Council and councillors

Report No. 99/2017 from the Director for People and Deputy Chief Executive was received.

Dr Tim O’Neill, Director for People, introduced the report, the purpose of which was that following an inspection of Rutland’s children’s services by Ofsted, Rutland County Council was required to produce and submit an action plan to Ofsted; and the report provided Cabinet with an opportunity to review the Ofsted inspection action plan before submission to Ofsted.

During discussion the following points were raised:

      i.        A draft of the action plan had been submitted to Ofsted for comment and they were scheduled to come to RCC to discuss this further in June;

    ii.        A Power Point presentation which had been presented to People (Children’s) Scrutiny Panel  on 4^th May would be provided to Cabinet;

   iii.        Feedback from members at People (Children’s) Scrutiny Panel had been very positive with regards the amount that had already been achieved and also the commitment to further improvements within given timescales;

   iv.        The team had proven themselves to be open to challenge and constructive criticism and the action plan demonstrated a clear commitment to move forward with improvements;

    v.        It was important to continue to focus on the areas that had been identified as being good and keep building on those strengths, as well as focusing on areas of weakness; and

   vi.        Where a report is presented to Scrutiny it would be helpful if revised papers could be presented to Cabinet to reflect comments and suggestions made by the Scrutiny Panel.

DECISION

1.    Cabinet NOTED the Next Steps Action plan for ‘getting to good’ and its suitability for addressing the Ofsted inspection recommendations and supporting Rutland County Council to get to good.

Reasons for Decision

1.     The Ofsted Next Steps Action Plan outlined and addressed the 17 recommendations which Ofsted noted in their report.

2.     The Action Plan noted the 17 recommendations along with outcomes to each recommendation, how it would be measured and the objectives, followed by the action required and timescale for completion.

3.     There were a number of actions which had been completed and the rest were on track for completion, all of which were identified through the rag rating (green and amber).

4.     The actions would fully address the recommendations and enable Rutland County Council to ‘get to good’ over the next 6-12 months.

5.     Recommendations pulled out the key issues arising from Ofsted.