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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

Items
No. Item

41/19

Apologies for absence

To receive any apologies for absence from any members of the Committee.

 

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillor Jamie Audsley, Geoff Hopper and Neil Cochlin.

42/19

Minutes of the previous sub-committee meeting pdf icon PDF 308 KB

To approve the minutes of the meetings held on 23 June 2020 and 15 September 2020.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The minutes of meetings held on 23 June 2020 and 15 September 2020 were agreed as an accurate record.

43/19

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 pecuniary interest that were not already registered.

44/19

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 no items of urgent business.

45/19

Action list update

Discussion on actions arising from previous meetings.

Minutes:

The Chair told the Sub-Committee the following updates:

 

·       The representation of the Sub-Committee had changed since the last meeting, following changes to the Cabinet appointments, which would be formalised and appointed at the next Scrutiny and Overview Committee.

·       The consultation period and process to close Virgo Fidelis had begun and an official decision would be made in January 2021, which the Sub-Committee to had an opportunity to review.

·       The financial situation of the council was under review and would become clearer in the coming weeks.

·       The Children’s Improvement Board was reinstated including the performance dashboard which would be included in future Sub-Committee agendas.

·       During Practice Week, Councillor Ward and Nick Pendry took part in the visit programme and they spoke to young people from the Empire group. The young people were impressive, showed initiative and responsibility. Once Covid restrictions were reduced, they would continue the visit programme and speak to social workers. Going forward it was important to bring representation and voice of the children and young people into the Sub-Committee.

 

The Chair updated the Sub-Committee on the action list:

 

·       Due to Covid restrictions there were many visits which were postponed.

·       The free school transport would be extended to the end of the year and had not yet been withdrawn.

·       The letter of thanks to staff in Children’s service for their dedication and hard work would be sent by the end of the week.

·       KPIs were reflected in the dashboard.

 

Councillor Alisa Flemming joined the meeting at 7.41pm

46/19

Croydon Safeguarding Children's Board Annual Report pdf icon PDF 356 KB

To receive the Annual Report of Local Safeguarding Children Partnership.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Croydon Safeguarding Children partnership (CSCP) Independent Chair & Scrutineer introduced and outlined the report in a Presentation.

 

The Chair thanked the CSCP for their annual report and presentation. Members expressed disappointment that there was no representative from the police, one third of the partnership, whose nonattendance was a historical pattern.

 

Vulnerable Adolescents Priority Group

 

In response to a Member asking what the quantifiable measures of successful outcomes there were for the Vulnerable Adolescent priority group, where a Public Health approach would usually be taken linking into violence reduction, the Head of Quality Assurance and Safeguarding stated that the need for qualitative and quantitative measures had been discussed at that priority group meeting. There were some measurable outcomes, such as missing children, however the Group needed to develop more areas and be clear in what they wanted to achieve in those.

 

In reference to Recommendation 9 of the Vulnerable Adults Review published in 2019, a Member stated that a Fair Access Panel was significant in the journey for many vulnerable adolescents and asked when the multi-agency response would be extended.

 

Recommendation 9: The model of an integrated holistic multi-agency response should be extended to include consideration of the risk management panels. Consideration to be given to how schools, including the Fair Access Panel, can be included (Page 59, Vulnerable Adolescents Thematic Review).

 

The Interim Head Standards Safeguarding and Inclusion replied that they were actively considering this initiative and were now in a place where the could operate. They had experienced a number of staff changes in the admin team for Fair Access Panel but were now able to continue that work. The Interim Head Standards Safeguarding and Inclusion told Members that he would be happy to meet to discuss with Members the model going forward outside of the Sub-Committee.

 

The Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Learning told the Sub-Committee that there was work being carried out by the Curriculum for Change Board to change and improve the representation of the curriculum, which was run by teachers in the borough. The focus of the Board emerged from the Black Lines Matters agenda and has now extended to look at the issues around exclusions. The Chair of the Board would be joining the Children’s Race and Equality Review Panel, which sat in care and directly linked to the CSCP.

 

A Member asked what the Terms of Reference were for the Task and Finish group in response to schools needing to be at the heart of multi-agency prevention. The CSCP Independent Chair & Scrutineer replied that it was the Chair of the Vulnerable Adolescent Priority Group, Detective Superintendent & Business Change Manager at Metropolitan Police- Head of Safeguarding who was not in attendance, who lead that priority group and could respond to that question. They would take notes on points raised today for the Vulnerable Adolescent Priority Group to review.

 

The Executive Director Children Families and Education stated there was work for Children’s services following the Review to ensure a more integrated  ...  view the full minutes text for item 46/19

47/19

Blended Learning Overview pdf icon PDF 46 KB

To receive details of the Blended learning and catch-up curriculum strategies adopted by Croydon Schools to support pupil progress.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

This Item would be would be taken at the meeting of the Sub-Committee on 19 January 2021.

