Meeting documents

Apologies were received from David Babb, John Chilver, Wendy Mallen and Mike Appleyard, the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills.

To declare any Personal or Disclosable Pecuniary Interests.

Margaret Aston declared an interest as she was a member of the Corporate Parenting Panel and she sits on the Fostering Panel.  Katrina Wood also declared an interest as a member of the Corporate Parenting Panel.

Minutes of the meeting held on 25^th March 2014 to be confirmed as a correct record.

The minutes of the meeting held on 25^th March 2014 were confirmed as a correct record subject to the following slight amendments:

Raza Khan and Amanda Hopkins to be included as present at the meeting at the start of the minutes and Chris Adams to be recorded as giving apologies.

Public Questions is an opportunity for people who live, work or study in the county to put a question to a Scrutiny Committee about any issue that has an impact on their local community or the county as a whole.

Members of the public, who have given prior notice, will be invited to put their question in person.

The Cabinet Member and responsible officers will then be invited to respond. 

Further information and details on how to register can be found through the following link and by then clicking on ‘Public Questions’.

http://democracy.buckscc.gov.uk/mgCommitteeDetails.aspx?ID=788

The Chairman explained that Mr Andy Hudson, who was a member of the Parent and Teachers Association for the High Wycombe Music Centre had asked to put a question to the meeting.  As he was unable to attend, Mrs Ellen Southall and her daughter, Anne-Marie who is a student at the Music Centre came to the meeting in his place.  The Chairman explained that Mrs Southall would have four minutes to put her question to the Committee.  Usually the Cabinet Member would then be given four minutes in which to respond, but unfortunately as Mr Appleyard had given his apologies and would not be attending the meeting, on this occasion there would instead be a written response.

Mrs Southall explained that she wanted to raise concerns about the proposed restructuring of the Bucks Music Service and the implications of this for the High Wycombe Music Centre, which her daughter attends.  Parents were concerned that the proposed new structure would not be viable, that key senior staff will be lost and this will affect the quality of the output of the centre.  Currently High Wycombe Music Centre has an excellent reputation, often winning national awards.  Parents were also concerned that if staff were made redundant, they may then choose to contract directly with schools to offer tuition, which would ultimately lead to a loss in revenue for the Bucks Learning Trust.

To date the consultation has been limited to staff only and Mrs Southall wished to request that the consultation should be widened in order to include users of the service, so that students and parents could contribute.  There was also concern that no-one appeared to have visited the music centre ahead of the consultation.

The Chairman asked Mrs Southall’s daughter, Anne-Marie if she wished to add anything further.  She reported that she had attended a national competition with a choir from the High Wycombe Music Centre and they won the Choir of the Day.  The judge commented that many countries around the world would be proud to have a national choir of that calibre and Anne-Marie attributed their success to the hard work of Tim Venvell, who is the conductor of the choir.

The Chairman thanked Mrs Southall and Anne-Marie for their contribution to the meeting.  The issues they had raised would be passed on to Mr Appleyard, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills who would provide a written response.

For the Chairman of the Committee to provide an update to the Committee on recent scrutiny related activity.

The Chairman reported that there had been quite a lot of publicity surrounding the Committee’s Narrowing the Gap report.  Since the last meeting of the Committee, members had visited Waddesdon Church of England School to learn about how they help their students prepare for work, as part of the Committee’s Inquiry into Young People, Ready for Work.  Members commented that they had been impressed by the approach taken by Waddesdon Church of England School, where a dedicated member of staff works with children from Year 7 to identify what career options might suit them best.  It had also been very useful to gain feedback from the young people themselves. 

For members of the Committee to update the Committee on any issue they are investigating on behalf of the Committee.

This item was covered under Item 5.

An inquiry into home education in Buckinghamshire and school absenteeism, including the rates of absenteeism in Buckinghamshire schools, identified schools with high rates of absenteeism and the strategies in place to support schools in reducing absenteeism.

