Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director for Children and Adults

Helen Blackman, Director of Children’s Integrated Services, gave a presentation identifying key headlines, challenges and an overview of areas relating to children and young people. Helen highlighted the following, under the headings of the four shared action plan priorities agreed by the partnership:

Safeguarding and supporting children and families

(a)  the percentage of Common Assessment Frameworks (CAFs) where parents and children report an improvement in their circumstance has risen from 65.9% to 67.1%, and the number of children who became subject to a Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) meeting rose from 28 to 62 showing a rose in awareness of CSE;

(b)  following the appointment of a CSE Co-ordinator, 25 schools have signed up to the SRE Charter. The Safe Families for Children pilot is making excellent progress providing children with alternative care who might otherwise have been taken into care, and so has been extended until March 2017;

(c)  the number of Child Protection Plans continues to increase. This is being monitored, but outcomes from these remain positive. Also the number of offences where children and young people are victims and the number of Accident and Emergency admissions for children aged 0-4 years have risen and the reasons for this is being investigated;

Promoting the health and wellbeing of babies, children and young people

(d)  48% of infants are being breast fed at 6 to 8 weeks which is significantly higher than the England average. Obesity in Year 6 children and tooth decay in children aged 5 have dropped but are still above the target;

(e)  the rate of first time entrants to the youth justice system has dropped but is still over double the England average. The number of 16-18 year olds who are not in education, employment or training has also reduced but is high at 6.2%;

(f)  the smoking rate of 18.8% is higher than the England average of 10.5%. The number of hospital admissions for self-harm has reduced but is still higher than it was 2 years ago;

(g)  supportive actions encouraging people to be more active include the Sherriff’s Award and Opportunity Notts, and programmes exist for self-harm awareness and weight management;

Supporting achievement and academic attainment

(h)  there has been a 12.5% increase in two year olds accessing free nursery provision, which has exceeded its target. There has been a rise of 19% from last year on schools judged good or better by Ofsted, which is the best rate of improvement in the East Midlands;

(i)  Key Stage 2 pupils in Nottingham have maintained or improved in reading, writing and maths and match the England average. The gap between pupils with special educational needs and those without has reduced;

(j)  attainment at GCSEs remains a key challenge with 42.4% of pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C grades including English and maths, against the English average of 53.8%. The attainment of Children in Care has also dropped. Another challenge is reducing the number of high performing pupils who choose to transfer out of the city for secondary provision as this stands at 29%;

Empowering families to be strong and achieve economic wellbeing

(k)  the number of families worked with as part of the Priority Families Scheme is 898 against a target of 852, and the number of children in workless poor families has reduced from 34.6% to 30.4%;

(l)  achieving the Priority Families targets overall remains a challenge. The number of domestic violence incidents where children are in the family also needs ongoing scrutiny as the police now categorise this differently leading to a drop in the number of reported incidents;

(m)supportive actions in this area include the Domestic and Sexual Violence and Abuse Strategy, the Domestic Abuse Referral Team and the Troubled Families scheme. There are a number of projects supporting children where there is domestic violence abuse in the family, such as Stride, the GREAT Project in primary schools and Equate in secondary schools.

RESOLVED to note activity against the CYPP action plan