Education Select Committee - Meetings, agendas and minutes

. London Borough of Hammersmith & FulhamEducation SelectCommitteeMinutesTuesday 21 February 2012PRESENTCommittee members: Councillors Donald Johnson (Chairman),Caroline Needham (Vice-Chairman), Elaine Chumnery, Tom Crofts, Marcus Ginn,Peter Graham and Mercy UmehCo-opted members: Eleanor Allen (London Diocesan Board for Schools)Other Councillors: Helen Binmore (Cabinet Member for Childrens Services)Officers: Andrew Christie (Tri Borough Executive Director of Childrens Services),Tim Deacon (Safeguarding and Partnership Manager), Peter Houghton (InterimAssistant Director, Childrens Social Care Division), Matthew Jones (ProjectsOfficer), Roger Jones (Service Manager, Contact and Assessment), Gary Marson(Principal Committee Coordinator) and Steve Miley (Director of Family Services). Anumber of Social Workers were also in attendance.40. MINUTES, RECOMMENDATIONS AND DIRECTOR'S REPORTAndrew Christie, Tri Borough Executive Director of Childrens Services,updated the Committee on the following items;• A thematic Ofsted inspection had rated disabled childrens services andrelated safeguarding standards as good.• Hammersmith & Fulham’s record of securing adoptions and other formof permanent placements, such as Special Guardianships, for 15% ofLooked After Children had been found to compare very favourably witha national average of 8.5%• Encouraging data had also been published in respect of the GSCEperformance of Hammersmith & Fulham children entitled to free schoolmeals. The borough was in the top 10 in the country and had one ofthe lowest gaps between the attainment levels of those children andothers.• Hurlingham and Chelsea and Langford Schools had achievedfederation.• The Tri Borough senior leadership team was now complete followingthe appointment of Karen Tyerman as Director of Commissioning.Meanwhile staff consultation in respect of tri borough appointments_____________________________________________________________________________________________________Minutes are subject to confirmation at the next meeting as a correct record of the proceedings and any amendments arising willbe recorded in the minutes of that subsequent meeting.

was underway in respect of fostering and adoption services,commissioning and safeguarding.• The Tri Borough Education Service had agreed a full cost recoverymodel with the School Improvements Service.• A Tri Borough Head Teachers Representative Board had beenestablished with a successful first meeting, helping to build networksacross the three authority areas. Head Teachers were also beginningto meet in specialist sub groups across the boroughs.In response to a Member question the Committee was also informed of thecriteria to be applied to the allocation of school’s capital funding. Bids wouldbe assessed against the need for places, parental demand, value for money,innovation and deliverability. Following a question from the public galleryMembers noted that the West London Free School was currently consultingon its Primary admissions policy and the Council would be submitting a formalresponse. No rental terms had yet been agreed with the Council.A further request that the Director’s report be provided in written form atsubsequent meetings was noted but the Chairman remained of the view thatverbal updates provided the opportunity to capture more immediate and up todate information than that supplied with the agenda papers.RESOLVED that -(1) the minutes of the meeting of the Education Select Committee held on17 January 2012 be confirmed and signed as an accurate record of theproceedings;(2) progress with implementation of the recommendations of the EducationSelect Committee be noted; and(3) the Director’s report be noted.41. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCEApologies for absence were received from Councillor Belinda Donovan,Michele Barrett (Headteacher Representative), Fiona Cook (Parent GovernorRepresentative), Sue Fennimore (Parent Governor Representative) andSuzanne Weston-Peters (Westminster Diocesan Education Service).42. DECLARATIONS OF INTERESTCouncillor Mercy Umeh declared a Personal interest in respect of adiscussion concerning children’s mental health issues under the itemconcerning the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board Annual Report as shewas a volunteer with the West London Mental Health NHS Trust. Since theinterest was not prejudicial Councillor Umeh remained in the meeting andparticipated in the discussion thereon._____________________________________________________________________________________________________Minutes are subject to confirmation at the next meeting as a correct record of the proceedings and any amendments arising willbe recorded in the minutes of that subsequent meeting.

