Agenda and minutes

No apologies for absence were received.

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 or whipping declarations.

The minutes of the meetings held on 11 June 2012 were approved as an accurate record.

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 Cabinet Member for Children’s Services introduced the report which provided the Committee with an overview of Children’s Services performance since her last attendance at Committee on 14 November 2011.  Highlights included:

·         Children’s Social Care 

·         Two year old funding Pilot Status

·         Young Peoples Drug and Alcohol Services

·         Children’s Centres

The Committee were informed that the two new Assistant Directors, Sue Westcott responsible for Safeguarding Families and Communities and Wendi Ogle Welbourn, responsible for Strategy, Commissioning and Prevention had had a positive impact on the department since joining.  The new Liquidlogic IT system had now been implemented and this had also had a positive impact on the way social workers were able to carry out their work.  The Cabinet Member for Children’s services acknowledged the hard work and effort that all the staff and Directors had put into improving the performance of the department.  The Committee were informed that the Scrutiny Task and Finish group were receiving regular detailed reports on the Children’s Services Improvement Plan.

The Cabinet Member also informed Members of the various groups and activities available for girls and young women across the city.  The issue of activities available had been raised at the meeting in November by the Committee.  The Cabinet Member advised that a complete list could be provided for the Committee.

Fostering to adoption and the issue of foster carers who wished to adopt but had not been able to due to financial disadvantages was also mentioned as this had been highlighted at the meeting in November.  The Cabinet Member informed the Committee that when adopting a child they become a part of the family and therefore accept the financial responsibly.  In a few exceptional cases there may be additional needs for a child that had challenging circumstances and additional financial support may be provided.

Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

·         Are you now able to say what a realistic number of cases each social worker should have?  Members were informed that there was a much better understanding of what this should be and there was a daily monitoring system of case loads now in place. The case load sizes were now within the boundaries and the extra money approved by Council to increase the number of social workers alongside the clearing up of the backlogs had had a dramatic impact on workloads reducing the caseloads. Good focused management of teams would also ensure good management of caseloads.

·         The report states “we have commenced the commissioning of high level family support”.  Please can you explain what this means.  Members were informed that this was work that had been started by the new Assistant Director Wendi Ogle Welbourn and a report on the work would be brought to the Committee at a future meeting.  The work involved targeting the families most in need of help and providing them with high level targeted support and early intervention.

·         Do you expect to have addressed all the weaknesses identified by Ofsted within the 18  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The Executive Director of Children’s Services introduced the report.  The report informed the Committee on progress that had been made on the Children’s Services Improvement Programme which had been put in place following an Ofsted Inspection in August 2011.  The progress report had been a regular report to the committee and the last update to the committee had been in June 2012.   Members were advised that good progress had been made on Phase Two of the programme.  Completing initial assessments within ten days had reached 99% which had exceeded the target of 74% in the improvement notice. Completion of core assessments within 35 days had reached 92% which had exceeded the target of 85% in the improvement notice. 

There had been an independent visit from Jane Held, the Independent Chair of the External Improvement Board who had provided a progress report to the Minister, Tim Loughton.  Her report back to the Minister had stated:

            “The Council has continued to progress its improvement activity robustly and swiftly. This is demonstrated, not only by the data, but by what social workers are saying ‘on the ground’. There is a clear understanding politically of the tasks ahead and the determination to sustain the trajectory.”

            Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

·         Now that more time was being spent on quality had this impacted on the performance. Members were informed that Phase two of the improvement programme was about the quality of the care planning in the long term teams and all the indications were that this was an area for improvement.  All cases had been audited and each case had an action plan which would inform social workers of what work would be needed to be done to bring a case up to the required standard.  Almost 95% of assessments were completed in the referral and assessment team and those team manages had to sign off the quality before the case was signed off.  Indications were that the required standards were being met. 

ACTION AGREED

The Committee noted the Safeguarding Improvement Plan and the progress that had been made since the last report in June 2012.

The report informed the Committee on the progress of the Children’s Centres and implementation of the new children’s centres contracts.

Tim Jeffery, CEO gave a presentation on Spurgeons which highlighted the following:

·         Spurgeons was an organisation that was child centred and focused on helping children achieve the best possible outcomes and was founded in 1867 by Charles Spurgeon.

·         Core values were:  “we are Caring, Holistic, Inclusive, Responsive, Professional, and Hopeful”

·         Strengths:  Focus on Leadership, Community based, Learn from experience, Relational, Focus on Strengths, Innovative and Creative, Values-based.

