Agenda item

To receive an update on the Children’s Services performance measured by local indicators.

The Committee received the Children’s Services Performance Indicators report which was set out on Agenda pages 11-20.  The Chairman went through the report page by page and invited the Members to raise any concerns.  During the analysis of the report the following points were raised:

·           Brian Grady, Head of Strategic Commissioning explained that the Early Help Service was offered if needed and when this was not successful the family would be re-referred to Social Care for further work. Brian stated that this was an old indicator which was set before the Early Help Service was in place. Brian noted that this affected a small number of children, however it was important to identify any issues early;

·           The improvement in the % Care Proceedings completed timely was a result of Officers ensuring assessments were ready before the cases went to Court.  Judith Ramsden, Director of Children’s Services explained that previously this was not in the scope of Social Workers and this was the reason for delays in the past.  Judith informed that this referred to a small number of cases;

·           Judith explained that living close to home, in the area where the child was from was generally considered better for LAC, but sometimes living close to home presented a risk for the child and therefore this indicator could portray an inaccurate picture;

·           Officers affirmed that there were a number of strategies in place to narrow the gap in educational attainment between disadvantaged and other pupils.  Judith stated that she had recently received a letter from the government saying that two schools within Wokingham Borough had managed to narrow the gap more than the comparative neighbours;

·           Brian reported that School Improvement Officers worked closely with schools identifying what improvement was needed for each cohort of pupils;

·           Judith stated that headteachers and governors were accountable for monitoring the improvement in their schools;

·           Councillor Bowring questioned how the targets challenged further improvement for the non-disadvantaged children. Judith felt that having one equal target for all children would widen the educational gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged children;

·           Councillor Younis felt that given that Wokingham was in an affluent area, perhaps the target relating to narrowing the gap could be more aspirational.  After a debate on this issue it was agreed that the Committee would like to receive more information to understand what criteria was used to set the targets;

·           Judith stated that the statistics around narrowing the gap were affected by the number of disadvantaged children in the schools;

·           Judith informed that Schools Forum had decided to reduce the investment in the Education Welfare Officers (EWO), this was now at the statutory limit level and diminishing this service would have a negative impact in narrowing the gap;

·           Judith explained that she had contacted headteachers asking them to share examples of good practice but had had limited responses;

·           Judith pointed out that there was an issue relating to schools relying on Pupil Premium funding a part of their budget and therefore being less motivated in their efforts to narrow the gap;

·           The Virtual School for LAC was proving successful and enabled more scrutiny as to how the money for LAC was being used;

·           Members questioned how the LAC’s mental health compared against other children. Brian stated that the data on mental health showed that there weren’t significant differences between the two cohorts; however, other issues had been identified.  It had been found out that there was a large number of youngsters that identified themselves as carers for their parents’ physical and emotional needs, more than the services had realised.  Members asked to be informed of the data around these issues.

The Chairman explained that the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee (O&SMC) had requested the information contained in this report and therefore she would like to recommend its submission to the next meeting of the O&SMC.

RESOLVED That:

1)    the criteria used for setting the target around narrowing the educational gap between disadvantaged and other pupils be explained to the Committee;

2)    the data and unique features around children’s mental health be circulated to the Committee;          

3)    the report be submitted to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee.