Members to give notice of any interest and the nature of that interest relating to any item on the agenda in accordance with the adopted Code of Conduct.

No declarations were made.

A maximum of 15 minutes will be allocated to public questions submitted in writing to Democratic Services (democratic.services@trafford.gov.uk) by 4 p.m. on the working day prior to the meeting. Questions must be relevant to items appearing on the agenda and will be submitted in the order in which they were received.

The Chair informed the Committee that three questions had been received from members of the public. The first was related to agenda item five, with the second and third related to agenda item 7.

1. I would like to know why schools are able to set their own school holidays?  Family time should be a priority and where there is no co-ed option for high schools in an area, holidays MUST be standardised.  For example, this year my son & daughter do not have any holidays together in February break or Easter. I do hope Trafford do not intend to fine any parent choosing to holiday over these two periods as that would not be fair, all six breaks should be available for parents to utilise.

I have never taken my children out of school, and will probably not do so, however I think the question regarding fines needs asking on behalf of parents wanting a cheaper holiday, especially in a cost-of-living crisis.

A verbal response was provided by the Director of Education Standard, Quality, and Performance and this can be seen below –

The Local Authority are only responsible for setting the dates of school holidays for community and voluntary controlled schools. Academies and free schools, including Wellacre and Flixton Girls School, have their timetables decided by their governing body’s or with the trust. We have received this question in the past, and feedback from families has been shared with headteachers of these schools. Quite recently, we had the Secondary Headteachers meeting, where the discussion was had around the next round of school holidays, and we always endeavour to consult with all of the schools and take into account neighbouring authorities school dates. The schools recognise that they will work better together in the future to make sure there is greater alignment, but ultimately the responsibility does sit with their governing bodies and trusts.

2. What are children and young people’s views on inequality and how have their views and opinions been collected?

A verbal response was provided by the Public Health Consultant and can be seen below-

There have been some programmes of work described in the paper that have involved engagement, sometimes referred to, sometimes not in the paper. We do recognise that there has not been work done on inequalities more generally, as it has often been on a specific piece of service development. More can be done now to bring together that data and insight from individual pieces of work, with a more systematic and deeper analysis of young people’s experiences of inequalities, which will form part of embedding children’s advocacy and participation in all our work.

There’s an existing participation and engagement strategy 2022-25, which outlines Trafford’s commitment to harnessing young people’s voices and using this. Groups involved in this strategy included the Children in Care Council, Youthwatch, Trafford Youth Cabinet, and the Aftercare Forum among others. Some of those bring together young people with experiences who are often less well heard that others.

There’s a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28.

To receive and, if so determined, to approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 26^th September 2023.

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held on the 26^th September 2023 be approved as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

To receive a report from the Director for Education Standards, Quality, and Performance.

The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance opened by recognising guidance published by the Department for Education (DfE) in May 2022, which was labelled ‘Working together to improve school attendance’. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance highlighted that this was currently non-statutory, however, the Secretary of State had committed to making it statutory. The Committee were informed that this guidance had been established to define the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders to maintain high levels of attendance. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance spoke of the high amount of work ongoing within Trafford around this, particularly, discussions looking at Trafford’s strategies regarding the DfE’s guidance. She highlighted that Trafford, overall, are proud of their attendance data, with this being one of the highest in the country, a positive highlighted also by the DfE and Ofsted. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance referred the Committee to latest published data, which had been included within the report provided. She hoped this highlighted the strong picture for children with SEND, but that there was possibly more work to be done in the secondary sector.

The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance also highlighted the data around the impacts of poor attendance, and how bad this could be for results. The Council was being clear that this was everybody’s business, with schools and partners encourage to work with rather than against families.

The Committee were informed that officers had established a model draft attendance policy aimed at getting consistency across the borough, on request of schools, with guidance also produced to enhance the culture around attendance in schools.

The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance referred the Committee to the report and its inclusion of Emotionally Based School non-attendance (EBSNA), informing the Committee that they were acutely aware of this issue, especially post-pandemic. The guidance toolkit produced on this had been done by Trafford’s Educational Psychologist (EP), who had led with working with colleagues across Greater Manchester (GM) to develop a toolkit that explains the factors on attendance difficulties.

The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance spoke of the work of the virtual school, with the Head of the Virtual School aware that attendance for cared for children was a concern and had a clear priority around improving school attendance for vulnerable cohorts.

One of the expectations from the guidance produced by DfE was to hold targeting support networks on a termly basis for every school. The work on this had begun with a RAG rating in place to work with those red schools as a priority.

The Chair thanked the Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance for the report and asked if the Committee had any questions.

Councillor Sutton asked about persistent absence being a potential early sign of safeguarding issues. He felt that there needed to be a more specific inclusion of the statutory need to consider safeguarding issues.

