Agenda and minutes

1.1  Apologies for absence were received from:

-  Cllr Clare Joseph

-  Cllr Soraya Adejare

-  Shuja Shaik

-  Graham Hunter

-  Michael Lobenstein

-  Ernell Watson

1.2    Apologies for lateness were received from:

-  - Cllr Clare Potter

2.1   At item 6, Children Social Care B-Annual Report, an update would also be provided to the Commission on the outcome of the recent focused visit of children’s social care by Ofsted.

3.1 The following declarations were received by members:

·  Cllr Chauhan was a teacher at secondary school in another London borough and a member of the NEU.

·  Cllr Peters was a governor at the Garden School.

·  Cllr Gordon was an Advisory Lawyer for DWP

·  Jo Macleod was a governor of a local primary school.

3.2 Cllr Gordon indicated that given her role as an Advisory Lawyer for DWP, she would have a conflict of interest in the discussion of Free School Meals at item 4 and would therefore leave the room.

4.1 The Chair welcomed Annie Gammon, Sarah Morgan, Anton Francic, and

Tim Wooldridge to this meeting. 

4.2 Each year the Commission receives an update on pupil achievement at schools across Hackney which records achievement at Early Years Foundation, Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4. This report will allow the Commission to have year-on-year oversight of pupil performance in Hackney.  The following is a summary of key points from this discussion.

Early Years Foundation Stage

4.3 Early Years Foundation stage assessment is at age 5 which is carried out at all maintained schools, free schools, academies and independent schools.  In this context this assessment is different to others (KS1, KS2 etc.) as this includes children from the independent sector.  The main measure in this assessment is known as the ‘good level of development’ (GLD).  A child has achieved a GLD if it reached the expected standard in:

·  Communication and language;

·  Literacy and Maths;

·  Physical development;

·  Personal, social and emotional development.

4.4 In 2018, 70.1% of children in Hackney at age 5 had reached a GLD which was 1.4% lower than the national average, which ranked the borough 101^st out of all local authorities and 29^th in London.

4.5 It was highlighted to the Commission, that when children that attend PVI settings are excluded, the percentage of children which achieve a GLD in Hackney is 77% which is substantially higher than the national average.  At Table 4 in the submitted report, the Commission noted that the proportion of children that achieved a GLD from the PVI sector in 2018 was significantly lower (27%) than those in maintained settings (77%).  Therefore this figure depressed the overall result for children that had achieved a GLD in Hackney.

Questions

4.6 The Commission sought to understand why the PVI sector was underperforming in comparison to maintained sector for children that had achieved a GLD.  It was noted that many of the independent schools were in the Charedi community where many children had English as a second language.  This would inevitably present language and communication issues for children at these schools as the tests were undertaken in English and assessed English language skills.  It was also suggested that, unlike the maintained sector, there was no requirement for Qualified Teachers to be present in the independent sector.  Thirdly, the curriculum in Charedi independent schools was substantially different  to that offered in mainstream settings, in that the curriculum focused on just two areas the Khol (secular) and the Kodesh religious) which meant that there was less time devoted to English language and literacy.

4.7 In light of the issues outlined above, the Commission questioned officers on what development work had taken place to help improve performance of children within the independent sector, particularly those from the Charedi community.  It was reported that Early Years’ service had worked with all schools and practitioners within the independent sector to develop the teaching of phonics and English.  It was acknowledged however, that these barriers remained significant and work  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.1 The Chair welcomed Sarah Wright and Korinna Steele to the meeting.

5.2 It was reported to the Commission that for a number of years the Council has been reliant on the independent foster carers to care for looked after children in Hackney.  It was estimated that some 2/3 of placements were made with an independent foster carer rather than a foster carer working for the Council.  Because of cost and quality issues, the Council had been trying to redress this imbalance and increase in-house provision.  With the exception of about 19 or 20 children in residential care, the majority of children in the care of the authority are looked after by a foster carer. 

5.3 The Director noted that the service had recruited just 15 new foster carers this year which was below the target of 23 set and agreed by the Commissions review in 2018. As there had been no resignations from the internal pool of foster carers however, this would show a net increase of 15 which was better than expected.  The Commission also noted that the service was also recruiting higher numbers of foster carers than neighbouring boroughs.  Significant challenges in recruiting foster carers remain, however most significant is the current housing pressures, where few people have spare bedrooms to enable them to foster.

