Agenda item

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 and it would be the responsibility of the Children’s Trust to commission post 16 learning.

The Redesign would provide opportunities for partners to work together differently, to collaborate and support, to co-locate services and jointly commission and jointly save.  A Project Manager had been appointed to manage the Redesign.

Following the presentation Members raised the following questions/issues:

      Was there any indication as to where the increasing number of referral cases were originating?

      It was important that staff working in all types of Early Years provision liaised with Primary Schools to share information to ensure awareness of any issues and that this was developed as good practice; 

      Some schools used Learning Mentors in a more wide ranging pastoral role and some schools had pooled extra funding received through Extended Schools budget to provide Family Support Workers.

RESOLVED:  That the presentation be received and noted.