Agenda and minutes

Apologies had been received from Councillors Lowndes, Saltmarsh and Khan and Maggie Kirkbride.  Councillor JR Fox was in attendance as substitute for Councillor Saltmarsh.

At this point Members must declare whether they have an interest, whether personal or prejudicial, in any of the items on the agenda. Members must also declare if they are subject to their party group whip in relation to any items under consideration.

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 21 July 2009 were approved as an accurate record.

The Committee were advised that responses had been received to their recommendations from the meeting held on 21 July 2009.

ACTION AGREED

The committee noted the responses to the recommendations made at the meeting held on 21 July 2009.

The decision notice for each decision will bear the date on which it is published and will specify that the decision may then be implemented on the expiry of 3 working days after the publication of the decision (not including the date of publication), unless a request for call-in of the decision is received from any two Members of a Scrutiny Committee or Scrutiny Commissions.  If a request for call-in of a decision is received, implementation of the decision remains suspended for consideration by the relevant Scrutiny Committee or Commission.

There were no requests for Call-in to consider.

The Executive Director of Adult Social Services reported on the delivery of the four outcome areas for the Creating Opportunities and Tackling Inequalities priority of the Local Area Agreement.  The four outcome areas were:

• Regenerating neighbourhoods
• Improving Health
• Supporting Vulnerable People
• Improving Skills and Education

The overall status of the priority was reported as being amber which was the same position as at the end of 2008/09.  The individual status of each outcome was also reported as being amber.  Members were advised that there were continuing difficulties around collection of data for the annual indicators which was causing problems with forecasting.

Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

• Members asked when NI 153 – Working age people claiming out of work benefits in the worst performing areas would start to improve performance.  Members were advised that achievement of NI153 was extremely unlikely given current economic conditions. This indicator was the subject of separate analysis being conducted by the performance information team.  Members requested that benchmarking information be obtained to see how Peterborough compared with other members of the benchmarking group.
• Members asked why the Improving Health outcome was showing as not going green any time soon.  Members were advised that that there were several challenging areas in this outcome.  NI 112 – under 18 conceptions and NI 56 – obesity among primary age children in year 6 were both showing as red.  Both of these NI’s had been through the Solution Centre and there were now action plans in place so that by the end of the year they should be showing as amber.
• How were the target and actual results for NI 50 – emotional health of children calculated?  Members were advised that NI 50 was a complex indicator and the results came from the Tellus Survey which was a national survey which gathered children and young people’s views on their life, their school and their local area.  The survey would take place in the autumn and the results would be published in 2010.

ACTION AGREED

        I.      Lead Officer to provide the Committee with comparative data on NI 153 from the Family Benchmarking Group.

      II.      Lead Officer to ensure that all high risk National Indicators are highlighted when reporting to Committee on future progress of the delivery of the Local Area Agreement Priority.

The Executive Director for Children’s Services informed the Committee that there had been an unannounced inspection of contact, referral and assessment services within children’s services on 28 and 29 July 2009.  The Government had introduced the new inspection regime following the death of Baby Peter in Haringey and Lord Laming’s subsequent review.   The results of the inspection had been received and had identified some areas of concern but in terms of performance Peterborough had been given a clean bill of health. 

Areas identified for priority action had been:

·         Recruitment and retention problems within the referral and assessment service at practitioner and first line manager level.

·         Documentary records which underpinned child protection work did not support effective risk management.

Members were advised that Ofsted had been satisfied that the authority knew what needed to be done to address the areas of concern and that action plans had already been put in place.  Members were given assurance that at no time was any child’s safety compromised because of the identified areas of concern.

Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

·         Members requested assurance that services within referral and assessment would be fully staffed?  The Executive Director advised that every effort had been made to create the right staffing levels and ensure that case loads per social worker were kept to a manageable level.  Monitoring of staffing and case loads was being carried out on a weekly basis. 

·         Could the areas of concern identified by the Ofsted Inspection been identified before their visit?  The Executive Director advised that he had identified in January that the Assistant Director for the referral and assessment service area had too great a workload and put an extra member of staff in place to assist that Assistant Director.

·         Is there an internal Audit system in place and if so why did they not pick up the issues raised by Ofsted.   The Executive Director advised that there was an internal audit system in place but the person in charge had left and had not been replaced.  Regular Audits had not been robust and some Managers had not been checking and auditing robustly enough.  Once this was highlighted a new system had been developed and this was currently being put in place.  The Executive Director gave an assurance that this would be completed.

·         Members asked if the outcomes of the Ofsted Inspection had been expected.  The Executive Director advised that the recruitment and retention one had been but the one regarding documentary records had not.

            ACTION AGREED

That the Executive Director provide a further report to the next meeting on the progress of the action plan which had been put in place to address the issues raised by the Ofsted Inspection.

