Issue - meetings

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 03^rd October and  further approve the minutes of the joint meeting between  Corporate Parenting  Advisory Committee and Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee held on the 5^th November 2013.

The minutes of the meeting held on the 03^rd October were agreed for accuracy.

Matters Arising

Agreed that information is gathered by the Virtual School on how the Looked after children element of the pupil premium grant is spent across schools . This is to inform a report to the Committee on the 6^th March 2014.

Outsourcing of Fostering recruitment  Activities

The  Children’s service has gone out to the market and are seeking possible organisations that can work with the council in increasing  the number of internal foster carers. The tenders of potential providers would be ready for assessment at the end of January , earlier than expected , with an organisation expected to be recruited by this time. The Committee were pleased to note, that there were already 15-20 new foster carers in the pipeline for recruitment following past council recruitment activities. It was noted that the council team will continue to provide the newly recruited foster carers with support and supervision. Agreed a brief report back come to the meeting in March.

Joint meeting of Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee 05^th November 2013.

It was felt that the minutes had not captured the agreement for all SCR’s, involving the council, to be considered by the Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee when published and by a special meeting of this Committee if necessary. Agreed that the minutes be updated to reflect this.

Noted that the quarterly performance figures on care orders was not ready for this meeting and would be ready for consideration at the next Committee meeting on the 6^th March. This information would be accompanied by the findings of the quality assurance activity, requested by the Joint Committee, to understand the quality of reports going forward to court and whether they were meeting the requirements of the public law outline.