Agenda and minutes

1.1 Apologies for absence were received from:

-  Cllr Sophie Conway (Chair)

-  Cllr Humaira Garasia

-  Graham Hunter

-  Shuja Shaikh

-  Cllr Anntionette Bramble

1.2 In the absence of Cllr Sophie Conway, the meeting was chaired by Cllr Margaret Gordon (Vice Chair).

2.1 The Commission agreed that an urgent question on the possible impact (and preparation for) a no-deal Brexit on children’s social care and education services in Hackney would be tabled under ‘Any Other Business’.

2.2 The remainder of the agenda was as published.

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

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

-  Cllr Peters was a governor at special school in Hackney;

-  Jo McLeod was a governor at a local school in Hackney.

4.1 Under the Children Act 2004 (as amended by the Children and Social Work Act 2017), Local Safeguarding Children’s Boards (LSCB) set up by local authorities are to be replaced.  Under this new legislation, three safeguarding partners (local authorities, chief officers of police and clinical commissioning groups) must make arrangements to work together with ‘relevant agencies’ to safeguard and protect the welfare of children in the area.  Local Authorities are required to establish new safeguarding arrangements by 29^th September 2019.

4.2 An officer from the Local Safeguarding Children Board and the Group Director for Children, Adults and Community Health presented a report which set out the main changes to local safeguarding arrangements for Hackney.  The key points of this presentation are summarised below:

·  The new safeguarding partnership will comprise of three partners, the local authority police and local clinical commissioning group (CCG) and will be called the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership (CHSCP).

·  As the geographic boundary of the existing City & Hackney Safeguarding Children Board (CHSCB) will be maintained this meant that local safeguarding partners were Hackney Council, City of London, City and Hackney CCG, Metropolitan Police and City of London Police. 

·  The new safeguarding partnership will work with ‘relevant agencies’ which are expected to comply with safeguarding arrangements.  Relevant agencies include health services, schools and other educational and childcare settings and all those local groups and charities that work with children including out of school settings (sports clubs and religious groups such as Yeshiva, Madrassa and Sunday schools).  Relevant agencies that need to be included in local safeguarding arrangements are set out in national guidance and a full list of relevant agencies will be published locally.

·  Independent scrutiny is a key part of local safeguarding and this will be retained within the new safeguarding arrangements.  The current independent Chair of CHSCB will continue in the role of the Independent Child Safeguarding Commissioner (ICSC). The ICSC will continue to provide both independent scrutiny of safeguarding partners but also provide independent leadership for local safeguarding.

·  In terms of governance, a Senior Leadership Team of safeguarding partners will meet three times per year.  There will be one Executive body for both Hackney and City under the new arrangements which is scheduled to meet bi-monthly.  Both these meetings will be chaired and led by the Independent Child Safeguarding Commissioner.

·  Current funding arrangements for the new safeguarding partnership will continue for the year (2019/20).  Hackney Council’s current financial contribution makes up a significant proportion of the CHSCB.  Statutory guidance expects funding of the new arrangements to be equitable and proportionate across safeguarding partners and this will be subject to discussion later in 2019/20.

·  A number of safeguarding proposals are still being finalised, including how the voice of children and young people can be better included and represented within the new CHSCP structure and processes.  This will be a key objective in the first year of the partnership. 

·  Similarly, given the number of ‘relevant agencies’ the CHSCP will need to ensure safeguarding processes  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.1 In February 2019, the Children’s Commissioner published research into off-rolling in schools; Skipping School: missing children.  This report highlighted a number of ways in which children can ‘go missing’ from the school roll each year, including off-rolling.  Off-rolling is the practice of removing a pupil from school roll (without using a permanent exclusion) when the removal is in the best interests of the school and not the child.  This includes pressuring a parent to remove their child from school. 

5.2 At a subsequent meeting of the Commission in April 2019, it was agreed that a more in-depth analysis of off-rolling from school would be undertaken within the 2019/20 work programme with the following objectives:

·  To define off-rolling, how it relates to home schooling but differs from exclusion;

·  To assess the nature and scale of off-rolling (both nationally and locally);

·  To determine how off-rolling is identified, and how best to work with schools to prevent this from occurring;

·  To assess what support children and parents may need to prevent off-rolling;

·  To identify the role of the local authority to prevent off-rolling, and how best it can work with schools and other partners in this process.

5.3 An expert panel was invited to give evidence to the Commission to assist in its investigation of this issue. The following contributors attended to support member discussions:

·  Simone Vibert, Senior Public Affairs & Policy Analyst, Office of the Children Commissioner;

·  Mike Sheridan HMI, London Regional Director, Ofsted;

·  Kiran Gill, Chief Executive, The Difference;

·  Annie Gammon, Director of Education and Head of Hackney Learning Trust;

·  Andrew Lee, Assistant Director, Hackney Learning Trust.

