Agenda and minutes

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

Apologies were received from Councillor Holly Ramsey, for who Councillor Adele Benson was in attendance as substitute, and Councillor Danielle Denton.

Apologies were received from Nicole Williams (Non-voting Teacher representative) and Elaine Jones (Voting Diocesan Representative (Catholic Diocese)).

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 19 March 2024 as an accurate record.

The minutes of the previous meeting held on the 19 March 2024 were approved as an accurate record with the following amendments:

Item 14/24 Health Visiting, first paragraph, page 4; change:

‘The Director of Education explained that the first Family Hub had been launched at Woodlands Children's Centre, with conversations ongoing about where the remaining three would be located’ to ‘The Director of Education explained that the first Family Hub had been launched at Woodlands Children's Centre, with one planned for Selhurst, and conversations ongoing about where the remaining two would be located.’

Item 15/24 Education Standards 2023, page 10; add conclusion:

‘The Sub-Committee concluded that the Council should ensure that the voice of the child is embedded in its data collection on attendance, particularly where children were refusing to attend school as a result of dissatisfaction with SEND provision. The Council should look to engage with the lived experiences of parents and children to see how this compared with collected data on attendance.’

Members are invited to declare any disclosable pecuniary interests (DPIs) and other registrable and non-registrable interests they may have in relation to any item(s) of business on today’s agenda.

Councillor Shahul-Hameed declared an interest in relation to Item 6, Youth Justice Plan 2024/25, and stated that their charity worked closely with the Council to provide volunteering opportunities for young people in the borough.

Councillor Henson declared an interest in relation to Item 6, Youth Justice Plan 2024/25, and stated that one of the members of the charity they worked for was Croydon Drop-In.

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.

There were no items of urgent business.

For the Sub-Committee to receive the March 2024 Cabinet Report and relevant action plan in response to the recommendations of the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman. The Sub-Committee is asked to monitor the implementation of the Council’s action plan.

The Sub-Committee considered a report set out on pages 17 to 42 of the agenda, which provided the March 2024 Cabinet Report and relevant action plan in response to the recommendations of the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman. The Children & Young People was asked to review the Cabinet Paper on the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman Decision Finding of Fault Causing Injustice to monitor the Action Plan and to ensure lessons learned were embedded. The Director of Education introduced and summarised the paper, and the SEN Tribunal Manager took the Sub-Committee through the action plan at Appendix 2. The Director of Education highlighted that the Council had apologised to the parent and also highlighted that processes around the responsibilities of schools had been strengthened through regular ongoing conversations with head teachers, and distribution of the ‘children not being able to attend school due to medical needs or otherwise’ policy to all schools in the borough. The Chair enquired what else had been done and was informed that the Council was now also liaising with schools and that it was receiving some letters directly from parents applying under Section 19 of the Education Act.

The Vice-Chair asked how schools had been made aware of the policy and the Director of Education explained that it had been a topic during conversations with head teachers, and that the policy would be highlighted to all new head teachers during their induction. The SEN Tribunal Manager explained that the Special Educational Needs (SEN) Senior Leadership Team was working with most schools on a locality basis through Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCo), where conversations highlighting the policy were also taking place.

Members asked about follow up and ongoing support for the family in question, and were advised that the child was now attending school. The Sub-Committee asked how many other current requests under Section 19 of the Education Act there were and whether there were a sufficient number of staff to manage these. The Director of Education responded that there were sufficient staff, with the Access to Education team following up on all requests, and that she did not have the exact numbers to provide but the number of Section 19 cases directly applied to the Council were in the single to double digit range. The Sub-Committee were informed that, where there was a request under Section 19 of the Education Act, this was referred to ‘Springboard’ (an education service that provides educational support to children and young people of school age whose education has been interrupted for a period of time). Individual schools can and should refer to Springboard directly.

The Sub-Committee asked about the training provided to head teachers and queried whether there were a number of new or inexperienced head teachers in the borough who may not have experience with the Council’s ‘children not being able to attend school due to medical needs or otherwise’ policy . The Director of Education responded that there was not a high number of new head teachers  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23/24

The Youth Justice Plan 2024/25 forms a part of the Council’s Budget and Policy Framework, and as such it is required that Scrutiny have not less than four weeks to respond to the initial proposals. The Children & Young People Sub-Committee is asked to review the Youth Justice Plan 24/25 with a view to considering whether there are any concerns that should be raised or recommendations that should be made.

The Sub-Committee is also asked to:

1.     Note the report and endorse the outcomes achieved by the Youth Justice Service and its partners for the year 23/24.

2.     Note the plan of action for 24/25.

The Sub-Committee considered a paper set out on pages 43 to 220 of the agenda, which provided a draft of the Youth Justice Plan 2024/25. The Youth Justice Plan 2024/25 forms a part of the Council’s Budget and Policy Framework, and as such it is required that Scrutiny have not less than four weeks to respond to the initial proposals. The Children & Young People Sub-Committee was asked to review the Youth Justice Plan 24/25 with a view to considering whether there are any concerns that should be raised or recommendations that should be made. The Director for Children’s Social Care introduced the item and the Children’s Youth Justice Service Manager summarised the report.

