Agenda and minutes

To approve the record of the meeting held on 18 September 2014.

The record of the meeting held on 18 September 2014 was agreed and signed by the Chairman as correct. 

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Baker, Craven and Turpin and from Clive Mailing (Roman Catholic Church representative) and Alex Tear (Church of England representative).

The Chairman will announce any late items which do not appear on the main agenda but which he/she has agreed should be considered by reason of special circumstances to be specified in the report. 

The Chairman announced that Jane Heyes had resigned from the committee as the Headteacher representative. 

(A)              Disclosable pecuniary interests and other interests

A member need only disclose at any meeting the existence of a disclosable pecuniary interest (DPI) in a matter to be considered at that meeting if that DPI has not been entered on the disclosable pecuniary interests register maintained by the Monitoring Officer.

A member disclosing a DPI at a meeting must thereafter notify the Monitoring Officer in writing of that interest within 28 days from the date of disclosure at the meeting.

A member may not participate in a discussion of or vote on any matter in which he or she has a DPI (both those already registered and those disclosed at the meeting) and must withdraw from the room during such discussion/vote.

Members may choose to voluntarily disclose a DPI at a meeting even if it is registered on the council’s register of disclosable pecuniary interests but there is no legal requirement to do so.

Members should also ensure they disclose any other interests which may give rise to a conflict under the council’s code of conduct.

In line with the training provided to members by the Monitoring Officer members will also need to consider bias and pre-determination in certain circumstances and whether they have a conflict of interest or should otherwise leave the room for Code reasons.

(B)            Whipping

The Council’s constitution also requires any Member of the Committee who is subject to a party whip (ie agreeing to vote in line with the majority view of a private party group meeting) to declare the existence of the whip.

Disclosable pecuniary interests

There were none.

Other interests

Councillor Pat Gulvin declared a personal interest in item 8 (Youth Justice Plan) in that the Youth Offending Team Manager was her brother-in-law.

This report details the areas covered by the Portfolio Holder for Educational Improvement. The areas within the portfolio are listed each time a Cabinet Member is invited to attend any of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees to be held to account. The Portfolio Holder for Educational Improvement works to support the Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services (Lead Member). 

Members received an overview of progress on the area within the terms of reference of this Committee and covered by the Portfolio Holder for Educational Improvement, as set out below:

• Review of the Council’s approach and support for school effectiveness
• Support for School Governors
• Post Ofsted Advisory Group
• And any other additional key strands of work as agreed with the Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services (Lead Member) to respond to emerging issues.

The Portfolio Holder for Educational Improvement, Councillor Tolhurst, then responded to Members’ questions and comments as follows: -

• Impact of the role of the Portfolio Holder – in response to a question about what impact the role of the Portfolio Holder for Educational Improvement had had and how Councillor Tolhurst carries out that role she explained that, in relation to Key Stage 2, although Medway was still 4% below the national average the results had been the best results ever achieved in Medway and were a 3% improvement on the previous year.  In addition, less schools were below the floor targets despite the targets being raised since the previous year.  She explained that this area was an ongoing challenge and further improvement was needed but that steady sustainable progress had been demonstrated.  In terms of her role she explained that she had regular dialogue with the School Improvement Team, Headteachers, Governors and parents and ensured that she was clear what the authority is delivering.

• Leadership – The Portfolio Holder confirmed that strong effective leadership was key and remained a local authority priority.  There was a need to positively champion improvement collectively and celebrate achievement.  In addition she highlighted some ways of strengthening governance, for example; improving governor training attendance which had risen to 74% from 53%, the development of a clerking service which could be brokered from schools to strengthen the role of governing body clerks, and brokering secondments from outstanding schools outside of the area to support Medway schools to improve.

• Draft School Improvement Strategy – The Portfolio Holder referred to the draft strategy appended to the report on test and examination results on the agenda and welcomed the strategy which she felt was clear, realistic, aspirational and set out the vision for Medway’s primary schools for the next two years.
  
  
• Recruitment – with reference to the current vacancy of the Assistant Director, School Effectiveness and Inclusion, the Portfolio Holder confirmed that there was no update on this at present but praised the work of the interim Assistant Director.  She added that recruitment generally was an issue as there was difficulty in recruiting teaching staff in Medway schools and reiterated the importance of positively championing improvement to encourage teachers to want to work in Medway schools.

• Key Stage 2 – in response to a question about why Key Stage 2 was still under performing compared to the good results achieved at other Key Stages, the Portfolio Holder reiterated that steady progress with Key Stage 2 had been made and that some schools had made significant progress, however,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 575.

