Agenda and minutes
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Contact: Joseph Dance, Democratic Services Officer
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Apologies for absence Minutes: Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Fearn and Williams and Tina Lovey (Headteacher Representative). |
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To approve the record of the meeting held on 1 August 2017. Minutes: The record of the meeting held on 1 August 2017 was agreed and signed by the Chairman as correct. |
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Urgent matters by reason of special circumstances 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. Minutes: The Chairman confirmed that he had accepted one report as urgent. Item 6 ‘Aut Even Ofsted Inspection’ was circulated separately to the agenda and was accepted as urgent to enable the Committee to consider a report of an unannounced Ofsted Inspection of Aut Even at the end of July and the associated action plan to address the Ofsted findings.
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Declarations of interests and whipping (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. Minutes: Disclosable pecuniary interests
There were none.
Other interests
There were none.
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The report advises the Committee of notices of two call-ins received from six and eight Members of the Council respectively of Cabinet decisions 79 and 80/2017 to:
· Approve the option to establish four integrated Family and Children Hubs (Designated Children’s Centres) and nine Children and Family Wellbeing Centres as set out in the Business Case (Appendix 1 to the report).
· Delegate authority to the Director of Children and Adults Services, in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services (Lead Member), to decide the final location of the Children and Family Hubs and Children and Family Wellbeing Centres within the agreed capital budget.
The Committee must consider the Cabinet decision(s) and decide either to take no further action, to refer the decision(s) back to Cabinet for reconsideration or to refer the matter to full Council. Minutes: Discussion:
Members considered a report regarding two call-ins received from six and eight Members of the Council respectively of Cabinet decisions 79 and 80/2017 to:
· Approve the option to establish four integrated Family and Children Hubs (Designated Children’s Centres) and nine Children and Family Wellbeing Centres as set out in the Business Case (Appendix 1 to the report); and,
· Delegate authority to the Director of Children and Adults Services, in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services (Lead Member), to decide the final location of the Children and Family Hubs and Children and Family Wellbeing Centres within the agreed capital budget.
The Committee was requested to consider the Cabinet decisions and decide either to take no further action, refer the decisions back to Cabinet for reconsideration, or refer the matter to full Council.
Councillor Kemp, the Lead Member for the Conservative Group call-in, explained the reasons for the call-in as outlined in paragraph 2.2 of the report. Councillor Price, the Lead Member for the Labour Group call-in, then explained the reason for the call-in as outlined in paragraph 2.3 of the report.
The Chair then invited the Director of Children and Adult Services to respond to the points raised by Members. The Director explained that an express aim of the consultation which ran from 31 May to 12 July 2017 was to seek views on alternative options for service delivery and, as a consequence of the quality and volume of responses during the consultation period, a number of additional options, listed as options D to G, were included in the final business case and report which was considered by Cabinet on 8 August 2017.
The Director noted that the preferred option recommended by officers to Cabinet was Option G, the details of which were set out in section 3.7 of the business case. In summary, Option G would see the Council moving from 19 to 13 Centres broken down as 4 Children and Family Hubs and 9 Children and Family Wellbeing Centres, in addition to a wide range of outreach support. Children’s Centre permanent provision would be withdrawn from the current 19 sites and staff located in the four Hubs, which would be designated as Children’s Centres and would additionally host and provide a range of staff and services for families with children of all ages. Each Hub would serve a wider area and operate as a base for satellite and outreach work, taking services to where families lived and to accessible locations.
The Director of Children and Adult Services and the Assistant Director for Commissioning, Business and Intelligence then gave a presentation to the Committee on the outcomes of the consultation, the rationale for the proposed locations of the Children and Family Hubs, Wellbeing Centres and outreach services, and the range of services to be provided under the proposed model.
The Director advised that overall expenditure on Early Years provision would be £16.7 million in 2017-18. Only £2 million of this funding would be available to the Council ... view the full minutes text for item 282. |
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Aut Even Ofsted Inspection This item has been added to the agenda, because the Chairman of the Committee is of the opinion that it should be considered at this meeting as a matter of urgency as permitted under section 100B of the Local Government Act 1972. This is to enable the Committee to consider a report of an unannounced Ofsted Inspection of Aut Even at the end of July and the associated action plan to address the OFSTED findings. OFSTED has set a deadline of 28 September 2017 for the Council to respond and take action in a number of areas which is ahead of the next scheduled meeting of this Committee. The report was not available in time for despatch with the main agenda as officers needed time to prepare the report following the publication of the Ofsted findings on Friday 18 August. Minutes: Discussion:
The Director of Children and Adult Services introduced the report which provided Members with an overview of the inspection findings from the unannounced inspection of Aut Even – Short Breaks Service which was carried out on 25 and 26 July 2017. The Director noted that Ofsted had given the service a rating of ‘inadequate’ and that the Council had been given until 25 September 2017 to respond to and take action in accordance with compliance notice and inspection judgements set out at Appendix 1 to the report.
The Director noted that an Interim Registered Manager had been appointed and an action plan included at Appendix 2 to the report was being implemented to ensure service improvements. As part of the improvement plan for the service he confirmed that Medway HR had undertaken an audit of vetting procedures at Aut Even, and across other areas in Children’s Services, to ensure appropriate safeguarding and recruitment arrangements were in place. This had confirmed full compliance in settings other than Aut Even.
Members then raised the following comments and questions:
Previous Ofsted judgements – in response to a Member’s question as to how it was the case that Aut Even had received a rating of ‘good’ only a few months previously, but had now received a rating of ‘inadequate’, the Director confirmed that the recent rating was adversely affected by the failure to address a concern regarding the reporting of a particular safeguarding incident.
Ongoing improvement – in response to a Member’s question as to whether the senior management team were aware of service issues ahead of the Ofsted inspection, the Interim Assistant Director for Social Care noted that issues within the leadership team at Aut Even had been raised previously and as a result a service manager had been suspended and recruitment processes reviewed. The Interim Registered Manager had been appointed prior to the Ofsted inspection.
Pressure on existing service – in response to a Member’s question about existing service pressures, the Interim Service Manager noted that a number of staff had been removed from Aut Even due to vetting and referencing concerns, and that this had put pressure on the remaining staff; however, he was confident that the existing staff could continue to effectively meet the needs of young people accessing the service.
Future of the service – in response to a Member’s question about the future of the service, the Director noted that Parklands was being looked at as a potential alternative location for the service. He also confirmed that responsibility for Aut Even would be moving from Adult Service to Children Services, and would be overseen by the Head of Provider Services.
Decision:
The Committee noted the work to date on the service improvements and noted that an update report would be provided to the Committee in October 2017. |