The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance recognised that attendance  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30.

To consider a report from the Director of Early Help and Children’s Social Care.

The Corporate Director for Children’s Services introduced the report and informed the Committee that this was the first time an annual report had been produced on safeguarding. The Corporate Director for Children’s Services recognised that this was an issue for local and national services. She hoped that the report gives an indication of how seriously the Council takes safeguarding and informed the Committee that it was about being child and young person centric.

The Head of Service – Vulnerable Adolescents began by picking out some of the highlights of the report and referenced the difference it made to young people. The highlights included a really strong staffing resource with good retention and a low rate of interim staff, which helped in providing young people with a stability around their workers, and feedback currently reflected this. The Head of Service – Vulnerable Adolescents spoke of the high level of expertise within the team, who had a greater understanding of the young people and there needs.

The Head of Service – Vulnerable Adolescents mentioned that a lot of work had gone into the development of the complex safeguarding partnership, with a highlight being the partnership working. The Head of Service – Vulnerable Adolescents referred to the development of the SHINE panel and said that these improvements had enabled the safeguarding team to respond to any concerns from young people, often on the same day.

The Head of Service – Vulnerable Adolescents referred to a case study in the report but said that improvements to multi-agency working prevents young people becoming criminalised when they are often a victim of exploitation.

The Head of Service – Vulnerable Adolescents spoke of a further highlight being the wide range of audits material, which helped to understand gaps for young people and gaps within the service. They also receive performance data that helps the team to understand the patterns and themes that were affecting young people. The Head of Service – Vulnerable Adolescents said that what was known from the data was the low re-referral rate within the service. This stood at just 11% which equates to three young people and had been taken as a measure of success of ongoing direct work with young people.

The Head of Service – Vulnerable Adolescents provided final reflections. She mentioned that it was a female heavy workforce, despite lots of boys using the services. She informed the committee that a male social worker had been recruited. The Head of Service – Vulnerable Adolescents noted the need to be mindful of urban street gang children who have often been victims but were also potential exploiters of other young people.

The final reflection from the Head of Service – Vulnerable Adolescents was that it had been noticed that it was quite difficult to get feedback from young people, with an ongoing drive to ask families and young people for their feedback, to see what the service does well and not so well.

The Chair thanked the Head of Service – Vulnerable  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31.

To receive a report from the Director of Public Health.

The Director of Public Health provided the introduction, with Trafford in the process of shaping the approach to health inequalities. The Committee were informed that the public health team works closely with several council services, including closely with the Corporate Director for Children’s Services. She spoke to the wider determinants of health inequalities, and the impact of these on children. Public health was adopting a partnership approach to reducing health inequalities, which was to be complimentary to the Greater Manchester (GM), fairer health for all. She ended by saying that children live in families, and that you could not think about children’s health inequalities without thinking about their wider families.

The Public Health Consultant began by informing the Committee that the report was an overview of a wide-ranging agenda, so was happy to comeback on any questions from Councillors. The Public Health Consultant said that the drivers of health inequalities are complex and referred to the evidence of this in the report. The Committee were advised that the Public Health Consultant had tried to structure the paper to a way that it was helpful, and the simplified model that considers the social or wider determinants of health. These things then determine the opportunities people have to live healthily. 

The Public Health Consultant informed the Committee that the paper had focused on the second and third layers of health inequalities, with a focus on some of the core groups that are not covered if you take only a geographical or deprivation-based look at inequalities.

The Public Health Consultant referred the Committee to the key figures of what inequalities looks like. She drew the committee to a couple of these, including the significant focus of the paper on the early years provision, particularly from conception to age two.

The Public Health Consultant further referred to the report to improvements that are being seen, which have been covered in the report, and spoke of key data in the West of the Borough. She drew the committee to the data on the national child measurement programme, which was done at reception age, and had shown inequalities in excess weight, had been eliminated since 17/18, with the gap between the most and the least deprived having massively reduced.

Mental health and emotional wellbeing had also been referenced in the report, with an increased need and complexity for these young people. The Public Health Consultant provided some information about what was being done to target and support these young people.

The Public Health Consultant spoke about the decrease in take up of immunisations since COVID, an issue also seen nationally. She informed the Committee of the targeted work ongoing with the GP practices in the North of the borough, to spark a conversation about why less people are booking in for vaccinations, especially for young children under 5.

The Public Health Consultant summarised the report and referenced the strategic items at the end of the report.

The Chair thanked the officers for the report and asked  ...  view the full minutes text for item 32.

To receive any urgent updates from officers of the Committee.

Prior to the meeting Councillor Procter had sent questions for the Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance around SEND Tribunals. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance responded to these questions in the meeting.