To receive an update on the Children’s Improvement Plan.

The Director of Children’s Services, Nancy Meehan, and the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Councillor Law, presented the submitted report which provided up to date performance information on the implementation of the Children’s Services Improvement Plan.  Members were advised that the statistics were up to date, but the narrative was up to May due to moving from Paris to Liquid Logic software.  The highlight report had been updated from the original actions in the Improvement Plan to take into account the issues raised from the Ofsted visit in March and to ensure it was based on children’s needs and where we needed to improve.

The Board noted that as a result of Torbay’s improving position in respect of Children’s Services performance we had changed who we were benchmarked against e.g. previously one of our benchmarking neighbours was Blackpool, now we were benchmarked against Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch.  This was seen as a positive step as we were now benchmarking against higher performing Councils which in turn would help us to raise our standards further.

The Chief Executive, Anne-Marie Bond, advised that the Council was being more proactive to understand ourselves and the issues we faced better, as part of this work a review was being undertaken on the theme of Leadership, Management and Governance to see where we feel we were and where we want to be.

The Board asked questions and sought assurance in respect of the following elements, responses were provided by the Director of Children’s Services and the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services.  The Chief Executive also provided assurance and updates in respect of her role and action being taken to help support our children and young people:

·                     edge or care and how this was used;

·                     when Liquid Logic would be effectively up and running and fully implemented;

·                     barriers in respect of timely receipt of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and working with the voluntary and community sector and Youth Offending Team to help support this area;

·                     Special Educational Needs (SEN) and need for early intervention;

·                     problems finding suitable accommodation for care leavers, the support available such as the guarantor scheme and the work of the Strategic Housing Board;

·                     early help current situation and aspirations;

·                     children’s care plans not being robust enough and the action taken to address this;

·                     the voice of the child at their review meetings and the aspirations to encourage all children to attend their review to hold service delivers to account and to automatically be referred to the advocacy service;

·                     later life letters and the actions being taken to address this;

·                     homelessness shown overall as amber but a lot of red actions; and

·                     staffing issues and the learning academy;

·                     quality assurance and the improvement in this area;

·                     learning from complaints and how this was raised through management and frontline staff to ensure it made a difference to the child.

Resolved:

1.         that all partners be requested to work together to ensure Child and Adolescence Mental Health Services (CAMHS) provision meets the needs of our children and young people in Torbay in a timely manner;

2.         that the highlight report be updated to reflect what action is being taken to address concerns in respect of accessing appropriate CAMHS;

3.         that the Board receive an update on the guarantor scheme for care experienced young people at a future meeting;

4.         that the outcome of the Leadership, Management and Governance review to be reported to a future meeting of the Board; and

5.         that an update on housing for care experienced young people be presented to a future meeting of the Board (unanimous).