Agenda and minutes

To received any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from the following:

Councillor Nilgun Canver

Jane Elias

Paul Head (arrived at 7.20pm)

Cenk Orhan

Claire Panniker

David Sloman                        Linda McGurrin substituted

Walter Steel                          

Margaret Sumner

The Chair will consider the admission of any items of Urgent Business. (Late items of Urgent Business will be considered under the agenda item where they appear. New items of Urgent Business will be considered under Item 14 below).

No items of Urgent Business were received.

Members of the Trust must declare any personal and/or prejudicial interests with respect to agenda items and must not participate in the consideration of those items.

No declarations of interest were made.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 14 May 2009 as a correct record.

RESOLVED:

That, subject to the amendment set out below and the inclusion of Linda McGurrin in the list of people present, the minutes of the meeting held on 14 May 2009 were confirmed as a correct record.

To elect a Vice-Chair for 2009/10.  

RESOLVED:

That Dave Grant  be appointed as Vice-Chair of the Children’s Trust for 2009/10.

The Chair thanks the previous Vice-Chair, Sue Baker, for her hard work in this role over the last two years.  

To elect a representative to the Haringey Strategic Partnership for 2009/10.

RESOLVED:

That Peter Lewis be appointed as the Children’s Trusts representative to the Haringey Strategic Partnership.

A presentation will also be made.  

The Trust received a report setting out proposals around the establishment of a Workforce Development Strategy.

It was noted that the JAR Action Plan had identified a number of workforce issues that needed to be addressed. The new Children and Young People’s Plan also provided an opportunity for the Trust to consider the needs of staff employed by organisations within its membership.

It was noted that the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) had produced advice with respect to workforce development and a presentation was provided on the framework developed by the CWDC to support the delivery of the five Every Child Matters outcomes.  The Trust was advised that the adoption of the framework provided a focal point for workforce development and acted provided a forum for generating and sharing ideas for improvement.

In response to concern expressed in relation to the establishment of a strategy the Chair noted that at the Away Day held in May the Trust had recognised that a better understanding of the work carried out by partners agencies was required. There had also been agreement that staff from all agencies should primarily see themselves as working together for children in the Borough. In order to achieve this there would need to be an agreed approach with respect to developing a more integrated workforce.

It was noted that the draft strategy did not set out in detail how it would be resourced and whether additional funding would be required. The Trust was advised consideration would need to be given to how the resources available to the Trust were allocated. Existing resources may need to be used differently to provide the joint training and other initiatives required to achieve a better integrated workforce.

The Trust discussed the establishment of a Workforce Development Strategy and there was a general consensus that there should be more detailed discussion around the financial implications and the practicalities of this at the Children’s Trust EPMG before more detailed proposals were considered by the Trust.  

RESOLVED:

That a the Children’s Trust EPMG should discuss the development of  Workforce Strategy in more detail, particularly with respect to the resources available and how these may need to be realigned and the

That options for developing the work

The Trust received a report that evaluated the Children and Young People’s Plan for 2006-9.

It was noted that the Evaluation was now in the final stages of drafting and that it would be published in September on the Council’s website and in hard copy. It was requested that Partners also made the document available on their respective websites.

The Trust discussed the Evaluation and it was suggested that the document should provide further analysis of where actions taken as part of the CYPP had resulted in successful outcomes and conversely where action had not resulted in any significant improvement. This would be useful in determining where resources should be targeting within the new CYPP.

The Chair noted that the Evaluation was a public document and therefore it might be more appropriate if more detailed financial information was provided in a report to the CT EPGM for consideration.

It was suggested that the new CYPP should build in evaluation and that milestones should be set and monitored to ensure that performance could be monitored through its life. It was proposed that milestones should also be aligned to spend to ensure that resources were being used as effectively as possible.

RESOLVED:

1. That the document set out in more detail where actions arising from the CYPP had made a positive impact.    

2. That the Evaluation of the Children and Young People’s Plan 2006-09 be noted.

3. That, once published in September, partners should make the document available on their respective websites.

The Trust received a report that provided an overview of progress in preparing the new CYPP which was due to be published in September.

It was noted that CYPP would consist of a Strategic Plan that would provide a long term strategic focus over a ten year period and a rolling three year Implementation Plan. The Trust would play a key role in determining how the funding available to the respective partner agencies was allocated and this would be expressed in a plan for the integration and alignment of budgets.

The Trust was advised that, line with DCSF guidance, a working group consisting of representatives of agencies across the Partnership, was looking at options for pooling and aligning existing budgets.   

It was noted that each respective agency would need to ensure that it had mechanisms in place to take forward decision made by the Trust with respect to the CYPP.

Concern was raised that there was insufficient reference to Child Poverty and how this would be addressed; given the current economic climate there was agreement that the approach to this issue should be set out in more detail and that addressing Child Poverty should be included within the ten year priorities listed within the document.

There was agreement that the CYPP should better reflect the overall context of what was happening around Children’s Services and that reference should be made to the JAR Action Plan and the findings of the Serious Case Review. This would illustrate more clearly the role that CYPP would play in achieving the overall aspirations.

Concern was raised that the focus on educational attainment should not be lost as this formed an important route out of poverty for many young people and there was agreement that this should be emphasised in the document.

