Agendas, Meetings and Minutes - Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: County Hall, Worcester

Contact: Alyson Grice (01905 844962)/Samantha Morris (01905 844963)  Overview & Scrutiny Officers

Items
No. Item

230.

Apologies and Welcome

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Ian Hopwood, John Thomas, Charmian Richardson and John Campion (Cabinet Member with responsibility for Children and Families).

 

231.

Declaration of Interest and of any Party Whip

Minutes:

Item 8 Children 'Educated Otherwise'

 

Councillor Lynne Duffy declared an interest as a provider of alternative education.  She informed the Panel that the Vice Chairman would Chair the meeting for item 8.

 

232.

Public Participation

Members of the public wishing to take part should notify the Head of Legal and Democratic Services in writing or by e-mail indicating the nature and content of their proposed participation no later than 9.00am on the working day before the meeting (in this case 16 March 2016).  Enquiries can be made through the telephone number/e-mail address below.

 

Minutes:

None.

 

233.

Confirmation of the Minutes of the Previous Meeting

(previously circulated)

 

Minutes:

The Minutes of the Meetings held on 19 January 2016 and 1 February 2016 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

 

234.

0-19 Prevention Service and Children's Centres pdf icon PDF 194 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Cabinet Members with Responsibility for Health and Well-Being, and Children and Families, the Interim Director of Public Health and the Strategic Commissioner (Early Help and Partnerships) had been invited to the meeting to discuss the development of the new 0-19 integrated prevention service for children, young people and families (Starting Well Service) and feedback from the recent consultation on the use of Children's Centre buildings.

 

By way of introduction, the Interim Director of Public Health and the Strategic Commissioner (Early Help and Partnerships) made the following points:

 

·       The tender specification was currently on the County Council's tender portal and was open for people to make bids to run the service.  The specification (which had been included in the agenda papers) included a great deal of technical detail.

·       The new service would roll together areas of spend that had previously been commissioned separately to create an integrated service with a better skill mix, providing a strong universal offer, including childhood checks, identifying those who might need more support and help.

·       Concerns had been expressed that the previous service may not always have reached those who were most in need.

·       A factual summary outlining the results of the consultation on the use of Children's Centre buildings had also been included in the agenda papers.

·       The next stage would be to hold further discussions with those respondents who had suggested alternative ideas for using Children's Centres.

·       The extent to which the Starting Well service would make use of Children's Centre buildings would not be clear until all of the tenders had been evaluated.

 

Members were given an opportunity to ask questions.  The following main points were raised:

 

·       Although the services to be provided were outlined in the specification, it was not yet clear what additional services providers might choose to offer.  The full range of services to be provided would not be clear until the tenders were received.

·       It was confirmed that focus groups had been held to establish what services people currently liked.  Formal consultation on any service reduction would be held at the next stage.

·       Members were informed that service improvement was a strong driver behind the changes as a result of the evidence provided by the Early Help Needs Assessment (EHNA).  The EHNA would have been completed even if the Council was not facing budget reductions.  However, financial reductions were also a driver in the service re-design.

·       The total budget for the new service was £9.8 million.  It was difficult to say how this compared with previous spend on these services, as budgets that were previously separate were now being integrated.  However, it was estimated that this figure represented a reduction of 12.5%.  Members were reminded that this information had been included in the Council's medium term financial plan.

·       Paragraph 1.2.3 of the service specification stated that there was good evidence for the cost effectiveness of prevention and early intervention programmes, which could be shown to save money in the longer term.  It was suggested that it was odd  ...  view the full minutes text for item 234.

235.

Developing an Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme pdf icon PDF 102 KB

Minutes:

The Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Panel was asked to:

 

a)     Consider the programme agreed by the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Board (OSPB) for developing the 2016/17 Work Programme; and

b)     Consider suggestions for inclusion in the Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme for 2016/17.

 

During the discussion, the following suggestions were made for possible scrutiny topics:

 

·       Social mobility in Worcestershire (following a recent report that showed that Wychavon had one of the worst records on social mobility in the country)

·       Anti-bullying (revisiting the work of the 2008 scrutiny task group)

·       Review of the Starting Well Service

·       Stronger Families

·       Positive Activities

·       Access to education (with reference to school and other transport)

·       West Mercia Police - response to recent inspection report re absent/missing children, CSE and safeguarding

·       WSCB (new Chair and Protect Agenda – training re CSE)

·       Future role of the local authority (in relation to place planning, education for LAC and responsibility for school improvement)

·       Childhood obesity

 

It was agreed that these suggestions would be forwarded to OSPB for consideration at its April meeting.

 

 

236.

