340 unregulated kinship care placements for children and that unregulated care placements increased from 172 to 219 in the year. If it is unregulated, does that mean that the children are known to social services and on a register, but we do not —

Ms McDaniel: The reference to "unregulated" means the completion of an assessment within a time frame specified in regulations. I think that the time frame is 16 weeks. "Unregulated" means that trusts did not complete the assessment within that time frame. It does not mean that nobody has eyes on that arrangement.

Mr McGrath: The regulation is the 16 weeks rather than that the care placement is not regulated.

Ms McDaniel: Yes, absolutely.

Ms Dargan: Support is maintained throughout at high levels because, while they remain unregulated, there are weekly visits to the family home, and financial support goes in. There are lots of protections in and around it. As Eilís says, "unregulated" means not meeting the target for the completion of the assessment in order to approve the placement one way or other as kinship care.

Mr McCafferty: It is probably important to point out that they are almost exclusively kinship placements — relatives, extended family and so forth — where there is fairly significant knowledge of the child and, indeed, the child of the carer. However, when we are into the looked-after arrangement, I assure the Committee that all basic checks are carried out immediately with the placement of the child. Almost a similar standard is applied to a kinship foster care as a trust foster care. It is a detailed process, and, with even the best will, getting it wrapped up within 16 weeks is challenging.

Mr McGrath: You spoke about the involvement of youth services in the arm's-length body. At what stage is that, and what is the hope or intention for that?

Ms McDaniel: That was Ray Jones's recommendation. He recommended an ALB-plus that, he considered, could involve children in social care. That would involve the five trusts' services but also education services, including youth services. None of that has been agreed at this point. I made the point that there was no consensus among the Ministers who were consulted on establishing an ALB, so we are not there yet.

Mr McGrath: We took evidence at the all-party group on youth participation, and a point that was strongly made was that we should not wait until everything was agreed before moving forward with the arm's-length body but should move forward with as much as was agreed. Which of those two models is likely to be the way forward? For example, if we do not get Education buy-in but we get Justice and Health, will we move forward with that, or will it be a case of getting everything that was envisaged by Ray Jones before moving forward?

Ms McDaniel: It could be done only on a phased basis anyway. It would not make sense to bring all of that together in one fell swoop. It should be done on a phased basis. For absolute clarity, the Justice Minister indicated her support for an ALB. I think that she is on record as being supportive, so I just want to make that clear.

Mr McGrath: Will it happen? Regardless of what Ray suggested about what should be in it, do we feel that there will be that arm's-length body? It would be a single authority for all the social services for children in the trusts. Will we see work starting on that soon?

Ms McDaniel: The only thing that I can say at the minute is that the Health Minister is considering his options. No final decisions have been made. The Justice Minister has indicated her support. Assuming that things progress, you could expect to have youth justice services sitting alongside social care services.

Mr McGrath: Would that be one body and not five separate bodies in the five trusts?

Ms McDaniel: A single body with a number of different functions brought together, yes.

Mr McGrath: Did the Minister not indicate recently in a press statement that he is supportive of the arm's-length body?

Ms McDaniel: The Minister is on record as being supportive, but he is also on record as saying that he thinks that it should be something more than just bringing the five trusts' social care services together.

Mr McGrath: Interesting times. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms Kimmins): Thank you all. That has been a really good session. As Alan said, it is good to get into some more of the detail and see how we are moving forward. We really appreciate all your time and the work that is happening. Thank you all.