Agenda item

            The Director of Children’s Services submitted a report providing an update on the performance within all service commissioning for the first quarter to July 2016. 

            Mrs Maria Young, Interim Head of Children, Families and Community Health, introduced the report and explained that it had been structured to highlight the improvements that had been made and areas where further actions would be required.  She referred to the areas covered that included information on the improved recruitment figures for social workers, work being undertaken on the Quality Assurance Framework, better timelines when dealing with child protection cases and the number of Early Help Record Plans completed, reflecting that young people accessed support early.

          She highlighted the challenges faced by the department, including the number of young people entering the care system and the processes in place to support them.  Mrs Young updated the Committee on work being undertaken to identify young people who were not in education, employment or training

          Mrs Young and Mr Peter Nathan, Head of Education, responded to the Committee members’ questions and comments in respect of the following:

·        The reasons for the delay in completing statutory assessments and whether this was due to the system used by the department.

·         Confirmation that the data cleansing exercise relating to statutory assessments would be complete in the next quarter.

·         Whether social workers’ long term sickness was stress related and how this was being managed by the department. 

·         The timeframe to upload all Early Help Record and Plans onto the IT system, ensuring stakeholders involved in supporting young people had easier access to records.

·         The reasons for the reduction in the number of Early Help Record and Plans issued and confirmation that the need for special resource provision in Swindon was high.

·         An update on the physical and emotional support offered to refugee children and young people arriving in Swindon.

·         The reasons for the decrease in the Post 16 in-learning rate.  These were due to the number of courses being offered in the Sixth Form, the change in academic accreditation and the number young people changing courses during the year.

·         The formatting of the report to reflect comparative data necessary to enable accurate comparisons as not all areas provide national statistics.  

·         How Early Years Health and Targeted Mental Health for young people data compared to national statistics. 

·         The transition process following the closure of Children Centres. 

·         The actions being undertaken to address disabled young people who were not in employment, education or training.

·         The reasons why some young people had a second or subsequent Child Protection Plan and if these were being terminated prematurely.    

·         The reason for an increase in legal costs as reflected in the Financial and Procurement Implications section of the report.

·         The reason why only 65.8% of children on Child protections plans were visited within timescales and work being undertaken to address this. Members noted that this figure primarily reflected a delay in recording the data as visits were undertaken in a timely manner.

·         The possible impact of the Court of Appeal’s decision regarding “in term” holiday absences.

          Resolved – (1) That the report be noted.

          (2) That the Interim Head of Children, Families and Community Health be requested to circulate an update on the new Family Service Provision coming into effect in September 2016.