Agenda and minutes

Councillor Maria Watson (personal)

None

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 24 September 2020

The minutes of the meeting held on 24 September 2020 were approved as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People, Helen Blackman, Director of Children’s Integrated Services, and Wilf Fearon, Head of Service for Early Years spoke to the Committee about the work taking place to respond to the findings and recommendations of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons Inspection of Youth Justice Services.  They highlighted the following information:

a)  The full joint inspection of the Youth Justice Service was carried out in December 2019.

b)  The Service was rated as ‘Requires Improvement’ and six recommendations were made for improvement.  Three of those recommendations were directed at the Youth Justice Service Board and three were directed at the Youth Justice Service Heads of Service.

c)  The Inspection found that the delivery of statutory work was strong with a lot of positive aspects that were making a difference to the lives of young people.  The focus of the recommendations was on Out of Court Disposals and young people on the edge of criminality.

d)  The recommendations directed to the Board related to services being based on an assessment of individual needs; and relatively high numbers of very young people known to the Service and how those young people can be supported without entering the justice system unnecessarily.  In response to the incidence of knife crime in the City, the Police, in partnership, had developed a robust response to all knife-related incidents and the Inspection Report recommended that this ‘one size fits all’ approach was not appropriate and should be stepped back from.  There was also a recommendation about work with victims and a focus on restorative justice.

e)  The recommendations directed to Heads of Service related to staff access to clinical supervision; the approach of using mandatory intervention while promoting a trauma-informed approach; seeking the views of children and young people; and improving quality assurance processes and management oversight.

f)  An Improvement Plan was developed to address the six recommendations from the Inspection, in addition to a requirement for the Board to review the existing Youth Justice Service Management Board Action Plan.

g)  The Management Board is chaired by the Corporate Director for People and involves a range of partners including Education, Police and Probation Services.  The Board oversees the implementation of the Action Plan.

h)  An Out of Court Disposal Protocol has been agreed, which includes a revised approach to dealing with knife crime incidents and improved quality assurance and oversight processes.

i)  The Out of Court Disposal Panel has become more multi-agency with involvement of Play and Youth Services, Police, Education, Health and Social Care colleagues.  These colleagues have input into the assessments carried out and the planning of interventions.

j)  A review of assessment tools, with a focus on the wellbeing and safety of young people has been carried out and intervention plans are now completed alongside the assessment process.

k)   Data on engagement with very young people is now reported to the Youth Justice Board so that they can analyse the data and the work taking place.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People, gave a presentation about progress against objectives within the Council Plan 2019 to 2023 that relate to children and young people.  She highlighted the following information:

a)  Out of the 11 commitments relating to children and young people, nine are on track to be achieved and two are currently not on track and rated as ‘amber’.

b)  Some of the key highlights from Quarter 1 include the continuation of recruitment of foster carers with 11 new carers recruited in Quarter 1 and 18 applicants at the assessment stage; continuation of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library with 5603 children registered with Scheme and 260,819 books delivered up to July 2020; and continuation of early intervention and prevention programmes during the Covid-19 pandemic.  Most Children’s Centre buildings had to close in response to the Covid-19 restrictions but support moved online quickly and during Quarter 1 Early Help Services delivered 237 virtual advice/ support sessions and 21 virtual parenting groups.

c)  The commitments to protect frontline social workers and assessment and consultation for children with poor mental health from cuts have been maintained, and the Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need for mental health support for children and young people.

d)  There has been activity to support new mums to breastfeed for longer.  There is still work to do with businesses on this, although that has been challenging during the Covid-19 restrictions.

e)  Support for parents to look after their children at home has continued during the pandemic through the Early Help Team and Priority Families Team and the Council has received funding to continue this work.

f)  The Covid-19 pandemic has made the target for at least 75% of eligible 2 year olds to access free nursery provision more challenging to achieve.  Issues include that some settings are not open/ not full open due to Covid restrictions; some parents have lost their jobs or are working at home as a result of the pandemic and therefore do not feel that they need to send their child to nursery; and some families do not feel that it is safe to send their child to nursery in the current circumstances.  This is concerning.  There will be targeted campaigns about the importance of early years provision for child development, socialisation and school readiness. 

g)  Going forward, many of the challenges relate to dealing with and mitigating the impact of Covid-19 on young people, their families and service provision.

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

h)  A cost-benefit analysis is being carried out to look at balancing the costs of supporting the Fostering Panel to reduce delays and avoid loss of potential foster carers compared with potential reduced numbers of foster carers.

i)  The caseloads of social workers working in child protection are monitored as part of the quality assurance process.  However, looking at the average caseload can be misleading because the caseloads of newly qualified  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.

Councillor David Mellen, Portfolio Holder with responsibility for schools, Nick Lee, Director of Education Services and John Dexter, Education, gave a presentation about the current position with schools and education in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.  They highlighted the following information:

a)  As term as gone on more and more children are being sent home from school to self-isolate.  In the previous week (w/e 20 November 2020), 33 city schools were reporting partial closure due to Covid-19, affecting 51 pupil year groups.  There were a total of 2367 pupils self-isolating as a result, which is approximately 5% of city pupils.

b)  Cases of Covid-19 in the City are currently falling in all age groups apart from those aged 12-17 years and this is unsurprising when schools are being expected to operate in a normal way.

c)  Before half term schools also had issues with having sufficient staff to stay open and a close watch is being kept on this.

d)  Attendance at school has been affected.  Attendance has been better in the second half term so far than in October, but this may change.  Attendance rates are a long way short of what is desirable and this situation adds to the pressure on pupils.  The Council is working closely with families to ensure that no one uses this as an excuse not to send their children to school when they need to be there and can be there.  Data shows that children with special needs and children open to school care have attendance lower than the average and this is concerning.

e)  School leaders have raised a range of issues including school budgets, as more supply staff are required and this is reflective of challenges in ensuring staffing levels; learning gaps and risks of losing achievements in improving standards, including the impact on the mental health of young people and how this affects learning; and providing remote blended learning.  These issues accord with the findings of the Inspectorate visits to schools in October.  Ofsted is not doing routine inspections and making judgements at this time, but are still going into schools.  Informal conversations about their findings have been full of praise for headteachers and their teams. Currently, Ofsted is still looking to come back to schools in January and this prospect is putting schools under pressure.

f)  It is difficult for learning to continue in a smooth way if teachers are absent from school and temporary staff need to be brought in.  This can affect rates of progress.  The research shows that disadvantaged children returned to school in September with the largest gaps in learning. 

g)  Schools are waiting for a Government announcement about assessments and it would be good for schools to have certainty about this.

h)  Families may be trying to manage learning at home with one device between multiple children and this can be difficult.  The Government has not delivered on its promises about the provision of hardware.  Vodaphone has provided 1500 sim cards to Nottingham  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.

The Committee noted its work programme for the remainder of 2020/21.