Agenda and minutes

1.1 Councillor Sophie Conway was nominated for the position of Chair by Cllr Ajay Chauhan and was seconded by Cllr Katie Hanson.  There being no other nominations, Cllr Conway was duly elected to the position of Chair of the Commission.

1.2 Cllr Margaret Gordon was nominated for the position of Vice Chair by Cllr Sophie Conway and was seconded by Cllr Ajay Chauhan.  There being no other nominations, Cllr Gordon was duly elected to the position of the Vice Chair of the Commission.

2.1 Apologies for absence were received from:

-  Cllr Clare Joseph

-  Cllr Sharon Patrick

-  Cllr Caroline Woodley

-  Cllr James Peters

2.2 Apologies for lateness were received from:

-  Cllr Clare Potter

-  Cllr Sade Etti

-  Shuja Shaikh

3.1 There were no late or urgent items of business.

4.1 The following declarations were received by members of the Commission:

-  Cllr Conway was a Development Manager for Just for Kids Law;

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

-  Graham Hunter declared that he was a Governor of the Primary Advantage Federation.

5.1 In February 2019, Ofsted conducted a focused visit to the Children and Families Service (CFS) in Hackney.  At this visit Ofsted assessed the support provided to children on a Child Protection plan and to children in need. Ofsted identified a number of priority actions from this visit for which CFS were required to develop an action plan.  At its meeting in March 2019, the Commission agreed that the action plan would be presented for scrutiny once completed.

5.2 Officers presented the action plan and updated the Commission on work that had taken place in CFS in response to the Ofsted focused visit.  A summary of the key discussion points discussed are presented below.

-  The action plan was submitted for review at the end of March 2019, and Ofsted agreed that the plan would meet the priority actions identified from the focused visit;

-  Since the Ofsted visit, CFS had undertaken wide ranging engagement with front-line staff and managers to ensure that there was an awareness of the outcomes of the visit, to keep staff sighted to the developmental actions needed, but also to provide reassurance and support in what was acknowledged to be challenging situation;

-  Task and finish groups had been established to deliver improvements in three key areas: performance, systems and data; practice development; management oversight;

-  It was noted that a new IT performance monitoring system had been launched since the Ofsted visit and would be fully functional once a few minor operational glitches had been resolved;

-  In terms of practice development, plans developed for children in need or on a Child Protection plan were more outcome-focused, so that family progress could be measured more accurately;

-  In terms of management oversight, a number of new defined check-points had been agreed to enable managers to review progress against the agreed outcomes for children and their families;

-  The Family Information Support Service (FISS) had reviewed 175 cases which had been open for 9 months or longer, in 26 of these cases, actions needed to be accelerated, whilst in 55 cases, the case could have been closed;

-  CFS had also engaged CHSCB to understand how the wider safeguarding partnership could contribute to meeting the priority actions set out by Ofsted (e.g. timely actions and reporting) and a series of workshops were planned across the partnership to support this;

-  CFS had also developed a number of critical questions to embed within internal and external partners’ practice to ensure appropriate support (p7 of agenda report pack);

-  CFS continued to track its progress against the targets set out in the action plan and held monthly meetings with the lead Cabinet member to support this review;

-  CFS planned to visit a number of other local authorities to inform comparative assessment of services and further inform the development of best practice in Hackney.

Questions

5.3 Have any external specialist consultants been deployed to help CFS respond to priority actions identified by Ofsted?

-  It was noted  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.1 School Admissions is a fixed item and taken annually on the Children and Young People Scrutiny Commission agenda.  Officers had prepared a report on admissions to Reception and transfer to Secondary School, together with a commentary on school place planning and how the Council meets its duty to provide sufficient school capacity for children resident in Hackney.  A summary of the key points from the presentation are highlighted below:

Primary Transfer

-  For admission to reception, there had been 153 fewer applications than in the previous year and this continued a downward trend established in 2016.  Future projections however, would suggest that this trend may be reversed next year where a slight increase was anticipated;

-  98.3% of parents applied on-line which was very encouraging;

-  In terms of meeting parental preferences, a slight decrease was recorded for all preferences1-4, though the borough continues to outperform the pan-London average;

-  Of the 492 children that did not have any of their preferences met, these were allocated a school, most of which was to their nearest school to their home address which had a vacancy.

Secondary Transfer

-  There were 2,493 children in this cohort, which was 103 fewer than in 2018;

-  85.2% of children who expressed a first choice, nominated a Hackney school;

-  304 local children were offered a school place outside the borough and 326 children outside the borough were offered a place at a Hackney school, both of these figures are similar to that recorded for previous years;

-  2,164 (86.8%) children obtained a place in their 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd preference school which was slightly higher than in 2018, however, slightly fewer children in Hackney had their 1^st or 2^nd preference school met compared to pan London average;

-  166 children did not get a place at any of their preferred choice of schools and were allocated a school nearest to them with a vacancy – further analysis of these figures by postcode and band group demonstrated that lower band children (in bands C and D) were less likely to get a place in school of their choice.

Place Planning

-  As a result of falling reception rolls a number of primary schools were operating at below capacity.  In response, the admissions numbers in some schools had been temporarily capped.  The reductions were temporary given the uncertainty of population predictions.

Questions

6.2 Can you explain why two schools (Skinners and Mossbourne Riverside) recorded a high number of out of borough students given places?

-  This was because both of these schools were on the boundary with other local authorities (Haringey and Tower Hamlets respectively).

