Local democracy

Agenda, decisions and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 1 - City Hall, Bradford. View directions

Contact: Sheila Farnhill 

Items
No. Item

35.

DISCLOSURES OF INTEREST

(Members Code of Conduct - Part 4A of the Constitution)

 

To receive disclosures of interests from members and co-opted members on matters to be considered at the meeting. The disclosure must include the nature of the interest.

 

An interest must also be disclosed in the meeting when it becomes apparent to the member during the meeting.

 

Notes:

 

(1)       Members may remain in the meeting and take part fully in discussion and voting unless the interest is a disclosable pecuniary interest or an interest which the Member feels would call into question their compliance with the wider principles set out in the Code of Conduct.  Disclosable pecuniary interests relate to the Member concerned or their spouse/partner.

 

(2)       Members in arrears of Council Tax by more than two months must not vote in decisions on, or which might affect, budget calculations, and must disclose at the meeting that this restriction applies to them.  A failure to comply with these requirements is a criminal offence under section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. 

 

(3)       Members are also welcome to disclose interests which are not disclosable pecuniary interests but which they consider should be made in the interest of clarity.

 

(4)       Officers must disclose interests in accordance with Council Standing Order 44.

 

                                                                        (Jill Bell – 01274 434580)

Minutes:

In the interest of transparency, Yasmin Umarji disclosed that she managed the Virtual School (Minute 39).

 

Action: City Solicitor

36.

MINUTES

Recommended –

 

That the minutes of the meeting held on 11 March 2019 be signed as a correct record (previously circulated).

 

(Jill Bell – 01274 434580)

Minutes:

Resolved –

 

That the minutes of the meeting held on 11 March 2019 be signed as a correct record.

37.

INSPECTION OF REPORTS AND BACKGROUND PAPERS

(Access to Information Procedure Rules – Part 3B of the Constitution)

 

Reports and background papers for agenda items may be inspected by contacting the person shown after each agenda item.  Certain reports and background papers may be restricted. 

 

Any request to remove the restriction on a report or background paper should be made to the relevant Strategic Director or Assistant Director whose name is shown on the front page of the report. 

 

If that request is refused, there is a right of appeal to this meeting. 

 

Please contact the officer shown below in advance of the meeting if you wish to appeal. 

 

(Jill Bell - 01274 434580)

 

Minutes:

There were no appeals submitted by the public to review decisions to restrict documents.

38.

EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL WELLBEING OF LOOKED AFTER CHILDREN pdf icon PDF 230 KB

The Interim Assistant Director (Children’s Social Care Improvement) will present a progress report on the CAMHS (Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service) Psychological Assessment and Therapy Team for Looked After and Adopted Children, including information on the allocation of the available finance (Document “T”).

 

 

Recommended -

 

That the Interim Strategic Director of Children’s Services be recommended to request additional funding from Health & Social Care Commissioners in order to expand the current services to encapsulate the offer as set out in 2.8 of Document “T”.

 

 

                                                                        (Jennie Robb – 01274 723241)

Minutes:

The Interim Assistant Director (Children’s Social Care Improvement) presented a progress report on the CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) Psychological Assessment and Therapy Team for Looked After and Adopted Children, including information on the allocation of the available finance (Document “T”).

 

The Clinical Lead for CAMHS Looked After and Adopted Children provided a summary of the report which provided information about the second year of operation of the Service.  Details were provided about the evolution of the team, the service model and the clinical work undertaken from 1st November 2017 to 31st October 2018.  A comparison of the first and second years of service delivery was also provided.  Members were informed that clinical work was divided into Direct Clinical Work and Indirect Clinical Work; where possible client demographics were provided along with baseline and outcome data for Direct Clinical Work. Indirect Clinical Work included the Consultation Clinic for professionals and carers, and Consultation to Children’s Homes.

 

It was reported that whilst referral rates had remained consistent across the two years, the service became saturated with longer-term complex cases and a reduction in capacity.  This meant that waiting times for consultation lengthened from four to nine weeks, and the wait for assessment and therapy exceeded 12 months.

 

Members were informed that due to the increasing demand on the service and the reduction in capacity, two waiting list initiatives had been developed in Autumn 2018 – A Therapeutic Parenting Group and a Family Assessment Clinic.

 

A discussion took place about access to services for Looked After Children from outside the district who were in placements within the Bradford district.  It was reported that there were just over 400 children in these placements and arrangements had been made since June 2018 for their Social Workers to arrange private therapy appointments for them following their consultation, on some occasions.  During the discussion a Member stated that the provider (Bradford District Care Foundation Trust) should be recharging the appropriate CCG for children who were placed in Bradford from other local authorities.  She also stated that she was aware that a review of CAMHS was currently being undertaken by the CCGs. 

