Minutes:
(Verbal update by Mr R Ridings, Deputy Lead Member for Vulnerable Children and Ms H Davies, Director of Specialist Services and Mrs J Wainwright, Director of Commissioning and Partnerships)
(1) The Chairman asked Mr Ridings and Ms Davies and Mrs Wainwright to give their verbal updates.
(2) Ms Davies explained that the key issues that she would be speaking on were within the reports before the Members for the meeting and therefore she would wait to speak to each of the papers to avoid pre-empting Members discussions.
(3) Mrs Wainwright explained to the Committee that Mrs Turner, Managing Director was unable to attend the meeting and had asked her to give a update on the Restructure of the Children, Families and Education Directorate. The Consultation was still in the 3 month consultation period of the review. To ensure that this was a full consultation process, meetings had been held with staff and managers seeking their comments and giving them the opportunity to ask questions, to ensure that they were properly engaged. Mrs Wainwright advised that the comments were being looked at as the process went along so that suitable issues raised through those comments could be introduced incrementally. The feedback on the meetings had been positive. There would be feedback into the exact arrangements in May 2010.
(4) Mrs Wainwright advised that the work programme was ongoing with a determination to produce a clearer Commissioning Framework by her Department with the cooperation of the Children’s Trust Partnership. She advised that a draft was being produced on the final statutory guidance on the Children’s Trust Partnership, which would be presented to a future meeting of the POSC.
(5) Mrs Wainwright concluded by informing Members of the new arrangements for dealing with complaints against schools and others. Complaints would now go through the schools and governing bodies. The first phase was due to commence on 1 April 2010 and Kent had agreed to be in the second phase, which was due to commence in September 2010. It was anticipated that any issues on the complaints procedure would be raised in the first phase and would therefore be better for those in the second phase and the second phase offered free training for staff and those not in the second phase would incur the cost of that training.
(6) Members were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments which included the following:
(7) In response to a question by Mr Manion, Mrs Wainwright advised that there was no information on the training at present as it was still a pilot, but she had produced a short report for her Senior Management Team that she would share with Members outside the meeting.
(8) In reply to a question by Mr Hirst, Mrs Wainwright explained that the governors had not been consulted yet as this was going through as an Act of Parliament.
(9) Dr Wadman was interested to note that the Local Authority was not going to be the final voice on a complaint.
(10) RESOLVED that the responses to the questions asked by the Members and the verbal updates be noted.