Agenda item

Medway’s Council Plan 2023/24 sets out the Council’s three priorities and the measures used to monitor performance. This report and appendices summarise how we performed in Q4 2023/24 on the delivery of these priorities and the actions we are taking to improve performance.

This report also presents the Q4 2023/24 review of strategic risks which fall under the remit of this committee (Appendix 2).

Discussion:

Members raised several comments and questions which included:

·       The Midwifery Team at Medway Hospital past and present, Dr Soe and the team at the Oliver Fisher Special Care baby Unit were commended for all the work they do.

·       It was suggested that the KPI’s for breastfeeding should be focussed on breastfeeding on a long term basis rather than a target that reflected the situation immediately following birth.

·       Officers acknowledged that the ILACS 7 target of 80% was an aspirational target and what the actions and data shared was the developments in areas that were marked as requires improvement and enabled deep dives to take place in areas marked as inadequate.  To achieve this target, the priority for the service was embedding of good practice, recruitment and retention of staff to ensure consistency of good practice and improved performance figures.

·       Further information was requested on what was being done to increase the uptake of breastfeeding and the outcome of discussions of the infant feeding strategy group meeting that took place in May. Additionally costs of the Councils advertising policy on healthy eating. The Democratic Services officer undertook to obtain a response from the Public Health Team.

ILACS 5 – in response to a question on how long before the attainment of the 65% target, which was in relation to the percentage indicators for children in long term fostering and where children had agreed placement. Officers said that a lot of work had been undertaken on permanency plans that link to permanency and stability, some of the work that needed to continue was on accuracy of recording and ensuring the use of the correct codes. There was now a permanency dashboard in place which provided the ability for weekly tracking. There had also been an appointment of permanency workers who would bring more focused targeted work on at risk placement moves and would ensure that reports were provided to fostering panels in a timely matter.

Child protection plans- clarification was sought on the increase in the number of children child protection plans, with a rise from quarter 3. The officer said that the report showed that there was a peak in February, however this had now decreased. There was a slight increase overall, and this may continue due to the extensive work being undertaken to ensure that children were on the right plans.

School performance and attainment 8 score -the red indicators were highlighted as a concern and the officer said that the challenges with key performance indicators was that they were updated in line with exam and national data. The Medway Education Partnership, schools and headteachers groups had this as a priority and the remit of the regional groups and teaching schools on improvement within academy schools.

School performance – it was asked what involvement there was with the two inadequate secondary schools in Medway. The officer said the two schools were academies, they had been supported with development of their improvement plans, but their progress was the responsibility of the Academy Trust. A risk assessment and categorisation of schools was however undertaken for all schools with support was offered to all schools.

Exclusions – it was commented that three schools accounted for 45% of exclusions in Medway and it was asked what support was offered to the schools to address this. The officer explained that exclusion data fluctuates through the year but there had been a reduction in permanent exclusions. The inclusion team worked extensively with the schools, one of which was LA maintained, but all three schools worked well with the inclusion team. All three schools were on an improvement journey and there had been progress since the data referred to was published.

Decision:

1. The Committee noted the Q4 2023/24 performance against the measures used to monitor progress against the Council’s priorities.
2. The Committee noted the Q4 2023/24 Strategic Risk Summary.