Agenda and minutes
Venue: This meeting is being held remotely; to view the meeting, please click here
Contact: Stephanie Davis
02087266000 x84384
Email: stephanie.davis@croydon.gov.uk
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Apologies for absence To receive any apologies for absence from any members of the Committee.
Minutes: Apologies received from Elaine Jones. |
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Minutes of the previous sub-committee meeting PDF 251 KB To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 3 March 2020 as an accurate record.
Minutes: The minutes of the meeting on 3 March 2020 were agreed as an accurate record. |
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Disclosures of interest In accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct and the statutory provisions of the Localism Act, Members and co-opted Members of the Council are reminded that it is a requirement to register disclosable pecuniary interests (DPIs) and gifts and hospitality to the value of which exceeds £50 or multiple gifts and/or instances of hospitality with a cumulative value of £50 or more when received from a single donor within a rolling twelve month period. In addition, Members and co-opted Members are reminded that unless their disclosable pecuniary interest is registered on the register of interests or is the subject of a pending notification to the Monitoring Officer, they are required to disclose those disclosable pecuniary interests at the meeting. This should be done by completing the Disclosure of Interest form and handing it to the Democratic Services representative at the start of the meeting. The Chair will then invite Members to make their disclosure orally at the commencement of Agenda item 3. Completed disclosure forms will be provided to the Monitoring Officer for inclusion on the Register of Members’ Interests.
Minutes: There were no disclosures of interest. |
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Urgent Business (if any) To receive notice of any business not on the agenda which in the opinion of the Chair, by reason of special circumstances, be considered as a matter of urgency. Minutes: There were none. |
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Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Service (Formerly CAMHS) PDF 1 MB To receive an update on the Covid-19 response. (Presentation to follow) Minutes: The Head of Commissioning and Procurement introduced the item and advised that the presentation would be taken in three sections by the guests invited to the meeting to represent organisations that provided well-being services to vulnerable young people in the borough.
The Director of Off the Record presented her organisations response and the following was highlighted:
The Director of Croydon Drop-in presented and the following was noted:
The Service Director of CAMHS, SLAM NHS presented and the following was highlighted:
Following the presentations, the sub-committee was able to ask officers questions.
A Member asked how the Croydon Drop-in was prepared for future ways of working. The officer responded that they would continue to utilise and invest in technology. Staff had undertaken additional training which had increased skills among the workforce. They would offer face to face contact where possible, but the reality was that an increased level of remote contact would continue to take place.
It was further asked if any children had lost out on support as a result of restrictions and what checks were being undertaken to identify children that had been disadvantaged. Officers acknowledged that in the beginning of lockdown there has been a decrease in referral, with colleagues asked to be cautious of referring. In particular there had been a decrease in referrals for autism assessments through CAMHS due to the face to face interaction required for assessments which would not be undertaken. Referrals are now open to ... view the full minutes text for item 26/20 |
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Children's Improvement Plan Update PDF 218 KB To receive the outcome of the re inspection of Croydon’s Early help and Children’s Social Care and to scrutinise the draft Improvement Plan 2020-22. (The draft Children’s Continuous Plan for Improvement 2020/22 to follow) Additional documents:
Minutes: The Executive Director of Children Families and Education presented the report which detailed the draft Children’s Improvement Plan 2020/21, which had been revised following the outcome of the Ofsted standard ILACS inspection of Early Help and Children’s Social Care.
The outcome of the re-inspection in February 2020 resulted in a Good Judgement for Croydon’s Children’s Services, with the Publication of the Ofsted letter in March 2020 which detailed the dramatic improvements that had been made since the last inspection in 2017.
The transformation of the service through strong leadership both corporate and political and the investment in exceptional senior staff and social workers was commended.
There were areas highlighted as still requiring improvement with four recommendations made in the following areas:
As a result, the Improvement plan had been refreshed with actions to address these recommendations. The final plan would be presented to Cabinet in July 2020.
The Sub-Committee was given the opportunity to ask questions on the content of the report.
A Member challenged that success measures needed to be ‘smarter’ with metrics to enable the measurement and benchmarking of performance. It was felt that the current process did not enable the robust measurement of progress made. Officers acknowledged this and advised that an action plan was being drawn up which would address these concerns including a dashboard of metrics which would be sent to Ofsted and could be shared with the Sub-Committee.
A Member highlighted that the lack of up to date information on KPI dashboards had hampered the effectiveness of Scrutiny as well as impacting upon the enablement of the digital aspects of the service moving forward at pace. Officers agreed that in the past this had been an issue and made reference to the fact that this had now improved, as there was now performance rich data available as a result of the extensive work carried out by the Programme Director for the improvement journey as well as the Performance Team. It was agreed that some data was not available in real time in particular when relying on regional or national data.
It was asked how the improvement in social work practice and morale as referenced in the Ofsted report was being used in the recruitment of practitioners. Officers said that improvement in this area had been excellent for staff and Croydon’s reputation, which was getting stronger, will attract more staff. There has been a lot of work carried out using social media and networking opportunities to recruit good social workers. A successful international recruitment drive had taken place and 23 social workers from South Africa would arrive in September and October.
It was further questioned how exact the 20% average agency vacancy rate ... view the full minutes text for item 27/20 |
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Children's services response to COVID 19 PDF 394 KB To scrutinise the response to the Covid-19 crisis. Additional documents:
Minutes: The Director for Early Help and Children’s Social Care presented the report which detailed the Council’s response to the Covid 19 crisis and the support in place for vulnerable children. The following was highlighted:
The Interim Director of Education provided the following highlights:
The Head Teacher of All Saints Schools conveyed that communication from the Council had been good, with the regular contact through the school’s link officers encouraging. The localities aspect of children’s services had worked well in promoting cohesiveness as it allowed for regular meetings between schools in the same demographics to share learning.
Officers and schools were commended and thanked for all their hard work during this difficult time.
Following presentations, the Sub-Committee was given the opportunity to raise questions.
A Member asked how the reporting of safeguarding concerns to the SPOC had been made during this period when vulnerable children were not coming in to contact with services that would usually refer them. Officers said that it was of great concern that there were children that would have experienced hardship during this period. As the pandemic was moving into a recovery period, core services were coming into increasing contact with children, leading to improved line of visibility with the needs of children responded to appropriately.
A question was raised on how the needs of ... view the full minutes text for item 28/20 |
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What difference has this meeting made to Croydon's children To discuss the findings from this meeting and the expectations for Croydon’s Children.
Minutes: The Sub-Committee welcomed the opportunity to delve into the details of the Council’s response to Children’s care and Educational needs which had been significantly impacted by the Covid-19 emergency and imposition of lock down restrictions. It was agreed that this would continue to be a priority area of scrutiny for the coming months.
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Work Programme 2020/21 To discuss the work programme for the meeting of 15 September 2020 of the Sub-Committee. Minutes: It was confirmed that that meeting of 17 September 2020 would include the following agenda items:
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