All
Members present are required to declare, at this point in the
meeting or as soon as possible thereafter:
I.Any disclosable
pecuniary interests and / or
II.Other interests arising under the Code of Conduct in
respect of any item(s) of business being considered at this
meeting
NOTES:
·Members are reminded that they must not participate
in any item where they have a disclosable pecuniary interest
·As well as an interest of the Member, this includes
any interest, of which the Member is aware, that relates to the
Member’s spouse or civil partner (or any person with whom the
Member is living as a spouse or civil partner)
·Members with a significant personal interest may
participate in the discussion and vote on that matter unless that
interest could be reasonably regarded as prejudicial.
Purpose: to
share details of the Cabinet Members’ priority areas of work
including any strategy and policy developments and provide an
overview of the budget position and performance of services within
the portfolio.
Mary Lewis, Cabinet Member for Children, Young
People and Families
Julie Iles, Cabinet Member for All Age
Learning
Key points raised
during the discussion:
The Cabinet Member for Children,
Young People and Families highlighted that progress was continuing
at pace in Children’s Services. The Member informed the
Committee that the Children’s Commissioner’s report
which noted substantial progress had been delayed due to the
general election and would be published on Wednesday 18 December
2019. The feedback meeting with the Children’s Commissioner
was positive and they would be recommending to the Minister that
Children’s Services would no longer need to be under the
auspices of the commissioner.
A Member of the Committee asked the
Cabinet Member for All Age Learning and the Cabinet Member for
Children, Young People and Families whether in future budget
updates the Cabinet Members could separate their figures into their
two respective areas of responsibility, in order to avoid
ambiguity. The Cabinet Members agreed that the budget update should
be clearer next time.
The Cabinet Member was questioned
about the commissioning of the new Child and Adolescent Mental
Health service (CAMHS) including the response from the market and
recruitment to permanent post vacancies. The Cabinet Member advised
that there had been positive market engagement so far. The Cabinet
Member also stated the importance of dealing with the current
waiting list problems and explained that there was ongoing work
with the provider, Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation
Trust (SaBP), to improve this and added
it was crucial to be honest about poor performance.
The Cabinet Member for Children,
Young People and Families highlighted that there had been a recent
increase in the number of children entering the care system and
that the service needed to increase its efficiency, albeit there
had been an increase in recruitment for foster care placements. The
Cabinet Member informed the Committee that the council’s
residential homes for children were of very good quality, with
Libertas having just been given an outstanding grading by Ofsted
and more money from the capital budget enabling greater capacity of
these homes in the future. The Cabinet Members stated that there
were now permanent directors and service managers in
Children’s Services but there was still a shortage of social
workers both in Surrey and nationally.
A Member asked the Cabinet Member
for All Age Learning to elaborate on how specialist independent
providers might be successfully negotiated with to ensure
placements were value for money and improved children’s
outcomes. The Cabinet Member stated that they had put capital
investment into increasing available places in the county for
children with special needs and that additional places on supported
internships and Life Skill based programmes for those on the Adult
Social Care (ASC) pathway were being commissioned. They asserted
that the traditional focus on purely qualification-based,
“school” type education did not necessarily give the
most appropriate preparation for adulthood for all children.
Finally, they informed the Committee that the commissioning team
were agreeing the cost of packages ...
view the full minutes text for item 13.
Mary Lewis, Cabinet Member for
Children, Young People and Families
Dr Lisa Bursill, Assistant
Director Early Help and Hubs, Family Resilience and
Safeguarding
Jackie Burke, Director Family
Resilience and Safeguarding
BenedicteSymcox, Operations Lead for Family Voice
Surrey
Key
points raised during the discussion:
The Operations Lead for Family Voice Surrey shared her
excitement at seeing employees at the Children’s Single Point
of Access (CSPA) working in such a collaborative and nurturing
manner in their endeavour to help Surrey’s most vulnerable
families. They informed the Committee that they were very grateful
to have been given the opportunity to visit the CSPA. All Members
agreed with this sentiment and stated that they had been very
impressed by the visit, the setup of the CSPA, and all the
improvements that had been made since its inception.
The Operations Lead expressed their concern that
very few parents of SEND children were aware of the CSPA. They also
highlighted ongoing difficulties vis-a-vis gaining support either
from early help or from theChildren With
Disabilitiesteam; lack of
knowledge about CSPA could have been contributing to the problems
that parents faced when trying to access early help.
The Chairman asked about some IT difficulties that Members were
informed of at the visit. The Cabinet Member for Children, Young
People and Families said that there was an end-to-end review
underway and the computer system was being upgraded to the newer
Windows 10. The Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and
Families said that they would raise the IT issues again at the
performance meeting.
