Agenda item

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 always recording their work in a timely manner, it did not necessarily mean that the visits were no occurring.

Councillor Bray stated that it was meaningless analysing out of date data, and asked that future reports presented to the Committee contain more up to date data.

Councillor Helliar-Symonds asked Members to be mindful of the fact that some of the targets that were harder to achieve had been set locally and were aspirational.

During the discussion of the item the following comments were made:

·           In response to a question Paul Doherty, Assistant Director for Education stated that Interim Executive Boards (IEB) tended to be small and were not meant to be representative, they were meant to be composed of knowledgeable, capable and experienced people to help the school improve quickly.  The choice of the IEB was within the gift of the Director of Children’s Services.  IEBs were typically made up of volunteers, however some Councils were starting to pay for this service;

·           In response to a question Paul Doherty stated that he was not aware of failure by an IEB;

·           Members were informed by Paul Doherty that the academisation process run alongside the work of the IEB;

·           In response to a question Paul Doherty stated that positive changes could happen quickly, usually with changes in leadership and management;

·           Paul Doherty stated that the Northern House School had a trust who was interested in become its sponsor. It could be difficult to secure a trust to sponsor special schools due to the complexities and risks involved.

RESOLVED That the report be noted.