Agenda item

Members to consider and provide comments on the draft Corporate Parenting Strategy

The Committee considered the draft Corporate Parenting Strategy. The Strategy would also be considered by the Corporate Parenting Scrutiny Review panel towards the end of February to allow incorporation of comments from the recent Ofsted inspection. The finalised version would then be resubmitted to CPAC for final clearance prior to submission to Cabinet for approval. It was noted that an action plan would sit under the Strategy to guide implementation.

Concerns were expressed that there were currently no formal mechanisms or channels in place for Council officers to pass on the views of LACs on the services they were receiving to the Committee so any concerns, issues or trends could be identified and acted on as set out in the Strategy. The Committee requested that these arrangements be formalised in the action plan through identification of a dedicated officer. The same comment was made in relation to formalising arrangements for CPAC to fulfil the stated responsibility to oversee implementation of the strategy.

The Committee were concerned at the lack of identification of specific strategic objectives under the Strategy although it was noted that the results of the Scrutiny Review and the Ofsted inspection were integral to this. The Committee identified some draft objectives that they considered the Strategy should aim to achieve:

·      Governance and the involvement of other agencies

·      Arrangements to ensure the voice of young people were heard and feedback provided

·      Commissioning

·      Revisiting the approach to missing young people including benchmarking approaches with other authorities

·      Improving Children’s Homes

·      Supporting the resilience of LACs in light of the economic climate

·      Achieving value for money across the service.

It was highlighted that the Committee had requested at a previous meeting an amendment to their current terms of reference through the addition of the word ‘safety’ to the third item. The sentence should thereby read ‘to seek to ensure that the life chances of children in care are maximised in terms of health, safety, educational attainment and access to training and employment to aid the transition to a secure and fulfilling adulthood’. This change should be reflected in the Strategy.

It was proposed that the Strategy make reference to arrangements to support the social development of LACs including assigning clear responsibilities and potential guidelines for behaviour.

Discussions were held on how engagement could be improved in the area of corporate parenting for Council staff not working in the Children and Young People’s Service. It was considered that this should be an area for focus and challenge under the Scrutiny Review and also for the operational group sitting below CPAC to allow arrangements to be put in place to reaffirm the collective responsibility for corporate parenting across the organisation.

In relation to communicating with LACs on the Council’s role as a corporate parent, it was confirmed that work would be undertaken with a group of young people to distil the finalised Strategy into an easily understandable format. The Committee also asked for a progress update on the development of a leaflet for LACs setting out the Council’s corporate parenting role, the role of Members and of CPAC which had been requested at a previous meeting.