To confirm the record of the meeting of the People (Children) Scrutiny Panel held on 23 February 2017 (previously circulated).

The minutes of the meeting of the People (Children) Scrutiny Panel held on 23 February 2017, copies of which had been previously circulated, were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

In accordance with the Regulations, Members are invited to declare any personal or prejudicial interests they may have and the nature of those interests in respect of items on this Agenda and/or indicate if Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 applies to them.

(i)            Mr Menzies declared a personal interest in that he was a governor at Harrington School

(ii)          Mrs Stephenson declared a personal interest in that she was a teacher at a Rutland school

(iii)         Miss Waller declared a personal interest in that she was a governor at a Rutland School.

To receive any petitions, deputations and questions received from Members of the Public in accordance with the provisions of Procedure Rule 217.

The total time allowed for this item shall be 30 minutes.  Petitions, declarations and questions shall be dealt with in the order in which they are received.  Questions may also be submitted at short notice by giving a written copy to the Committee Administrator 15 minutes before the start of the meeting.

The total time allowed for questions at short notice is 15 minutes out of the total time of 30 minutes.  Any petitions, deputations and questions that have been submitted with prior formal notice will take precedence over questions submitted at short notice.  Any questions that are not considered within the time limit shall receive a written response after the meeting and be the subject of a report to the next meeting.

No petitions, deputations or questions had been received from members of the public.

To consider any questions with notice from Members received in accordance with the provisions of Procedure Rules No 219 and No. 219A.

No questions with notice had been received from Members.

To consider any Notices of Motion from Members submitted in accordance with the provisions of Procedure Rule No 220.

No notices of motion had been received from Members.

To consider any matter referred to the Panel for a decision in relation to call in of a decision in accordance with Procedure Rule 206.

In accordance with Procedure Rule 206, no matter was referred to the Panel for a decision in relation to the call-in of a decision.

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The Chair announced that item 8 on the agenda would be taken first to allow the students from Harrington School to leave the meeting following consideration of the item should they wish to do so.

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To receive Report No. 101/2017 from the Chair of SACRE.

Report No. 101/2017 was received from the Chair of SACRE. 

Miss Waller advised members that the report had a longer chronology than previous reports, September 2015 to March 2017.  This was to allow the inclusion of the most up to date results for GCSE and Post 16 exams, although exams were taken in May / June each year validation of results does not take place until the following January.  Subsequent reports would cover April to March.

Miss Waller introduced four students from Harrington School who had been invited to speak at the meeting in regard to their Religious studies at A Level, it was noted that the new curriculum for Philosophy and Ethics (P&E) was very different to that many members remember studying themselves.

Each student spoke in turn about their experience of the A level course so far.  Their studies had helped them develop a greater understanding of different cultures and diversity in society; it allowed students to develop debating and social skills, a deeper sense of empathy towards others, self-confidence and listening skills.  One student described P&E as “two subjects in one, providing a great level of analysis for scholars which was not seen in any other subject”.

Members congratulated the four students on excellent presentations and thanked them for attending the meeting to share their experience.

During member discussion the following points were noted:

a)    Mr Begy queried the attendance figures for members of SACRE, other than Miss Waller and Mrs Stephenson, as the report showed low attendances.  Miss Waller explained that many members of SACRE were serving teachers or head teachers and as such their role in school took priority.  Where it was due to those representing the different faiths it was noted that a representative from the Baptist faith had recently been recruited and it was hoped a representative from the Quaker faith would soon join the Committee.

b)    Mrs Youngman, the representative from the Church of England advised that of the two recent representatives approached one now worked outside of Rutland and the other had declined the appointment, she was confident that new representatives would be appointed before the next annual report.

c)    The Chair thanked the students for coming along and Miss Waller and Mrs Stephenson for their continued support and contribution to SACRE.

AGREED

That the Panel NOTED the report.

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Miss Jackson, Miss Raine, Miss Bell and Mr Hatton-Phillips left the meeting and did not return.

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To receive Report No. 102/2017 from the Director for People.

Report No. 102/2017 was received from the Director for People.

During discussion the following points were noted:

a)    The report had been written and published by OFSTED in October 2016 but prioritisation of other reports had delayed its consideration by the Panel.  Mr Shore advised members that the service had maintained its level 2 grading but was likely to achieve level 1 in the coming year.  The service had a 95% retention rate overall and this would be a key driver for the coming years grading score.

b)    The Quality Improvement Plan had been revised recently and all actions were now complete with a small number still awaiting exam results.

c)    The RALSS provision was run in conjunction with Peterborough Regional College (PRC) and Dr O’Neill stated that this was working well and had seen positive improvement.

d)    Other scrutiny panels had highlighted an employment shortage for qualified home carers; did the service offer qualifications in this specific area?  Mr Shore confirmed that diplomas at intermediate and advanced levels were available and that providers were looking at the establishment of a care academy in the future.

e)    That some areas of the county either were not aware of the provision or could not access the central base at Oakham Enterprise Park (OEP).  Members suggested that this may be due in part to lack of transport, public transport was not regular enough and that those in the south of the county may need to take 2 buses to reach OEP.  Not all residents owned their own vehicle and many may be unable to afford public transport to attend classes. 

f)     That work was being done with the military bases in the county to allow service personnel and their spouses to gain new qualifications or re-sit GCSE’s in order to improve on previous grades.  This was being done as an outreach provision and going forward Mr Shore saw no reason why, with sufficient funding, this could not be expanded to include other locations in the county.

g)    That all funding for the service was external, members requested consideration be given to funding to enable the service to build on its success, be it direct funding or looking to assist with advertising the service more widely.