Contributors

Mr Chris Munday – Service Director, Learning, Skills and Prevention

Mrs Vivian Trundell - Exclusions and Reintegration Manager

Ms June Casemore - Family Resilience Consultant

Papers

A report on elective home education in Buckinghamshire and school absenteeism.

The Chairman welcomed Mr Bill Bendyshe-Brown, Deputy Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, Mr Chris Munday, Service Director, Learning, Skills and Prevention, Mrs Vivian Trundell, Exclusions and Reintegration Manager, Mrs Joy Shakespeare, Head of Family Resilience and Mrs Laura Nankin, Head of Fair Access and Youth Provision to the meeting.

Mr Bendyshe-Brown advised the Committee that concerns around elective home education had been raised nationally. The Local Authority has no rights to go into the home to check on the standards of education being provided.  Mrs Vivian Trundell, Exclusions and Reintegration Manager explained that the Local Authority employ two people (equating to one full time equivalent) to provide support and advice to parents in Bucks who choose to educate at home.  However currently there is no requirement for parents to register the fact that they are educating their children at home so it is difficult to know exactly how many children are involved.

Members were concerned about this inability to track children.  Every child deserves a good education and also there might be safeguarding issues if educating children at home was viewed as a way of avoiding scrutiny.  The Chairman wondered how the progress of a child who has been registered in the county at birth could be lost by the time they are due to enter Reception at five years of age. Vivian Trundell explained that until children start at school they are not tracked by the Local Authority. 

Vivian Trundell also commented that some home educated children achieve high standards.  Some children are home educated on a temporary basis and perhaps some people choose to do it to avoid scrutiny.  She gave an example where recently a Health Visitor advised the Local Authority (LA) that she knew of a child who had attended a local preschool but had not entered Reception.  The LA asked the Police to do a welfare check and now the child is attending school. 

Monique Nowers, a Parent Governor representative on the Committee, reported that she had previously home educated some of her children.  She expressed the view that some home educated children get a great education and many parents are doing a good job.  Monique Nowers explained that she had asked the LA for advice when she was home educating and found the consultant who advised her to be non-judgemental and very helpful.  She felt it was important to take a balanced view on home education and although some people might choose this route in order to avoid scrutiny, this issue should not be blown out of proportion.

The Chairman asked if it would be useful for the Committee to write to the Minister to raise concerns about this issue of children ‘flying under the radar’ due to being educated at home.  It was agreed that the Chairman would liaise with Vivian Trundell to compose a suitable letter.

ACTION: Chairman and Vivian Trundell

A member asked what would happen if a child who had been educated at  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Questions to the Chief Executive of Bucks Learning Trust.

Contributors

Mr Raza Khan – Chief Executive of the Bucks Learning Trust

Mr Chris Munday – Service Director, Learning, Skills and Prevention

The Chairman welcomed Mr Raza Khan, Chief Executive of the Bucks Learning Trust and Mrs Amanda Hopkins, Director of Education, Bucks Learning Trust to the meeting.  The Chairman explained that this would be a question and answer session on the progress of the Bucks Learning Trust (BLT) and invited Mr Chris Munday, Service Director, Learning, Skills and Prevention to introduce the item by reminding the Committee of how the BLT came into existence.

Mr Munday explained that Buckinghamshire County Council (BCC) decided over a year ago to investigate a new model to deliver school based services.  Officers worked closely with members to devise a system which would allow expertise to be shared and develop a self-improving school system.  The Trust was established in August 2013 and so far things are going well. The Local Authority (LA) have not handed over any of their statutory responsibilities to the BLT – school standards remain the responsibility of the LA but the delivery of services has been handed over to the BLT.

Narrowing the Gap was a key priority for the BLT and also ensuring that the number of children in schools rated as Good or Outstanding by Ofsted would increase.  To date there has been good progress made in this area in the Primary sector, but the Secondary sector was not showing as much improvement.  The LA would continue to work in partnership with the BLT in order to improve outcomes for all children and young people in Bucks.