This report provides provisional 2014 education results based on Department for Education (DfE) statistical first releases for each key stage for Medway’s schools and academies. The report summarises the performance from teacher assessments, tests and examinations.

Discussion:

Officers introduced the report which provided the committee with the provisional test and examination results for Medway in 2014.  The results were currently still provisional but the committee was advised that the validated Key Stage 2 results would be published later in the week.

Officers then responded to the Members questions and comments, which included: -

• Validated results – Members requested that a briefing note be provided with the detail of these results, by school if possible, in order for Members to be able to support schools in their wards where necessary.

• Governors hub – Members supported the Governors hub, which provided a range of support mechanisms for Governors and enabled Headteachers to share documents with Governors at an earlier opportunity.  Officers confirmed that they were encouraging all Medway schools to buy into the hub service as the feedback from users had been extremely positive.

• Draft School Improvement Strategy – when asked to enlarge on how the local authority will continue to support Medway schools, as detailed in the draft strategy appended to the report, the Director of Children and Adults explained that a policy of positively championing improvement was being carried out.  She acknowledged that the school community all had the same priority – to provide Medway’s children and young people with the best education possible.  Where schools are judged by Ofsted as inadequate she explained that it was expected for that school to become sponsored by a good or outstanding school or academy trust, which then added capacity to enable rapid improvement and there were examples around Medway of this method working.

• Raising achievement meetings – in response to a question about how these meetings work, officers confirmed that they were a partnership between a school and the local authority and were an opportunity to take stock on performance and self evaluate.  They celebrate what is working well and then identify what is needed to achieve the journey to good or outstanding, with targeted support provided where needed.

• Gaining support from the local community – a Member provided an example from a local school that had approached churches and mosques to volunteer at the school to read with pupils, which had been very successful.

Decision:

The committee noted the report.

This report outlines the outcomes of the informal consultation period on the Council’s proposals to ‘increase pupil numbers’, ‘extend onto an additional site’ and to ‘alter the upper age limit’ at Rivermead Special School, by way of statutory prescribed alterations. 

Discussion:

The Head of Performance and Strategic Planning introduced the report which provided the committee with the outcome of the informal consultation on the proposals to increase the pupil numbers, extend onto an additional site and alter the upper age limit at Rivermead Special School.

The committee supported the proposals.

Decision:

The committee recommended the Cabinet to progress the proposals relating to Rivermead Special School to the Statutory Representation stage.

This report outlines the Medway Youth Justice Plan Re-draft 2014-2016, which has been developed following discussions and consultations with partner agencies via the Youth Offending Team (YOT) Management Board and the requirements by the Youth Justice Board to submit a costed plan in respect of the Effective Practice Grant to the Youth Offending Team.

Discussion:

The Youth Offending Team (YOT) Manager introduced the report to the committee, which set out the Youth Justice Plan re-draft for 2014-16.  It had been developed following discussions with partner agencies via the YOT Management Board and a provisional version had been submitted to the Youth Justice Board which had responded favourably.

Members then asked officers questions, which included: -

• Transition from youth offending to adult services and how this was working.  The YOT Manager explained that Medway had been leading on some work around transition via a working party of the Kent and Medway Reducing Reoffending Board, which had recently been re-established to look at how transition can best be managed.  The working party was currently looking at a 6 month tapering of support so that Adult Services could work with children services three months before and three months after the young person becomes 18 years old.

• An update on the mindfulness training.  The YOT Manager explained that staff were continuing their mindfulness training and that the Medway YOT was the first YOT to adopt this approach and were working with schools, such as Silverbank Pupil Referral Unit, to deliver mindfulness workshops to pupils there.

• Work with Medway Action for Families (MAfF) helped with transition. In response to a question on how working with the MAfF Team had helped the work of the YOT, the YOT Manager explained that the teams had been working closely, with two YOT staff Members being dedicated to working on this project.  Furthermore, he added that YOT had invested half a full time equivalent post to provide functional family therapy (FFT).  Early evidence had demonstrated that reoffending of young people from families who received support under MAfF had reduced by 50% and where FFT had also been provided, reoffending had reduced by 60%.

• Review of the move to Strood.  The YOT Manager explained that the move itself had been very efficient, being completed two days before deadline and service downtime had been less than two working days.  The move had enabled a much more integrated approach with the Youth Service and owing to the premises being smaller the YOT were now holding appointments in hubs within neighbourhoods making the service more local to the user, which had proved successful.