In response to concerns that there issues relating to Drug and Alcohol abuse, domestic violence and had not been addressed within the document, it was noted that these issues had been picked up and would be reflected in the final document.

There was agreement that the CT EPMG should consider the financial aspects of the CYPP before document was finalised and approved by the Chair.  

RESOLVED:

1. That the Children and Young People’s Plan 2009-2020 be noted.

2. That Implementation Plan 2009-2012 be noted.

3. That approval of the final draft plans making up the Children and Young People’s Plan be delegated to the Chair of the Children’s Trust.
4. That the Children’s Trust should receive the final version of the CYPP for formal adoption.  

A presentation will be given by the Chair of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board.

The Trust received a verbal report from the Chair of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) on the key lessons to be learnt from the Serious Case Reviews (SCRs).

Serious Case Reviews: Overview

The Trust was advised that there were five key contributory factors identified as being common to SCRs:

Drug or Alcohol Abuse

Domestic Violence

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?

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Research into SCRs also showed that there were four common areas where organisations failed:

• Lack of capacity
• Competent and well managed staff
• Communication between agencies
• Ineffective governance structures and lack of leadership

Lessons from the Baby Peter SCR

The Trust was advised that the key criticism of the initial SCR into the death of Baby Peter, Chaired by the Director of Children’s Services, was that it had lacked challenge. In order to provide the critical eye required it was generally expected that an independent Chair should be appointed to lead SCRs.

It was recognised that in many cases where a child was abused or died the parents were superficially seen to be cooperating with Social Workers and were often highly adept at deceiving the agencies involved in monitoring the child.

Greater scepticism and less optimistic approach taken when dealing with parents carers was required and all agencies should be more prepared to challenge what they were being told, particularly if there were clear indicators that that contradicted what they were being told.

Another key finding issue to emerge was that the Safeguarding of children needed to better embedded throughout all organisations including schools and that information needed to shared and passed on where appropriate.  The perceived ‘hierarchy’ of proceedings often caused a delay or prevented information to be shared and this needed to be addressed.

The Chair of the LSCB concluded by advising the Trust that copies of the second SCR would be circulated and asked them to look at the section contained within this document that set out the lessons to be learnt.

The Chair thanked the Chair of the LSCB for his presentation and noted that there were lessons to be learnt by all of the agencies involved. At present the Chair was highlighting safeguarding issues with Head Teachers and school Governors.

The Chair also noted that it was important ensure that social workers and the other agencies involved in Adults Services were mindful of safeguarding children.

RESOLVED:

That the presentation be noted.

The Trust received a report that provided an overview of progress made in relation to the JAR Action Plan since the previous meeting.

It was noted that there had been a downturn in performance against the completion of Core Assessments and it was reported that this was due to a greater emphasis on quality.

The Trust was advised that the recent Ofsted assessment had found that whilst good progress had been made in some areas, there had not been sufficient progress in other areas and therefore the report concluded that overall, limited progress had been made.

It was noted that the timetable attached to the JAR Action Plan had slipped slightly and that this had largely been due to the backlog of cases, which was far greater than originally estimated. The refreshed JAR Action Plan took account of this and progress would be reviewed again by Ofsted in January 2010.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.

The Trust received a report that provided an overview of performance against the Local Area Agreement (LAA) National Indicators (NIs) within its responsibility during the first quarter of 2009/10.

The Trust was advised that when the report had been compiled not all of the performance data for the first Quarter had been available.   

It was noted that NI 59 and NI60, which respectively related to the number of initial assessments for children’s social care carried out within seven working days of referral and the number of core assessments for children’s social care carried out within thirty-five working days of their announcement, had been revised down. This had been necessary as the original targets had been based on false data and were not achievable.

The Chair advised that staff had been encouraged to provide quality assessments. There was a recognition that assessments may take longer to complete, particularly until the backlog of cases was cleared, but this approach was considered appropriate.

It was noted that there was no measure in place to monitor NI ??, which was measured by the Community Safety team and the Chair requested that officers resolved this prior to the next meeting.

The Trust was advised that the HSP Performance Management Group (PMG) would be taking a more rigorous approach to performance monitoring and would require an explanation of the actions being taken to address any areas of under performance from each of the Thematic Boards. Where targets were measured annually milestones should be set to track performance.

It was requested that an explanation with respect to any areas of underperformance within the next report and that this was also included within the report received by the CT EPMG.

It was suggested that performance information in relation NI59 and NI60 should be benchmarked against performance in other Local Authorities and that milestone should be created and reported in with respect to these indicators.

RESOLVED:

1. That the report be noted.

2. That future reports should include a full explanation of any areas of under performance and the remedial action being taken address this and that milestones should be included, where appropriate, to demonstrate progress.  

A verbal update will be provided.

The Trust was given a verbal update on the work of the Executive Performance Management Group (EPMG).

To consider the admission of any new items of AOB admitted by the Chair under Item 2 above.

No new items of Urgent Business were raised.

To raise any items of AOB.

No items of AOB were raised.

To note the following dates of future meetings:

• 5 October 2009
• 17 December 2009
• 9 February 2010
• 15 April 2010

The Trust was asked to note the following dates of future meetings:

• 5 October 2009
• 17 December 2009
• 9 February 2010
• 15 April 2010