Agenda and minutes
Venue: Virtual meeting via MS teams
Contact: Kelly Sutherland
Media
Webcast: View the webcast
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Apologies for Absence Additional documents: Minutes: The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting. No apologies had been received. |
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Declarations of Interest Additional documents: Minutes: Councillor Dominic Barnes declared that his wife worked for a grammar school in Buckinghamshire. |
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To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 29th September 2020 as a correct record. Additional documents: Minutes: It was agreed that the name of the person who had submitted the public questions be added to the minutes; future minutes would also include the name of the person who submitted the question(s). ACTION: Mrs K Sutherland
The actions of the previous minutes were reviewed: · Mrs Sutherland had amended the previous minutes. · Item 5 Chairman’s Update - The presentation had been circulated to the committee members. · Item 7 SEND Improvement Plan - Mr James had provided a response to Councillor Stuchbury on whether there was a waiting list for speech therapy. Mrs Sutherland agreed to circulate the response to the committee members. ACTION: Mrs Sutherland · The Chairman and Mr James had discussed the timeframe of the possible agenda item on the forward plan. · It was agreed that councillors would be referred to as ‘Councillor’ in future minutes.
RESOLVED: The minutes of the meeting held on 29 September 2020 were AGREED as an accurate record subject to the amendments mentioned above. |
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Public Questions Additional documents: Minutes: There were no public questions. |
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Chairman's Update For the Chairman to update the Committee on any Scrutiny related activity since the last meeting. Additional documents: Minutes: The Chairman advised that the Select Committee was very fortunate to have Mr Mark Skoyles, the primary school representative and Ms Clare Pease, the secondary school representative, as co-opted members to assist with education scrutiny matters. Mr Skoyles and Ms Pease had served previously and were welcomed back to the Committee.
In response to an update on a councillor’s request to move the Children’s and Education Select Committee meeting to the evening; the Chairman advised that all the meeting dates were agreed by the Shadow Authority and these committee meetings were arranged in the afternoon. |
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Family Support Service - One Year on PDF 1006 KB The Committee will receive an update on and review progress of the Family Support Service, a new Early Years model which was introduced in September 2019.
Contributors: Mr Mark Shaw, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services Mrs Anita Cranmer, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills Mr Tolis Vouyioukas, Corporate Director for Children’s Services Mr Simon James, Service Director, Education Mr Gareth Morgan, Head of Early Help Additional documents: Minutes: The Chairman welcomed Councillor Mark Shaw, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Councillor Anita Cranmer, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, Mr Tolis Vouyioukas, Corporate Director for Children’s Services Mr Gareth Morgan, Head of Early Help and Mr Simon James, Service Director, Education.
Councillor Shaw advised that it had been agreed, by cabinet decision in March 2019, that a Family Support Service (FSS) be provided. The FSS launched on 2 September 2019 and aimed to provide local services to families at the right time. There were three teams; in Aylesbury, High Wycombe and the Chiltern and South Bucks area whose focus was to improve family resilience and obtain the best outcomes for children and young people. Positive feedback had been received and the Buckinghamshire Council Improvement Partner, Hampshire County Council, had been impressed with progress to date, bearing in mind the impact of Covid-19. Over the last year the FSS had seen a 16% increase in people seeking help and advice. Councillor Shaw expressed his gratitude to all staff over the last year and added that there would a greater sense of concern over children and young people’s wellbeing during the second lockdown.
Mr James highlighted the recommendations in the report and emphasised that the focus of the service was to provide the right support at the right time and to intervene as early as possible. Mr James explained that there was flexibility in the way the service offered its support to families across the county and there were two primary aims for the service; firstly, to support vulnerable families and their children to achieve positive outcomes and, secondly, to make sure that services were integrated wherever possible to improve the resilience of families and the local communities.
Between the start of the service and March 2020 the service ran as planned; however, following the first lockdown, the majority of the service was provided by virtual contact. There was also an online Family Information Service (FIS) to help families self-serve. 77% of the outcomes agreed with families had been achieved and the improvement had been noted by the Improvement Board. However, there was always scope for improvement and the FSS would continue to focus on three areas: to ensure that all plans reflected issues across the whole family and were considered in a holistic way; to ensure that a reflective approach was embedded, particularly in connection with supervision and to ensure that the recording and case summaries were always up to date and appropriately detailed. Performance would be monitored on a monthly and quarterly basis.
The following points were raised during discussion:
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Educational Standards PDF 620 KB The Committee will receive and consider the annual report on educational standards and attainment in Buckinghamshire.
Contributors: Mrs Anita Cranmer, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills Mr Tolis Vouyioukas, Corporate Director for Children’s Services Mr Simon James, Service Director, Education Mr Gareth Drawer, Head of Achievement and Learning Additional documents: Minutes: Councillor Anita Cranmer, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills thanked the schools for their work over the last six months and reported that all the schools were currently open; only two schools had had to close for a short period of time. 16 schools had been mildly affected by Covid-19 and there had been 39 reported cases in 85,000 children. Councillor Cranmer highlighted that the information in the report related to educational outcomes for children and young people in Buckinghamshire for the academic year 2018-2019 and did not include this year’s GCSE results as they would not be reported nationally. Exclusions were still below the national rate and, nationally, Buckinghamshire schools still had a higher than national rating of good and above.
Mr James also formally thanked the schools and advised that the purpose of the detailed report was to provide the Select Committee with updated information on educational standards and attainment. Mr James highlighted the following key points:
The following points were raised in discussion:
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The Committee will note the work programme. Additional documents: Minutes: It was proposed that the following items be included on the Select Committee work programme for the meeting on 7 January 2021:
Following Mr Skoyles’ request for clarification on the youth offer, it was agreed that this would be discussed after the meeting.. ACTION: Mrs Sutherland
Mrs Sutherland advised that a small working group would be set up to carry out initial scoping on the recruitment of social workers. It was agreed that Mrs Sutherland would circulate an email to the committee members asking for volunteers to contact her. ACTION: Mrs Sutherland
RESOLVED: The Children and Education Select Committee NOTED the work programme. |
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Date of Next Meeting Thursday 7th January 2021 at 2pm Additional documents: Minutes: Thursday 7 January 2021 at 2.00 p.m. |