The Chairman asked Mr Raza Khan for his appraisal of how the BLT was progressing to date.  Mr Khan commented that BCC’s decision to create the BLT was quite radical and this could mean that there were risks and uncertainty, but he was confident that the BLT had made a very strong start in its first nine months.  Significant progress had been made and he believed that the BLT had a clear operational, moral and commercial mandate from the start. The operational mandate was laid out in a very detailed service level agreement to ensure that BCC’s statutory responsibilities would be delivered.  The key goal was trying to get schools into the Good or Outstanding Ofsted categories and to date many primary schools had improved to achieve Good.

There was still more work to do though whilst some schools remained as Satisfactory or Inadequate, and working towards these improvements was also part of the BLT’s moral mandate.  In addition work on Narrowing the Gap was also underway.

With regards to the BLT’s commercial mandate, it was recognised that there was increased fiscal pressure on both the LA and Schools, so services which schools buy into must be value for money.  The BLT was currently restructuring some of its services to ensure value for money and resilience for the long term.

Mrs Hopkins reported that the BLT have been engaging with school leaders to find out what schools want in terms of support.  She believed that this consultation led approach made schools feel more  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The report and recommendations arising from the Young People Ready for Work Inquiry.

Contributors

Mrs Val Letheren, Chairman of the Select Committee for Children, Education and Skills

Mr Bill Bendyshe-Brown, Deputy Cabinet Member for Education and Skills

Mr Chris Munday, Service Director, Learning Skills and Prevention

Mr Raza Khan, Chief Executive of the Bucks Learning Trust

Mr Michael Carr, Scrutiny Policy Officer, Policy, Performance and Communications

Papers

The Young People, Ready for Work Inquiry report will follow.

The Chairman advised the Committee that she was hoping to present the Young People, Ready for Work Inquiry report to Cabinet on Monday 28^th April.  She invited the Committee to consider the draft final report and the recommendations.

Mr Bill Bendyshe-Brown, Deputy Cabinet Member for Education and Skills welcomed the report which he had received over the Bank Holiday Weekend.  He advised that he wanted to consider the recommendations further and would provide a response by Friday 25^th April.  He was attending a meeting with the Leader and Chief Executive regarding the Educated in Bucks Passport scheme, which was mentioned in the report.  He believed this was a worthwhile scheme and partners had been working well together in order to develop it.

A member commented that he hoped the recommendations would be received positively.  Members had enjoyed this inquiry, meeting young people who gave mixed reviews on the support they had received in preparing for work, but who had impressed the committee with their enthusiasm and commitment now they were in the work place. 

Mr Chris Munday made a comment on a quote which had been included in the report at the top of page 21.  He advised that whilst he felt the quote was very relevant to the topic as a whole, he was concerned that it was in the Connexions section of the report, because it was talking about careers advice in general and Connexions were not commissioned to provide universal advice.  The Chairman thanked Mr Munday for this suggestion and agreed that the quote would be moved in the final report.

The Chairman took members through each of the recommendations in turn.  Recommendation Three recommended that schools should strengthen their capacity for careers and work-readiness delivery through an independent specialist service such as the Connexions Service. Members advised that they felt the Connexions service could be improved. John Everson, Commissioning/Development Manager (Connexions) commented that it was important to establish clarity around what the Connexions service should provide in the future and ensure effective monitoring going forward. 

In connection with Recommendation Eight, regarding local businesses forming links with schools and colleges in their local area, a member reported that one of her friends who lives in another county runs a business and wanted to go into schools with a view to recruiting apprentices.  However the local schools were not very co-operative as they wanted young people to stay on into their Sixth Forms and therefore viewed the alternative options she wished to promote as competition.  A member noted that she had been shocked to hear that pupils at Princes Risborough Upper School did not link in with the Ercol factory in the town regarding job opportunities.

