Agenda and minutes

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any disclosable pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests in any item on the agenda.

None noted.

To provide an opportunity for Members to declare the existence of a party whip in relation to any item on the agenda.

None noted.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 17 July 2012.

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the meeting held on 17 July 2012 be approved as a correct record.

There were no members of the public who wished to address the Committee.

To consider the attached report of the Director of Finance & Business Services / Strategic Director, Places & Organisational Capacity.

Fintan Bradley, Head of Service: Strategy, Planning & Performance, attended to present the Quarter 1 Finance and Performance report for the Children and Families Directorate.

Fintan Bradley noted that the Directorate had a budget of £59m for 2012/13, excluding the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). The emerging pressures on this budget had been identified at £4.9m with £4.1m of remedial action identified in order to reduce the base budget net overspend to £0.8m.

Touching on the emerging pressures, Fintan Bradley identified the key revenue issues that the Directorate was facing:

·         Reliance on expensive out-of-Borough placements for Cared for Children due to a shortage of foster care provision.

·         A reliance on expensive agency social workers in the Children in Need/Child protection, Children’s Assessment Team and 16+/Cared for Support teams. This was due to a difficulty of recruiting experienced and qualified permanent social workers.

Fintan Bradley was asked to expand on the issue relating to the shortage of permanent social workers. He explained that whilst the service has had an ongoing campaign to recruit qualified social workers; competition was strong from neighbouring authorities for experienced staff. Other authorities were using initiatives such as ‘Golden Hello’s’ to attract experienced social workers and therefore Cheshire East was finding it difficult to compete. Fintan added that the nature of the positions available, namely in the Child Protection teams also made it difficult to recruit permanent staff as these roles were some of the most challenging within the social work field.

Members agreed that it would be useful to receive more information on the issue relating to the recruitment of permanent social workers at a subsequent meeting. It was requested that the Committee receive information on:

·         The number of social worker vacancies in the Council,

·         How much more it was costing the Council to recruit agency workers in comparison to having permanent staff.

·         How long agency staff tended to stay with the Council.

It was commented that the NHS had faced similar issues in terms of relying on agency workers and as a result, they had tried to counteract this by establishing a bank of staff. It was queried therefore whether creating a bank of social workers was something that the Council had considered.

A number of other suggestions were made as to how the Council could attempt to reduce the reliance on agency workers:

·         That the service gather intelligence to understand what made agency working attractive to social workers so that conditions could be replicated within the Council i.e. flexible working, short term/temporary contracts.

·         That offers be made to recently departed experienced social workers, of a particular standard, to either return to work on a reduced hour’s basis or to mentor less experienced social workers.

It was suggested that an item be added to the work programme for the next scheduled meeting so that a response to these suggestions could be provided.

It was queried whether the closure of the Brereton Children’s Home would place extra pressure on the budget. Fintan Bradley acknowledged that the closure would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25.

To consider a report of the Strategic Director of Children, Families and Adults.

Fintan Bradley explained the background and rationale for the development of an Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) specific special school. In 2010, the Children and Families Service began the process of reviewing its arrangements for children and young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND). One of the priority recommendations emerging from the ongoing review was an identified need to develop local specialist provision for children and young people with ASC between the ages of 4-19.

As a result a business case was submitted and approved in principal by Cabinet in November 2011 with a feasibility study commissioned to explore siting the school on the former Church Lawton Primary School site.

Subsequently in February 2012, changes were made to the Educations and Inspections Act 2006 part 2, in relation to the process for establishing new schools. This meant that the Council had to go through a competition process to establish a new school which would result in finding either an Academy sponsor, establishing a free school or going out to the market.

The Committee was asked to comment on the project in light of the new legislative changes.

There was unanimous agreement to the principle of establishing the school. A few concerns were expressed however with regards to the funding of the school. It was suggested that if the Council was not going to be running the school would the Department for Education (DfE) provide some of the capital costs. Fintan Bradley noted that the Council was still in negotiations with the DfE regarding the funding of the school and that it was possible that they would pay for the prudential borrowing.

It was queried what the payback period for the Council would be after the school had opened. Fintan Bradley confirmed that this would be approximately ten years.

It was queried if there was any chance of the Academy Trust or alternative provider, not providing sufficient places for Cheshire East children and instead offering places to out-of-Borough children. Fintan Bradley confirmed that during the competition process, the Council would set out a service level agreement that would ensure priority for Cheshire East children. Additionally, the Council would also remain the admissions body and would therefore again ensure priority for Cheshire East children.

