Agenda item

To give the Council an opportunity to debate the role of the Council as Corporate Parent.(Blue pages).

The Council had before it a briefing note that set out the responsibilities that County Councillors have as corporate parents to inform the County Council discussion including:

·         What is corporate parenting?

·         Why is corporate parenting important?

·         Corporate Parenting Strategy, and

·         What should Councillors do?

Any emerging views would be used to inform the Council's continuing provision for any child where the Council was the Corporate Parent.

Council received an introduction to the debate from the Cabinet Member for Children and Families and the Director of Children, Families and Communities followed by a presentation by representatives of the Children in Care Council.

No formal decisions were taken but in the ensuing debate, the following principal points were raised:

·         The Council as corporate parents should be achieving better than average outcomes for its Looked After Children

·         The Corporate Parenting Board (CPB) used to undertake Regulation 33 children's homes visits and these should be re-instated. All members also previously had the opportunity to attend foster care meetings in their local division. The CPB needed strong member leadership and a designated officer lead with sufficient stature in the organisation to ensure that any actions were implemented

·         The majority of CPBs in the country had an element of scrutiny responsibility but not in this Council. The Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Panel had a huge range of areas to scrutinise and did not have the time to dig deep enough into the issues associated with Looked After Children. Given the county and district council input into the CPB, it would be appropriate for it to have a scrutiny function

·         All Looked After Children should be provided with an up-to-date care plan and be able to contribute to it. No Looked After Child on reaching 18 years of age should be sent to unsuitable B&B accommodation. The attainment  gap between the majority of young people in the County and Looked After Children was unacceptable

·         Awareness and participation of all councillors and partners in the issues associated with corporate parenting should be increased, perhaps with compulsory training for all councillors

·         The Minutes of the CPB should be circulated by email to all councillors. Periodic reports from the CPB and the governing body of the Virtual School should be brought to Council. An action plan from the CPB should be reported to Council on an annual basis

·         The Terms of Reference of the CPB should be amended to allow nominated substitutes

·         The following issues should be added to the corporate parenting pledge: driving lessons for every care leaver; apprenticeships with the Council; join the teenager to work scheme and link it to other businesses; mentoring scheme within the Council; cooking groups; money management; access to rights and entitlements; and Personal Occupation Plans

·         The work of the Virtual Head Teacher was important in challenging schools to improve the attainment levels of Looked After Children. All governors of schools had a role in monitoring the attainment levels of Looked After Children in their school

·         The CPB should report somewhere to raise awareness. Any report to Council should include representations from Looked After Children, preferably through representatives of the Children in Care Council

·         Councillors needed to be provided with more information about the Looked after Children in their division so that they knew who they were trying to help. Mandatory training should be considered for members

·         The Terms of Reference of the Board should be amended so that Looked After Children were allowed to nominate their representative on the Board rather than through the Director of Children, Families and Communities

·         The issue of homelessness amongst care leavers as well as mental health problems was a major cause for concern and cut across the work of a number of partner organisations.

The Cabinet Member for Children and Families concluded the debate and thanked everyone for their contribution to the debate especially the representatives of the Children in Care Council. He encouraged members to contact himself or the Director to see how they could engage further with issues associated with Looked After Children.