Issue - meetings

To receive a presentation from Lorraine Butcher, Head of Services for Children and Families.

The Committee received a presentation by Lorraine Butcher, Head of Service for Children and Families on Challenges and Opportunities.  She outlined her Vision which was based on Cheshire East being a place where all children and young people were supported well to maximise their life choices; where services were relevant and appropriate and addressed needs at an early stage; and where organisations worked well together to ensure no child or young person got left behind. 

There were a number of challenges including:

• Local Government reorganisation, the forthcoming general election and the economic climate;
• Organisational and professional cultures;
• Stopping things that did not make a difference;
• Tackling inequalities;
• Safeguarding – how well was the Council doing?  The Unannounced Inspection was still awaited.  The numbers of Cared for Children had increased by approximately 26% during 2007/08 and referrals were continuing to rise; this could be due to various factors including the Baby Peter case in Haringey, economic pressures on families, and professionals being better at identifying needs due to joined up working;
• Continuing to improve learning outcomes by ensuring overall standards were raised but the gap was narrowed especially for Cared for Children and those with Special Educational Needs;
• Maximising the use of resources from a declining resource base.

The redesign of Children’s Social Care had a number of principles:

·        Keeping children safe and well – delivering responsive services that identified needs at an early stage so as to reduce the need for statutory interventions and costly specialist services later in a child’s life;  refocusing services to provide a wide range of family support and prevention whilst maintaining a clear focus on children who were most at risk;

·        Locally Based Services/Easy Access;

·        Managing costs - to make the best use of available resources and to harness the collaborative support, engagement and pooling resources across the Children’s Trust;

·        A culture of high expectation and high performance – in December 2009, Ofsted would produce performance ratings for all Local Authorities and Cheshire East was aiming to be rated as “performing well” progressing to “performing excellently” in 3 years;

·        Core Business –priority would be given to core business that was essential to secure improved outcomes for children and young people.

The work programme for the service included:

·        Curriculum support to schools to enable them to be self financing by April 2011;

·        Transport – to ensure improved efficiency against existing costs;

·        Review of Direct Schools Grant;

·        School organisation – remove surplus provision, review use of surplus school premises and review arrangements for commissioning Special Educational Needs;

·        Redesign of Integrated Service Delivery – develop coordinated arrangements for early intervention and prevention;

·        Children’s Centres and Family Support – integrated delivery within a framework of early intervention and prevention;

·        Transformation of service delivery for children and families with Learning Difficulties and Disabilities;

·        Review Residential Provision;

·        Integrated and Targeted Youth Support – delivering joined up support incorporating universal services and targeted services;

·        Post 16 Funding Transfer – the Learning and Skills Council was to cease to exist in April 2010  ...  view the full minutes text for item 49