The Vice
Chairman of the Select Committee stated that a number of head
teachers of small schools with part-time Special Educational Needs
Coordinators (SENCOs) had very little support with children with
difficult needs and thus would benefit from having someone to talk
to about how to cope with supporting such children. They said that
they would like to see an increase in the level of support and
counselling for head teachers who were managing traumatised
children.
Actions/Further information to be provided:
i)For Cabinet Member for Children, Young
People and Families to raise IT issues in the service at the
subsequent performance meeting.
Purpose:to outline the
Council’s approach to reviewing and consulting on its Home to
School/College Travel and Transport Policy. A presentation will be provided for the Committee
on the detail of the policy proposals, seeking the
Committee’s views, as well as a summary of public feedback so
far.
Minutes:
Witnesses:
Julie Iles, Cabinet Member for
All Age Learning
Mary Burguieres, Assistant
Director of Systems and Transformation – Education, Lifelong
Learning and Culture
BenedicteSymcox, Operations Lead
for Family Voice
Key
points raised during the discussion:
The Cabinet
Member for All Age Learning informed Members that the public
consultation, which involved focus groups and Family Voice, on home
to school/college travel and transport would be concluding on 15
December. They explained that the consultation had essentially been
divided into two sections: how to better support independence and
preparation for adulthood and a review of the discretionary
provision. They stated that high-level analysis of the feedback
received from the consultation would be undertaken.
The Cabinet
Member described that the consultation comprised face-to-face
meetings with families, organisations, carers and head teachers,
online consultations and focus groups with children.
The
Assistant Director of Systems and Transformation summarised the
Home to School/College Travel and Transport Policy Public
Consultation overview document. Regarding ‘independent
travel’, they informed the Committee that this would mean
different things for different children at different stages of
their lives and that the service had been looking at how
independence could be facilitated and better supported. They
stated, however, that parents had concerns regarding their children
being able to cope with the risks associated with travelling
independently.
The Cabinet
Member for All Age Learning stated that they would be looking at
how to communicate effectively to both parents and children the key
benefits of independent travel. Pertaining to ‘collection
points’, the Assistant Director of Systems and Transformation
explained that these were well regarded and seen as a step towards
independence. Providing they were assessed for suitability, the
Assistant Director stated that a range of locations could be used
as collection points. Finally, the Assistant Director raised her
concern that the travel allowance was not well used and there was a
need to understand the barriers to uptake and how it could be made
more attractive. They identified the key benefits of a travel
allowance as flexibility (especially regarding extracurricular
activities after school) and shorter journey times to and from
schools, whilst the most significant barriers were distance from
schools and lack of suitable public transport. They stated that,
overall, the council was spending up to three times more than its
statistical Local Authority comparators and yet this overspend had
not translated into a better service.
The Chairman of the Select Committeeasked the Operations Lead for Family Voice how the
organisation had been dealing with the issues (above) raised by the
Cabinet Member for All Age Learning. The Operations Leadhighlighted the difficulty that
parents of SEND children had with interacting with their
child’s school (due to distance). They stated, firstly, that
the travel allowance had been perceived as being unfair and
incurring costs for families and, secondly, that the work of Family
Voice indicated that the proposed changes to home-to-school travel
were likely to cause a loss of trust in the council’s SEND
strategy. They stressed the importance of the ...
view the full minutes text for item 15.
Purpose:for the
Select Committee to review the attached recommendations tracker and
forward work programme, making suggestions for additions or
amendments as appropriate.
The
Chairman stated that the Committee would scrutinise the budget in
January 2020.
The
Director of Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture suggested that
a review be carried out in September 2020 of the grades of schools
in Surrey to ensure they continue to do as well as they have
done.
Liz
Bowes left the meeting at 3.19pm
The
Chairman suggested that the item on Schools Alliance for Excellence
be rescheduled from the January meeting to the Select Committee
meeting in March. The Director of Education, Lifelong Learning and
Culture stated that this would lead to more effective discussion of
the overarching impact of the framework.
The
Chairman stated that the reports from the commissioner should be
included in the January Select Committee meeting.
The Cabinet
Member for Children, Young People and Families informed the
Committee that scrutiny of the corporate parenting strategy needed
to take place at the January 2020 meeting, before Council meets to
consider it in March.
The
Chairman stated that the Surrey Safeguarding Children’s Board
annual report should be added to the agenda for the Select
Committee meeting in March 2020.
Resolved:
The Committee
Forward Work Programme be updated to include the above proposed
items.
The
next public meeting of the committee will be held on 21 January
2020 in the Ashcombe Suite, County Hall.
Minutes:
The next meeting of the Children, Families,
Lifelong Learning and Culture Select Committee would be held on 21
January 2020 in Council Chamber, County Hall at 10:00.
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