Agenda item
SCRUTINY SPOTLIGHT
Councillor Oliur Rahman, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, will attend to report on his portfolio.
(Time allocated – 30 minutes)
Minutes:
Councillor Oliur Rahman, Lead Member for Children’s Services, had circulated a detailed presentation on aspects of his portfolio prior to the meeting which focused on areas set out below:-
Highlights and successes
• Significant achievements at Key Stage 2
• Final GCSE results for 2010 show more than a 5% point increase on 2009
• Final GCSE results for Looked After Children, one of the most vulnerable groups, also up
• Continuing reduction in the number of children and young people not in education, employment or training (NEETS)
• Increase in participation in learning
• Reduced levels of teenage pregnancy
• Ofsted’s annual assessment which now has a new inspection framework, awarded the Council an overall grade of ‘performing well’
• Ofsted highlighted a number of areas of particular strength
• Recent unannounced inspection in children’s social care
National policy change
• Schools White Paper – Academies Act, Education Bill
• Health and Social Care Bill
• Munro review of social care
• New Child poverty Strategy
• Welfare and housing reform
• Bigger role for third sector and community
Challenges
• Reducing budgets for all partners
• High levels of child poverty
• Complex impact of welfare reform
• Multiple impacts and fast pace of change
• Increasing demand on social care
• Rapidly growing young borough
• Some areas for development identified by Ofsted
Opportunities
• New roles and responsibilities for the third sector and the community
• New relationship between schools and the local authority
• Munro Review of Children’s Social Care
• 2012 Olympics and Paralympics
• Decreases in central government control
Priorities
• Tackling child poverty, and supporting families through - cross-cutting priorities for the Children and Young People Plan
• The plan focuses on what the Council will do differently, and in partnership
• Refreshed 2009-12 plan for the third and final year
• During 2011-12 a new plan for 2012 onwards will be developed
Further key priorities
• Improve educational attainment of very young children
• Developing an effective targeted offer to children and families – Family Wellbeing Model
• Increasing post 16 attainment levels and the number of 19 year olds who are successful in obtaining qualifications
• Delivering the Council’s transformation programme
Members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee then posed a series of questions to which Councillor Rahman, supported by Mrs Isobel Catermole, Acting Corporate Director Children Schools and Families, responded. The question and answer session was centred on the following points:
- The impact of exam results on national league tables,
- The type of subjects and qualifications which were in most demand from employers,
- Truancy and the role of education welfare,
- The council’s relationship with Ofsted and the changes to how schools would be assessed,
- Who were the lowest performing ethnic groups and what systems were in place to support them,
- Support strategies for NEETS, and
- Improvements in access to schools and proposed primary school expansions.
The Committee asked a number of detailed questions in relation to the development of Free Schools and Academies in the Borough, and sought clarification of how these would operate, whether any applications had been received, the qualifications required, and the impact these would have on education provision in the Borough.
The Committee also expressed concern in relation to the redesign and integration of Early Years and Children’s Centres management, as a number of savings proposals related to services affecting some of the Borough’s most vulnerable residents, and asked whether existing users would still be able to gain access to services through alternative provision.
Councillor Rahman reinterated the Mayor’s commitment to protecting front line services, but stressed that without the additional support of Government funding, there would be financial pressures on these services and it was important to consider the impact of these in the longer term rather than just short term.
The Chair thanked Councillor Rahman and Mrs Cattermole for the presentation and their responses to questions.