Meeting documents

Cabinet is asked:

Mr W Whyte, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services and Mr M Appleyard, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills introduced the update report from Children’s Services and made reference to the following:

• The Children and Social Work Act 2017 being implemented including the establishment of Social Work England; local authorities were awaiting detailed outcomes on those changes.

• Work within the Foster Care service and support given recently to Foster Care fortnight
• Following feedback from Ofsted significant changes had been made to the senior management team within the service.
• Mr John Coughlan, CEO of Hampshire County Council had been appointed as Commissioner to monitor progress against the Ofsted Improvement plan.  Initial feedback was expected imminently.  It was highlighted that Mr Coughlan was appointed to review the service not run it.

• The number of children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) was highlighted with a number of those being in mainstream schools.  It was noted that the Council worked hard to engage with those children within mainstream schools.

Mr T Vouyioukas, Executive Director for Children’s Services also attended the meeting to answer any questions from Cabinet. 

Cabinet raised and discussed the following points:

• Focus needed on recruitment and retention of key staff.  Mr Vouyioukas stated that current turnover was 15%, with agency numbers being between 18-20% which was on the lower side compared to other local authorities with inadequate judgement
• The importance of developing team managers and embedding those as a critical role.  Mr Vouyioukas stated that development centres had been started and there were longer term plans in plans in place
• Proposals on supporting Children and Young People’s mental health were welcomed including the pilot of 4 week waiting times in some areas, although this did not include Buckinghamshire.  Mr Vouyioukas stated that there was a national absence of units for mental health needs particular adolescent needs and work would continue to address this.
• The DfE announcement in March 2018 setting out a range of measures to provide support for children with special educational needs and disabilities and how this impacted locally.  Mr Vouyioukas highlighted this was a good development and impacted on the transition from PRUs to mainstream. One of the Council’s PRUs, ASPIRE, had put in a bid for funding and were awaiting a response.
• Following a Member question regarding improving placement sufficiency, Mr Vouyioukas stated that following a Member decision to create four residential homes in Buckinghamshire, one was opening shortly, a second at the end of the calendar year and suitable sites for the third and fourth are being identified.  They were also aiming to make a 20% increase to in-house foster placements year on year to 2021.
• The loss of the Educational Services Grant was raised and how this has changed how the Council operate with schools.  Mr Vouyioukas was asked if he thought the new delivery model, which enabled schools to take responsibility for their own improvement, was proving successful.  Mr Vouyioukas responded by saying that although it was too early to tell there was a good commitment from schools and was confident the principles set out in the project were the right ones.

Cabinet Members congratulated Mr Vouyioukas on putting in place the new middle management team so quickly.

Mr Vouyioukas thanked staff at 1A Churchill Avenue children’s home for the work in moving from an Inadequate to Good rating in a short space of time.  Cabinet passed on their congratulations and appreciation to the team.

Mr Whyte reflected on the recent positive visit of the new residential home about to open.

Mr Appleyard highlighted Artificial Intelligence (AI) which was discussed at both Buckingham University and the recent Governors Annual Forum and how it can be a supplement to formal teaching for some children.  Mr Appleyard was interested to see how it developed.

RESOLVED: Cabinet NOTED the report the key improvement activity in response to the November 2017 Ofsted inspection, and the national and local developments in Children’s Services.