43. LOCAL SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN'S BOARD ANNUAL REPORT 2011The Committee received and considered the Local Safeguarding ChildrensBoard (LSCB) Annual Report for 2010/11. The report set out in detail theactivities of the partner agencies, both individually and collectively, in order tosafeguard and promote the welfare of children within the borough. It alsodealt with governance and accountability arrangements, monitoring andaudits and specific areas for monitoring such as sexual exploitation, earlyintervention and missing children.Members noted the key priorities of the LSCB during the course of the year.These included promotion of improved participation of agencies at coregroups and conferences, reducing long term child protection (CP) plans andincreasing the rate of CP plan removals, analysing re-registrations and multiagency audit work. There had also been a focus on understanding thereasons for the continued high numbers of children subject to CP plans whichhad led to a detailed strategy for more robust and targeted plans. Thenumbers of children with CP plans had now returned to 2008 levels.The Committee was informed that during the course of the year the LSCBhad conducted a serious case review into the death of a 12 year old who hadspent almost 8 years as a Looked After Child, developing a number ofrecommendations and an action plan which Ofsted had evaluated asoutstanding. Following inspection in June 2011 Ofsted had also praised theLSCB for its outstanding partnership working at strategic and operationallevels, its fulfilment of statutory duties, the community and professionalleadership it exercised, its robust auditing of the agencies work and itsdemonstrable commitment to tackling challenging issues.Members also received details of the Board’s future priorities which includeda continuing focus on CP plans, the action plan arising from the Ofstedinspection, implementation of the Munroe Review recommendations andactions from the Serious Case Review relating to Looked After Children. Themain short term priority was to integrate the LSCB into a tri borougharrangement in order to help better share information and best practiceacross the three authorities. A local multi agency group would continue tooperate subsequently.The Chairman welcomed the report, the progress it captured and the honestdisclosure where there were challenges and disappointments. Members tookthe opportunity to enquire further about a range of safeguarding relatedactivities and performance related to the report. In response to thesequestions the Committee was informed that;• Hammersmith & Fulham was 40% above the national average inrelation to the number of permanent placements for children in care.• The high proportion of child protection re-registration in some months(up to 50%) was a difficult indicator to interpret since monthly volumeswere low and open to distortion and it included all those registeredwithin the past 10 years. A more meaningful statistic would be reregistrationwithin 12 months. Overall performance was currently 19%_____________________________________________________________________________________________________Minutes are subject to confirmation at the next meeting as a correct record of the proceedings and any amendments arising willbe recorded in the minutes of that subsequent meeting.

challenges in relation to the further development of electronic social carerecords for children.Members recalled that ICS was a conceptual framework developed byGovernment to bring together the key processes of assessment, planning,intervention and review for vulnerable children and their families. An ITsolution, Frameworki was used by the Council to guide relevant staff throughICS work processes to set timescales and help record all requiredinformation. The system provided a single central case file viewed andupdated by all those working with children in need, standard templates,integrated financial data in relation to care packages and performancemanagement information for both internal use and statutory returns to theDepartment for Education. Concerns about ICS IT solutions had, however,been raised nationally, most recently by the Monroe Review of ChildProtection, with suggestions that the system was overly prescriptive and didnot support reflective thinking and risk analysis, was resource intensive,administratively complex, and produced output that was non court compliantand difficult for service users to understand.Members sought the views of several social workers and team managers inattendance at the meeting about their front line user experience of theFrameworki solution. It was noted that significant improvements had beenmade to the local system following a relaxation of ICS requirements in 2010.These included a simplification of work processes, implementation of a newand more accessible training and support programme based on the needs ofthe individual users, improved data quality and revisions of all ICS forms.The new forms were shorter and less prescriptive, provided more ability torecord social worker analysis, reduced duplication of data entry adunnecessary workflows and increased the pre population of data. By way ofexample, a Single Assessment Report, which had previously required thecompletion of three reports with duplication, could now be completed in onereport. The improvements were estimated to have reduced the time taken bysocial workers to complete forms by 15%. The Social Workers were of theview that this had created more time for reflection, assessment and time withthe families and enabled improved capture of assessments and risk analysis.The information was also now presented in a much more user friendly formatfor clients which was important since as much information as possible wasshared with the families. Concerns remained regarding the duplication of workin different workflows and an ongoing development project was in hand toexamine and address this.Management information had also been improved. In particular, thedevelopment of a digital dashboard would provide social work team managerswith “real time” information in respect of critical performance managementdata. In response to Member questions the Committee was assured thatdespite the delegation of monitoring to team managers systems were in placeto ensure quality and accurate assessment of risk. These included a QualityAssessment Team which reviewed case handling, cross team peer audits anda fortnightly management overview of cases._____________________________________________________________________________________________________Minutes are subject to confirmation at the next meeting as a correct record of the proceedings and any amendments arising willbe recorded in the minutes of that subsequent meeting.

