Agenda item

To receive an update from the relevant Director and Cabinet Member on progress made on implementing the Business Plan in areas within the remit of the Children’s Select Committee.

The committee had also agreed to hold a further scrutiny exercise regarding the services’ action plans supporting the Business Plan, once information had been received on it to enable the committee to determine the most productive overview and scrutiny approach.

The Committee is also invited to consider the Council Performance and Risk – Quarter One Monitoring Report which has been produced for Cabinet to consider on Wednesday 21 September.

Members were notified about the progress made towards implementing the Business Plan in areas within the remit of the Children’s Select Committee. The chairman invited the committee to review the report about the activities of relevant services and how they related to the Business Plan. He then reminded members that they had agreed to set up a task group to determine the best approach to oversee and scrutinise these plans.

The Director of Education and Skills and the Director of Families and Children’s Services each provided further information about the activities in their respective service plans and how they linked to the stated missions in Wiltshire Council’s Business Plan.

In addition, the committee were invited to review the Council Performance and Risk 2022/23 – Quarter One Monitoring Report ahead of its consideration by Cabinet on 27 September. The Corporate Director People explained that the data provided in the report related to activities designed to deliver the 10 stated missions within the Business Plan and listed the relevant key performance indicators in Appendix A of the report. She also highlighted the two areas in the Strategic Risk Register relevant to the committee namely, demand for SEND services and safeguarding children.

During the discussion points included:

• Members thanked the directors for introducing the reports, noting that they gave a good overview of the plans. They also stated that they looked forward to receiving further detail about the metrics within in the individual service plans. 

• The chairman of Corporate Parenting Panel reassured the committee that the panel scrutinised placement sufficiency for Children Looked After, including a breakdown of children placed within different Local Authorities (LAs). The Corporate Director people assured members that this was an area which they monitored closely.

• Members stated that they would welcome further information about the impact of housing shortages on children’s services.

• In response to a question about the level of educational provision for excluded children the Director of Education and Skills reported that their service length agreement had been reviewed two years ago, in consultation with ISOS and headteachers, to ensure that outcomes were put at the centre. A new governance structure was in place to monitor outcomes, including the director, headteachers and the Head of Alternative Provision.

• A question was asked about whether there were opportunities to improve partnership working with schools to promote the Healthy Schools Programme and mental health provision. The Director of Procurement and Commissioning replied by explaining that they had undertaken a survey of schools to find out about the mental health services that they were commissioning, and they planned to repeat the exercise to get further information.

• When asked about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on early years provision the Director of Education and Skills, highlighted that there were concerns in this area as the providers of early years services were privately run. She reported that two providers had recently closed but measures had been put in place to ensure that the children affected had alternative provision. Wiltshire Council’s Early Years Team had done lots of exciting work to promote careers in the sector.  The chairman noted that the Childcare Sufficiency Report was due to come to the committee’s next meeting.

• The Director for Education and Skills offered to clarify the timescale of the maintained schools’ temporary building replacement programme.

• It was noted that the council’s responsibility for post-16 education related primarily to SEND provision and lots of collaborative work was done through the Wiltshire Learning Alliance to develop these services. The Employment, Education and Training Team had responsibility for this area in the Business Plan.

• The Director of Families and Children’s Services provided information about placement sufficiency, reporting that 29 percent of children were placed outside of the county in Q1, compared to an English average of 42 percent and an outstanding LA percentage of 45 percent.

• Members sought further information about the long-term impact of vacancy rates within children’s services. The interim director reported that there was a 29 percent vacancy rate for social workers across Families and Children’s Services and agency staff made up between five and eight percent of the staff. The agency worker staff levels were far lower than the regional average and measures were in place to encourage staff to join Wiltshire Council on a permanent basis, such as detailed analysis of why staff were leaving.

• The committee took the opportunity to commend staff for the work they were doing given the high vacancy rate in the service.

• The Corporate Director People noted that they would monitor the impact of cost-of-living pressures on agency staff rates. She noted that LAs in the South West had signed a memorandum of understanding about pay rates for agency staff. The council was also studying pay rates for its staff to benchmark them against regional averages. 

• Wiltshire Council had committed funding for the Family Help pilot and was working with partners to establish additional funding.

• It was confirmed that Wiltshire Council had purchased the results of a Personal Outcomes Evaluation Tool survey in order to help inform its SEND and Inclusion Strategy.

Resolved

1. The committee welcomes the report and the KPIs and outcome measures that will be in future Cabinet reports.

2. To welcome sight of future reports to Cabinet as well as specific reports on those areas specifically relating to areas overseen by Children’s Select Committee.

3. For these reports to be received every six months.