Agenda item

Councillor David Mellen, Portfolio Holder for Early Intervention and Early Years gave a presentation outlining the progress the Council has made against the Council plan 2015-2019 in relation to his Portfolio. He highlighted the following points:

(a)  Council Plan priorities that have an expected ‘green’ outcome:

·  Achieve a permanent home through adoption of special guardianship for 40% more children in care:

othere has been in increase in adoptions in the city despite the challenge.

·  Ensure at least 85% of children in the City Council’s care live within 20 miles of Nottingham.

oSometimes it is not appropriate for a child to be cared for too closely to their home area. This also reduces travel time for social workers and offers stability in schooling.

·  Increase the number of Nottingham City foster carers by 20%.

oThis has been particularly challenging due to foster carers leaving the service as well as joining, however a number of different groups have been approached such as faith groups and schools to raise the profile of fostering.

·  Offer permanent jobs or apprenticeships within the City Council to at least 10% of care leavers and encourage further employment opportunities for them across the city.

·  Create new services for babies and toddlers to work with parents of 4500 children.

oMoney from the Big Lottery Fund has helped to set up mental health screening for all new mothers in 4 areas of Nottingham, there are also a number of family mentors working alongside families and a wide range of activities run to help support families with babies and toddlers.

·  Ensure that in the evening and at weekends as well as during school holidays there are a range of positive activities for children and young people in every part of the City.

oIn the last year 2478 sessions were run across the city.

·  Increase the number of 2 year olds in nursery by 40%.

oThis has been challenging as traditionally only 3 and 4 year olds have been given nursery places. However the increase in provision and uptake of that provision has been encouraging.

·  Consult young people on important decisions and involve them in the Council’s decision making process.

oThe Youth Council is still running well, the primary council is now being held twice a month due to demand and the Children in Care council has been an important way for young people in care to feedback on decision making to the council. There was recently the youth take over day which ran very well in Loxley House.

·  Secure and provide breakfast clubs in every primary school in the city building on the ‘Cares for Kids’ and other existing provision.

oThis has been achieved and now the Council is working towards ensuring schools are able to maintain the provision through their own relationships with providers as grant funding is coming to an end.

·  Work with at least 3000 vulnerable families over the next 4 years:

oSo far 2420 priority families have been engaged and work is ongoing with a number of them.

·  Protect from cuts a network of children’s centres across the city.

oThis has taken some innovative thinking, but children’s centres have been protected. Some are now running in conjunction with schools.

·  Protect from cuts social workers keeping our most vulnerable children safe.

oThere are now more social workers employed than in 2015

(b)  Council Plan priorities with an expected ‘amber’ outcome:

·  Ensure zero tolerance of child sexual exploitation through public awareness campaign to increase early identification of concerns by a fifth.

oThis is a challenging target to measure. There are now double the amount of children and young people being monitored who’s behaviour and circumstances make them susceptible to child sexual exploitation

·  Extend free school meals to all primary school children within the next 10 years.

oKey Stage 1 pupil have free school meals, however there are currently no resources available to increase the provision for Key Stage 2 pupils.

·  Protect from cuts vital health visiting health services that give children the best start in life.

oSome health visiting services have been amalgamated with Children’s Services.

(c)  Council Plan priorities with an expected ‘red’ outcome:

·  Promote the Dolly Parton Imagination Library scheme so that every child under 5 in Nottingham receives a monthly free book.

oThere are now 4000 children in Nottingham who are part of this scheme. There is not enough recourse to ensure that all 17,000 children under 5 are included in this scheme. Work continues toward this priority.

The Committee asked questions and made observations about the work towards the Council Plan 2015-19. The following additional points were made:

(d)  Recognising the hard work of partners and colleagues is important to the Council and recognition was given to the hard work and passion of the people who start programmes and projects such as the Dolly Parton Imagination Library;

(e)  There is targeted work taking place across the city around knife crime. There are groups who the Council work with who work hard to engage the groups of young people often described as hard to reach. Both the Youth Offending Team and Nottinghamshire Police have a knife crime lead who works with young people but also with their parents.

RESOLVED to thank Councillor Mellen for his attendance and to note the contents of the update on the progress towards the Council Plan priorities within his Portfolio.