Agenda and minutes

Sue Smith  - Deputy Head, National Probation Service

Sam Webster  - Councillor

Sean Kelly  - Head Teacher, Top Valley Academy

Chris Wallbanks  - Programme Manager, Early Intervention

Chloe Mullins  - Youth Cabinet

None

Of meeting held on 10 December 2014 (for confirmation).

The minutes of the meeting held on 10 December 2014 were confirmed and signed by the Chair.

Councillor Mellen advised the Board that at 5pm, he would need to give his apologies and leave the meeting. Malcolm Cowgill (Vice Chair) will chair the remainder of the meeting.

Report of Corporate Director of Children and Adults

This report was delivered to the Board by Michael Nicholson and Michelle Zuiripayi, who are members of the Youth Cabinet. The following points were highlighted:

a)  Youth Cabinet is currently made up of 16 members aged between 16 and 21.The members are involved in youth projects, further and higher education, training, volunteering and apprenticeships;

b)  the members of Youth Cabinet work with a wide range of boards and organisations and have a active involvement in decision making;

c)  other forums such as the Children in Care Council are influenced by the Youth Cabinet;

d)  the Youth Cabinet programme enables young people to participate alongside decision makers and contribute to the design, development and delivery of strategies and plans for service improvement;

e)  in 2014/15 Youth Cabinet members contributed to the following Boards:

1)  Children’s Partnership Board;

2)  Nottingham City Growth Board;

3)  Equality and Fairness Commission;

f)  2014/2015, Youth Cabinet members provided advice and guidance to a range of services such as the Nottingham City Children and Adult Safeguarding Board, the Youth Offending Team and the Early Citizen/Institute of Mental Health (University of Nottingham);

g)  Youth Cabinet meetings are held once a term and the following topics are discussed during these meetings:

1)  Education, Work and Training (Autumn term);

2)  Safe Lives and Positive Communities (Spring term);

3)  Health and Well-being (Summer term).

h)  there is a Primary Parliament for Year 5 and 6 children, which is organised in conjunction with the Nottingham Learning Trust. In 2014/2015 170 children took part in Primary Parliament meetings;

i)  various topics have been discussed such as sexual health and relationships, science and technology careers and healthy eating;

j)  Youth Cabinet members have been involved in delivering and planning sessions on voting and voter registration for 16-17 year olds;

k)  an exchange visit has taken place with Newcastle Youth Council, to learn about STEM engagement and to develop Sharing the Future. Sharing the Future is a new model for citizen participation;

l)  Youth Cabinet is now planning its 2015/16 programme and invites partners from the Children’s Partnership Board to engage with the members of the Cabinet, to identify participation needs and plan appropriate engagement activities;

m)  Youth Cabinet members will represent Nottingham at YouConf2015 in Karlsruhe in June 2015.

Further information was provided following the questions raised:

a)  most events held by Youth Cabinet occur in the school holidays, this is to ensure that there minimal disruption to the education of the members;

b)  young people with disabilities are encouraged to join the Youth Cabinet and take part in the activities that are on offer.

RESOLVED to:

1. thank Michael Nicholson and Michelle Zuiripayi, for delivering their presentation to the Board;

2. recognise the contribution made by the Youth Cabinet in ensuring children and young people influence decision making within the Children’s Partnership;

3. continue to use the findings of participation work to inform plans and strategies for service improvement for children and young people across the Children’s Partnership;

4. support the work of the Youth  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52.

Report of Director for Vulnerable Children and Families & Children’s Social Care

This report was presented to the Board by Helen Blackman, Director for Vulnerable Children and Families & Children’s Social Care. The following points were made:

a)  the demand for social care services remains high. There have been 800.6 per 10,000 referrals;

b)  520 children were subject to child protection in January 2015;

c)  health assessments have risen from 71.8% in 2013/14 to 85.9% in January 2015;

d)  96.9% of children in care cases were reviewed within the required timescales. This figure has reduced from 98% in 2013/14;

e)  94.6% of children and young people participated to their care plan (Quarter 3);

f)  Signs of Safety are developing a consistent strength based approach and work with families and local champions;