• Representation on the YOT Management Board.  In response to a question as to whether a representative from private sector housing should be included, the YOT Manager explained that because private sector housing was so large and diverse it would be difficult to be representational and as the majority of youth offenders were placed via the Council’s Housing Services, who were represented on the Board, it was not considered necessary to include a private sector housing representative at this point.

• Preventing looked after children from becoming criminalised. Following a request for an update on this issue, the YOT Manager confirmed that this was an area of concern with around one third of young people involved with the YOT being looked after.  The YOT was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 578.

This report presents the Council’s draft capital and revenue budgets for 2015/16.  In accordance with the constitution, Cabinet is required to develop ‘initial budget proposals’ approximately three months before finalising the budget and setting council tax levels at the end of February 2015.

The draft budget is based on the principles contained in the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) 2014/18 approved by Cabinet at the end of September and reflects the latest formula grant assumptions announced as part of Local Government Finance Settlement 2014/15 and 2015/16 Technical Consultation in July 2014.

Discussion:

The Head of Finance Strategy introduced the report which presented the draft capital and revenue budgets for 2015/16.  He explained that for 2014/15 there was a forecast overspend of £4.5 million, which was largely due to pressures in children’s social care.  He then explained to the committee the process of building the draft capital and revenue budgets, adding that there was still a gap of £12m to close for 2015/16.

In relation to the spending pressures relating to children’s social care, some of which was attributable to difficulties in recruitment of social workers, which had created a reliance on agency staff, a Member asked why agencies were able to recruit social workers when the local authority were having difficulty in doing so.  In response the Director for Children and Adults explained that recruitment had been a challenge, particularly in relation to first line management posts and this was a problem shared with local authorities up and down the country, however, the situation had improved over the past 15 months.  Retention of permanent staff had improved with the turnover rate of staff in children’s social care now being low.  The authority was being creative in terms of recruitment of social workers, approaching other countries where there was equivalency in standards of training and in driving down, where possible, the costs of agency staff.

Decision:

The committee noted the report and the draft capital and revenue budgets for 2015/16. 

This report provides a summary of Medway’s performance for Quarter 2 2014/15 against its priorities, which it set out in The Council Plan 2013/15. The following information against the relevant Council priority is provided for this committee:

·        Performance against Key Measures of Success

·        Updates on Key Projects 

Discussion:

The Director of Children and Adults introduced the report and focussed on the improvement journey in relation to children’s social care.  She reported that steady progress was being made with a number of external assessments to challenge the progress journey and all were consistently reporting that significant improvement is being made on work with Medway’s most vulnerable children.  In relation to specific targets she explained that: -

• NI 147 (care leavers in suitable accommodation) – this was an area that the current Support for Care Leavers Task Group had been focussing on but she explained that, although a very important indicator, it related to a small number of young people, a total of 13 for this quarter.
• A1 (average time between a child entering care and moving in with adoptive family) – the number of children being placed for adoption was relatively high but this was not always done within the timescales.  However the service were happy that they were delivering a child focussed service.  In addition, this was a rolling three year cumulative target so there was a possibility this indicator would take some time to improve.

In response to a question requesting details about kinship adoptions the Director explained that this may not be easy to provide as data was not collected in this way but offered to bring an item providing more detail about this issue at a future meeting of the committee.  The Chairman suggested that this be added to the work programme for the March meeting of the committee.

Decision:

The committee noted the report and requested that a report on permanency options for children that are looked after be brought to the March 2015 meeting of this committee. 

This item advises Members of the current work programme and allows the Committee to adjust it in the light of latest priorities, issues and circumstances. It gives Members the opportunity to shape and direct the Committee’s activities over the year.

Discussion:

The Democratic Services Officer introduced the report and notified the committee of the following addition to the Cabinet Forward Plan:

Gateway 1 Procurement Commencement: Short breaks for disabled children and their carers, which was added to the 16 December 2014 Cabinet meeting.

Decision:

The committee: -

(1)   agreed the work programme at Appendix 1, subject to the items listed as ‘date to be determined’ being added to the meeting scheduled for 25 March 2015;

(2)   noted that no nominations for the two Parent Governor representative vacancies were received and that the recruitment process would therefore be repeated in six months time;

(3)   agreed that a submission for the CQC inspection of the Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust be prepared by the Assistant Director, Partnership Commissioning, in consultation with the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Opposition Spokespersons.