48/19

Service Impact and Response to Budget Reductions pdf icon PDF 236 KB

To receive an overview of anticipated staffing reductions in response to in-year financial measures.

 

Minutes:

The Programme Director Children’s Improvement Journey introduced the Item. The Report highlighted staffing changes in early help and children’s social care following the council staffing review to address the financial challenge and how services might be affected.

 

The Chair told the Sub-Committee that the programme for staff reduction pre-dated the recently escalated seriousness of the council’s financial difficulties, which was then part of the in-year budget savings plan.  Currently, it was not appropriate to ask questions for the longer term approach as they were waiting for more clarity of the situation, however it was right to ask about the principles of how savings would be made in future.

 

In response to Jo Copeland asking if the staff reduction would effect schools and education, the Executive Director Children Families and Education said that the financial position for Croydon was highly serious and they would be working closely with schools and statutory services which would remain a priority. There could be no guarantees that there would be no changes or budget rightsizing, and any changes in funding arrangements would have unintended consequences. The Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Learning added that partnership with schools and colleges was of paramount importance to the Children’s services, the Ofsted journey to name an example, and that close working would continue through this time of uncertainty.

 

In response to Elaine Jones asking whether the staff reductions would affect the current dashboard targets, the Programme Director Children’s Improvement Journey said that heads of services and the Director were confident that the reductions would not impact on service performance as set out on the dashboard, which were mostly statutory or nationally set targets. This had been achieved by a mixture of restructuring, transformation work of reducing demand and there having been many agency staff and vacancies prior to the reductions.

 

A Member stated that the council had a significantly large budgetary gap to close and Children’s services was a major portion of the overall expenditure of the council, therefore savings in these services would be required. At this time they did not know the proposals, scale or timeline of further reductions required so the discussion of the next steps had to wait until there was further clarity. The Chair agreed and said that it was the Sub-Committee’s role to assist in delivering the next steps.

 

In reaching its recommendations the Sub-Committee came to the following Conclusions:

 

1.     The Council has a large budgetary gap and Children’s services is a significant portion of the council’s overall expenditure.

2.     Given that savings proposals were still being developed, at this stage the Sub-Committee was unable to reach any conclusions on the sustainability of the staff reductions proposed or what the impact would be on performance.

3.    That the Committee needed to be actively involved in the next phase of budgetary reductions and that flexibility would be needed to schedule another meeting, once the financial situation became clearer.

49/19

Children's Social Care and Education Dashboards pdf icon PDF 518 KB

To receive the Children’s Social Care and Education Dashboards.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chair praised the dashboard, thanking officers for their work, and stated this would be a useful monitoring tool for the Sub-Committee going forward.

 

Elaine Jones raised that there were inaccuracies in the data on a number of the pages and asked if they could be revised. The Interim Head Standards Safeguarding and Inclusion replied he would correct and reissue the dashboard.

 

The Chair stated that additional work was being generated for officers from having to create separate style dashboards with similar data for different purposes. This was not productive in a time of lower capacity and the Sub-Committee was willing to compromise on some requests if that supported more coordination and efficiency. It was agreed that the Programme Director Children’s Improvement Journey design the dashboard more strategically and streamlined for her team to produce.

50/19

What difference has this meeting made to Croydon's children

To discuss the findings from this meeting and expectations for Croydon’s Children.

Minutes:

The Chair asked Members how they felt the meeting went, whether they achieved what they aimed to do and if they challenged appropriately in their scrutiny role. The following was discussed by the Sub-Committee:

 

·       The annual safeguarding report was one of the most important oversights of the Sub-Committee had and there had clearly been progress made by the partnership without complacency, but whether they had made a difference to young people was still to be judged. It was when there were multiple agencies or scrutinisers attempting to task similar activities when gaps would appear. Actions proposed during the meeting would work to mitigate those concerns.

·       It was noted that the Sub-Committee itself had a shifting membership and for new Members there was a learning curb.

·       It was disappointing that many answers to the important question Members had on the safeguarding report were unknown, which meant Members did not have the tools to understand what was happening to the level they needed. This was a historical problem for scrutiny raised in the Report of Public Interest.

·       The lack of metrics and police representation was noted. It was agreed the Chair would write to the police seeking a formal written response on their experience of partnership working.

·       There needed to be more of a difference specified in the report between operational and strategic results. If there were graphs presented in the report, there must be some capacity to speak on them. If any answers were more operational, there needed to be more language in the report to referring to the impacts and evaluation.

51/19

Work Programme 2020/21 pdf icon PDF 153 KB

To note the work programme for the remainder of 2020/2021 municipal year.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

There would be another meeting of the Sub-Committee organised when there was more clarity and information on the council’s financial situation in order to respond to events accordingly.