Agenda and minutes

To note that Councillor Ethan Radford has been appointed to fill a vacant seat on the Committee

The Committee noted that Councillor Ethan Radford has been appointed to fill a vacant seat.

Resolved to appoint Councillor Sam Gardiner as Vice-Chair of this Committee for this municipal year

Councillor Adele Williams – work commitments

Councillor Maria Watson – personal reasons

In the interests of transparency Councillor Georgia Power stated that she works for the Children’s Society.

To confirm the Minutes of the meeting held on 30 March 2023

The minutes of the meeting held on 30 March 2023 were confirmed as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

Report of the Statutory Scrutiny Officer

Resolved to note the Committee Terms of Reference

Report of the Statutory Scrutiny Officer

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Portfolio Holder for Children, Young People and Schools, Catherine Underwood, Corporate Director for People, and Ailsa Barr, Director of Children’s Integrated Services, presented the report and delivered a presentation updating on  progress in improving outcomes for children and young people through delivery of the Children’s Integrated Services Improvement Plan. The following information was highlighted:

(a)  in July 2022 the local authority was deemed inadequate by Ofsted following a full inspection. Rather than appointing a commissioner, monitoring visits were recommended as Ofsted believed that the LA understood its weaknesses and strengths. The first visit was in February 2023, and the second in July. The first visit focused on the front door which noted evidence of progression, and the second visit focused on Children in Need and children with a Child Protection Plan;

(b)  as part of the Council’s self assessment for the July monitoring visit, it was able to demonstrate working with Newton Europe to deliver on 2 workstreams to improve the experience, intervention and outcomes for children in need of help and protection. These are supporting children to remain with their families, and ensuring ideal outcomes and strong management around plans;

(c)  the Council has changed its approach to recruitment and advertising, with recruitment and advertising campaigns and varied recruitment sources. Use of agency staff will always be needed but the Council is building good and effective relationships with agency providers to obtain value for money;

(d)  all team managers are now enrolled on Frontline management training. A case management dashboard has been created for social workers to access data and identify key tasks for their caseload and allow managers to access timely key performance information;

(e)  transformation work is seeing timelier and more focussed intervention reducing drift and the duration of support through child in need plans with a focus on needs led reviews rather than process driven reviews. Increased capacity in the Missing team which has improved the number and timeliness of return home interviews, and Increased management oversight of missing episodes;

(f)  areas for further focus and development include work with partners to improve attendance at strategy meetings convened outside the Multi-Agency Support Hub (MASH), continuing to embed the use of audits and dip samples to shape practice and continuing work to ensure timely and effective step down to early intervention services;

(g)  feedback from inspectors following the July monitoring visit concluded that there is still a lot to do, but tangible progress is being made. Practice is variable but they found examples of improvements. There is real commitment and positivity from skilled staff, who know their children well and love the direct work tool kit bags. Staff feel supported to do a good job by managers in the service;

(h)  there are no graded judgements for monitoring visits, but a narrative letter was published by Ofsted on 29th August 2023. Findings will further inform the service development plan, and oversight will continue through the Children’ Improvement Board. A further monitoring visit is anticipated  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

Report of the Statutory Scrutiny Officer

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Portfolio Holder for Children Young People and Schools, and Nick Lee, Director of Education Services, presented the report and delivered a presentation highlighting the following:

(a)  in Nottingham City, 16% of children have identified special needs or disabilities (SEND). Of these, 1411 have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). 618 of these attend a special school, with the rest educated  in mainstream schools. Nottingham has pursued a policy of supporting children with SEND, wherever possible and appropriate, to attend mainstream school provision;

(b)  a new inspection framework came into effect in January 2023 and the first inspections of local areas under the new framework have been undertaken. A key difference in the new framework is that local areas will now receive one of 3 graded judgements that are positive, inconsistent or failing;

(c)  areas of common weakness across inspections include timeliness of issuing of EHCPs and annual reviews of EHCPs, children waiting too long for access to health services in particular speech and language, CAMHs and neurodevelopment pathways, the use of data across partnerships to understand young people’s needs and implement a robust joint commissioning approach to services, and the effectiveness of the Local Offer;

(d)  Nottingham’s strategic priorities for SEND are:

·  Implementation of strengthened governance arrangements for SEND;

·  Widening of co-production and engagement opportunities with parents and young people;

·  Development and implementation of the revised SEND strategy in collaboration with parents, young people and wider stakeholders;

·  Joint work with Nottinghamshire County Council and the ICB on improving timeliness of access to health pathways/services;

·  Digitisation of the EHCP process and EHCP quality assurance processes;

·  Embedding of joint Nottingham/Nottinghamshire/ICB EHCP QA process;

·  Reviewing the Local Offer platform and updating current content;

·  Co-production with parents and young people in development of the revised SEND strategy.

(e)  last year the parents and carers forum approached senior leaders to work towards improved relationships with the Council. New methods of engagement have been sought, for example through schools where groups have been set up. This has enabled the new SEND strategy to be co-produced with parents and carers;

(f)  the transition from primary to secondary school is recognised to be a challenging time for children with SEND. Levelling up funding has been received to run a pilot to support this transition at the Wells Academy and Bulwell Academy along with their feeder schools, working together with Family Support and SEND teams;

(g)  the Council is close to launching a joint quality assurance framework for EHCPs with the county council. Young peoples’ voices have been built into this and parents have been involved. In a recent annual review of the EHCP process, parents said that they are now getting better information and the quality of plans has improved;

In response to questions from the Committee and during subsequent discussion the following points were made:

(h)  neurodiverse children are more likely to be excluded from school. Particularly secondary school following difficult transitions. The new project with transition is aimed at reducing these numbers  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Report of the Statutory Scrutiny Officer

The work programme was noted.

To agree to meet on the following Thursdays at 10am:

·  26 October 2023

·  30 November 2023

·  25 January 2024

·  28 March 2024

·  25 April 2024

Resolved to agree to meet on the following Thursdays at 10am:

26 October 2023

30 November 2023

25 January 2024

28 March 2024

25 April 2024