Agenda item

To inform the Scrutiny Committee of the work undertaken by Children’s Services to allow effective scrutiny of the service.

The Chairman recommended that a panel meeting be established once the educational attainment results had been validated in order to focus on school attainment in 2015 so that any issues could be considered in detail. Mr Kershaw, Co-opted Member added that there was also concern surrounding the transition between primary and secondary schools and the impact that had on attainment.

Councillor Jones, Cabinet Member for School Improvement and Children’s Safeguarding and Mrs Del Curtis, Director of People invited questions on the Children’s Services Improvement Report.

Members requested clarity around the changes to special educational needs stemming from the Children and Families Act 2014. Mrs Curtis advised that a key requirement was to replace statements of special educational needs with Education, Health and Care Plans, which were much more comprehensive plans. Department of Education monitoring demonstrated that good progress was being made in Blackpool.

The Committee noted the requirement to ensure that all of ‘Our Children’ (children in care) attended a ‘good’ school and queried how that was being achieved with nearly all secondary schools in Blackpool performing poorly. Mrs Curtis advised that an individual assessment of each of Our Children was undertaken and that in some circumstances the determination had been made to keep the child in a school that had not been rated as ‘good’ in order to provide stability. In other circumstances, Our Children were placed in ‘good’ schools out of area.

In response to a question, Ms Hatton advised that there were currently more adopters listed than children awaiting adoption. She added that as it was important to ensure the right child was placed with the right adopter, further work would be undertaken to identify more suitable people to act as adopters.

With regards to fostering, Ms Hatton advised that a number of events had been held recently leading to a number of potential foster carers registering interest. Work was also being undertaken to identify foster carers with specialist skills to look after children with more specialist needs.

Members requested a progress update on the development of the vulnerable adolescent hub and were informed that best practice was being considered. The Youth Offending Team was also moving buildings and becoming more aligned with other services.

The Committee queried the 100% increase in mental health calls to the Emergency Duty Team and was advised that this related to adults, although the Team was located within Children’s Services. There were a number of different reasons for the increase including increased awareness and a significantly higher level of need. Members noted that there was a peak of calls at 10pm. In response to a further question, Ms Hatton advised that the reasons behind the calls were being investigated and Members requested to be kept informed of the outcomes of this investigation.

The Committee agreed:

1.      To establish a panel to consider school attainment 2015 in detail and consider the links to transition between primary and secondary schools.

2.      To receive further information on the outcomes of the investigation into the increase in mental health calls to the Emergency Duty Team.