Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the meeting held on 31 March 2010 are correctly recorded and that they be signed by the Chairman.

(Verbal update by Mr Ridings, Deputy Cabinet Member for Vulnerable children and Ms H Davies, Director of Specialist children’s Services and Mrs J Wainwright, Director of Commissioning and Partnerships)

(1)         The Chairman asked Ms Davies to begin with her verbal report.  Ms Davies gave a brief update on the position of the CFE Restructuring advising that she and colleagues were currently interviewing for the 12 posts of Preventative Services Manager.  This post would drive the development of the early intervention through bringing together all relevant agencies.  

(2)         The Committee noted that the Special Educational Needs Review had started and would include all provision. The Review would be completed in the Autumn and the initial findings reported to Cabinet in September.

(3)         Ms Davies advised of the ongoing increase in Looked After children (LAC), which had increased by 30 in the last quarter, the struggle to keep those within in-house placements and having to place some of those children in the independent sector.

(4)         In response to the Mr Gilroy’s, former Chief Executive of KCC, Safeguarding Review, Ms Davies explained that work was underway to address the recommendations and would be reported to the October County Council meeting.

(5)         Ms Davies was pleased to inform the Committee that 60 newly qualified Social Workers had been appointed and would be in post by September.  She gave assurances that they would receive an induction and support from senior staff.

(6)         Ms Davies explained that the coalition Government review on child protection by Eileen Munro would be looking at reducing the bureaucracy of the social workers’ role.  Kent would be looking at the Review’s Terms of Reference with staff to look at the ways we deliver Social Work in Kent.

(7)          Members were given the opportunity to make comments and ask questions which included the following:

(8)         Mr Robinson said on behalf of Mr Vye, who sent his apologies for this meeting, that he would prefer summaries of the items in the verbal update rather than bullit points in future and sought a response on Minute 26 (5).  Ms Davies noted the first comment and advised that the Chairman and Leaders of the Opposition would be advised of serious case reports in the future unless there were legal implications that prevented this.

(9)         In response to a follow up question, Ms Davies advised that part of the CFE Directorate restructuring involved the Children’s Centres being line managed from the Autumn of this year by the Preventative Services Managers. The Specialist Services Group were also reviewing the specifications for the Children’s Centres, being mindful of the budgetary constraints that were likely to take place in April 2011 and the coalition government’s message that they anticipate that Children’s Centres would  become a more targeted service.  The review would conclude in the Autumn.

(10)    In reply to questions by Mr Smith, Ms Davies explained that there were 27 social workers recruited from the United States of America and 25 from Europe.  Of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30.

(1)         In response to a question by Mr Robinson, Ms Davis said that she would be interviewing for the Virtual Head Teacher post for Looked After Children (LAC).

(2)         The Chairman requested a presentation on the role of the Virtual Head Teacher when the appointed had been made.

(3)         The Chairman said that she was pleased that the Board were joined by Scott King a former Looked After Child who took an active part at the meeting.

(4)         The Chairman wished to formally thank Kay Weiss for being an outstanding officer and a true champion of young people and sent best wishes in her future post.

(5)         RESOLVED that:-

(a)   the responses to questions and comments made by Members and  the Minutes be noted; and

(b)   a presentation be given on the role of the Virtual Head Teacher, when they had been appointed, at a future meeting of this Committee be noted.

(Report by Mr G Gibbens, Cabinet Member, Adult Social Services and Mr O Mills, Managing Director, Kent Adult Social Services)

(Mrs P Huntingford, Transforming Social Care Lead Officer was present for this item)

(1)         The Committee considered a report on the level of abandoned calls experienced at Kent Contact & Assessment Service (KCAS) and the measures that were in place to mitigate this.

(2)         Mrs Huntingford introduced the report highlighting the key issues.

(3)         Members were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments which included the following:

(4)         In reply to a question by Mr Craske, Mrs Huntingford explained what an abandoned call was saying; the panel in front of the telephonist told them how many calls were waiting and how many callers put their phone down.  The system records the speed at which that abandoned call took place. So as well as having the weekly data of the number of calls, at which the percentage was arrived from, the pace at which people choose to abandon a call, over time, as this was a new system, would be possible to track, whether there were certain points in the day when the calls were abandoned quicker and where the peaks and troughs in those calls coming in were. She added that 15% of calls were abandoned in 45-50 seconds.  The system was not sophisticated enough to identify whether they were repeat callers.  Intuitively when there were calls from Kent operational teams, colleagues from the Primary Care Trusts and General Practitioners it was likely that they would not hang on the phone if they did not get an immediate response to move on to do something else and try later.

