Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED:  To note that apologies were received from Councillor Alan Kauffman, who was substituted by Councillor Judith Cooper.

There were no declarations of interest.

None.

It was confirmed that all items were Part I and would be heard in public.

resolved:  That (1) the minutes of the meeting held on 28 September 2016 be confirmed as a correct record of the meeting;

(2)  the minutes of the meeting held on 19 October 2016 be confirmed as a correct record, subject to minute 29 being amended to reflect the strength of the Committee's dissatisfaction with the CAMHS report provided, which the Committee felt did not adequately convey the current position in the service, or provide sufficient details and assurance of actions being taken to improve the service.

The Committee received a report which provided an update of the progress made in the implementation of the Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Strategy.

It was reported that:

·           There had been two external audits and one internal audit in the past year, which had resulted in positive outcomes and recommendations which were being addressed.  This included the implementation of an Information Sharing Protocol between partner agencies.

·           Attendance at Multi-Agency Planning (MAP) and Multi Agency Sexual Exploitation (MASE) meetings, which had not been consistent, had improved since the internal audit highlighted poor attendance as a risk.

·           Awareness of CSE was increasing and this had resulted in a higher number of complex cases being reported and investigated.  There was a good referral network including cross-border.  Hillingdon used a peer on peer system and analysed data to help identify areas for concern, such as missing young people.  Anonymised examples of the use of data would be brought to a future meeting.

The following points were made by Members during discussion:

·           Members welcomed the update report and the good work being done to prevent and detect CSE.

·           Members wished to gain a better understanding of what was happening 'on the ground' and requested that future reports include information on how the Council was delivering against the service improvement plan.  This should include quantitative indicators to show how improvement was measured.

·           The report provided the number of professionals involved but did not give figures for number of children, which would be useful to have.

RESOLVED:  That (1) the report be noted;

(2)  a further report be provided within six months, to include figures and case studies to demonstrate delivery of the service improvement plan.

The Committee received a progress report on the development and implementation of Early Intervention and Prevention Services following the Major Review of the Effectiveness of Early Help to Promote Positive Outcomes for Families.  The report provided an assessment of progress in relation to:

·           The development of Early Intervention and Prevention Services

·           The development, performance and service delivery impact of the respective service areas within the service whole

·           Progress in response to the recommendations arising from the major review

·           The development of a wider partnership approach to the provision of early help to residents.

It was reported that:

·           The strategic document, which was being developed further with partners, set out the vision, purpose and principles which underpinned service delivery and improvement.

·           The plan brought together a number of services with different requirements.  It was essential for each partner to agree the agenda and direction of travel.

·           In Hillingdon, partners were embracing the early help approach and taking responsibility for dealing with issues rather than referring on.

·           One of the challenges was to ensure consistency in approach across the multi-partner service.

·           The volume of work taking place to improve service delivery was illustrated in the report with case studies to demonstrate impact.

·           It was noted that staff recruitment and retention was largely good, with some gaps.

Members welcomed the report and made the following requests for further information in the next report:

·           A scorecard was mentioned but not provided.

·           The inclusion of timescales for development of areas would be useful.

·           The performance web was over-complex and would benefit from simplification to focus on key points.

·           The report focused more on intervention and it would be useful to have more information on prevention.

·           Members found some of the data difficult to interpret and would have liked to see comparison data from before the reorganisation.  It was acknowledged that the reorganisation of services meant that previous performance data from different sources was not easily available in a form that enabled meaningful comparisons to be made.

RESOLVED:  That (1) the report be noted;

(2)  further update reports provide performance data (including comparison data where available) and take into consideration the comments made by the Committee (above).

MAJOR REVIEW - WITNESS SESSION 1  (Agenda Item 7)

Witness 1 - Councillor David Simmonds, Cabinet Member for Education and Children's Services

The Committee welcomed Councillor Simmonds to the meeting, to provide the Local Authority's viewpoint on the relationship with academies and free schools.

The following points were made by Councillor Simmonds during his presentation and in response to questions from members of the Committee:

·           Since the Major Review Scoping Report had been presented to the Committee in October 2016, the Government had withdrawn the requirement for all schools to convert to academies.  The Department for Education continued to encourage schools to convert, although it was now not compulsory.

·           Hillingdon was the second London Borough to have an academy school and since then the vast majority of secondary schools in the Borough had become academies.  The Borough had a history of secondary schools being independent in reviewing and managing their own affairs.

·           The Academies Act of 2010 enabled publicly-funded schools to become academies.  This had the purpose of enabling high standards to flourish.  Good or outstanding schools were permitted to convert of their choice.  Poor schools were required to convert with a partner through a sponsorship arrangement.

·           In Hillingdon, schools had generally tended to provide the same level of performance whether they had converted or not.  This could be attributed to the Borough's long tradition of twinning schools to help each other.

·           The Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) in Hillingdon were all 'homegrown' and there were none of the big national MAT chains operating in the Borough.

·           The local authority retained responsibility for admissions, safeguarding and special educational needs and disability (SENDA) at schools that converted to academies.  The local authority had a duty to ensure children had a school place, and Hillingdon had a large school place expansion programme to accommodate the growing population.  The Council remained the champion of children with SENDA and was responsible for arranging access and transport.  The Council also retained responsibility for education welfare, when children were excluded or did not attend.

·           The Council was the legal employer of staff in maintain schools although governors decided who to appoint.

·           It was a very complicated picture with a range of relationships.

·           Until 2011 the local authority received a school standards fund and were responsible for improvement in schools.  After 2011 this money went directly to schools which significantly affected the way the Council discharged its responsibilities for quality in schools.  Head teachers were responsible for quality of education but usually called on the council if things went wrong.

·           The Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC) was the responsible authority for academy performance and for managing failing academies.  If an academy was failing, the RSC would identify a local sponsor to take over, although in practice the local authority would need to ensure school places for the children were available, as the LA was responsible for ensuring children have access to education.

·           The LA could push the RSC to intervene if it had concerns about a school  ...  view the full minutes text for item 41.

RESOLVED:  That the Forward Plan be noted.

The Committee considered its Work Programme for the remainder of the 2016/17 Municipal year.

RESOLVED:  That (1) the work programme be noted;

(2)  a report on Schools Academic Selection be added to the work programme;

(3) a further update report on the Early Intervention Service be added for consideration within six months.