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:-

• Children Leeds cluster boundaries and Area Committe (Appendix 1 refers)
• Children and Young People’s Plan cluster performance – June 2012

(Appendix 2 refers)

• Maps of clusters relevant to Area Committee - Alwoodley/EPOS – Boston Spa and Villages South/EPOS – Villages West and Wetherby (Appendix 3 refers)
• Cluster Overviews for the Area Committees (Appendix 4 refers)

In addition to the above appendices, a copy of targeted service information for Inner East, Inner North East and Outer North East Area Committees was circulated for Members’ information.

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

-  Sue Rumbold, Chief Officer, Partnership Development Business Support, Children’s Services

-  Gillian Mayfield, Area Head of Targeted Services, ENE, Children’s Services

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

• The concerns expressed that arising from discussions at the meeting held on 19^th March 2012, the Director of Children’s Services had not provided any further information to Members in relation to children’s services cluster developments and on the need to conduct an urgent review in this area

(The Chief Officer, Partnership Development Business Support, Children’s Services responded and informed the meeting that the department were still addressing the formula in consultation with the Schools Forum which would take place in November 2012.

The East North East Area Leader and the Chief Officer, Partnership Development Business Support, Children’s Services agreed to raise this issue with the Director of Children’s Services with a view to a report on the interim proposals being submitted to the October meeting for discussion)

• The Committee’s view that funding should follow the pupil
• The concerns expressed again that many children living in the Wetherby ward were missing out in view of the current funding allocation criteria and as a result an urgent review of the current Council criteria was required

(The Chief Officer, Partnership Development Business Support, Children’s Services responded and informed the meeting and confirmed that the pupil premium would follow the student. Again it was noted that the Schools Forum in November would be addressing this specific issue)

·  A view expressed that it was important that children had the money to help with their intensive support

(The Chief Officer, Partnership Development Business Support, Children’s Services responded and informed the meeting that she would feed these comments into the process)

·  Clarification as to why free school meal uptake in Primary was low in Leeds as opposed to Secondary where there was a better uptake

(The Chief Officer, Partnership Development Business Support, Children’s Services responded and informed the meeting that the Child Poverty Steering group was focusing on a piece of work to increase the uptake of free school meals)

·  The concerns expressed that there was no detail regarding Independent Children’s homes within the report

(The Chief Officer, Partnership Development Business Support, Children’s Services responded and informed the meeting that information on the home in Leeds would be included in a report at the next meeting)

·  The need for the meeting to be aware of a detailed report previously considered at the Scrutiny Board (Children’s and Families) on Independent Children’s homes

·  Clarification of the figure in Outer North East in the table relating 10-17 year olds committing an offence

(The Chief Officer, Partnership Development Business Support, Children’s Services responded and agreed to look into this issue to confirm the lower figure should be 28 as pointed out by a Member of the Committee)

·  Clarification of the protocol of whether or not Independent Children’s homes had to inform the authority of their status and the need for Elected Members to be provided with information on where they were and scale of the issues

(The Chief Officer, Partnership Development Business Support, Children’s Services responded and agreed to look into this issue)

·  The need for Children’s Services to be working with Planning to achieve clarity in this area

·  To welcome the report and the presentation of information which would form the basis of future reports to this meeting

RESOLVED –

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

b)  That the Director of Children’s Services provides a response on the funding arrangements for clusters to the next meeting in October for consideration.

c)  That a copy of the Scrutiny Board (Children and Families) report on Independent Children’s homes be also submitted to the next meeting in October for discussion.

(Councillor P Harrand joined the meeting at 7.00pm during discussions of the above item)