g)  the Family Support Strategy and Pathway is currently under review with a refresh planned to address learning from the Ofsted inspection and Serious Case Reviews;

h)  Work on child sexual exploitation is being undertaken to ensure that there is awareness and action across all front line services. National issues are being used to learn and improve services;

i)  Nottingham City Council have been picked as one of ten Local Authorities to work on national system in regards to child sexual exploitation;

j)  the Referral Team work with a large number of families and signpost them to additional services (if required) such as Women’s Aid;

k)  a redesign of the system is currently being undertaken to ensure that services are improved. Various service areas have now come together to work under one directorate. As a result, more support and services are being offered to children and multi agency work is taking place;

l)  the Priority Families Programme works to identify and offer an effective service to the most complex, local families in need of additional support;

m)  Nottingham City Council have created 3 additional Independent Reviewing Officer posts to ensure that children receive a good service and 10 additional Social Work posts to improve the timeliness of allocations;

n)  it is encouraged that the briefing which has been published by Nottingham City Council on child sexual exploitation is shared with all front line services.

Further information was provided, following questions which were asked by the Board:

a)  pressure on staff working in this service area is high;

b)  users of the service have noticed an improvement when contacting the Department;

c)  data around children with Special Educational Needs is to be extracted and provided to the Board;

d)  data in relation to age and sex of children in need is to be brought to a future meeting and also, information on how this compares with data from other areas.

RESOLVED:

1. to note the contents of this report;

2. that Board members are to ensure that their services are aware of Child Sexual Exploitation risks and that the briefing available is shared with local services.

Report of Joint Director’s of Education

This report was delivered to the Board by Pat Fielding, Director of Education. The following information was provided:

a)  children in Nottingham are starting school with attainment levels which are below those expected nationally. By the end of Key Stage 2, attainment levels are still below the national average. However, the gap begins close;

b)  overall for Key Stage 1-2, Nottingham are ranked:

  1) 35^th for maths;

  2) 47^th for reading;

  3) 41^st for writing.

c)  over the last three years, Nottingham has lost on average around 25% of its Key Stage 2 pupils, as they move to secondary schools outside of the city;

d)  a large proportion of the children moving to a non city school are considered to have a high prior attainment;

e)  at Key Stage 4, the number of pupils achieving 5+ A*-C GCSEs (or equivalent)  including English and Maths, is 44.6%. This ranks Nottingham 148th nationally;

f)  56.3% of Nottingham’s pupils achieved the expected progress in maths. This ranks Nottingham 143^rd nationally;

g)  65.1% of pupils achieved the expected progress in English, which ranks Nottingham 141^st nationally;

h)  for Key Stage 5, 88.3% of children achieved 2 or more A Level passes or equivalent in 2014. This ranks Nottingham in 97^th place;

i)  the number of young people aged 16-17 in employment, education or training is very high at 92.3%. Work is undertaken with other organisations to ensure that further skills are obtained by  pupils such as team working and organisation skills;

j)  achievement is being improved by carrying out risk assessments and holding meetings and reviews with schools.

Further information was provided following questions which were raised:

a)  work is being done to try and prevent students migrating to schools outside of the city;

b)  some secondary schools are under performing, with some schools being placed under special measures;

c)  further work needs to be done to ensure children are obtaining skills that employers require such as timeliness and team working. Some schools already have measures in place for this;

d)  even though some pupils do not have access to services to build extra skills, the number of children in education, employment or training is very high;

e)  work continues to take place with partners to ensure that opportunities for young pupils are not missed;

f)  some schools within the city attract pupils who do not reside within Nottingham;

g)  creative activities can be implemented into lessons. However, this is reliant on the school/teacher;

h)  children’s progress should be calculated city wide and not just per individual schools;

i)  the current Government have introduced free schools, partly provide a range of schools that encourage competitiveness;

j)  experiences for school pupils differ depending on which area of the country they live in. More work is needed to signpost young people to services such as Futures;

k)  schools can invite former pupils back to give talks on their careers, education and to offer younger pupils advice;

l)  ...  view the full minutes text for item 54.