Mrs Amanda Hopkins, Director of Education, Bucks Learning Trust advised that she would raise this issue with the Primary Executive Board and the Bucks Association of Secondary Heads (BASH) as it was important that schools could offer advice on a range of opportunities for school leavers.  The Bucks Learning  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Questions on the support and advice available to school governors in their role and how this could be enhanced, as part of the Committee’s inquiry.

Contributors

Mr Chris Munday – Service Director, Learning, Skills and Prevention

Mrs Nicola Cook – Governor Services Manager, Bucks Learning Trust

The Chairman welcomed Mrs Nicola Cook, Governor Services Manager, Bucks Learning Trust to the meeting and thanked her and her team for making her feel so welcome when she had recently visited their office.  Mr Bill Bendyshe-Brown introduced the item by emphasising the importance of school governors especially in the area of improving standards in schools.  He also reminded the Committee that school governors are all volunteers.

The Committee had received a written report from Mrs Cook in October 2013 so the Chairman invited member’s questions.  The questions and answers are summarised below:

Do we have feedback from school governing bodies on what they most like about governor support services and what they are least satisfied with?

The Governor Services team constantly ask for feedback.  Evaluation sheets are collected at the end of each training session and a survey of the Chairman of governing bodies is undertaken every two years, which asks detailed questions around the quality of minutes and advice delivered by the clerks.  The most recent survey showed that 99% of chairmen rated the service as good or excellent.  If governing bodies have concerns at any time they can contact the team.  Mrs Cook commented that her overall impression is that all elements of the service are well-received.  The one area that might cause concern is if there is a change of clerk.  Clerks build up loyalty and a wealth of knowledge about the governing bodies they support, so a change can be unsettling and governing bodies can find the transition difficult. 

What percentage of school governing bodies currently buy governor support services?

In October 2013 90% of governing bodies were buying some services and this has now increased to 96%.  Most buy the clerking and advice service and a support service is also offered to clerks who are employed directly by schools.

Are there any areas of training that may be useful which are not currently offered?

The team try to provide training to cover a full range of issues and advice is sought from the Bucks Association of School Governors (BASG), the School Governance Consultative Board and Development Governors as to what other areas might be useful.  The training for 2014-15 was currently being prepared and some new courses are being offered including – Being a member of an Appeal Committee; Engaging with Parents; Data Monitoring for Special Schools; Sports Premiums and Keeping One Step Ahead of Ofsted.

We would like to consult with school governors on key areas of how their governing bodies operate and the support and advice they get from governor support services.  What key questions would you suggest?

Mrs Cook said that she had given it some thought and suggested asking if there is anything that a governing body does which it feels is especially effective, as it would be useful to share good practice. 

How accessible do you think school governing body committee meetings are to allow people from all backgrounds to participate and be a working school governor?  

This  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

A review of the implementation of the agreed scrutiny recommendations of the Learning New Ways Scrutiny Task and Finish Group, carried out in 2012-13.

Contributors

Mr Bill Bendyshe-Brown – Deputy Cabinet Member for Education and Skills

Mrs Avril Davies – Chairman of the Learning New Ways Scrutiny Task and Finish Group

Mr Chris Munday – Service Director, Learning, Skills and Prevention

Mrs Sarah Holding – School and Academy Relationship Manager

Mr Raza Khan – Chief Executive of the Buckinghamshire Learning Trust

Papers

A report on the agreed recommendations of the Learning New Ways Scrutiny Task and Finish Group and an update on how they have been implemented.

The Chairman welcomed Mrs Avril Davies, Chairman of the Learning New Ways Task and Finish Group and Mrs Sarah Holding, School and Academy Relationship Manager to the meeting.  The Learning New Ways report had been presented to Cabinet in December 2012.  Mrs Davies confirmed that she was very pleased with the progress that had been made in implementing the recommendations of her Task and Finish Group.  She did comment that with regards to Recommendation 8, that whilst members did have an induction programme following the elections in May 2013, it would be useful for the local members’ role in relation to schools in their area to be clearer, perhaps by developing a written outline.  It is very useful for local members to be involved with schools in the division but sometimes headteachers could be suspicious of political motivation.

Mrs Holding noted Mrs Davies’ comment and it was agreed that she would draft a protocol for members in consultation with the Member Development Working Group.

ACTION: Sarah Holding

Other members echoed Mrs Davies’ sentiments about how important it is to be involved with local schools and many members were also on school governing bodies in their area.

Mr Chris Munday, Service Director, Learning, Skills and Prevention advised that this had been a very helpful report for the service, at a time when school arrangements had changed radically with the introduction of Academies and Free Schools.  The Action Plan highlighted the responses to the report’s recommendations and illustrated how the local authority had maintained a family of schools in Bucks and the commitment to good school standards for all children and young people.

The Chairman thanked Mrs Davies, Mrs Holding and Mr Munday for attending the meeting.

RESOLVED
That the progress on implementation of the agreed recommendations arising from the Learning New Ways inquiry be noted. 

Mr Michael Carr, Scrutiny Policy Officer, introduced the item explaining that this was an opportunity to seek advice from the Service Director, Learning, Skills and Prevention and the Bucks Learning Trust on the key issues facing Buckinghamshire County Council in order to inform the Committee’s Work Programme for the forthcoming year.  The Chairman reported that meetings had also been booked with Mr Appleyard and Mrs Macpherson, the relevant Cabinet Members, to gain their views and if any members had any issues that they particularly wanted to raise they should inform Michael Carr.

Mr Chris Munday, Service Director, Learning, Skills and Prevention proposed the following topic for the Committee to consider for their future Work programme:

·         Progress to Good and Outstanding – how are schools progressing to achieve the higher Ofsted rankings, it was important to hear good news and bad.

·         SEN – The Children and Families Act has introduced changes to the approach to SEN including provision up to the age of 25. This is a very contentious issue for parents.

·         School Place Planning – This is a key challenge for BCC.  An additional 2,500 places have been created over the past four years and it is important to consider how to manage demand and plan for the future.  This is an issue which affects the whole of Bucks

Mr Raza Khan, Chief Executive of the Bucks Learning Trust agreed with Mr Munday’s suggestions.  He commented that it would be useful for the Committee to highlight the progress that schools were making, as if a school fails there is a lot of press coverage, but then they don’t always receive positive press when the school’s performance improves.  Scrutiny of SEN would also be invaluable, as it was crucial to get the design of SEN provision right for the future.

Mr Munday highlighted the need for a reliable set of data to inform School Place Planning.  Previously Child Benefit data was used to help project the level of need but as this was no longer a universal benefit, the data could not be used.  A member asked if information was shared by colleagues in Health and nurseries and pre-schools. In response, Mr Munday explained that whilst some information is forthcoming this does not present the full picture, as some children go into Independent Schools and people move in and out of Bucks.

A member also suggested looking into Fostering and Adoption in more detail, as there had been major changes in these areas in response to the Government’s drive to streamline the process for potential adopters and increase the number of children being adopted. 

The Chairman thanked all the contributors for their suggestions.

RESOLVED

That the key issues identified to the Committee for consideration in the Committee’s work programme be noted.

To consider and agree the updated Work Programme.

Contributors

Mrs Val Letheren – Chairman of the Committee

Mr Michael Carr – Scrutiny Policy Officer, Policy, Performance and Communications

Papers

Updated Work Programme 2013-14

The Committee noted the revised work programme.

RESOLVED

That the updated Committee Work Programme be agreed.

To note the next meeting of the Education, Skills and Children’s Services Select Committee on Tuesday 27^th May 2014 in Mezzanine Room 2, County Hall, Aylesbury

To note the next meeting of the Education, Skills and Children’s Services Select Committee on Tuesday 27^th May 2014 in Mezzanine Room 2, County Hall, Aylesbury