Issue - meetings

Verbal Update

Councillor Kaushika Amin, the Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Families gave a short overview of key developments within her portfolio and, in particular, the response to the Covid-19 crisis as well as the next steps.  The following key points were noted:

a.    The crisis had severely impacted on children and young people within the borough.  The vast majority of them were currently not attending school and there were implications arising from this for their education and mental health and well-being;

b.    There had been a recent High Court judgement which had been critical of the Council and specifically the Disabilities Team. A Peer Review of the service, led by an independent practitioner, had been set up by the Council in response.  The approach was recommended by London Councils.   There would also be an audit of cases to ensure that they were no others where there might be similar issues;

c.    During the last three months, it had been necessary to conduct much work virtually or by mobile phone.  The Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) had been mainly office based but engagement had also taken face-to-face, with the use of PPE if necessary;

d.    There had been a considerable amount of work undertaken with schools, including twice weekly virtual meetings involving Haringey Education Partnership.  There had also been meetings with Headteachers and teaching unions regarding safety concerns on the re-opening of schools.  There were now over 4,000 children back in school; and

e.    A full holiday programme for children and young people was planned, which would include both virtual and annual events.  It would be advertised both through booklets and on-line.

Councillor Dogan reported that he and the Chair had met Councillor Brabazon, the then Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Families and the Director of Children’s Services to discuss the court case and steps that had been taken to address the matters that had arisen.   In answer to a question, the Cabinet Member stated that the Peer Review would aim to report by the end of June.  It was to be led by Islington Council, who had been identified as Haringey’s “partner in practice”.  The report would be available in six weeks’ time.  The audit of all cases would be undertaken by an independent practitioner and would look at all live cases.  There was also a court work project taking place that would aim to ensure that good practice was put in place.   The aim of these processes was to identify what had gone wrong and to prevent it from happening again.  The structure of the Disabilities Team would be looked at as part of this process. 

In answer to a question, the Cabinet Member acknowledged the need for independence in the review so that those undertaking it were not familiar to people within the service.  Haringey was part of a London wide project to share experience and challenge though and had been linked with Islington as part of this.   It was nevertheless important that Islington was held to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27