Meeting documents

Cabinet is asked to NOTE (a) the national, regional and local developments across Children’s Services, and (b) the programme of work taking place to further improve Children’s Services in Buckinghamshire.

Mr R Nash, Service Director Children's Social Care and Mr G Drawmer, Head of Achievement and Learning attended the meeting in order to answer Member questions.

Mr W Whyte, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services introduced the report stating that it was a joint update across Education and Social Care; covering national and local issues.  The following points were highlighted:

• Mr Whyte highlighted the Peer Review as part of the South East sector led improvement programme; which had led to meeting with colleagues from around the south east with useful feedback.
• Mrs Cranmer, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills highlighted some of the good news stories which included teacher recruitment and retention and changes to inspection framework; teaching to the curriculum rather than to test.  Mr Tett, Leader highlighted that Cabinet would have a key interest in the development of the framework to ensure best outcomes for children across the county.
• Mr Tett highlighted the data regarding treatment for cannabis and the upward trend from 2007 to 2008 stating that the information was not current.  It was confirmed that the data had come from Public Health and was the latest available.
• Mr Whyte drew Cabinet’s attention to the Ofsted Monitoring visit letter in appendix 1 of the report pack.

Mr Nash highlighted the following points from the report in relation to social care:

• A recent study into ‘Improving safeguarding responses to gang violence and criminal exploitation’ which highlighted the number of young people exposed to gang violence.  The update report also set out what the children’s services partnership had done to ensure a more coordinated approach to tackle the exploitation of children and serious youth violence.
• The national policy ‘workforce that works for all children’ highlighted the importance of the right people working across children’s services and for them to be supported to forge effective relationships.

• The published findings of the National evaluation of the Troubled Families Programme 2015 to 2020, highlighted where the County Council were in achieving its aims.
• Placements of Looked After Children (LAC) and the strong progress in the area.  There had been a cost avoidance of £5m and the placement of children as close to home as possible where appropriate.
• The service had just undergone their third Ofsted visit which ran over two days and focused on the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), assessment teams and child protection processes.  Mr Nash stated that Ofsted’s findings were fair and accurate and there was a good commentary on progress to date and further improvement to be made.  Mr Nash stated that the feedback reflected the hard work of first and second line managers and social workers and that of those staff spoken to during the visit enjoyed working in Bucks and felt supported by their managers.
• Mr Nash referenced the recent progress report on the improvement in Bucks Children’s Services that had been submitted to the Department for Education (DfE) by the Improvement Advisor for Bucks, Mr John Coughlan (Chief Executive, Hampshire County Council).  The reported noted the new Heads of Services which were of a high calibre and were settling in well.  Mr Coughlan stated that progress was as well as could be expected under the circumstances.
• Mr Nash highlighted the high level action plan that was a live document, monitored regularly and was independently scrutinised.
• Recruitment challenges were a national issue in the context of recruiting social workers.  There were daily and weekly actions in place to address.

Mr Drawmer highlighted the following points from the report in relation to education:

• It was being reported that recruitment and retention in schools was becoming easier due to the time of year.  The Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy were being used to improve progress.
• Changes to the education inspection Framework – the changes will see inspections consider whether schools were teaching a ‘broad and rich learning’ and not narrowing the curriculum or ‘teaching to the test’.  It was noted that work was ongoing with head teachers to be able to plan for its implementation in September 2019.
• Elective home education had seen an increase of 19% (640) which was in line with national trends.
• From September 2020 a new subject would be taught ‘Health Education’.  There would be statutory guidance and officers were working directly with schools to prepare and promote.
• School Inspections – In Bucks 91.5% of pupils attend a ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ school, compared to 85% nationally. 
• Special Educational Needs and Disability had seen a number of improvements since the new Head of Service had been in place.

Cabinet raised and discussed the following points:

• Mr G Williams had recently visited the new children’s home in Aylesbury and commented on how it felt like a home with a real family spirit.  The strategy had pay dividends keeping children closer to home.
• It was highlighted that Bucks recruitment turnover in social care was still above average.  Mr Nash stated that 25% turnover had been driven by the recent changes made and this would start to reduce.  Due to reduction in caseloads and recent publication of monitoring letter would make Bucks a more attractive place to work to the market.

• The monitoring letter had set out that not all interventions were effective and assurances were given that the area was being addressed and would identify opportunities to improve.
• Mr Shaw gave his congratulations to the service on the improvements made and gave an example of a recent good news story.
• Lin Hazel raised the issue of the high number of children that were being home educated and the worry that these children were not monitored closely enough after the initial visit.  Mr Drawmer confirmed that visits were followed up on a yearly basis and that moving forward there would be guidance developed to review more closely and consider how that would be resourced.  Cabinet had a concern that the service was losing sight of those children home educated and asked for an overview to be shared with them that highlighted the current process of review, how often and percentage of reviews completed, what was driving the 19% increase and if there were specific characteristics of those children home educated.

ACTION: Mr Drawmer

• Mr Chilver highlighted the issue of communicating the new Early Help model to partners and that it was critical the Council liaised with partners to assist with early intervention.  Mr Nash stated that there were ongoing conversations with schools and that the MASH had an open day which invited school staff to attend to understand the various pathways and processes.  Mr Whyte highlighted that the Early Help strategy was a partnership document and there would be a busy few months ahead informing key stakeholders.  Following a question from Mr Williams, Mr Nash also stated that it was important to get the right partners to the strategy meetings.
• Mr Tett questioned the change in the education inspection framework and what this meant.  Mr Drawmer confirmed that inspections would move from 1 day to 2 to allow them to still focus on Maths and English but to allow time for a wider focus of subjects.  Outcomes would still be reported in performance tables. 
• Recruitment in Wycombe was highlighted as a particular problem in the report and Mr Nash stated that this was due to cost of living, transport and time getting to work and other employees in the locality.  Partners within the same area were also experiencing the same problem.

• Mr Tett asked how the Council might improve the number of care leavers that went on to attend university.  Mr Whyte stated that the Council had a high ambition for care leavers and that Bucks regularly outperformed its neighbours. However given the complexity of some of those care leavers, university was not always the right setting. Other options to get care leavers into the most appropriate alternative education which would still lead to them creating a future that may not have been on their agenda before should also be considered.  The policy had also been changed so that there was now a facility with previous foster carers so that the individual could go home to them in the holidays for familiar support.
• It was asked what work was being done to address the high number of children and young people associated with, or exposed to, gangs.  Mr Nash stated that work was ongoing with the Youth Justice Service and the Police to understand the current picture.  The Council were actively involved in developing approaches to identify and support those children and young people.
• Mrs Cranmer confirmed that a large number of those home educated were pre GCSE so would suggest stress of exams caused some to withdraw.  Mrs Cranmer also confirmed that a yearly visit was now the rule.

RESOLVED:  Cabinet NOTED (a) the national, regional and local developments across Children’s Services, and (b) the programme of work taking place to further improve Children’s Services in Buckinghamshire.