·         What they did:

o        95 projects in England in 2012/13

o        Third largest voluntary sector provider of Children’s Centres nationally

o        Managing Sure Start Children’s Centres for 12 years

o        Spurgeons Children’s Centres were linked together locally and nationally.

o        Early Years

o        Young Carers

o        Family Support specialist services

o        Support to Parents

o        Children separated from their parents

o        Children who have been bereaved

o        Work with prisons and prisoners’ families

o        Excluded young people at risk of offending

o        Youth and Community Services

o        Support for community and faith based groups through Spurgeons Network

Building on strengths and working together:

o        Working with all stakeholders

o        Integrated services

-          mainstream, specialist, commissioned and community services

o        Multi agency professionals and linking to statutory services

o        Parents as partners

o        Partnership in Children’s Centre governance

o        Community involvement

o        Sharing good practice

Harnessing strengths and resources:

o        Needs in Peterborough were varied, wide-ranging, and changing

o        Geographical diversity and distinctiveness 

o        Responsive to offer flexible, accessible, locally focused services

o        Using evidence and data to help make decisions and targeting services to have the greatest impact

o        Early identification of needs and opportunities

o        Employ Community Engagement Coordinators

o        Drawing on local expertise and services

Jane Morton, Senior Assistant Director, gave a presentation on Barnardos which highlighted the following:

•          Barnardo’s as an organisation and its vision: “Our vision is of innovative children’s centres which act as a community resources for families supporting and facilitating all to achieve their aspirations and potential”

•          Values: 

•          Respecting the unique worth of every person           

•          Encouraging people to fulfil their potential

•          Working with hope

•          Exercising responsible stewardship

•          What Barnardo’s  hope to achieve in Peterborough Children’s Centres:

§         A Locality service which  worked as a cluster and was a community resource of targeted and universal services to families with children from pre-birth to age 5 that identified needs early and prevented emerging problems for children and families from escalating.

§         The commitment was to focus resources and  efforts on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged families that would benefit the most from the support within a universal setting

How Barnardo’s would achieve those objectives:

•          Building on the best

•          Cluster working

•          Partnership working                     

•          Innovation through empowerment

•          Resources to front line working

•          Safeguarding

•          National and local expertise

•          Out reach to in reach

•          Increase use of volunteers providing routes into employment                       

•          Skilled and supported  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The report provided the Committee with a final draft of the Poverty Reduction Strategy for comment prior to formal approval.  The Assistant Director, Strategy, Commissioning and Prevention advised the Committee that the Action Plan now included timescales and group leads for each theme.

The Chair asked Councillor Shearman to report on the work that he had completed whilst he was the Poverty Champion for the Committee from January to June 2012.  Councillor Shearman gave an account of the work that he had undertaken during this time.  This included attending the a conference on tackling poverty prior to being appointed Poverty Champion in November 2011.  Meetings with the Lead Officer for Poverty to discuss the role of the Poverty Champion.  The role of the Champion had been identified as someone who would raise the profile of child poverty issues, assist with activities and initiatives that support progress with the eradication of child poverty and make a personal pledge committing to action to eradicate child poverty.  The poverty champion would put poverty into the public eye and would recruit other poverty champions (younger and older people) and key messages would be put out in the media in terms of poverty. Councillor Shearman had also had discussions about fuel poverty and attended the Fuel Poverty Conference in March 2011.

Councillor Shearman had at a previous Scrutiny meeting held 12 March 2011 suggested to the Principal / Head of Service at City College Peterborough who was in attendance to contact the PCC Lead Officer for Poverty to talk about putting on courses that could address the needs of families or parents who were in poverty.

At a recent council meeting Councillor Shearman had asked the Cabinet Member for Housing, Neighbourhoods and Planning what the council was doing about fuel poverty.  A full answer was received.

Councillor Shearman advised that the Lead Officer, Sian Peer had now left the authority.

Councillor Shearman welcomed the initiative from the Chair of the suggestion that there was no longer one Member responsible for Poverty but that each member of the Committee took responsibility for each of the seven strands of the Poverty Reduction Strategy to share the work load.

The Chair thanked Councillor Shearman for the work that he had done whilst in the role of Poverty Champion.

Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

·         Had the lead officers been in place long for each of the seven objectives and key deliverables of the strategy?  Members were informed that some officers were already doing the work as their day job e.g. PCVS were leading on the work regarding objective 5: Increased financial capability, employability and take-up of benefits as this was the work they normally did.  Everyone leading on the agenda was passionate about it.

·         Please could you clarify objective 6: “Improved mental health within the local population to reduce the gap in health inequalities and to promote healthy lifestyles”.  Should it read “to improve mental health services”.  Members were informed that it meant improving mental health  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

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.

Members considered the Committee’s Work Programme for 2012/13 and discussed possible items for inclusion.

ACTION AGREED

To confirm the work programme for 2012/13 and the Senior Governance Officer to include any additional items as requested during the meeting.

It was highlighted that the unvalidated examination results would be published at a later date this year and therefore the report to committee would have to be rescheduled.  It was agreed that this would be discussed at the next Group Representatives meeting.

Monday, 10 September 2012