The Sub-Committee asked for the learnings from the Youth Justice Plan 2023/24 and the key risks and mitigations to the delivery of the 24/25 Plan. The Youth Justice Service Manager explained that the Youth Justice Service was always looking to improve and had had undertaken training around Domestic Abuse, which included Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) processes, as well as safeguarding principles, and sexually harmful behaviour. There had been a considerable learning around serious youth violence and ‘child first work’ to focus on the needs of children as a means to encouraging behavioural change, alongside work with partners to become better at the identification of those children much earlier on, as well as improvements in what interventions looked like for those children. There had been work looking at localities and closer relationships with schools, understanding the changing cohort of young people, contextual safeguarding, and adopting learnings from the thematic review on serious youth violence, particularly on keeping children in education. A sophisticated health offer had been progressed (with a physical health nurse, sexual health clinic, speech and language therapist, and mental health practitioner) to provide a holistic package for children entering into the criminal justice system. The prevention offer was making use of partnership working with the Custody Suite Team and Turnaround Project, as well as data to improve prevention outcomes.

The Sub-Committee heard that the risks to the delivery of the plan included resourcing and staff retention, but consistency was stated as a strength of the service. The level of serious youth violence was highlighted as an ongoing challenge, as well as competing priorities around protecting the public and safeguarding vulnerable young people.

There had been progress made with the 16+ youth not in employment, education or training (NEET) cohort, by providing help with life skilling and interview preparation, but Members heard that there could be challenges matching provision with the needs of some young people, especially during the transition from year 11 to 12 or to mainstream colleges due to disrupted education histories or special educational needs. Members heard that there was a dedicated ‘Entry to Employment’ officer who focussed on working with young people on transitioning from year 11 to 12, but that there were challenges where young people had not been in full time education for some time. The Youth Justice Service  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24/24

For the Sub-Committee to receive the Early Help, Children’s Social Care and Education Dashboard.

The Sub-Committee considered a report set out on pages 221 to 226 of the agenda, which provided the Early Help, Children’s Social Care and Education Dashboard, and updated additional ‘Red’ indicators reviewed at the previous meeting.

On M37, the Director of Quality, Commissioning & Performance explained that this was a persistent ‘Red’ which was monitored closely at both the Director of Children’s Services monthly performance meetings and Children's Social Care Leadership performance meetings. The Sub-Committee heard that there was consideration of whether the target of 22% was set at the correct value with ongoing challenge from the Performance Analyst. The Chair queried the timeline and actions for improvement and heard that a firm prediction was difficult as it was predicated on individual children and the risks in each instance determined when a case could be closed. The Director of Quality, Commissioning & Performance explained that they would be looking for the indicator to improve over the next year as work progressed with Islington Partners in Practice and as cases took time to close.

The Vice-Chair asked how a new target would be determined and the Director of Quality, Commissioning & Performance explained that current data indicated that performance was at 23% but that they would like to see this sustained before any conclusions could be drawn as individual children on child protection plans sat behind this number. The Director of Children’s Social Care explained that Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were not considered when decisions were made about whether a child needed to be on a child protection plan, and that safeguarding was always the first priority.

The Director of Children’s Social Care explained that benchmarking data could take a long time to produce and that statistical neighbours used for comparison could have different demographics and funding to Croydon. The Sub-Committee heard that ideally children should not be on a child protection plan for over a year, but that this did happen, and the actions being taken during the plan was the most important thing to consider. The Director of Children’s Social Care stated that where children were on a second plan, it needed to be considered whether this was as a result of a recurrence of previous concerns, or whether things had changed significantly (if the previous plan had been years previous). The Safeguarding Quality Assurance Team looked at each of these cases monthly and wrote a detailed report to Children’s Social Care to provide insights and to help practitioners consider whether initial plans had been sufficient in their actions and length.

The Chair asked about the risks of longer child protection plans, and the Director of Children’s Social Care responded that the quality of challenge in reviews was vital, as was multi-agency work and challenge from the Safeguarding Quality Assurance Team. The Chair asked, for children who were on a child protection plan for a second time, if reviews of the initial plan were showing the correct work had been done in the first instance. The Director of Children’s Social Care explained  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25/24

The Sub-Committee is asked to:

1.     Note the draft work programme for 2024-25, as set out in Appendix 1 of the report.

2.     Consider whether there are any changes to the work programme that should be considered.

The Sub-Committee noted the report and discussed adding the following to the Work Programme:

• An update report on the implementation of the action plan resulting from the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman Decision Finding of Fault Causing Injustice.
• A review of the indicators on the Early Help, Children's Social Care and Education Dashboard, and specifically M37.
• The possibility of adding the SEND Strategy to the Work Programme following a briefing provided by the Director of Education.

The Sub-Committee also discussed:

• Arranging a previously offered tour of a Family Hub from the Director of Education in the first week of September 2024.
• That the briefing on the SEND Strategy and Locality SEN Support offer from the Director of Education should be arranged for the end of September 2024.
• That the Sub-Committee was keen for the police to attend the September 2024 meeting of the Sub-Committee to speak to the Croydon Safeguarding Children Partnership Annual Report, and for the Clerk to ascertain which officer would be in attendance.
• The need for scrutiny to be outward looking and to consider which of the Council’s partners could be invited for other items on the Work Programme.

The Chair commented that there might need to be better auditing of what the available offer was for young people in different localities in the borough and for different types of young people with varying needs.