SEVEN babies had to be placed in emergency care offered by Barnsley Council in a three-month period, a shock new report has revealed.
A panel of scrutiny councillors are set to probe children’s services bosses about the statistics, which delve into the number of youngsters who enter the local care system.
As well as the seven babies, 11 one-to-four-year olds and 17 five-to-nine year olds also required care during the year’s second quarter.
A total of 383 under 17s are in Barnsley Council’s care - a rise of 26 from the first quarter - and 16 of those are unaccompanied, asylum-seeking children.
The Chronicle understands children’s services bosses Carly Speechley and Matthew Boud will be questioned by the scrutiny panel on Tuesday, as well as cabinet spokesperson Councillor Ashley Peace.
A report said: “Performance across services is scrutinised by the executive director and service director through monthly directors’ performance clinics.
“The key lines of enquiry produced for these clinics allows individual service areas to discuss performance, highlight areas for improvement and create solutions to difficulties.
“To support good operational management, there are weekly operational performance clinics that are led by the respective team managers.
“The percentage of decisions made on all contacts and referrals in one working day at the end of quarter two was 72 per cent, which is higher than the previous quarter’s 54 per cent but remains below the target of 80 per cent.
“For the percentage of children in care who are placed less than 20 miles from their home address, performance stands at 84.4 per cent, almost reaching the target of 85 per cent.
“We continue to work closely with our fostering service and local independent providers of fostering, residential care and supported
accommodation to place children in local homes where possible.
“It is important to know that this remains a priority for our children in care.
“It is assuring that in spite of placement availability within the region this target was very nearly achieved in this quarter.”
The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (NFJO) said the amount was a ‘concern’.
A spokesperson added: “Not all cases of care proceedings concerning newborns will result in infant removal, but where the local authority does remove an infant from his or her mother within hours or days of the infant’s birth, this is highly distressing for birth mothers, birth fathers and wider family networks.
“Published family court judgements evidence the challenges of issuing care proceedings at birth for all parties.
“However, statutory practice guidance is very scant on both pre-birth assessment and best practice regarding care proceedings at birth.
“Equally, the literature focused on professional handling and experience of newborn cases is very limited.
“Although the greatest proportional increases in recent years are for older children, infant cases make a considerable and consistent demand on the family justice system.”