(5)         In response to a follow up question, Mrs Huntingford said that there was a wish from Members for there to be a single point of access for as many of the County Council’s callers as possible and the Children, Families and Education  Directorate to feel that this was right where it was appropriate for them to take on certain responsibilities.  As part of the review there would be some close debate and scrutiny on which circumstance it would be appropriate for Contact Kent to deal with and which may be left to more highly trained specialist in service directorates to deal with.  There was a programme of training to up skill staff in Contact Kent so that they were better able to respond to the lower level of enquiry about information and advise about a service’s activity, there were calls that were passed to KCAS that had nothing to do with either Children and Families or Adults Social Services.

(6)         In response to a comment by Mr Robinson, Mrs Huntingford confirmed that the Social Care Reform Grant of £144k would not be available from April 2011 and there was no expectation that the Department of Health would make any more funding available even though most adult services across the country had not achieved the changes that were  ...  view the full minutes text for item 32.

(Report by Ms H Davies, Director of Specialist Children’s Services and Mrs S Hohler, Cabinet Member for Children, Families & Education Directorate)

(Ms A Hornsby, Policy Officer and Mrs J Wainwright, Director Commissioning and Partnerships Group were present for this Item)

(1)   The Committee viewed a short video in which young carers voiced their feelings about being a carer for a loved one.  This was closed to the public to preserve the identity of the young people.

(2)   The Committee considered a report that highlighted national development activities during 2009-10 and the recent consultation with young carers and the next steps in that process.

(3)   Ms Hornsby felt that from a national perspective this was a good time for carers as the issues that surround them had been picked by a number of national streams of work.  This  included ‘Think Family’ which was the overarching approach towards the integration of Children and Families within the support of services from Adult and Children’s Services and within that work Central Government and the Association of  Directors of Children Social Services and Adult Social Services had issued the Memorandum of Good Practice for Young Carers.  The Memorandum mirrored the work that Kent 2009.

(4)   Ms Hornsby mentioned the comments from the young carers on their position in school being torn between their desire to tell about their position as a carer and the fear that if they release the information what would happen in their lives that they could not control.  Working closely with schools had helped young carers to seek support. The National Healthy Schools Enhanced Model now included the requirement to consider young carers as part of the social and emotional wellbeing aspect of ‘Healthy Schools.  This would provide a clear pathway into schools.  There was a range of support for young carers provided through the partnership with voluntary organisations. This included support ranging from respite care, residential activities, weekly meetings and weekly tailored support for those young carers most in need.

(5)   Consultation with young carers had been commissioned to look at what work still needed to be carried out to deliver the strategy.  There had also been work carried out with professionals to increase their understanding of the issues faced by young carers but this needed to continue.  Mrs Hornsby said that this dialogue needs to continue with young carers to monitor the impact of the strategy.

(6)   Members were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments which included the following:

(7)   In response to a question by Mr Craske, Ms Hornsby advised that all the young people should be in school and that was why there was a need to work closely with schools to help young people feel confident about talking about their caring status and coming forward and sharing that information.  Very good partnerships had been forged with the Voluntary Sector Organisations and local schools that was enabling the identification of more young carers.  This work needed to progress at a pace that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 33.

(Report by Mrs J Wainwright, Director of Commissioning and Partnerships Group and Ms H Davies, Director of Specialist Children’s Services Group)

(Ms J Hook, Lead Manager for Supporting Parents was present for this Item)

(1)   The Committee considered a progress report on the work of the Parenting Team and some of the issues facing the agenda. It also illustrated the nature and funding of the Team and risks associated with a focus on the “parenting programmes and practitioner development” work strand of the Team.  The report had also been considered by Children, Families and Education SMT and the Commissioning and Partnerships DMT.

(2)   The Chairman asked Ms Hook to introduce the report.  Ms Hook highlighted key issues within the report which included the following; the delivery of parenting sat in the Priority 3 of the Kent Children 2008-11 and Young People’s Plan to ensure that good quality parenting programmes were available to help parents in their role.  This laid out a vision with 3 key components:

·        Availability of programmes for families, when they needed them and where they could access them;

·        Quality,a key issue to ensure that that families in Kent get  good intervention in what really helps them support their children and move their family to a place of harmony and most critically where we are reducing safeguarding concerns; and

·        Need, ensuring that the programmes were in place with the right levels of need, including behaviour, attachment, mental health, domestic violence or postnatal depression ensuring that the right configuration of programmes available with the best quality of staff delivering them.