 

Members raised strong concerns that Looked After Children were waiting over a year for direct therapy, particularly as concerns had previously been raised by the Panel that waiting times were too long and now they were even longer.

 

The Clinical Lead explained that Bradford had very low staffing levels, equivalent to 0.3% Therapists per 100 Looked After Children, when compared with the average for local authorities which were 0.8% Therapists per 100 Looked After Children, across a number of authorities sampled.  Following a Member’s question she stated that the service currently employed 5.6 whole time equivalent clinical therapists but due to long term sickness and maternity leave the current functional clinical capacity was 4 whole time equivalent clinical therapists – no posts had been backfilled.  In order to reach 0.8% Therapists per 100 Looked After Children, Bradford would need  ...  view the full minutes text for item 38.

39.

VIRTUAL SCHOOL OUTCOMES REPORT 2017-18 pdf icon PDF 208 KB

The Interim Assistant Director (Children’s Social Care Improvement) will present a report (Document “U”) on the virtual school outcome for Children Looked After (CLA) for 2017-18.  Outcomes for children in care from Early Years to key stage 4 shows an improving picture over time. By the time they leave school, the progress made by children in care compares favourably to the national picture.

 

Primary outcomes at the end of Key Stage 1 remain above those nationally for children looked after in all four benchmark (expected standard) measures, reading, writing, maths and the combined measure. At the end of Key Stage 2, outcomes for CLA gaining the expected standard in reading have improved by 10 percentage points to within 3% of CLA nationally. Results for CLA in Bradford gaining the expected standard in maths have improved by 9% and are 1 percentage point above CLA nationally. Results for CLA in writing and GPS have improved by 5% and 3% respectively. The average (mean) scaled score across all pupils with a scaled score shows Bradford CLA marginally above pupils nationally for this measure.

 

At KS4 in terms of Attainment 8 Bradford CLA outcomes in 2018 were above the national and regional outcomes. The score of 19.7 is above the score of 18.7 nationally.In terms of Progress 8 Bradford outcomes in 2018 were above the national comparator.

 

Recommended -

 

That the Corporate Parenting Panel note the contents of Document “U”.

 

                                                                        (Ken Poucher – 01274 439623)

 

 

 

Minutes:

The Interim Assistant Director (Children’s Social Care Improvement) presented a report (Document “U”) on the virtual school outcome for Looked After Children (LAC) for 2017-18.  Outcomes for children in care from Early Years to key stage 4 showed an improving picture over time. By the time they leave school, the progress made by children in care compared favourably to the national picture.

 

The Virtual Head Teacher provided an overview of the report which stated that primary outcomes at the end of Key Stage 1 remained above those nationally for LAC in all four benchmark (expected standard) measures, reading, writing, maths and the combined measure. At the end of Key Stage 2, outcomes for LAC gaining the expected standard in reading had improved by 10 percentage points to within 3% of LAC nationally. Results for LAC in Bradford gaining the expected standard in maths had improved by 9% and were 1 percentage point above LAC nationally. Results for LAC in writing and GPS had improved by 5% and 3% respectively. The average (mean) scaled score across all pupils with a scaled score showed Bradford LAC marginally above pupils nationally for this measure.  At Key Stage 4, in terms of Attainment 8, Bradford LAC outcomes in 2018 were above the national and regional outcomes. The score of 19.7 was above the score of 18.7 nationally.In terms of Progress 8 Bradford outcomes in 2018 were above the national comparator.

 

In response to Members questions, it was reported that:

 

·         The national statistics were published in November but information relating to LAC were released in February/early March, therefore comparisons could only be made with statistical neighbouring authorities in the year following the results.

·         The average attendance of LAC in 2017-18 was 96.1%.

·         The number of Key Stage 5 Care Leavers that were cited in the report as being not in education, employment or training (NEET) had reduced to nil by November 2017.  This was because their next destinations had not been fixed at the time the statistics were collated.

·         There was a programme in place to address the issue of any Care Leavers within the NEET category.

·         LAC were given priority for Apprenticeships offered by the Council.

 

The Interim Strategic Director of Children’s Services spoke of recent visits she had undertaken to children’s homes and raised concerns about the number of children she had seen on her visits during school hours.  She suggested the Panel consider requesting information/regular updates about alternative education provision being provided to LAC to ensure they were receiving the right level of education.

 

Members were informed that the Virtual Head Teacher was a part-time post as funding had not been available to recruit to the post on a full time basis; however there was a lot of demand on the team as the virtual school was growing and it was not considered that a part-time Virtual Head Teacher would be feasible going forward.  Members were informed that there were 902 LAC in education within the Bradford  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39.