Agenda and minutes

Please introduce yourself and describe the roles and responsibilities that your position involves.

I am the Service Director of Parents’ Consortium.  Parents’ Consortium is a parent-led charity, set up to support parents of disabled children and young people and to highlight issues facing parents.  My role is strategic and operational, and I manage the resource centre at Allsworth Court.  Parents’ Consortium has 20 permanent staff, mostly full time, and 60 sessional workers.  Last year our turnover was £1.15 million.  I sit on four Local Children’s Services Partnerships (LCSPs), the County Strategic Partnership for Disabled Children and the team which is reviewing the Children’s Trust.

The national context for Parents’ Consortium is that Every Child Matters (ECM) did not include disabled children, so we started Every Disabled Child Matters (EDCM).  On 6 July I will attend an event at the House of Lords to launch a document: ‘Disabled Children: an Agenda for the New Government’.

My son, who is now 20, has severe learning disabilities and very complex needs, and his life so far has been a 20-year fight.

What is the Parents Consortium?  What services does it provide?

It is a parent-led charity formed in 1996, which now has 1,000 family members. The main areas it covers are Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley.  It has a number of operating departments; Leisure Services, Information, and Management and Administration.

The Leisure Services department delivers play schemes, after-school and weekend clubs and offers one-to-one family support services and a siblings group. We are currently developing a 6-bed short break unit, which will make a vital contribution to delivering the personalisation agenda in social care.  We get a good level of local support, including from the Youth Service.

The Information department provides timely and accessible information to parents and families on local services– eg Early Bird.  We are a well respected and trusted local resource.

The Management and Administration department oversees the running of Allsworth Court resource centre.  In 2007, we were commissioned to start a Children and Families Direct Payment Support scheme.  This currently helps 600 families, and 80 more are soon to take up Direct Payments.  We started this with two support workers, serving East and West Kent, but how we have seven.

In your experience, what are the main benefits - if any - that Extended Services bring to pupils and to the local community?

Let me go back to the start of Extended Services in 2002, when the benefits for the community were set out.  At that point, we were concerned that disabled children and their families would not be able to share these benefits.  The Government expected that by 2010, all schools, including special schools, would be able to deliver the core offer.  After a Parliamentary review in 2007 of services for disabled children, there was a document issued (shown to the Select Committee) which set out clear objectives and targets. This document had said that ‘services for disabled children are a national scandal’  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27.

Since the Select Committee first spoke to you, it has heard much from other contributors about how Extended Services is being delivered and what problems have been encountered.  We have also visited sites at which Extended Services is being delivered in various forms.

We wanted to speak to representatives from KCC Directorates again to talk about our findings and ask further questions which we did not have at the beginning.

(SC) I have prepared a document called ‘Beyond the Core Offer – the Sustainability of Extended Services in Kent’ (tabled) which sets out where Extended Services is at the moment and what is possible in the future, delivered by whom and using which models.  This paper is intended to offer options rather a solution.  The previous government had measured the roll-out of the core offer as being 98%, but the quality and suitability of provision had not been assessed.  With the new government things will inevitably change, and there is much uncertainty. Ofsted is likely to have a narrower inspection framework, which might exclude the ‘community cohesion’ category, and more schools are likely to become Academies.

(MW)  Looking at the broader agenda, there is speculation that GPs and some independent schools will be given funding to deliver ‘community preventative services’, which would include Extended Services.  A government white paper on this will be issued in July 2010, and the challenge for local authorities will be how to engage with these other partners to take advantage of these resources.

Can you suggest innovative and creative ways for Kent County Council to deliver effective Extended Services in the County, given the substantial reduction in funding and staff in the Extended Services Team?  Who else could deliver Extended Services, if not the KCC?

(SC) Some schools are fully engaged, and Extended Services is part of the ethos of those schools.  Quality in Study Support (QISS) is being used by more schools, with collaborative working to increase community engagement.  Schools need to build capacity and skills to continue this.

Are schools doing this individually or in groups?

(SC)  In community groups, as a collaborative exercise.

The Select Committee has been shown a suggested model for Extended Services provision, which has been put together as a result of what the Committee has heard from other contributors.  Can you give us your thoughts on it, and how KCC could help to make it work?

(MW) The Local Authority has a leadership role, with other partners, as part of the Kent Partnership, and as part of Total Place.  The KCC could be a lead and a champion but would not necessarily be involved in the actual activity.  Work will be undertaken by local bodies, which will differ across the county.

Why is this not happening already?  Surely this would be a cheaper way to do it?

(MW) I agree that we could have pushed this forward earlier, but partnership working is complicated and takes time.  We thought we had more time (at least another year) to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28.

Since the Select Committee first spoke to you, it has heard much from other contributors about how Extended Services is being delivered and what problems have been encountered.  We have also visited sites at which Extended Services is being delivered in various forms.

We wanted to speak to representatives from KCC Directorates again to talk about our findings and ask further questions which we did not have at the beginning.

There seems to be much duplication of work between the Youth Service and Extended Services providers.  How can we link these two together?

I don’t think there is necessarily any duplication, and we try very hard not to duplicate.  I think they complement each other rather than duplicate.  The Community Youth Tutor (CYT) role is very important in the Extended Services agenda, and will increase in importance in the future, and its role will be extended. 

We also need to ask where the Youth Service is going in the future, and there are choices to be made about how we deploy our resources. There are currently 18 street-based or ‘detached’ projects.  If we discontinue three of these, we could fund four more CYT posts. We have to decide if the CYT is a better use of available funds.

How can we enhance the role of the voluntary sector?

We currently commission £400,000 worth of youth work from the voluntary sector, and in the future development of the Youth Service we need to decide how to shape the service.  There are three options:-

• Collaborate or combine, perhaps with the Youth Offending Service.
• Move to a model similar to that used by the Kent Drug and Alcohol Action Team (KDAAT), which is a commissioned service.  A central team with a budget of £500,000 pulls in £6½ million of commissioned work. This sort of arrangement takes a long time to establish.
• A ‘halfway-house’ between these two options, keeping a hub in each district and a head office team, and commissioning out the balance of the work.

Various models have been tried across the UK, and it is important to make the right choice. We will need a very active voluntary sector to work with us, and plenty of them to maintain high quality provision.  A decision on this will come later in July 2010.

The Select Committee has been shown a suggested model for Extended Services provision, which has been put together as a result of what the Committee has heard from other contributors.  This model would be consortium funded. Could we do the same for the CYTs as we are suggesting doing for Extended Services Co-ordinators?

There are currently 18 CYTs, and there could potentially be 22 in the future. Each is funded partly by the school in which they are hosted, and there is always a risk that the school might have to make cuts in school funds and choose to cancel the CYT post as a saving.  The Head Teacher’s attitude to the CYT role and presence is  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.