Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received on behalf of the following members:

Andrew Kilpatrick

Councillor Nilgun Canver

Sue Baker

Dr Ita O’Donovan

The Chair will consider the admission of any late items of urgent business.  (Late items will be considered under the agenda item where they appear.  New items will be dealt with at Item 18 below).

None

Members must declare any personal and/or pecuniary interests with respect to agenda items and must not take part in any decision required with respect to these items. 

None

To approve the minutes of the Haringey Children & Young People’s Strategic Partnership Board meeting held on 20 November 2006 (attached).

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the last meeting of the HSP on 20 November 2006 be agreed and signed by the Chair.

A verbal report of the Haringey Chief Executive’s Policy, Partnership and Consultation Team.

The Board heard that following the open consultation on the Draft Sustainable Community Strategy, the document is being redrafted. The redrafted document would:

·                    Give greater prominence to issues around children and young people

·                    Have a greater focus on inequality and health inequalities.

·                    Be a document of two parts – the top strategy, supported by a more “technical” document that contains the action plans and targets.

·                    The redrafted document is to be discussed with the council’s Executive and the HSP Steering Group. The HSP Steering Group was set up to oversee and authorise the drafts.

·                    Comments from the CYPSPB can still be considered if they are received by 26 January 2007.

·                    The final strategy is scheduled to be published in April.

Further information is available from the Project Manager, Janice Robinson (janice.robinson@haringey.gov.uk).

Report of Children & Young People’s Service.

This item was a revisit to the Board as improvements had been made since the Board last considered it, and it would go before the Board at its absolute final stage. A bid to the BLF would be made in March 2007 after the Strategy had gone through the Council’s Executive. Concerns over the term “play” as opposed to “leisure” were raised and taken on board by the project team managing the Strategy.

Report of the Safer Communities Unit (to follow)

The Board had received three reports focussed on safer schools issues and various projects. The Board was informed that funding had been gained up to March 2008, but that more was needed once this date had past. The importance of securing this funding for the benefit of continuity of the good work done so far was highlighted by the Board. The Board also heard that SCF would be ending in 2008, in large part going directly to schools and that this transition would need to be considered by the Board in due course.

RESOLVED

That the reports be noted in order for thinking on future funding to continued.

Report of the Director of Children & Young People’s Service.

The Board was informed that the draft post-JAR Action Plan had been developed but that there was still work in progress. The Board noted that good progress had been made especially in the evaluation of social workers. The Action Plan would not be brought back to the Board once it had been finalised, but it would be subjected to internal exception reporting.

Report of Deputy Director Children & Young People’s Service (to be tabled at meeting)

The Board heard that this report was unavailable at present and would be brought to the Board at its meeting on 22 March 2007. The Board noted that the Council’s Youth Member Working Group also received this report for monitoring.

Report of Children & Young People’s Service (to be tabled at meeting)

This will be a verbal report of the Director of Children & Young People’s Service.

The Board were invited to reconsider the twenty priorities of the Changing Lives plans as it approached it’s second year and thus taking into account the following:

·                    The Local Area Agreement targets and stretch targets especially in terms of partners’ inputs.

·                    The costs associated to each of the priorities.

·                    Childrens Trust arrangements

The Board split into small work-groups to consider these issues before feeding back their thoughts as follows:

·                    It was felt that the current plan used included some “woolly” outcomes.

·                    The plan should include language that emphasised positive improvement/direction of travel.

·                    Consideration over developing the role of external partners’ roles to ensure positive contribution in the outcomes.

·                    A spread of best practice by focussing not just on Council related activities, but also on partner activities.

·                    Work on focussing on preventative work rather than reactive especially in terms of mental health.

·                    Information on costs needed.

·                    Ensure that the headline priorities remain up-to-date and relevant according to the information that becomes available.

·                    Time based specific outcomes needed.

·                    Consideration of a risk assessment for short-term funded priorities.

·                    Consideration of hierarchy around priorities to ensure a domino effect starting with the hard hitting priorities that will stimulate others.