5.4 Prior to this meeting, a number of key documents were circulated to the Commission to guide and inform discussions. These were:

1. Skipping school: invisible children - Office of the Children’s Commissioner

2. Off-rolling in English schools - House of Commons Briefing

3. Off-rolling in Schools - LGiU Briefing

4. Exploring the issue of off-rolling – Ofsted/YouGov

5. Unexplained pupil exits from schools: a growing problem? – Education Policy Institute

Defining Off-rolling

5.5 Ofsted provided the legal definition of off-rolling which was stated as:

‘Off-rolling is when a school removes a student from its roll without formal permanent exclusion or by encouraging a parent to remove their child when the removal is primarily in the interest of the school or other provider rather than in the best interest of the child.’

5.6 The Commission understood that the key issues were whether a school move was in the interest of the child and if parents had been encouraged or coerced into removing their child from school.  This created a number of grey areas in defining and identifying off-rolling which could encompass other school moves such as Elective Home Education (EHE) and managed moves (MM).  As a consequence, it would also be very difficult to accurately identify the true scale of off-rolling in schools.

5.7 HLT reported that it had visited a number of schools and scrutinised the circumstances of those children that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.1 A new Children and Young People Scrutiny work programme is developed each year in consultation with local stakeholders.  Over 80 individual suggestions were put forward as possible topics for scrutiny, these were collated and assessed by a representative stakeholder panel into a short-list of possible topic areas.  These topic areas will need to be scoped out with officers and prioritised for inclusion within the 2019/20 work programme.  The short-listed topics were:

6.2 Items selected from the consultation will be incorporated into the work programme alongside other pre-agreed items which include:

·  Standing Items – items which require annual oversight by the Commission;

·  Review Items – evidence gathering or monitoring recommendations of current or past policy reviews undertaken by the Commission;

·  Items agreed from 2018/19 – items the Commission agreed to take forward from last year’s work programme.

6.3 The Commission agreed in April of this year to making items more discursive, with additional contributions from local stakeholders and relevant guests. This will make such items longer, but should enable the commission to be more agile and responsive in the way that it able to develop recommendations for service improvement of these areas in the work programme. 

6.4 In relation to the review for 2019/20, no decision final decision has been taken as to the focus, except that it would probably avoid education as this had been the focus of in-depth work for the past few years.  The Commission had agreed earlier that the review should be undertaken as scrutiny in a day exercise - most likely in early 2020. The Commission agreed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.1 The minutes of the meeting held on 24^th June 2019 were noted by the panel, including the additional action points.

1)  Further details of school transfers for children with SEND;

2)  Secondary school place planning.

7.2 The Commission agreed the minutes.

Brexit Preparation

11.1 Given that the likelihood of a no-deal Brexit on 31^st October 2019 had increased the Commission sought to understand what impact this would have on local children’s services, particularly children’s social care and local schools.  The Commission invited the Group Director for Adults, Children and Community Health to respond.

11.2 The Commission noted that it was difficult to provide complete assurance on this matter given the range of uncertainties and unknowns that remained even at this late stage.  The Council was undertaking a wide range of actions in preparation for Brexit.  Each Directorate had been meeting for some while to identify risks associated with Brexit to services, this included Adults, Children and Community Health.  This had highlighted a number of possible risks including the interruption to fuel supplies which could impact of HLT transport for SEND services and the disruption of food supplies which could also impact on school meals services. 

11.3 Schools and Children’s Social Care are both aware of the potential impact of the settlement scheme for EU residents, and staff have been encouraged to apply for settled status to help minimise staffing uncertainty.  There was also the additional responsibility of the settled status of all the looked after children by the Council, and as a result the Children and Families had reviewed all these and processes enacted. Different scenario planning was taking place.

11.4 The Council has also worked through the unintended consequences that Brexit may have such as large number of people not being able to turn up for work and its impact on children and young people’s services (e.g. school teachers, childcare, secondary education, children’s social care).  In the longer term, there would be issues about safeguarding checks of people working for local services who were EU citizens which had yet to be resolved.

11.5 It was noted that the position of refugees was likely to change, which may affect the ability for families to unite with other family members which have been granted asylum here in the UK.  The Council is doing what it can borough wide, and there are a number of task and finish groups to support this work.

11.6 The Commission noted that it would be helpful for all members to have a briefing on the actions taken by the Council to ensure that local services were prepared for Brexit.

The date of the next meeting was Tuesday 29^th October

  The meeting closed at 10.00.