Agenda and minutes

Venue: Civic Centre, High Road, Wood Green, N22 8LE. View directions

Contact: Philip Slawther, Principal Committee Co-ordinator 

Items
No. Item

12.

FILMING AT MEETINGS

Please note this meeting may be filmed or recorded by the Council for live or subsequent broadcast via the Council’s internet site or by anyone attending the meeting using any communication method.  Although we ask members of the public recording, filming or reporting on the meeting not to include the public seating areas, members of the public attending the meeting should be aware that we cannot guarantee that they will not be filmed or recorded by others attending the meeting.  Members of the public participating in the meeting (e.g. making deputations, asking questions, making oral protests) should be aware that they are likely to be filmed, recorded or reported on.  By entering the meeting room and using the public seating area, you are consenting to being filmed and to the possible use of those images and sound recordings.

 

The Chair of the meeting has the discretion to terminate or suspend filming or recording, if in his or her opinion continuation of the filming, recording or reporting would disrupt or prejudice the proceedings, infringe the rights of any individual, or may lead to the breach of a legal obligation by the Council.

Minutes:

The Chair referred Members present to agenda Item 1 as shown on the agenda in respect of filming at this meeting, and Members noted the information contained therein’.

13.

Apologies for absence (if any)

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Dr Fayrus Abrusrwil & Jo Moses

 

14.

Urgent Business

The Chair will consider the admission of late items of urgent business. Late items will be considered under the agenda item they appear. New items will be dealt with at item 11 below.

Minutes:

None.

15.

Declarations of interest

A member with a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered must disclose to that meeting the existence and nature of that interest at the commencement of that consideration, or when the consideration becomes apparent.

 

A member with a personal interest in a matter also has a prejudicial interest in that matter the interest is one which a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard as so significant that it is likely to prejudice the member’ judgement of the public interest.  

Minutes:

None.

16.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 83 KB

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 20th March 2018.

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on 20th March were AGREED.

 

The Committee enquired whether Members could come visit an Aspire meeting as part of the wider orientation process. The Chair suggested that this should be done as part of a wider training programme. It was also suggested that members of the Committee should meet with the YAS service.

 

17.

Feedback from the meeting with Aspire

Minutes:

Subsidised leisure facility access for LAC to come back to March meeting including monitoring arrangements.

 

Aspire pledge launch to be taken to Full Council.

 

Discussion to take place about venue for future Aspire meetings.

 

NOTED: The suggested areas for future discussion from the meeting with Aspire. Each one to be the focus of a discussion at upcoming CPAC meeting.

 

  • Safety and how the Committee can support LAC and their foster carers to feel safe. Knife crime.
  • Support in accessing employment.
  • Access to youth services.

 

18.

Role of Corporate Parenting and introduction to Aspire pdf icon PDF 142 KB

Minutes:

RECEIVED a report from the Director of Children’s Services setting out the role of councillors in respect of looked after children as corporate parents.  Report included in the agenda pack (pages 5 to 6). 

 

NOTED in response to the discussion:

 

  • The Committee sought assurances around care leavers and some of the challenges faced in terms of the Council maintaining contact with care leavers. Officers acknowledged these concerns, particularly in the 22-25 age group and advised that there were a number of reasons why contact was difficult to maintain. This included instances where those young people did not want to be found, such as in the case of failed asylum applications. In some instances, officers had only a name and a last known address to work from.
  • In response to further discussion on care leavers, officers advised that the majority of care leavers did want to maintain some form of contact with the Council. It was suggested that this reflected favourably on the service. Following a change in policy last year, the Council kept files open on care leavers after they turned 21 as the default position and this had helped the service to keep in contact with more care leavers. Officers advised that this had some resource implications which were being worked through.

 

AGREED to note the report.

 

 

19.

Corporate Parenting Training

Verbal update.

 

Minutes:

The Committee received a verbal update on training available for corporate parenting members.

The Committee noted that there were a number of training programmes available through the Department for Education.  The DCS agreed that officers would go back to the DfE and see exactly what was on offer. Officers agreed to contact members outside of the meeting to arrange this. (Action: Ann Graham/Sarah Alexander).

The DCS advised that she would also like to implement Total Respect training in the future but this was something to be considered in the medium term. Officers advised that they had come across this elsewhere and they had a favourable impression of it.

Following a discussion, the Committee agreed to undertaken visits and/or training in the following areas:

·         Aspire visit

·         YAS/care leavers

·         Health Centre for CIC

·         UASC

·         Foster carers

·         IROs

·         CAMHS

Committee Members to come back to the Chair with any further areas that they would like training on. (Action: ALL).

Officers suggested that the Committee could speak to someone who was adopted or even a chair of the adoption panel. 

 

The Committee suggested undertaking one session a month and the Chair requested that she would like these to start before the next time the Committee meets. (Action: Ann Graham/Sarah Alexander).

 

20.

CPAC Priorities

Verbal update.

 

Minutes:

The Committee received a verbal update on CPAC Priorities.

The Committee noted the priorities as put forward by Aspire at the earlier meeting. Namely; safety issues/knife crime, youth unemployment and access to youth centre facilities. A further discussion area suggested was placement stability. Officers also suggested that Drive Forward would be a useful organisation to invite to the employment discussion. The Chair suggested that future Committee meetings would focus on one of these areas. The Committee agreed to discuss safety/knife crime at the next meeting in October. (Action: Sarah Alexander/Aspire).