The Social Work staff emphasised the advantages of electronic recordkeeping with collaborative access to files leading to better sharing ofinformation and best practice. All files were archived electronically whichallowed for instant retrieval of historical records when required.Ofsted had concluded in May 2011 that Hammersmith and Fulham’sFrameworki system was one of the best and most comprehensiveimplementations of a childrens social care system. Further developmentswere, however, planned with a major system upgrade due to go live in 2013.It was hoped that the system would eventually mirror external reportingrequirements so that duplication could be further reduced by the importationof partner organisation templates such as court reports. It was also importantto ensure that the appropriate level of access was provided to partners withinformation being shared where required at the same time as themaintenance of adequate controls. The Council was sharing best practice onthe development and management of the system, both locally with the othertri borough authorities and nationally through user group forums.Finally, Members noted details of a pilot scheme in which all the tri boroughpartners were participating which was designed to test various freedoms andflexibilities within the ICS framework. This included the conflation ofassessment timescales and the piloting of a single assessment framework.The Committee was advised that the quality of the workforce would still be amore important factor in the quality of assessment and that on-going support,training and the active management of risk was vital to give confidence tofrontline social workers.45. BOROUGH YOUTH FORUM PROJECT PLAN - PRIORITIES FOR LOCALYOUNG PEOPLEThe Committee agreed to defer this item to the next meeting in order toenable the Children and Young People’s Involvement Officer to attend andpresent the report in person.46. PROGRESS REPORT ON THE CHILDREN'S ORAL HEALTH TASKGROUP RECOMMENDATIONSThe Committee received a report on progress with the implementation of therecommendations of the Childrens Oral Health Scrutiny Task Group approvedby Cabinet in October 2011. A multi agency group comprising representativesfrom the Council, the Dental Public Health team of the Inner North WestLondon PCT, Central London Community Healthcare and childrens centreshad been established to review developments, share information and adviseon implementation.Members noted that a pilot oral health programme focused on the White Cityarea was due to be launched in March. This would include a fluoride varnishscheme at five schools and a Childrens Centre, the use of local communitychampions trained in oral health messages and information resources forrelevant professionals. An evaluation report would be available by Augustand, subject to availability of funding, it was hoped that the work of the pilot_____________________________________________________________________________________________________Minutes are subject to confirmation at the next meeting as a correct record of the proceedings and any amendments arising willbe recorded in the minutes of that subsequent meeting.

would be rolled out across the Borough. Progress had also been made withthe integration of consistent oral health messages into wider workprogrammes through the development of closer linkages between the dentalpublic health team, social workers, school nurses, childrens centre staff andmembers of the localities service. It was anticipated that a Special Motionwould be brought forward to enable a debate at Full Council on the issue ofwater fluoridation.Matthew Jones, the Projects Officer responsible for implementation of therecommendations, was shortly due to move on to other duties and theCommittee took the opportunity to thank him for his efforts.RESOLVED that -i) the progress in implementation of the Childrens Oral HealthScrutiny Task Group be noted; andii) the concept of integrating the recommendations with each otherinto work programmes to fit, as far as possible, with the North WestLondon Child Oral Health Improvement Strategy be noted.47. WORK PROGRAMME AND FORWARD PLAN 2011-12The Committee reviewed its work programme for the 2011/12 Municipal Year.Members also noted details of forthcoming relevant key decisions which weredue to be taken by the Cabinet and were open to scrutiny by the Committee.It was requested that a copy of the report to be presented to Cabinetconcerning an initiative to establish a payment by results model of combatingyouth unemployment be circulated to Members upon publication.RESOLVED that -the work programme be agreed.48. DATE OF NEXT MEETINGThe Committee noted that its next meeting would be held on 18 April 2012.Meeting started: 7.00 pmMeeting ended: 9.19 pmChairmanContact officer:Gary MarsonPrincipal Committee Co-ordinatorGovernance and Scrutiny: 0208 753 2278E-mail: gary.marson@lbhf.gov.uk_____________________________________________________________________________________________________Minutes are subject to confirmation at the next meeting as a correct record of the proceedings and any amendments arising willbe recorded in the minutes of that subsequent meeting.