Agenda and draft minutes

To confirm the non-exempt minutes of the meeting of the Improvement and Scrutiny Committee – People held on 06 December 2021 and 10 January 2022.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 10 January 2022 be confirmed as a correct record.

(Questions may be submitted to be answered by the Scrutiny Committee, or Council officers who are attending the meeting as witnesses, on any item that is within the scope of the Committee. Please see the procedure for the submission of questions at the end of this agenda)

There were no public questions.

Carol Cammiss Executive Director Children's Services gave a presentation to the Committee that outlined observations, early thinking about the Strategy as well as next steps with a timeline of activities.

The Committee were informed of the strengths to build on which included the encouraging support from Members for the children’s agenda and the need to drive change, transformation and continuous improvement. A list of themes with emerging opportunity areas had been compiled. Actions had then been identified to realise the opportunities.

There had been a progress update on the Children’s Services Strategy with a list of subject topics. The strategy would help Children’s Services respond to a list of drivers and tackle complex challenges. The first published version of the Strategy would be completed within the next four weeks. With the Strategy launch planned for early September.

The High Level Timeline for the period January 2022 – December 2023 had been outlined within the presentation.

The Committee were interested to learn more about SEND and the youth service. It was expected that there would be a full SEND inspection next year. It had been understood that there was work in transition. The department were currently gathering SEND data and would be in a better position to give an update later in the year as well as information on the youth service. There was  a suggestion that an Early Intervention Prevention Strategy may be written. SEND would be a two year programme of work and a review would take place between April – July and an update would be brought back to the Committee at the September meeting.

The Committee had questioned the number of children going into care. It had been explained that there was a national increase of 25% in the last 24 months and a lot more work was being done in prevention. Work was being commissioned on the subject of how to support those on the edge of the care systems, working with families and foster carers.

The department were working on a Early Help Transition Service Strategy that should be ready for May. As well as this, care leavers were in one of the top five priorities after the service was brought back in house. The Chairman had requested that the department report back to the Committee with how the service was going on an ongoing basis. A working group was proposed to establish a performance dashboard to assist the Committee in monitoring service delivery.

Carol Cammiss Executive Director Children's Services gave a presentation to the Committee that outlined the Ofsted Framework and Inspection Activity.

There was no written statement of action for the SEND AREA Inspection in November 2016, some strengths and areas for improvement had been identified. The ILACS Graded Inspection July 2019 graded DCC as Requires Improvement in three areas and Good for Impact of leaders. The ILACS focused visit in October 2021 for leaving care gave the feedback ‘Visible, tangible and sustained improvements and many strengths in practice identified’. There were two specific areas for development (consistent review of pathway plans; tracking of actions from safety panel).

The areas of progress since the ILACS 2019 had been outlined within the presentation. As well as the expected future inspection activity. The Committee would be provided with an update as requested on the

SEND strategy in September. The Chair asked about the quality of the school buildings and it was suggested that this topic should be added to the draft work programme.

An opportunity was given to Committee members to make suggestions for the work programme. A suggestion had been made to review the learning disability consultation and where it was leading. It was suggested that this topic be added to the draft work programme for consideration (a review had not been confirmed at this stage).