(3)   Ms Hook said that her Team had been; facilitating the access of free places for up to 90 Practitioners, which had given them the capacity to reach an additional 1350 parents, troubleshooting delivery issues as they had been uncoordinated in the past by working out new and innovative ways to pull the structure together; setting up Parenting Practitioner Fora across the Districts so that local Practitioners could plan who they needed and work on who they needed to train, pooling together their resources and deliver the programmes, and responding to the national agenda ensuring that they had trained facilitators and were piloting ‘Working with Parents” level 3 qualification, there were currently 30 people studying for this qualification through Adult Education funded by the KCC.  The Children’s Workforce Development Council had approached the Team to offer places for Children Centres outreach Workers to train for the qualification.

(4)   The Team also offered parenting programmes for parents with children aged 8 to 13 years at risk of antisocial behaviour, a government funded initiative which would end in April 2011.

(5)   Ms Hook explained that she had commissioned a cost benefit analysis on Parenting Programmes. A similar piece of work has been carried out by the London School of Economics nationally. This had given a clearer idea of the balance of effectiveness against the cost waiting in Kent and that challenges and appropriate support were being made especially  ...  view the full minutes text for item 34.

(Report by  Mrs J Wainwright, Director Commissioning and  Partnerships Group, Mrs R Turner, Managing Director, Children, Families & Education Directorate and MrsS Hohler, Cabinet Member for Children, Families & Education)

(Mrs J Wainwright, Director Commissioning and Partnerships Group and Mrs J Wiles, Policy Officer, Kent Children’s Trust & Health was present for this Item)

(1)   The Committee Considered a report on the new statutory guidance for Children’s Trusts and the Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) and Kent’s response.

(2)   Mrs Wainwright introduced the report explaining that there had been changes since the Statutory Guidance was published March 2010.  The current political stance of the Coalition government was permissive of Children’s Trusts and CYPP and had less desire than the previous government to make the Trust and the Plan compulsory.  Within the County Council there was continued enthusiasm and commitment from the County Council’s Partners, Cabinet, Kent Partnership, for the direction of travel that the Kent Children’s Trust was now going through and in particular for the change to twelve district teams and the Local Children’s Trust Boards and the review of the CYPP and the key linkages to the new Vision for Kent.  She then drew Members attention to paragraph 4.2 page 33 of the report in ‘Stage 1 Needs Assessment’ a preliminary list of 7 areas of greatest need; Emotional and Mental Health, Healthy start in life, Safeguarding, Primary aged children's learning, Adolescent engagement, Housing/accommodation and Family Poverty, which were likely to be the priorities in the new CYPP to be produced by April 2011 and different from the current arrangements the fact that this plan had to be costed across multi agency partners.

(3)   In reply to a comment by the Chairman, Mrs Wainwright advised that the CYPP would also be produced as a version for children which was carried out for the existing Plan.

(4)   Mr Smith stressed his concerns regarding the workability of the structure and the amount of meetings that multi agency partners had to attend and suggested that with the new CYPP this was an opportunity to stand back and simplify the structure to allow the various partners to do their jobs rather than attend meetings.  He then requested a chart detailing of all the organisations involved in Children’s Services.  The Chairman added that there had been a request from the young people that attended the Children’s Champions Board for the structures to be as simple as possible.

(5)   RESOLVED that:

(a)   the responses to Members questions and comments be noted;

(b)   the request for a chart detailing all the organisations involved Children’s Services be noted and sent to all Members of this POSC outside the meeting; and

(c)   agreement be given to further reports being submitted to this POSC on the development of Kent Children’s Trust and the new Children and Young People’s Plan 2011-2014.

(Report by Mr P Wickenden, Overview, Scrutiny and Localism Manager)

(1)   Members considered a report on the progress of the Select Committee on Extended Services and the request for suggestion of future topics for the Select Committee Review Programme.

(2)   Mr Smith spoke as a Member of the Select Committee for Extended Services expressing his view of the timing of the Select Committee Review coinciding with the Children, Families and Education Directorate restructure.  He advised that the message that was coming from the evidence gathering the Committee carried out included that External Services added real value, that there were likely to be budgetary cuts to the service, it was more likely to be sustainable if 4-5 schools grouped together.

(3)   Members raised their concerns regarding the impact that any cuts to the Extended Services would have for vulnerable children and were anxious to raise their concerns as a matter of urgency.  The Chairman said that she would refer the matter to Mr Burgess, Chairman of the Select Committee and Mr Ridings, Deputy Cabinet Member.

(4)    RESOLVED that:

(a)   the comments and questions raised by Members, be noted

(b)   the progress of the Select Committee for External Services be noted and the concerns of  the Committee regarding the impact of any cuts to External Services would have on vulnerable children be referred to Mr Burgess, Chairman of the Select Committee and Mr Ridings, Deputy Cabinet Member by the Chairman; and

(c)   Members of the Committee agreed to advise the Democratic Services Officer of any items that they would like to suggest for inclusion in the Select Committee topic review programme outside the meeting be noted.