5.4 The Director reported that progress had been made on all of the recommendations made by the Commission and highlighted a number of key developments:

- The sufficiency strategy was being updated and would be finalised by the summer;

- The service is still working to increase the number of Level 2 and level 3 foster carers in the internal pool - this year 4 have moved to level 2 and 2 have moved to level 3;

- The service has undertaken some targeted recruitment within the LGBTQi community and among single people and have received more applications from single male foster carers this year;

- The service has adopted the policy of making larger council rented properties available to foster carers who want to foster more children and one family has moved into a larger property this year;

- The housing service had not however been able to provide additional housing to enable older children in fostering households to move out and allow the foster parent to take on more foster children;

- A dedicated officer has been employed to specifically match looked after children with the Council’s in-house team of foster carers which has resulted in a 12.5% rise in the number of children looked after by an in-house foster carer;

- A Mockingbird Model trial was being developed and the hub-carer had been recruited and the model had been well received by foster carers and this model would officially launch in spring 2019;

- The service was now part of a consortium with other east London boroughs to improve commissioning arrangements (quality and costing) for high need care placements;

-  The service continued to work in partnership with its  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Ofsted focused visit to children’s social care

6.1 The Chair welcomed the Group Director for Children, Families and Community Health to the meeting and Director of Children and Families who would update the Commission on the outcome of the recent focused visit to the Children and Families Service.

6.2 The Commission understood that the current HMI Ofsted inspection regime for children’s social care operated on a three year cycle.  An Inspection of Local Authority Children Services (ILACS) would take place at some point within the three year cycles.  The last Ofsted inspection undertaken in Hackney was in 2016.  In the intervening years it is expected that a ‘focused visit’ or a Joint Targeted Area Inspection (JTAI) would take place. 

6.3 HMI Ofsted undertook a focused visit in February 2019.  The focus of this visit was on ‘children on child protection and child in need’ plans. This was welcomed by the service as this was a very complicated and challenging area of service provision for which external assessment would be beneficial.  The visit took place over 2 days and the visit focused on an analysis of casework in this service, where inspectors mostly talked to social workers, as well as social work managers and senior managers. 

6.4 As a result of the focused visit a number of priority actions were identified by inspectors which required the authority take ‘swift and decisive’ action to address weaknesses in child protection.  These were:

- The timeliness and effectiveness of social work practice and interventions to safeguard children from harm;

- The quality and effectiveness of managerial oversight and supervision to ensure that children’s circumstances improve within their timeframe.

6.5 Whilst the inspectors identified a number of strengths in the service including good social work practice, good social work assessments and social work support, the review of more complex cases suggested that improvements could be made to the way these families were supported.  It was noted however, that none of the cases reviewed identified children at risk or which required immediate remedial action.

6.6 As a result of the focused visit, Ofsted identified a number of areas which required improvement;

- Children’s daily lived experiences to be central to all work;

- The application of thresholds to protect children on child in need plans when risks escalate or children’s circumstances do not improve within children’s timeframes;

- Performance data regarding the timeliness and impact of social work practice to improve children’s circumstances;

- Plans to be more specific and detailed about what needs to change and by when;

- The greater consideration of men, including abusive partners, in risk assessments.

6.7 It was acknowledged that the outcome of this focused visit had come as a surprise to the service, as the internal audit and evaluations procedures employed within the service gave no indication that this was an area of weakness.  In light of this, the service would be checking and validating internal audit processes to ensure that these remained robust.

6.8 The service recognised that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.1 Matters arising from the minutes:

- The new guidance on sex and relationship education had been circulated to the Commission.

- A letter on the outcomes and recommendations of the support to LGBT young people at school in Hackney to  the Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Children’s Services was still being drafted, but would be circulated to the Commission once agreed.

7.2 The minutes were agreed.

8.1   The Commission noted that the final report of the Exclusions review would be presented at June meeting as evidence was still being collected for this work.

8.2  The work programme to the end of the municipal year was agreed.

9.1 There was no other business.

9.2 The date of the next meeting was the 30^th April 2019.

  The meeting closed at 10.05pm.