Agenda and minutes

Councillor Phil Jackson – personal

Councillor AJ Matsiko – unwell

Councillor Shuguftah Quddoos – personal

Councillor Maria Watson – personal

Councillor Cate Woodward - personal

None

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 1 December 2022

The minutes of the meeting held on 1 December 2022 were confirmed as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Portfolio Holder for Children, Young People and Schools, Catherine Underwood, Corporate Director for People, and Ailsa Barr, Director for Children’s Integrated Services, presented the report on the response to the Ofsted Inspection and development of an improvement plan.  They highlighted the following information:

a)  The Council has submitted an improvement plan to Ofsted, which has been accepted. It covers eight specific areas and progress will be monitored through the Improvement Board, which is chaired by an independent improvement advisor.  The improvement activity dovetails with the transformation programme and its implementation is a priority for the Council.

b)  It is anticipated that the first monitoring visit by Ofsted will take place within the next couple of months and it is expected that it will focus on the multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH).

c)  Support is being provided by the Department of Education in the form of some funding and access to resources, and support from an independent advisor to provide support and challenge, who is chairing the Improvement Board.

Lou Williams, independent advisor and chair of the Improvement Board, spoke to the Committee about his role, the role of the Improvement Board and his perspective on the Council’s current position.  He highlighted the following information:

d)  He is social work qualified and has previously worked at Peterborough and Cambridgeshire, who have faced similar challenges to Nottingham.

e)  He has been appointed to the role to provide challenge to the Council and support improvement through independent oversight.

f)  He is aware of the Council’s financial challenges and transformation agenda, and has a relationship with the Improvement and Assurance Board.

g)  The Improvement Board meets monthly to provide oversight.  It involves a range of senior leaders including the Chief Executive, Portfolio Holder and Leader of the Council.  The Board receives reports on key issues, such as the workforce and considers the impact of sector-led improvement work and peer reviews.  It will also receive feedback from Ofsted monitoring visits.

h)  Recently the Board has been looking at the ‘front door’ to children’s services as this is very important for outcomes and likely to be the focus of the first Ofsted monitoring visit. 

i)  Going forward, consideration will be given as to how the Board gets reports on wider service issues such as outcomes for children in care.

j)  In his view the Corporate Director, Director and Portfolio Holder have a real grip of the issues that need addressing and a lot has already been achieved in relation to the ‘front door’ to services.  However, while there has been a lot of progress on a range of issues, there is more to do. 

k)  The ‘front door’ to services is a really important area.  Essex County Council has looked at the Council’s ‘front door’ arrangements again and their findings are encouraging, with a better culture, less blame and more communication found to be in place.  Decision making is more consistent and the timeliness of decision making has improved since the Ofsted inspection.  Consent  ...  view the full minutes text for item 32.

a)  Children’s Integrated Services

b)  Education

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Portfolio Holder for Children, Young People and Schools, Catherine Underwood, Corporate Director for People, and Ailsa Barr, Director for Children’s Integrated Services, presented the papers updating the Committee on progress in implementation of agreed savings for 2022/23 and budget proposals for 2023/24 relating to Children’s Integrated Services.

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

a)  Having capacity to deliver changes to services and associated savings is important and, for example, as part of the transformation programme the Service has been clear about the requirements to achieve delivery.

b)  It is acknowledged that the process for offering leases to organisations to use buildings no longer required as children’s centres has not been the smoothest.  A new corporate landlord function is currently being implemented across the Council and will result in there being a team that are experts in property matters to deal with such activity in the future rather than it being led by service areas that do not have the necessary expertise and experience.  Councillors welcomed this to avoid similar situations happening in the future.  The Portfolio Holder commented on the need for a robust expression of interest process and that she is confident that the process is moving forward, but agreed that the new corporate landlord model will be an improvement for the future.

c)  It is important for the Council to be clear on the outcomes of proposals for service change and savings, and whether possible mitigations are a replacement for a Council service or not.  Some Committee members felt that this hadn’t always been clear in the past, with expectations raised that have not been delivered on.

d)  In response to a question about whether changes to early help services are in conflict with the transformation programme, it was explained that going forward a strengths based approach is being taken to supporting families and individuals and work is taking place to redesign early help services. Essex County Council has been asked to input into this redesign work.

e)  The delay to the start of the transformation programme means that, while savings will be of the same scale overall, there will be a delay in the financial impact.  However, the delay has meant that the whole Service is able to move forward with a coherent programme of improvement ‘Changing Lives Changing Futures’ following the Ofsted inspection.  It will take time to make and sustain this improvement. 

The Committee felt that overall the proposals support getting children the right support at the right time and therefore, as long as there is sufficient capacity and capability to deliver those changes, the Committee was comfortable with what was being proposed.

Nick Lee, Director of Education, presented a paper updating the Committee on progress in implementation of agreed savings for 2022/23 and budget proposals for 2023/24 relating to the Education Division.  He highlighted the following information:

f)  The saving relating to disposal of the vacant Thorneywood Hospital School building and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 33.

The Committee noted the items scheduled for its meeting in March, and discussed plans for the municipal year 2023/24.

Resolved to explore the possibility of holding meetings of the Committee more frequently, with support for increasing officer capacity to facilitate this.