Agenda item

(To receive a report which provides key performance information for Quarter 2 2015/16 that is relevant to the work of the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee)

Consideration was given to a report which provided key performance information for Quarter 2 2015/16 which was relevant to the work of the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee.

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         Members were pleased to see that the number of child protection plans lasting more than 2 years was coming down.  It was noted that there were a number of things which had influenced this, including signs of safety.  However, it was also noted that one large sibling group had the ability to negatively affect the performance;

·         There was concern that the indicator for the percentage of families of children with disabilities using direct payments was still underperforming, but it was noted that this could be due to families being satisfied with the service being provided, or that they did not want the additional complication of employing someone e.g. having to do CRB checks, or set up pensions.  This was not a target that officers were worried about;

·         It was queried what the more successful children's centres were doing differently.  Members were advised that these were often where teams were co-located, and there were strong links between the teams.  The focus was more on the individual families, and the informal discussions which took place naturally;

·         It was queried whether any improvement was being seen in the percentage of education, health and care plans in statutory timescales.  Members were advised that the changes in terms of the SEND reforms had been highly challenging, and there was a significant amount of work to do in order to bring this back into timescale.  However, there was the right leadership in place and there had been recruitment to a number of vacancies.  It was also noted that there 3000 young people with statements which needed to be transitioned to EHC plans, 16-25 year olds to move from their system to EHC as well as the new ones coming into the system.  There had been a 25% increase in requests for an EHC plan.  There was also a new appeal system if the assessment had found that the school could meet the needs of the child.  90% of those refused an EHC plan would appeal.  It was estimated that it would be 18 months before significant progress was seen;

·         It was queried whether it was possible to break down the complaints against schools to those made against academies ad maintained schools;

·         It was queried whether it would be possible to have the complaints regarding transport for SEND as an issue, so the Committee and monitor and scrutinise what was going on;

·         There were two complaints processes in Children's Services, one for corporate complaints (e.g. regarding policy) and a statutory complaints process.  Both processes had a time scales attached to them;

·         Members were advised that further to what had been reported in the press, the online applications system for school places had not 'crashed' but it had been running very slowly.  It was also noted that places were not allocated on a first come first served basis, and at the cut-off date for applications, each one would be compared equally with the policy;

·         In relation to placement stability, there had been some challenges, particularly in relation to older children in care, and challenging behaviour.  However, some of the performance was positive, as some children had moved home, but this was classed as a change of placement;

·         A huge amount of work was taking place around the recruitment of social workers.  However, officers were anxious about the quality of data which was coming out of Agresso.

RESOLVED

            That the comments made in relation to the performance information be      noted.