·                    In terms of some specific priorities within the current plan, the following was suggested:

o       Add “learning” to priority three – improve outcomes for children and young people with “learning” disabilities.

o       Add “alcohol dangers” to priority eight

o       Priority 11 to be reviewed in line with new targets

o       Priority 19 to be reversed in its approach in order to express a positive impact, ie to increase the number of young people between the ages 16-19 who are in education, employment or training, especially those looked after by the local authority.

The Board heard that these comments would be taken on board during the redrafting of the plan.

Report of Children & Young People’s Service.

The Board was given a summary of the situation by with responsibility for the services currently delivered by Connexions, and the funding that goes with it, will progressively transfer to local authorities between now and 2008. This would also be a target for the LAA. In terms of the transition, there were four option models available to manage this. The Board heard that option 4 (a hybrid of in-sourcing and out-sourcing), and that it had been agreed with neighbouring boroughs to maintain the status quo until April 2008. The Report before the Board highlighted weaknesses of the current Connexions service, but the Board heard that work had been done to rectify these with plans in place to address the weaknesses in all areas identified which was not reflected in the Report. It was agreed to update and undertake to reflect these efforts and improvements before the Report went to the Council’s Executive. The Board heard that improvements to performance were vital and that the ad-hoc group on NEETS which was being set up by the Haringey Strategic Partnership would report on this.

RESOLVED

That the Report be agreed subject to said updates.

Report of the Director of Children & Young People’s Service.

The Board heard that the Learning Safeguarding Children Board had been functioning generally well and that its core membership had been achieved which included an element of direct young people involvement. A DVD had been produced raising awareness of safeguarding which had aided a popular training programme. The Board also heard that there had been no serious case reviews held in Haringey to date in 2006/7. The Board finally heard that as the LSCB is funded through a pooled budget, future funding contributions would be sought from partners.

Report of  Children & Young People’s Service.

The Board was given an update on what projects would need to be carried on in 2007/8 but with £100k less in the NRF budget that the current year. After discussion about various projects included in the funding, including funding for the Muslim Cohesion Group and supplementary schooling, the Board agreed to receive the 2008/9 plan at its meeting in September 2007 in order to incorporate/rectify some of the concerns identified – one of which was to link allocations of NRF to the LAA.

Report of Children & Young People’s Service.

The Board heard that the final LAA submission to GOL was nearing completion – awaiting final agreement on a small handful of stretch targets which would need to be measurable before signing off the agreement.

RESOLVED

The Board agreed to the following recommendations:

·                    To note the report and the current children and young people’s LAA

·                    To note the need to monitor future progress of the LAA and carry this out via the quarterly Changing Lives performance monitoring reports

Report of Children & Young People’s Service (to follow)

The Board was given an updated summary of the work being carried out on expanding the Children’s Network pilot into the borough which will streamline and fast-track child protection systems – ultimately building a “team around the child”. The Board also heard that guidance had been produced in order highlight the new processes. Evaluation systems would also be in-place going forward, in order to ensure deliverability and improvements.

RESOLVED

The Board agreed to the following recommendations:

·                    To continue to endorse the work in progress

·                    That individual agencies within the CYPSP continue to review their own practice in relation to delivering the “team around the child” approach and reflect the move to more integrated service delivery within their own planning processes.

·                    To continue to monitor the implementation of the Children’s Networks approach and request a further update in April 2007.

·                    An invite was extended to partners to the HAVCO CYP VCS Theme Group Event to be held on 6 February 2007 between 12:30 and 4:30pm at the Selby Centre.

To consider any new items admitted under Item 2 above.

None.

·     12 March 2007 at 6:30pm

·     14 May 2007 at 6.30pm

The following dates for future meetings of the CYPSPB were confirmed as follows:

·                    12 March 2007, 6:30pm

·                    14 May 2007, 6:30pm

Partners should submit proposed agenda items for the next meeting (12 March 2007) to Nicolas Mattis (nicolas.mattis@haringey.gov.uk) no later than 9 February 2006.

Partners wishing to put forward items for a future agenda are asked to contact Nicolas Mattis, Principal Committee Co-ordinator at: nicolas.mattis@haringey.gov.uk