Agenda item

To consider a report of the Director of Children’s Services on an update of the current issues facing the Directorate and children’s partnership as well as the progress that is being made against local and national agendas.

The Director of Children’s Services submitted a report on an update of the current issues facing the Directorate and children’s partnership as well as the progress that was being made against local and national agendas.

Appended to the report were copies of the following documents:-

• Autumn 2012 Children’s Performance Update (Appendix 1 refers)
• Map of cluster to Area Committee (Appendix 2 refers)
• Cluster Overviews for the Area Committees (Appendix 3 refers)
• Children and Young People’s Plan cluster performance – June 2012

(Appendix 4 refers)

The following officers were in attendance and responded to Members’ comments and queries:-

-  Nigel Richardson, Director of Children’s Services

-  Mary Armitage, Head of Service, Integrated Processes, Children’s Services

The Director of Children’s Services provided the meeting with a comprehensive overview of the relevant issues contained in the report and appendices.

In addition to this report, the Head of Service, Integrated Processes commented on the clusters and their development. She informed the meeting that the clusters were developing effective structures that were already supporting better working.

Detailed discussion ensued on the contents of the report and appendices.

In summary, specific reference was made to the following issues:-

• To welcome the development of the Child Friendly Leeds action plan with cross-council input and involvement and clarification of how a person in the Moortown ward could get locally involved with a view to exchanging ideas on the action plan

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and welcomed this opportunity. He confirmed that there was a need to build communications across the city and Ms S Rumbold, Partnership Development Business Support, Children’s Services was leading on this.

Councillor J Dowson in her capacity as Deputy Executive Member for Children’s Services commented on Attainment, Attendance, Achievement and the excellent work being undertaken in Health Centres where parents could learn good practices with their children. She also referred to the amount of work that had been done by the Parliament Youth Council and it was agreed that a copy of their report be circulated to Members of the Committee for their information/retention)

• Clarification as to why the Inner North East level of NEET at 4.5% was quiet low and as a result could be seen as misleading

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and provided a breakdown of the information. The Committee noted that numbers, names and addresses were behind the figures and that Members should not be complacent on the evidence provided)

• Clarification of how many Academies there were in Inner North Leeds; how many were pending and how many would be forced into becoming an academy

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and informed the meeting that there were no academies in Inner North Leeds. However it was an ambition of the Government for all schools to become academies and Governing Bodies had the ultimate role of determining academy status. Discussions were ongoing in this area, but to date no school had been forced into becoming an academy. Although considerable pressure can be placed on schools and local authorities by the Secretary of State and DfE)

• Clarification if there were any Council Children’s homes in the Inner North East area

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and agreed to come back on this issue with a breakdown of the location of all children’s homes)

• Clarification if there was missing data in relation to paragraph 3.6 around local Ofsted inspections

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and confirmed that there was missing data in relation to this paragraph. He apologised for this omission)

• Clarification of the progress to date in relation to reducing the need for children to come into care

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and reported on the process for investing in early health and the work being undertaken with families. He informed the meeting that Children’s Services were starting to respond at a local level regarding referrals and also looking at the social capital of families and their needs with specific reference to Kinship Care)

• Clarification if adoption and fostering had increased

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and confirmed that as a result of patterns changing, the numbers had increased)

• Clarification if less children were being sent out of Leeds

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and confirmed that the numbers were reducing)

• Clarification as to why the fostering figure in paragraph 3.10 was high

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and outlined the reasons behind the increase)

• Clarification of the school attendance data and whether this figure was as a result of Asian families taking them home during the Easter/summer months

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and confirmed that Children’s Services were trying to collate the information in a collective way. Although this issue was the responsibility of the school and school governors, school attendance was deemed as a very important issue which affected a child’s education which was why it was one of the three obsessions)

• To applaud Leeds’s position in relation to the GCSE fiasco and clarification of the progress made in relation to the Judicial Review

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and informed the meeting that the House of Commons were considering this issue as at today’s date. Elected Members were currently looking at the next steps and were taking appropriate legal advice.

The Deputy Executive for Children’s Services reported that Children’s Services were working very hard with the schools and colleges as people could not wait for the outcome of the Judicial Review)

• Clarification if an analysis had been undertaken in relation to A*, A, and B grades

(The Director of Children’s Services responded and informed the meeting that the degradation of the grades was ongoing)

In concluding discussions, the East North East Area Leader conveyed his thanks to Peter Storrie, the report author and his support team for producing an excellent report. He sought clarification from the Director of Children’s Services as to why there was no information about the threshold changing in paragraph 3.3 of the report. He also referred to the important relationship the Area Committee had with the clusters and requested that a review should be undertaken of how the relationship works with Members.

The Director of Children’s Services responded and welcomed this review and agreed to prepare a progress report on clusters for a future meeting.

RESOLVED –

a)  That the contents of the report and appendices be noted and welcomed.

b)  That this Committee welcomes the development of a fund to support member initiatives to promote foster care.

c)  That a progress report on clusters be submitted to a future meeting for consideration.

d)  That this Committee appreciates the work being undertaken to date on the GCSE issue.