Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Saltmarsh.

At this point Members must declare whether they have a disclosable pecuniary interest, or other interest, in any of the items on the agenda, unless it is already entered in the register of members’ interests or is a “pending notification “ that has been disclosed to the Solicitor to the Council.

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 meeting held on 7 January 2013 were approved as an accurate record.

There were no requests for Call-in to consider.

The report informed the Committee of the outcome of the recent Ofsted Inspection of Safeguarding which had taken place from 28 January to 6 February 2013.  The Executive Director of Children’s Services presented the report and explained that she was pleased with the report and the improved rating of Adequate.  Ofsted had informed the Director that it was a good Adequate rating.  Members were informed of the key highlights from the inspection and that the inspection report had stated ‘Lessons found from previous inspections have been taken seriously resulting in determined drive to address the identified deficiencies through rapid improvement’.   Areas for improvement had been identified in the report and an action plan would be put in place to address these.  No children were found to be inadequately protected or at risk of significant harm at the time of the report. Members were informed that improvement must be sustained and that this would be the future focus forever.  A recommendation would be made to the Minister to lift the notice of improvement.

The Chair congratulated the Executive Director of Children’s Services on the outcome of the inspection and recognised the hard work from all staff within Children’s Services that had gone into achieving this.

The Executive Director for Children’s Services and the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services acknowledged the increased support and involvement of the Scrutiny Committee in the Children’s Services department over the past 18 months and thanked the Committee for it’s involvement in monitoring the improvement programme.

Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

·         Members sought clarification as to why the council had decided to put a 20% cap on the number of newly qualified social workers with the children’s social care workforce.    The Assistant Director Safeguarding Families & Communities informed Members that whilst there was a need to have a pool of newly qualified social workers there was also a need to have the right balance of experience with qualified and newly qualified social workers.  The 20% cap would ensure a constant supply of newly qualified social workers but also ensure that the remaining staff was not stretched because they were having to supervise and train new social workers.

·         What was the starting pay for a newly qualified social worker in Peterborough?  Members were informed that it was between £26K to £27K.

·         Members noted the areas for improvement in the inspection report and wanted to know if some of the areas of improvement were reliant on groups from outside of the council and if they had not co-operated with the Children’s Services department in the way they should have.  Members were informed that those areas noted by Members related in the main to the Health profession.  The inspection highlighted that the department needed to work more smartly and more closely with other agencies e.g. GP’s, health visitors, paediatricians.

·         Members wanted to know if Primary and Secondary Schools could be made to use the Common Assessment Framework (CAF).  Members were informed that schools did not  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The report presented to the Committee gave an update on the Improvement Programme and informed the Committee of the refreshed Children’s Services Delivery Plan.  Previously there had been a separate delivery plan for each area of Children’s Services.   The refreshed Delivery plan was now one plan covering all areas of Children’s Services with a vision of ‘Helping Children to be their best’.  The plan contained five priorities with a list of further priorities under each main priority.  Each priority had an accountable lead officer.

The five priorities were:

·         Providing Children and Families with early support

·         Helping families with problems and keeping children safe

·         Giving the best opportunities to children and young people in care

·         Working with schools and others to make sure children succeed

·         Supporting our staff to be outstanding

Members were informed that Looked after Children would be kept as a separate priority.  There were no questions from the Committee and the Chair requested that the Committee be kept up to date on the progress of the new Children’s Services Delivery Plan.

ACTIONS AGREED

The Committee noted the report and requested that the Children’s Services Delivery Plan be brought back to the Committee at each meeting to monitor progress.

The Head of Neighbourhood Services introduced the report which provided the Committee with the opportunity to scrutinise the redrafted ‘Peterborough Child and Family Poverty Strategy’ and the progress that had been made towards tackling poverty in Peterborough.  The strategy had been revised following on from a presentation of the Tackling Poverty report and action plan to the Committee in June 2012.  The overarching strategy document had been redrafted to better reflect the conditions which needed to be addressed in Peterborough. The redrafted version had also been written to be more accessible and reader-friendly, and to be more explicit about the scale of the challenges being faced and the solutions being driven forward.  Members were informed that the main focus going forward would be to address the impacts of Welfare Reform on the Poverty agenda.  A Welfare Reform Action Group had been in place since August 2012 to try and understand the impact of Welfare Reform on the citizens of Peterborough and had put in place a series of measures to address the issues.  From 2nd April there would be a launch of different measures and interventions that would provide practical ways of supporting people that might suddenly be faced with for example having to pay council tax for the first time. 

            Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

·         Members noted that one of the recommendations within the report was for the Committee to “agree that the work to tackle poverty in Peterborough is scrutinised by this committee overall at least annually, and that the partnerships, rather than lead councillors, drive the work forward between scrutiny meetings”.  Members sought clarification of the recommendation as it had been agreed at the meeting of the Committee on 23 July 2012 that each member of the Committee would become a lead Member for each of the seven strategic objectives within the Poverty Reduction Strategy.  The Head of Neighbourhood Services informed Members that whilst it had been agreed at the July 2012 meeting of the Committee that each member of the Committee would champion one of the seven strategic objectives within the Poverty Reduction Strategy it had not been very successful. Some lead officers had not been as proactive as others in engaging with lead Members.

·         Members were concerned that they would have less involvement in the Poverty Strategy going forward and suggested that if Members of the committee were no longer required as a lead Member for each of the seven strands then a small working group could be formed instead to work with the Head of Neighbourhood Services on the Poverty Strategy.  This would ensure continued involvement with the Poverty Strategy from the Committee and enable better scrutiny. 

·         Members wanted to know if there was any money available to improve assessment waiting time in organisations such as MIND.  Members were informed that Government had made available to the Local Authority a sum of approximately £800,000 to mitigate some of the impacts of Welfare Reform.  The intention was to focus that funding entirely  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The report summarised for the Committee the 2012 validated assessment and examination results for both Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 and outlined the approach the Local Authority and Schools were taking to improve outcomes for pupils in Peterborough.  The Assistant Director for Education and Resources and Head of School Improvement gave a presentation which provided an overview of the results in the report.

          Key Stage 2 Overview

·         English – 6% increase since 2010, 1% more than national and Statistical Neighbour increase;

·         Reading – 3% increase since 2010, matching national and 1% more than Statistical Neighbours increase;

·         Writing – 11% increase since 2010, 1% more than national and Statistical Neighbours increase;

·         Maths – 3% increase since 2010, 2% less than national increase and 1% less than Statistical Neighbours increase.

·         Expected Progress in English – 4% increase since 2010, 1% less than national increase and 2% less than Statistical Neighbours increase, but still above national average by 1% and SN average by 2%;

·         Expected Progress in Maths – 2% increase since 2010, 2% less than national increase and 4% less than Statistical Neighbours increase.  Performance is in line with Statistical Neighbours average but 1% below national average.

Group data received after the report had been written showed that for Key Stage 2 there were three distinct groups that were underachieving compared to other groups: 

·         Pupils for whom English was not their first language, children classed as white other, predominantly Eastern European

·         Pakistani heritage children

·         Free School Meal children

These groups were being focussed on in terms of commissioning external support.

Key Stage 4 Overview

·         5 A* - C including English & Maths – improved by 3% from 2010 but unchanged from 2011.  Gap to national is 10% and to Statistical Neighbours is 9%;

·         5 A* - C – improved by 10% from 2010 and 3% from 2011.  Gap to both national and Statistical Neighbours is closed, from 2% in 2010;

·         Expected Progress in English – declined by 2% from 2010 and 2011.  Gap to national is 7% and to Statistical Neighbours is 6% - both widened by 2% from 2010;

·         Expected Progress in maths – improved by 7% from 2010 and 4% from 2011.  Gap to national is 9% and to Statistical Neighbours is 7%.

Group data had still not been received for Key Stage 4.

Members were informed that some significant improvements had been shown, but the gaps to national and Statistical Neighbour averages remained too wide.  Some vulnerable groups had made good gains, notably boys, but others remained too far below the national average. Peterborough had high numbers of pupils who had English not as their first language compared to statistical neighbours.

Members were advised of action that was being taken to address weaknesses:

•          Issued Formal “Standards Performance and Safety” Warning Notices.  Action plans had been received from the Governing Bodies of these schools - LA reserved the right to take further action if appropriate at any time and this may include formal. ‘No excuses’ culture.

•          Collated  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

The Committee received the latest version of the Council’s Notice of Intention to Take Key Decisions, 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 Notice of Intention to Take Key Decisions

Monday 22 April 2013 – Extraordinary meeting