Agenda item

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Children and Family Services, the purpose of which was to provide an update on Children and Young People’s performance as at the end of quarter 3 of 2013/14.  A copy of the report is filed with these minutes.

Arising from discussion, the following points were noted:

(i)            The timeliness of placements of looked after children for adoption remained static and continued to be rated ‘Amber’.  The majority progressed to adoption quickly.  However, for a small number of children it sometimes took longer for suitable adoptive parents to be found due to their specific care needs, therefore distorting the figures; 

(ii)          The Committee agreed that priority should always be given to ensuring appropriate long term arrangements were made for children in care and expressed concern that national requirements to speed up the adoption process could result in an increase in unsuccessful adoptions.  The Committee requested further information regarding adoption cases and the numbers of those that were successful and those which were not;

(iii)         The Committee noted that, following concerns raised at its last meeting, the Lead Member for Children and Young People and the Lead Member for Health had written a joint letter to the Leicestershire and Rutland clinical commissioning groups regarding the difficulties being experienced in securing input from community paediatricians into the Adoption process.  A response had been received and they would hold a meeting shortly aimed at finding a resolution as quickly as possible; 

(iv)         Concern was expressed that the number of children in care achieving 5 A* - C GCSEs (or equivalent) at Key Stage 4 (including maths and English) had fallen.  The Committee noted that action was being taken and a long term strategy had been put in place.  Work had already commenced at Key Stages1 and 2 to ensure additional support was provided early, but the impact of this would not be seen until the next annual figures were available in unvalidated form in October.  The Committee acknowledged that the current data did not provide a full picture and did not, for example, detail the level of progress being made which was often much higher.  The Committee requested that more detailed reporting be provided on the overall educational achievements of children and young people in care;

(v)          The data suggested that an increasing number of initial assessments for children’s social care were not being carried out within the required timescale (10 working days of referral).  However, this had been as a result of a number of cases which had been opened, but subsequently identified as not requiring an assessment, not having being closed down on the case management system.  Such cases had been identified due to a ‘housekeeping’ exercise prior to a forthcoming move to a new case management system and action had been taken to close each file appropriately;

(vi)         There was a dedicated post within the Children and Young People’s Service that worked to co-ordinate support for children and young people who were carers.  Further work in this area would shortly be undertaken to meet new requirements within the Children and Families Act.

(vii)        Children eligible for free school meals continued to perform below the national average.  The Leicestershire Education Excellence Partnership (LEEP) had been looking to address this and had been promoting the use of the Pupil Premium toolkit.  Training and support had been provided to ensure this was being used effectively.  Good practice would also be shared through the LEEP;

(viii)      Some raised concerns that knowledge of the LEEP and the work it undertook was not being widely communicated to school governors.  Articles were being placed in the Governor Newsletter but it was unclear why this was not filtering through.  The Committee requested that consideration be given to ways of improving links with school governors to ensure information was disseminated more extensively.

RESOLVED:

(a)  That the contents of the report be noted;

(b)  That the Director of Children and Family Services be requested to provide to the Committee further information regarding adoption cases and the numbers of those that are successful and those which are not

(c)  That the Director of Children and Family Services be requested to include in its performance report presented to a future meeting more detail on the overall educational achievements of children and young people in care, covering all levels of attainment and the level of progress being made.