It was questioned whether parents in the North of the Borough were happy with the school location. Fintan Bradley acknowledged that whilst the location was not ideal it had been chosen to reduce the need to purchase land which would have been prohibitive to the project. He added that the service had received feedback from parent groups which expressed that they were positive about having a school in Cheshire East.

It was queried when the school was likely to open. Fintan Bradley reported that it was scheduled to open in September 2014.

RESOLVED –

a)    That the report be received.

b)    That the Committee endorse the principle of establishing an Autism Spectrum Condition-specific Special School in Cheshire East.

c)    That the Head of Strategy, Planning  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26.

To receive a presentation from the Transport Manager.

Chris Williams, Transport Manager and Jenny Marston, Policy and Accessibility Manager (Transport), attended to provide a presentation on the Available Walking Routes Policy. After providing a brief explanation of the legal context and a definition of an available walking route, Chris Williams continued to provide a brief overview of recent developments that had occurred to the policy area. He noted that a local authority had recently been subject to a Local Ombudsman Challenge to policy in this area. This had centred on the local authority in question not explicitly stating that they had followed central government guidance in their policy. Chris Williams explained that a number of other local authorities were in a similar position and therefore the Council was seeking to reaffirm its policy with a number of minor amendments and clarifications. These were detailed as follows:

• Incorporation of school responsibility for school travel plans
• Change to the notice period of withdrawals – 1 term suggested
• Consideration to be given to temporary issues when assessing a route as ‘available’ – ground conditions, major roadworks etc
• ‘Crossing point’ assessment updated
• ‘No footpath’ assessment updated
• Review procedure updated

In terms of the latter point, Chris Williams explained how the last formal review of available routes in the Borough had been conducted more than twenty years ago. Developments in the highways network since that point had meant that many children could walk in relative safety and no longer required assistance. Chris Williams added that this had led to a relatively high number of children being entitled to school transport due to a lack of an available walking route in comparison to other local authorities (25% in Cheshire East compared to less than 5% nationally).

Chris Williams acknowledged therefore that once the review procedure for available routes began, it was likely that some children would no longer be entitled to transport whilst some would become entitled who previously had not been.

In summary Chris Williams noted that he would be making the following recommendations to Cabinet and he asked for the Committee’s comments.

·         Continue to use Road Safety GB guidelines

·         Adjust policy statement to take account of DfE’s guidance

·         Adopt revised policy

·         Reassess all current routes classed as unavailable to ensure consistency and fairness

·         Adopt a policy of reassessment after a defined period – suggested at 5 years.

A number of comments were made stating that it seemed likely that once the review procedure for available walking routes had been completed more school children would have their entitlement to transport removed than would gain entitlement. It was asserted therefore that this policy could potentially be very unpopular, particularly considering that discretionary school transport had recently been removed for those pupils attending faith schools. Consequently, it was stated that such a review procedure would need to be carefully managed to ensure that local communities and local ward Councillors were kept fully informed.

It was contended that the notice period for withdrawal should be longer than the suggested one term. Chris Williams reported that the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27.

To consider the work programme.

Members considered the work programme. Following the proceedings of the meetings it was agreed to put the following items on the work programme:

·         Recruitment of experienced social workers (October 2012)

·         Recruitment and retention of foster carers – including update on the fostering capital projects policy (November 2012)

·         Children and Families Budget session (separate meeting to be arranged prior to December 2012).

In order to manage the size of the agenda for the October meeting, it was agreed that the Quarter 2 finance and performance report would be deferred to November 2012.

Councillor Edwards and Councillor Neilson provided an update of the Early Years and Care Leavers Task and Finish Reviews respectively. It was noted that the Care Leavers Review was likely to report to Committee in November 2012.

RESOLVED –

a)    That the work programme be noted.

b)    That the following items be added to work programme:

a.    Recruitment of experienced social workers (October 2012)

b.    Recruitment and retention of foster carers – including update on the fostering capital projects policy (November 2012)

c.    Children and Families Budget session (separate meeting to be arranged prior to December 2012).

c)    That the Quarter 2 Finance and Performance report be deferred to November 2012.

The Committee gave consideration to the extracts of the forward plan which fell within the remit of the Committee.

RESOLVED – That the forward plan be noted.