Agenda item

To receive a report from the Director of Children and Families providing a summary of performance information relating to outcomes for Leeds children and young people.

The report of the Director of Children and Families provided the latest performance information which showed progress against measures in the Children and Young People’s Plan.

In attendance for this item were:

·  Cllr Fiona Venner – Executive Member for Children’s Social Care and Health Partnerships

·  Cllr Jonathan Pryor – Executive Member for Economy, Culture and Education

·  Julie Longworth – Director of Children and Families

·  Val Waite – Chief Officer Learning Inclusion

·  Shaheen Myers – Deputy Director of Learning

·  Dave Clark – Chief Officer Learning Improvement

·  Farrah Khan – Chief Officer Family Help

·  Peter Storrie - Head of Service Performance Management and Improvement

·  Chris Hudson – Policy, Planning and Procedures Leader

It was noted that this would be the last update on this 2018-23 Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) and included progress on the 3 Obsessions. A refreshed CYPP is to be presented to full Council for adoption on 12^th July 2023. The Annual Standards Report would be presented to the Board in July and would provide details on attainment outcomes across the city for 2021/22 academic year.

Responding to a question from the Board on the figures for NEET and Not Known and general board member questions the following information was provided leading to discussions on the following points:

·  NEET and Not Known remains one of the obsessions within the CYPP. A lot of work has been ongoing in this area, there is a 14-19 Strategic Board in the city, the Director has recently written out to all the head teachers in the city asking for them to nominate individuals so there is a broad range of attendance at the meetings. The directorate is looking to second individuals into the local authority who will work 2 days a week as a strategic lead for this obsession.

·  Recently an appointment has been made for a Positive Destination Manager, one of the areas this person is focussing on is a partnership approach for tracking and supporting young people through voluntary and community organisations.

·  It was the view that an Outcomes Based Approach would be a good way to track what was being done and what success was being achieved in this area.

·  The Pathways Team and Life Coaches have a specific role to play in the NEET agenda. Members were keen to see the same resources provided to education to prevent a cycle of criminality.

·  Members were of the view that the use of numbers as well as percentages were of benefit in the report.

·  It was recognised that early intervention and prevention was the way forward which would be evidenced by data. It was acknowledged that work within this area of NEET and Not Known would only be successful if the services could build trusted relationships.

·  Tracking of individuals was required for a city the size of Leeds to ensure if young people decided to change their pathway from school education to courses this was captured.

·  The Members were of the view that any engagement with young people needed to be on an equal basis using plain English. It was acknowledged that teaching staff and partnership staff needed to be upskilled to teach and support child development and the adolescent brain development as part of their role.

·  It was noted that the numbers of children looked after were increasing. However, the numbers were not going up as much as other core cities and nationally and it was the view that this was due to the effective early prevention work done in Leeds.

·  It was the view that Life Coaching was an essential part to all that had been discussed at the meeting.

RESOLVED – To:

a)  Discuss and comment on the updates provided on the progress being made against the current Children and Young People’s Plan (2018-2023), specifically the three obsessions.

b)  Note that this was the last performance update being provided on the Children and Young People’s Plan (2018-2023), with the first report on the refreshed plan (2023-2028) scheduled for January 2024.