Agenda and minutes

Mrs P A V Stockell proposed and Mr G Kowaree seconded that Mrs Z Wiltshire be elected Chairman of the Select Committee.

RESOLVED that Mrs Z Wiltshire be elected Chairman of the Committee.

(1)          Mr Romagnuolo introduced the report which set out draft terms of reference and scope for the review.  Also set out in the report was a proposed timetable based on the Select Committee presenting their report to County Council in May 2015, and suggested witnesses for evidence gathering sessions.

(2)          The Committee discussed the report and made a number of points and suggestions which included the following:

·         In response to a question on the existence of national guidelines for corporate parents which set out the legal definition of the role, including the accountabilities and protection for Members within a legal framework, Mr Romagnuolo confirmed that this was included in point 1 of the draft terms of reference and that there were responsibilities for the council as a whole and for individual members.

·         Mr Romagnuolo confirmed that the corporate parent role applied to all County Council Elected Members.

·         It was noted that references to “children in care” should be amended to “children and young people in care” as the corporate parent role remained in place for some until the age of 25 years.

·         A Member referred to the recent press reports about the trafficking of children and young people, and the involvement of those within the care system, including the number of instances of children and young people in care within Kent being unaccounted for and whether this was within the scope of this review. The Committee were advised that there were monitoring mechanisms within the Directorate which included this and that the focus of this Select Committee review was the Member’s role as an elected parent and the influence that they would exert through this role to benefit children and young people in care. 

·         In response to a question Mr Romagnuolo advised that research was already underway into the best practice of other Local Authorities using Ofsted reports for those authorities performing well and other authority strategies would be provided to the Committee. 

·         Mentioned was made of a recent presentation that had been given by colleagues from Essex County Council about how they had moved from “poor” to “good” within a short period, it was suggested that the slides from this presentation should be made available to the Committee.

·         The Committee were reminded of the proposed visit to visit to the Swattenden Centre (section 8) on Thursday 19 February 2015, which would provide the Committee with the opportunity to meet different age ranges of children and young people in care, plus some care leavers and apprentices, in an informal setting.

·         Mr Romagnuolo stated that there would be an opportunity to seek written evidence to supplement the oral evidence given by witnesses.

·         A Member referred to the importance of Members being aware of the national problem in relation to the educational outcomes of children and young people in care and questioned what was being done to address this in other countries.

·         There was a general discussion around the review addressing how Members received information about children and young people in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.