AGREED

That the Panel NOTED the report.

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Mr Shore left the meeting and did not return

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To receive a verbal update from the Director for People.

Ms Wilshire, the Head of Children Social Care provided Members with a verbal update on the Internal Audit of the Fostering Service; the report had been considered by the Audit and Risk Committee on 25 April and all actions arising from this were complete. 

During discussion the following points were noted:

a)    A stall at the recent Rutland Independence Day had resulted in five new enquiries, all of which attended an open evening on 3 May.  New leaflets and posters were being prepared to raise the profile for local carers.  The five enquiries had been progressed to applications.

b)    Personal Development Plans were now in place and the training programme has been re-written with the first course having been provided; this has been revised so that more specialist training can be provided.

c)    Social Worker visits and supervision were now at 100%.  Fostering data was now stored electronically on LiquidLogic allowing visit data to be accessed easily.  Audits on files not included in the process had now been carried out by staff and all files had now been assessed.  Monthly data was collated by score cards and business intelligence and provided to both the Portfolio Holder and Director for People.

d)    Document retention was being addressed by using electronic storage, scanning had been commenced and the action fed back to Internal Audit with evidence of completion.

e)    Audits are being done on a regular basis and expanded to include foster carers in the process.

f)     Mr Foster regularly attends meetings of the Foster Carers Support Group and fed back to members that morale in general was improving and many previous foster carers were returning to the service.

g)    Miss Waller asked if advertising was being done outside of the county, for example Stamford as many Rutland residents chose to shop in supermarkets in the town.  Ms Wilshire advised that as part of fostering fortnight stalls were planned for supermarkets in both Stamford and Oakham.

To receive Report No. 99/2017 from the Director for People.

Report No. 99/2017 was received from the Director for People.

Dr O’Neill advised members that he would be giving a presentation alongside the report that had been previously circulated.  The presentation would be two dimensional, Dr O’Neill would cover the Action Plan and how it would fit with the National Curriculum and Ms Wilshire would update members on progress in terms of evidence.  He advised members that questions during the presentation would be welcome.

During discussion the following points were noted:

a)    The presentation noted a Change of QA on the second slide, Ms Waller queried this and Dr O’Neill advised that the person carrying out the Quality Assurance (QA) role for the inspection changed during the inspection with the original (QA) being redeployed to the Leicestershire inspection team. 

b)    The inspection reviewed around 150 cases, Dr O’Neill advised members that this was the majority of the caseload in Rutland, many inspections in bigger authorities would look at 10% of the caseloads, it was thought that looking at the majority was better overall.

c)    That good feedback had been received on the council’s investment in Early Help Services, as this is not a statutory service investment was waning elsewhere.  Rutland’s decision to keep investing in this was welcomed by the inspectors.

d)    Workshops would be held to enable social workers to go back to the basics of recording and capturing what had been done and where a child’s journey was currently at.  Social Workers knew their families well but this wasn’t always successfully recorded in the right way.

e)     Dr O’Neill advised that staff involved in the inspection did a fantastic job throughout an enormously stressful process, this gave confidence that the team would do better moving forward.

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Ms Curtis left the meeting and did not return.

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Ms Wilshire introduced the Action Plan and advised members that all actions were on track (amber) or achieved (green).  She noted that actions had been implemented alongside development of the plan; the team had seen a positive move from mainly interim to permanent members of staff.

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Mrs Youngman left the meeting and did not return.

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During discussion the following points were noted:

f)     There had been changes to team names within Children Social Care. Teams were no longer numbered and each team had been allocated names, Ms Wilshire advised members that a revised structure chart would be circulated.

g)    Group supervision had been introduced within the team, members asked for some evaluation and feedback from this process at a future meeting, a period of six months was suggested.  Ms Wilshire advised that initial feedback on the process was good, officers felt risk was more shared and there was clearer guidance around practice.

h)   A new Personal Education Plans (PEP) process had been introduced.  Ms Wilshire advised that schools were well engaged in the new process but there was still work to be done on developing and refining the process.  Mrs Stephenson  ...  view the full minutes text for item 808.

To receive Report No. 91/2017 from Scrutiny Commission.

(Report circulated under separate cover)

The Chair advised members that, following production of the agenda for this meeting the Scrutiny Commission had agreed to extend the consultation period for the Poverty in Rutland White paper, this was due to the announcement and timing of the General Election.

As a result the Report was not considered at the meeting and the Chair reminded members that they could still feed in to the consultation.

To consider Scrutiny issues to review. 

Copies of the Forward Plan will be available at the meeting.

Members requested the following report listed on the forward plan be brought to the scrutiny panel:

·         Future Planning for the Educational Psychology Service

To receive any other items of urgent business which have been previously notified to the person presiding

There was no other urgent business.

Date to be agreed at Annual Council.

Date to be agreed at Annual Council.