To undertake a
Select Committee of the work/governance of the Children’s
Trust to explore partnership working through the
Children's Trust and to look at ways in which this can be
strengthened in the future.
There will be a short presentation from officers followed by a question and answer session.
Councillor Louise Chapman, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People & Families, will attend as Chairman of the Children’s Trust Board. The following will also be in attendance:
Meera Spillett, Director of Children, Young People & Families
Paula Tansley, Interim Head of Commissioning, Performance and Quality Assurance
Jan Paine, Head of Service - Southern Area, Young People & Access to Education
Sally Taylor, Head of Northern Area, Raising Achievement
Jim Leivers, Interim Head of Service for Children and Families
Sian Rodway,
Strategic Lead, Performance
Sarah Breton, Strategic Lead &
Head of Joint Commissioning
Minutes:
The Scrutiny Committee received a presentation on the role and work of the Children’s Trust and Children’s Trust Board. The Director of Children, Young People & Families highlighted the work with young people through the Sounding Boards that sought the views of young people on a range of topics. Partnership working had brought about changes and she highlighted work with Police on first time entrants into police statistics where the Police had set aside their own targets to work to reduce this figure. Councillor Louise Chapman added that at Board level partnership working was resulting in success stories and fostering strong working relationships at an operational level.
During discussions and in response to questions the following matters were raised:
1. The importance of pre-schools to the well being and development of children.
2. The statutory guidance relating to Children’s Trust was very complex and would benefit from being simplified. It was suggested that a simple summary was needed defining the Children’s Trust, explaining what they do and addressing how it provided value for money.
3. The current financial situation provided an opportunity to strip away the target driven obsession. The Committee sought information on the thinking about how kpi’s might be reduced, removed or a different approach taken. Councillor Chapman undertook to provide a list of targets that she personally would like to see removed. She added that a sub group was looking at performance and that what drove her were the local targets. Some measures of performance were necessary.
4. Councillor Chapman undertook to provide a written response on the cost of the Children’s Trust Board.
5. Responding to questions from members the Director for Children, Young People & Families confirmed that the Children’s Trust was a statutory body and outlined the type of activity that the Trust brought about that was different to what could achieved by individual organisations working alone. She highlighted actions to tackle the problems of families in temporary accommodation and tackling school absenteeism. Process had been simplified.
6. Asked what she was most proud of in relation to the Trust, Councillor Chapman referred to the work to raise awareness of Looked After Children and their representation at Board level.
7. The Director for Children Young People & Families recognised the need to guard against the Trust Board becoming a talking shop. The Children’s Trust was about more than Board membership and efforts were made to keep the representation on the Board to the minimum required for effective working. The Board ensured that the Children’s Plan was being delivered. Responding to criticism that time had been spent on developing the Plan when what was needed was already known, the Committee heard that there had been a great deal of consultation; there was a duty to consult as the Plan was statutory and guided all that was done in this area.
8. A member who had attended meeting of the Children’s Trust Board commented that they had been well run, well chaired and with a good level of engagement. However the reports from the sub groups showed a lack of attendance and she queried what the Trust could do about this problem. Councillor Chapman replied that it was important that the right people were present but that sometimes meant that they could not always attend as they had other commitments.
9. Sally Taylor detailed work by the Trust to tackle the cycle of deprivation by targeting specific families in identified wards. It was early days but the emerging evidence was that this type of targeting was both effective and an efficient use of resources. Jean Bradlow, Assistant Director of Public Health referred to work detailed in the Director of Public Health’s Annual Report that focussed on deprivation in Oxford City and included the provision of additional health visitors. Councillor Chapman added that work on reducing teenage pregnancies was beginning to see results.
10. Reference was made to the 155,000 children in Oxfordshire with a query over how far the Trust focussed on the 4,000 vulnerable children in the County. Meera Spillett explained the layered approach to service provision; some areas of work were universal such as ‘ Every child a reader’; below that support was provided to a smaller number of children who had additional needs usually on a temporary basis; finally there were those children with complex ongoing needs.
11. There was recognition of the impact on Trust working of the Health White Paper proposals. There would need to be a strong relationship with GPs and GP Consortia. It was noted that it was too early for arrangements to have been determined and the Trust would have to wait and see how proposals developed.
12. Responding to comments about safeguarding Meera Spillett acknowledged that the process around CAF and TAC forms was patchy and required work. Extra money had been included in the budget to link social workers with schools. One of the big challenges was the expectations on social workers and the sheer volume of universal services. Every school should have a governor and a designated member of the senior management team responsible for safeguarding issues and additional training was available to them.
13. Concern was expressed that misunderstanding could lead to children being removed from parents. Meera Spillett confirmed that there were Emergency Protection orders but that generally parents were notified and were part of the process.
14. Responding to comments about neglect it was reported that this issue had been identified and an action plan drawn up.
15. Responding to criticism that two out of 17 LAA targets on track did not seem like value for money, Councillor Chapman explained that some targets could not be assessed except on an annual basis. She undertook to provide a response and actions on each of the targets not being met.
16. During discussion of cross boundary working the Committee was advised that the common legislation meant there was dialogue between the Children’s Trust at a strategic level. There were protocols about working together and arrangements in place for picking up cross boundary issues.
17. Asked whether people such as head teachers, social workers and voluntary groups would understand what the Trust was doing the Committee was advised that that there was a continuum with some being more aware than others. An example was the process established to notify head teachers in the event of domestic violence.
The chairman thanked the Cabinet Member for Children, Young people & Families and officers for their attendance and it was AGREED that this matter be considered again in a year.