The Executive Director for Children’s Services informed the Committee that a consultation on proposals for the development of integrated services in the three localities in Peterborough was held during June and July 2009.   The consultation was with staff, partners and young people.  Members were advised that integrated services would also mean integrated management, integrated processes and integrated delivery through a common assessment framework.  The best way of integrating services would be through the locality approach and this would mean that all staff would deliver services through a team. 

The consultation had been overwhelmingly positive and staff had commented that the new way of working would make much more sense.  It was anticipated that the new way of delivering services would begin in April 2010. A pilot had already been held at Stanground School.

Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

·         A similar approach had been tried with social workers working in centres but this was stopped and they had now been brought back into one central location.  Members were advised that social workers would remain in a central based team but would be called upon when required.  There are some services that are core and would be best delivered in localities There are also some services that would not work so well if put in localities and therefore would stay in a central based team.

·         Members asked if all locality services would operate in the same way and offer the same standard of service. The Executive Director advised that care teams would operate in a similar way across all localities but each locality would have different needs.  These needs were currently being identified and the Neighbourhood Councils would help with this.

·         If a family using various services in one locality moved to another locality would they receive continuity of services or would they have to start again?  The officer advised that this was a key element currently being looked at to ensure uniformity and consistency of service. 

·         This was a large scale piece of work.  How could officers ensure that the changes happened without having a detrimental affect on the end users?  The Executive Director advised that this was a massive challenge but Members could be assured that young people’s needs would be foremost in any changes and that the changes would only take place at the right time for each family.

·         The report mentioned an additional needs personal advisor team.  What other information could be given about this.  Members were advised that this team would form part of a new integrated children with disability service and be delivered as a city-wide service.  The personal advisors would strengthen the disability services and they would work with localities managing services for children with disabilities.

            ACTION AGREED

That the Lead Officer reports back to the Committee with an action plan which gives assurance  that service users will not be affected by the change to delivering integrated services through locality working.

The Assistant Director for Learning and Skills informed the Committee that Peterborough Children’s Services had celebrated some very good exam results in 2009.  The key points were:

• Early Years Foundation Stage Profile results for achievement had improved significantly by 5.1%. However, the narrowing the gap target was not achieved and the gap was widened by 1.3%.

• Key Stage 1 results were the best they had ever been: for both boys and girls L2 (expected level) reading and writing, jumped 40 places in the LA league tables; maths jumped 75 places. Boys’ had done particularly well jumping +79, +68 and +90 places in the league tables for reading, writing and maths respectively out of 150 LAs.

• Key Stage 2 data was still unreliable for Level 4 (expected level) especially for English where many schools had sent papers back for re-marking. English was currently disappointing and 5% lower than last year, but was expected to rise as a result of re-marking and the removal of New Arrival children through the FORVUS process. Maths L4 was the best it had ever been at this stage in the validation process and should be high in relation to statistical neighbours.

• Key Stage 3 data is now based on teacher assessment but still remains a key indicator of progress between KS2 - 4. At L5+ and L6+ there have been increases in all core subjects i.e. level 5 English +3.8%; maths +5.4 %; science +8.9%; English +maths + 4.5% and at L6+ English +5.2%; maths +2.5 %; science +7.4%; English + maths +3.8%.

• Key Stage 4 GCSE results were the best ever, with a 4% uplift for 5+ A*-C including English and maths and a 6% increase for Level 2 (%+A*-C not necessarily including English and maths) – we were still below our ambitious LAA target but determined to achieve this target by 2010-11.

• Results at A level also improved on last year by +3% with 2 schools, Bushfield and Stanground, recording significant improvements and 5 more schools showing moderate increases in pass rates.

No primary schools were currently in an Ofsted category and this year, four primary schools were rated as ‘outstanding’. Three secondary schools had now come out of a Notice to Improve category within the last two years. John Fisher School was in Special Measures, their exam results were the best ever and they should be taken out of special measures this academic year.

Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

·         There were problems with attainment at Bushfield School.  How can officers assure us that attainment would improve when it becomes an academy?  The officer advised that they had challenged Bushfield School on their attainment and an action plan had been put in place to improve this. The school was now an Academy which was a structural solution to secure sustainable school improvement.

·         Why had attainment at the Voyager not improved since the merger of Bretton Woods and Walton Schools?  The officer advised that data from the two predecessor  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

To consider the latest version of the Forward Plan

The Committee received the latest version of the Council’s Forward Plan, containing key decisions that the Leader of the Council anticipated the Cabinet or individual Cabinet Members would make during the course of the following four months.  Members were invited to comment on the Plan and, where appropriate, identify any relevant areas for inclusion in the Committee’s work programme.

ACTION AGREED

The Committee noted the Forward Plan and agreed that there were no items to bring to the Committee.

To agree the current work programme and discuss future items

Members considered the Committee’s Work Programme for 2009/2010 and discussed possible items for inclusion.

ACTION AGREED

To confirm the work programme 2009/10.

17 November 2009

17 November 2009