6.3 What was known about the school preferences for children with SEND?  Many children with additional needs may be on a SEND register but not qualify for an EHC plan, how are these children supported in obtaining the school of their choice?

-  Generally, SEND children with EHCP’s should get their preferred school so  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.1 An assessment of the sufficiency of local childcare is a fixed item and taken annually on the Children and Young People Scrutiny Commission agenda. The purpose of the item is for officers to provide assurance that there is sufficient childcare capacity to meet local needs. 

7.2 Officers provided a verbal update to the Commission, the key points from this presentation are highlighted below.

-  The local authority has a duty under the 2006 Childcare Act to ‘secure sufficient childcare, so far as is reasonably practicable, for working parents, or parents who are studying or training for employment, for children aged 0-14 (or up to 18 for disabled children)’;

-  This duty was extended under the Childcare Act 2016 to ensure that parents had access to free entitlement childcare (30 hours and 15 hours);

-  The most recent Childcare Sufficiency Assessment was competed in 2018 and the next full report will be due in 2020;

-  Officers reported that the overall the picture for childcare in Hackney was healthy as there were sufficient places to meet current demand and that there was sufficient capacity in the system should take-up increase;

7.3 Two, three and four year olds can obtain childcare in a number of settings including private, voluntary or independent nurseries; maintained nursery schools or nursery classes in primary schools or with childminders.  Table 1 below was presented to the Commission.  This highlighted that:

-  A small increase in the number of Childminders and PVI settings was recorded between 2017 and 2019;

-  There were 129 private, voluntary and independent (PVI) childcare settings;

-  The number of maintained nurseries and state funded primary schools with nursery classes had remained the broadly the same.

Table 1: Number of schools, settings and childminders 2017-2019

7.4 Take up of the 3 and 4 year 15 hours free childcare entitlement was 87%, whilst take up of the 2 year old 15 hour free childcare entitlement (for most vulnerable children) was at 60%.  The Commission noted that the number of two year olds accessing the free childcare entitlement had increased from 1,040 in 2016 to 1,360 in 2018. 

7.5 Updates from the DWP were regularly issued on those local families which were eligible for the 2 year old free childcare.  This enabled local services (Early Years) to target these families to ensure that they were aware of this entitlement and to support them to access childcare services.

7.6 From September 2017, working parents of 3 and four year olds were entitled to up to 30 hours of free childcare.  The number of parents taking up this free entitlement has continued to grow; in January 2018 (3 months after introduction) 1,476 children were accessing their free 30 hour childcare entitlement but this had grown to 1,918 by January 2019.

7.7 In terms of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

8.1 The Officer updated the Commission on the development of the work programme for 2019/20. 

8.2 There were a number of standing items which required regular oversight by the Commission and would be taken through the year.  These items were:

-  Children Social Care – Bi-Annual Report (twice)

-  Annual Update on Pupil Achievement

-  School Admissions & Childcare Sufficiency

-  City & Hackney Safeguarding Children Board – Annual Report

-  Annual Cabinet Member Question Time - Cllr Bramble and Cllr Kennedy

8.3 In addition, a number of items had been agreed from the 2018/19 work programme into the 2019/20 work programme.  These were:

-  Ofsted Focused Visit – Action Plan

-  Off-rolling

-  Support to LGBT+ schoolchildren

-  Wellbeing and Mental Health Service (WAMHS)

-  New structure for local safeguarding boards

8.4 The Commission would also need to develop capacity within its work programme to continue to undertake its agreed in-depth review for the forthcoming year as well monitoring the implementation of previous reviews.  In this context space within the work programme should be allocated to the following:

-  Outcomes from School Exclusions (current review) – final report

-  Unregistered Educational Settings (previous review) – follow up

-  Recruitment and retention of foster carers (previous review) – follow up

-  New review for 2019/20 (topic to be confirmed).

8.5 With 8 formal meeting per year, there was capacity for 24 (45min items).  With 14-16 slots taken through standing items, reviews and agreed one-off items, there was additional capacity for a further 6-8 items.  Local stakeholders had been consulted for possible topics that could be considered within the work programme which would generate a long list of possible items.  A key stakeholder group (Hackney Learning Trust, Children & Families Service and Hackney Community and Voluntary Sector Service) would appraise and prioritise these topic suggestions into a short list of potential topics.  The Chair would then meet with senior officers to assess the potential of these topics and to develop clear lines of enquiry for scrutiny.

8.6 Topics suggested from members of the Commission and from initial meetings with Directors had identified a wide range of potential topics for scrutiny.  These included:

8.7 Members of the Commission discussed possible content for the work programme.  The key  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

9.1 Two actions were confirmed:

-  Inclusion of unregistered settings on the 2019/20 work programme

-  Inclusion of new safeguarding arrangements on the 2019/20 work programme

9.2 The minutes of the 30^th April were agreed. 

10.1 At its meeting in February 2019, the Commission reviewed the support for LGBT+ children in school in Hackney.  The Commission heard evidence from a range of stakeholders, and agreed to write to the Cabinet member to summarise its conclusions and recommendations.  The letter had been approved by the Commission and had been sent to the Cabinet member and was now awaiting a response.

10.2 The Commission noted the letter to the Cabinet member.

11.1 The Chair noted that Sevdie Sal Ali had tendered her resignation as a Parent Governor co-optee on the Commission.  The Chair and other members present formerly thanked Sevdie for her support for the work of the Commission over the past three years.  The process would begin to recruit a new parent governor representative.

11.2 There was no other business.

11.3 The date of the next meeting was Monday 9^th September 2019.

  The meeting closed at 9.40pm.