Issue - meetings

To consider a report on the latest Children’s Services Key Peformance Indicators.

The Committee considered the Children’s Services Performance Indicators report which was set out in agenda pages 15-26.  Nick Hammond, Research and Information Officer presented the report.

The red indicators were discussed in more detail as follows:

1.     EA1i: Percentage of Wokingham Borough State-Funded Primary Schools with a current Ofsted Rating of Good or Better

Nick Hammond stated that this indicator was red as a result of two primary schools having been judged as ‘Requires Improvement’ and one school as ‘Inadequate’.  He informed that all these three schools had been previously rated as ‘Good’, these schools were on the Local Authority risk register and had been identified as vulnerable to the judgements received, one of the schools had been issued with a warning notice.

Nick Hammond stated that when schools were rated ‘Inadequate’ they were automatically subject to an academy order and the Governing Board was removed to be replaced by a School Improvement Board.

Nick Hammond stated that the Local Authority continued to work with the schools through the school improvement team to bring about positive change to these schools.

2.     EA2: Percentage of children who attend a Wokingham State-Funded School (Primary, Secondary or Special) which is ‘Good’ or better

Nick Hammond stated that the reason for the decline in this indicator was the recent Ofsted ratings of ‘Requires Improvement’ and ‘Inadequate’, as explained above.

3.     EA11: 12-Month Rolling Voluntary Turnover of Qualified Social Workers within Children’s Social Care and Early Intervention Service

Nick Hammond stated that this was a new measure which had been introduced for monitoring during 2018/19.  Turnover was an indicator of the staff morale.  The proposed targets assigned to this measure (green if less than 16%) suggested it was currently red.  The service was monitoring this new measure and would provide a further update in the next performance report.

4.     VP4: Percentage of referrals in 2018/19 which are repeat referrals within 12 months of the previous referral to Children’s Social Care

Nick Hammond believed this indicator was red as a result of an expected increase in referrals just before the summer holidays.  The target of 20% or less was met for the other two months in the quarter, August and September.

5.     VP7: Percentage of children leaving care who achieved permanence (adopted, returned home or special guardianship order is granted)

Nick Hammond stated that in Q2 four of the ten children leaving care achieved permanence.  The other six children left care at the age of 18, three moving into independent living, one staying put with their foster carer and two remaining in residential care due to health needs.  Those who leave care at the age of 18 will have a transition plan in place.

6.     VP8: Percentage of child protection visits due in the period which were completed on time (within 10 days of the previous visit)

Nick Hammond stated that this was a local target.  The drop in performance coincided with increased workloads and the main impact of this was that social workers were not  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37