Agenda item

Five Year Plan Outcome 5

Meeting of Education and Children's Services Scrutiny Panel, Thursday, 28th January, 2016 6.30 pm (Item 35.)

Minutes:

The report covered the last 6 months and the alteration of services which had arisen from the creation of the Slough Children’s Services Trust (SCST). The work to create a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) was ongoing, with its completion due in Summer 2016. The Children and Young People’s Partnership Board now had a new partnership plan and new sub groups.

Work on quality assurance and auditing of children’s social care cases had been the subject of significant efforts. Specific training had been given to social workers on creating SMART plans for cases and also on legal planning. On child sexual exploitation, work was ongoing and included efforts to improve the communications between partner organisations; a report on this would be taken by the Panel at its next meeting. The pressure on school places was an ongoing difficulty, and was being resolved through measures such as bulge classes.

In 2016, the focus of work would be on the areas where it would have the greatest immediate impact. SBC was offering support to SCST to ensure the best results, with the joint meeting of the Panel and Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 12^th January 2016 part of this. The meeting had taken a report detailing the findings of SCST’s initial audit of services, and those present had pledged their efforts to work alongside SCST. It was now acknowledged that corporate parenting had to improve, with a review of the area having started.

A sub group on female genital mutilation would be led by SBC, holding its first meeting on 9^th February 2016. This meeting would agree the strategy and raise awareness of the issue.

As the Cambridge Education contract ended, SCST would take on several aspects of its work. However, school improvement, admissions and other areas would require continued consideration on delivery.

The Panel raised the following points in discussion:

· Children and adolescent mental health services were experiencing long waits for referrals to receive treatment. Work was being undertaken by the Public Health Team to reduce these waiting times, but the fact that the service covered all of Berkshire limited the role of SBC in this. However, the progress on this could be shared with the Panel at a future meeting.

· Whilst changes in SBC’s approach to issues of safeguarding had been noted, more efforts were requested. For example, whilst licensing had taken on training taxi drivers on CSE, the extension of this in light of recent lapses in licensed hotels caused concern. In addition, some Members reported the need for more work to ensure that Councillors were covered by up-to-date DBS checks. A report on CSE would be presented to the Slough Local Children’s Safeguarding Board (SLSCB) on 11^th February 2016, but SBC acknowledged that the lack of information on the matter limited its knowledge on the local situation.

· Members requested ‘golden threads’ to run through SBC strategy’; for example, concerns were raised over the leisure strategy being aimed at over 14s. However, Members also expressed support for the presence of such consistent themes in the report.

· 17^th February 2016 would see the Ofsted report on Children’s Services and SLSCB published. SCST, SBC and SLSCB would all attend the next meeting on 16^th March 2016 to discuss this with the Panel.