Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Strategic Director People.

The Committee considered a report on continuing developments around performance data across Cheshire East.  Members were advised that a complete set of data would be submitted to full Cabinet shortly.  It was important to have baseline data in order to set appropriate and challenging targets.  A number of proxy measures had been identified for use in monitoring progress across these themes:

      Early Intervention;

      Narrowing the Gap;

      Family Support;

      Emotional Health and Well-being;

      Economic Development, Skills and Learning.

Key issues included:

      Under 18 conception rates;

      Increasing numbers of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET);

      Numbers of secondary schools who achieve 5+ A* - C including English and Maths, although the overall rate was improving there was a need to ensure that improvements were made in targeted schools;

      There was a need to increase the focus on Cared for Children and educational attainment to ensure they made appropriate progress;

      A review was underway looking at numbers and quality of the Common Assessment Framework.

The report also listed the Ofsted profile of Children’s Services which highlighted a number of key issues:

      Only one of the ten indicators was judged as Red (at risk) and this related to an inspection of Children’s homes based upon an inspection in a single Children’s Home;

      Six of the ten indicators were judged as Green (positive outcomes);

      Two of the Amber indicators were identified as being priority areas and related to the number of Secondary schools and 6^th forms judged as being Good or Outstanding where performance was below the national average and below performance in similar areas.

The Committee noted that one part of the National Indicator that related to narrowing the gap was based on performance of children who received free school meals.  The Committee noted that not all children who were eligible for free school meals would take up this provision and there may be a stigma to receiving free school meals.  Officers recognised that there were issues with this but it was difficult to identify alternative criteria.

Members asked about numbers of Serious Case Reviews and were advised that there were approximately 6 across the whole of Cheshire in the past 18 months.  Each agency would undertake its own review and then a case would be put to Ofsted.  There was one case for which Ofsted had identified issues with how it was conducted and this was being discussed at the Local Safeguarding Children Board.

It was suggested that the quick reference Direction of Travel arrows should be geared to the improvement or worsening of actual performance, rather than whether the reported figures were growing or reducing.  Currently reported figures which were rising were accompanied by an “up” arrow when in fact a rising figure was in some cases a worsening of performance.  Equally some reported figures which were reducing could be an improvement in performance yet misleadingly currently these were shown with a “down” arrow.  It was suggested that an alternative to arrows could be a graph.

RESOLVED:  that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52