Officers advised that schools had recently received a questionnaire on knife crime and it was suggested that this should be included as part of the discussion. The Chair suggested that it would also be helpful to have the police come to the next meeting. The Chair requested that a paper be brought to the next meeting as part of the knife crime/safety discussion. (Action: Ann Graham).

The Chair requested that the Committee meet with Aspire during the summer holidays, as part of the training programme. (Action: Chair/Aspire).

 

21.

DIY Workshops

Verbal update.

 

Minutes:

The Director of Housing Demand (HfH) updated the Committee on the HfH home maintenance course. The Committee was advised that Homes for Haringey’s Housing Repairs Service ran a day long DIY workshop in May. Ten care leavers attended the event which sought to raise basic awareness of what being a tenant involved, including an understanding of how to maintain a home and safety issues. HfH’s Employment Team also attended and offered employment, training and apprenticeship opportunities. The Committee noted that the event received overwhelmingly positive feedback.

Further dates have been set for 1st November 2018 and 30th January 2019.

 

22.

Performance Report pdf icon PDF 335 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

RECEIVED a report from the AD Safeguarding and Social Care, Sarah Alexander, which set out an analysis of performance data and trends for an agreed set of measures relating to looked after children. Report included in the agenda pack (pages 7-23).

 

 NOTED in response to the discussion:

  • The Committee sought clarification on what constituted unsuitable accommodation for care levers. The DCS agreed to email the Committee with details of what constituted suitable and unsuitable accommodation, as well as the number of care leavers this involved. (Action: Ann Graham)
  • The Committee enquired about the difference between children in care who were absent and those who were missing. Officers characterised absent as when the location of the child was known but they had not returned home at a designated time. Whereas, missing was more serious and the child had failed to return and their location was unknown. The Chair advised that missing children was a key indicator and reflected a high level of risk for the young person/s involved. Cases of missing children were monitored closely, involved multi-agency input and a full report was prepared for the Chair in each case.
  • The Committee sought clarification on the seemingly disproportionate ethnic background of children represented by the adoption figures. Officers acknowledged that data was not reflective of wider demographics and agreed to come back to the Committee with further details. The DCS agreed to feed back further information on the numbers and ethnic make-up of children up for adoption/placement orders, as well as the reasons behind this. (Action: Ann Graham)

 

23.

Update on Ofsted and JTAI

Verbal update.

 

Minutes:

The Committee received a verbal update from the Director of Children’s Services on the Ofsted Joint Targeted Area Inspection that took place in December. The Committee was advised that officers worked with partners to put in place an action plan in response to the JTAI. The service met with Ofsted in June 2017 and a follow visit could take place at any time after the completion of two school terms, which would be September.

The Chair requested that there be a regular update on Ofsted at future committee meetings (Action: Clerk).

In response to a question about the impact of the JTAI report, officers advised that the report was an evidence base for areas of improvements and it was envisaged that the report would be a catalyst for change. Officers also highlighted the need for partner organisations to shoulder more responsibility for what happened in social care. Partner agencies had engaged with the joint action plan and shown a willingness to work together to improve.

 

24.

Government funding for previously looked-after children and care leavers apprenticeship bursary pdf icon PDF 146 KB

Minutes:

The Committee NOTED a report outlining changes to the funding of care leavers who started apprenticeships. The report also set out the introduction of a new duty on local authorities, under the Children and Social Work Act 2017, to promote the education of some categories of previously looked after children. The duty would come into force on 1 September 2018, with funding supplied by the DfE. It also required local authorities to appoint an officer to make sure the duty was properly discharged.

The Committee was advised that all local authorities had been given an additional £30k. In response to a question, officers advised that this was on a per annum basis rather than a one-off.

The Committee queried whether the definition of LAC in paragraph 2.2 of the report should, be no longer looked after by a local authority in England and Wales ‘or’ adopted from state care outside England and Wales, rather than ‘and’  adopted from state care outside England and Wales. Officers agreed to clarify this with Legal colleagues. (Action: Sarah Alexander).

In response to a query, officers clarified that the DfE were setting up a £1000 bursary payment for care leavers starting an apprenship.

The Committee enquired what the Council was doing to promote work placed apprenticeships in the borough and how care leavers could feed into this. The Chair agreed to take this away and give it some further consideration. (Action: Chair).

RESOLVED

 

  1. That the Committee noted that a detailed needs analysis of the educational needs of previously looked-after children eligible for support would be undertaken before any decision was taken on what services to offer and how.
  2. That the Committee noted that a multi-agency stakeholder group would meet to consider the implications of the care leavers apprenticeship bursary and how this would be advertised.

 

25.

Regionalisation of Adoption pdf icon PDF 180 KB

Minutes:

The Committee NOTED a report setting out the current position regarding the regionalisation of adoption.

Four Local Authorities had volunteered to be the hosts for the four London Regional Adoption Agencies (North, South, East and West) in a hub and spoke model. Each of the four London Regional Adoption Agencies (RAAs) had their own project teams to develop local arrangements. Haringey was part of the North London Adoption RAA, hosted by Islington (Haringey, Islington, Barnet, Enfield and Hackney). The Committee considered that there were a number of issues to clarify before the RAA could become an operational entity, such as finance, HR, performance, IT and commissioning.

 

In response to a question, the Committee was advised that this could well involve some transfer of staff, however the details were still to be determined.

 

A final decision was expected to come to Cabinet in September.

 

26.

New Items of Urgent Business

As per item 3.

Minutes:

None.

27.

Any other business

 

 

Date of next meeting

Minutes:

There were no items of any other business.

 

 

Future meetings

 

The next meeting of the Committee is 29th October.

 

The meeting ended at 20:45 hours.