Educational Outcomes 2015 Including OFSTED Update pdf icon PDF 106 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Head of Education and Skills and the Schools and Settings Effectiveness Lead (Babcock) had been invited to the meeting to provide an update on educational outcomes for children and young people educated in Worcestershire schools for 2015.

 

By way of introduction, Members were reminded that a member seminar on 2015 educational achievement would be held in April.  Although it may seem quite late to be holding the seminar, given that the 2016 exam season was due to start soon, validated data was not available until mid-January, so it was difficult to provide any useful information any earlier in the year.

 

During the discussion, the following main points were made:

 

·       The movement of all schools to academy status would not affect the reporting of data.  Currently 24 out of 28 high schools in Worcestershire were academies and data was still collected from all.

·       From the summer of 2016 all reporting mechanisms would be changing, so there would be an issue with matching data over time.

·       Even if a school became an academy, its pupils would still have to take statutory tests and so the national data point would remain.

·       It was confirmed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's announcement that all schools would become academies would also apply to special schools.

·       The issue of school readiness was raised.  It was confirmed that in reception, PSHE was measured via the criteria outlined in the early learning goals.

·       It was suggested that the education system was on the cusp of substantial change in relation to school organisation and academy status.  In Worcestershire, it was important to remember:

o   88% of schools were judged by Ofsted to be good or outstanding

o   At KS4 results were 7% above the national average

o   The county's Achilles heel was the attainment gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils.

·       It was also important to remember that the local authority had never had control of schools in Worcestershire.  Although the LA did not have a mandate to go in to all academies, where an academy was in difficulty, the authority would offer support.  It was acknowledged that the LA could not control what was taught in an academy.  However, Members were reminded that all schools were mindful of the Ofsted framework.  It was suggested that, generally, things had not changed since the introduction of academies.  For example, the length of the school day, term times, and staff terms and conditions had generally remained the same.

·       Concern was expressed about the limit on the number of people with a link to the local authority who could serve on an academy's governing body.  It was suggested that this was a particular problem for small schools and was leading to a loss of experienced governors.

·       The Head of Education and Skills informed Members that he was meeting representatives of the DfE next week and would raise areas of concern.  He agreed that issues of governance were key.

·       It was suggested that the majority of primary schools would become part of multi-academy  ...  view the full minutes text for item 236.

237.

Children 'Educated Otherwise' pdf icon PDF 103 KB

Minutes:

The Chairman declared an interest in this item as a provider of alternative education.  The Vice Chairman chaired the meeting for item 8.

 

The Head of Education and Skills, and the Schools and Settings Effectiveness Lead (Babcock) had been invited to the meeting to provide an update on provision for young people of compulsory school age defined as being 'educated otherwise'.  It was explained that this term referred to learners who were in receipt of alternative provision (including hospital or medical education), and elective home education.

 

Members were given an opportunity to ask questions and the following main points were raised:

 

·       It was confirmed that the local authority held a register of all those children who had been de-registered from school and were currently home educated.  The local authority would carry out initial checks to ensure the appropriateness of the curriculum but, beyond this, it had little scope to inspect provision.  This was a significant concern and the Independent Chair of the Worcestershire Safeguarding Children Board had recently written to the Department for Education expressing the Board's concern.  The DfE had replied twice to say that it was looking into the issue.  It was acknowledged that the local authority was not able to force parents to allow visits to assess the quality of provision for home educated children.

·       It was confirmed that, in the case of home educated children, the duty to provide learning rested with the parents and the local authority provided a comprehensive set of guidance.

·       A question was asked about who was responsible for checking safety, DBS checks and other safeguarding issues when a school directly commissioned an alternative provider.  It was suggested that these providers were often small local businesses who were looking to diversify, but it was not clear who was responsible for ensuring they met necessary standards.

·       It was confirmed that the local authority held a list of alternative providers which showed where DBS checks had been undertaken.  It was agreed that the list would be shared with the Panel.

·       Concern was expressed that there was currently no Ofsted inspection of alternative providers and it was confirmed that this concern had been raised in the WSCB's letter to the Department for Education.

·       Members were informed that social workers were also aware of the safeguarding risk in relation to home educated children as this was a national issue.  If concerns were raised, a referral to social care could be made and this would include the usual statutory abilities to intervene.

·       Further concern was expressed about those families who never register a child with a school and those who move around regularly.

·       It was confirmed that, where a child had a statement of Special Educational Needs or an Education Health Care Plan and was also home educated, the statement/plan was monitored rigorously.

·       Members were reminded that the local authority had moved away from PRUs to alternative provision schools.  The aim was to get the heads of all the alternative provision schools to work together towards achieving  ...  view the full minutes text for item 237.