Report of Corporate Director of Children and Adults

Alison Michalska, Corporate Director, Children and Adults presented this report to the board and highlighted the following points:

a)  the Refreshed Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) for 2015/16 builds on the plan for 2010-2014. The plan has been updated and is more focused;

b)  following a workshop which was held in December 2014, four priorities have been developed:

1)  safeguarding and supporting children and families;

2)  promoting the health and wellbeing of babies, children and young people;

3)  supporting achievement and academic attainment;

4)  empowering families to be strong and achieve economic wellbeing.

c)  more details on these priorities can be found in appendix 2 of the Refreshed Children and Young People’s Plan for 2015/16;

d)  indicators have been identified to measure the extent to which Nottingham City Council are improving on these priorities. The indicators now reflect:

1)  key priorities for Nottingham, including relevant Nottingham Plan targets;

2)  particular performance challenges;

3)  the impact of prevention and early intervention activities;

4)  issues where more than one partner on the Board can contribute.

e)  concerns were expressed that the current Government have acted too quickly in introducing free schools and allowing schools to become academies;

f)  there is still time for minor amendments to be made to the CYPP. Board members have been invited to offer their thoughts.

g)  once the CYPP has been finalised, it will be published online and through internal/external organisations.

Following a brief discussion:

a)  the Board was asked to provide feedback on the Nottingham Children’s Partnership website, to see if any improvements are needed;

b)  the Youth Cabinet members have agreed to assist in constructively criticising the site.

RESOLVED to:

1. approve the refreshed CYPP for 2015/16 (Appendix 1), subject to any final changes arising from discussion;

2. approvethe draft Action Plan for delivering the proposed CYPP for 2015/16 (Appendix 2) and for members recognise their organisation’s contributions to it;

3. consider future amendments to the CYPP which could strengthen its impact over the next 12 months;

4. note that a further update on the CYPP will be provided to the Board in 6 months.

Report of Corporate Director of Children and Adults

Amy Weir, Chief Social Worker delivered this presentation to the Board and highlighted the following points:

a)  in March/April 2014, Ofsted inspected the services provided for Children in Need and found that no children were unsafe in the City;

b)  26 areas for improvement were identified and improvements have since been made;

c)  Nottingham City Council produced an Improvement Action Plan and this plan was submitted to Ofsted in August 2014;

d)  there has been a reduction in the number of unallocated Child in Need cases in the Social Work Team;

e)  the attendance campaign has been successful in reducing school absence;

f)  work force development is being undertaken and the IT system is being redesigned;

g)  a new case management system for Children’s Social Care will be introduced byMarch 2016;

h)  packages of support for Newly Qualified Social Workers have been improved;

i)  SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) templates have been created for Care Plans and Supervision meetings;

j)  the Virtual School has been restructured to support children in care over the age of 16;

k)  the following areas still require action;

1)  delivering a restructure of the Fostering & Adoption service;

2)  ensuring that all children’s cases have an up to date chronology;

3)  ensuring that schools are informed about the role of the Virtual School and that data sharing agreements and protocols are in place around key city-wide issues;

4)  refreshing the Family Support Strategy and Pathway, ensuring that services fully embed learning from the Priority Families programme and Signs of Safety roll-out.

Following questions from the Board, further information was provided:

a)  the Adult and Children Leadership Team hold regular meetings and assist when a child reaches 18 and transfers to adult services;

b)  areas for improvement in child to adult transitions have been identified;

c)  from April 2015, the Care Act will be implemented and will make Adult Safeguarding a statutory requirement;

d)  protection for adults is a priority, along with children. The Out of Hours Team is qualified to deal with issues raised with both adults and children.

RESOLVED to note:

1. the key areas of progress and areas requiring further development;

2. that regular updates on the Improvement Action Plan will be provided to the Children’s Partnership Board.

None

Any requests for the Board to consider further topics, should be forwarded to Dot Veitch, Partnership Support Officer at dot.veitch@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

It is noted that any requests for the Board to consider further topics, should be forwarded to Dot Veitch, Partnership Support Officer at dot.veitch@nottinghamcity.gov.uk 

Please note the following provisional dates for future meetings:

24 June 2015

30 September 2015

16 December 2015

30 March 2016

The provisional dates for future meetings have been noted.