Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Rooms 2&3, Trafford Town Hall, Talbot Road, Stretford, M32 0TH

Contact: Alexander Murray 

Items
No. Item

1.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

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.

Minutes:

No declarations were made.

2.

MINUTES pdf icon PDF 224 KB

To receive and, if so determined, to approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 5 July 2022.

Minutes:

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held 5 July 2022 be agreed as an accurate record.

3.

QUESTIONS FROM THE PUBLIC

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.

Minutes:

No questions were received.

4.

SCHOOL PLACEMENT PLANNING

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

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Director Education Standards, Quality and Performance went through a presentation which summarised the report circulated as part of the agenda. The Presentation showed attendance levels of Trafford Children were a lot better than the national average and Trafford’s statistical neighbours. The Committee were informed of the amount of learning lost for different percentages of attendance with 80% being over 7 weeks of learning lost over the course of a year and that attendance was used as a key performance indicator within Trafford’s Children’s services, particularly for early help. This reflected the Council’s approach that it was everyone’s responsibility to improve attendance as the impacts of missed school days had been shown to be wide ranging.

 

The Government had released new guidance the 6th of May 2022 which, while being non-statutory, highlighted good practice for schools and authorities. The key elements of the guidance were proactive attendance management, having accurate data, having evidence-based interventions, having attendance expertise within schools and local authorities, and the need to proactively remove out of school barriers. In response to the guidance Trafford had a School Attendance Support Team which provided all schools with support around communications and advice, targeting support meetings, and multi-disciplinary support for families free of charge.

 

The Pupil Absence Team Leader went over the legal interventions around attendance. The Committee were assured that legal interventions were seen as the last resort. The Committee were then informed of the preferred options (which included covered fixed-penalty notices, parenting orders, and parenting contracts) and how they were utilised. Trafford had issued 663 notices in the previous year and over 550 of those related to holidays being taken during term time. The Council did not issue many prosecutions and all of them were for non-payment of penalty notices. Parenting Orders were occasionally added by magistrates’ court after a prosecution, which often required parent attendance at parent sessions and did not tend to be used very often.  The was a large drive for Supervision orders to be used but they were not used very often within Trafford.

 

The Director Education Standards, Quality, and Performance concluded by Informing the Committee that there had been an error in the report that had been circulated and an updated report had been sent to the governance officer to be published after the meeting.

 

Following the presentation Councillor Blackburn asked whether there was any pattern among children with separated parents when they were with one parent rather than the other. The Pupil Absence Team Leader responded that analysis had not been done but it would be possible once the level of data increased. The Director Education Standards, Quality and Performance added that a cross agency group had discussed children with regular absence and the possible support that could be provided. The Director Education Standards, Quality and Performance informed the Committee about the AV1 robots that could be used to aid young people who were not able to attend class in person to attend virtually instead. Councillor Blackburn added that she  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.

ABSENCE AND PERSISTENT ABSENCE pdf icon PDF 224 KB

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

Minutes:

The Chair introduced this item by noting that school placements were an issue across the borough but recognised that the issue was particularly bad across the South of the Borough.

 

The Head of Early Years, School Places, and Access gave a short presentation which picked out the highlights of the report circulated as part of the agenda. The Committee were informed of the structure of the teams that looked at planning of school placements and the utilisation of funding received. The presentation provided details of the ScAPP survey and how the aim of the service was to provide places for all children within Trafford not all those who wanted placements within Trafford schools. Many applications had been received from the families placed in Trafford from the Ukraine with 80 places having been received as of the meeting from families within Trafford with 12 coming from outside of the borough.

 

For primary school sufficiency Trafford had a surplus in every area and 93.4% received a place at their first choice and 98.5% received a place at one of their first three choices. However, Trafford had seen a large increase in the number of in year applications received, with an increase of 56% in the last year.

 

The Head of Early Years, School Places, and Access went through the list of permanent expansions planned across the borough which would add 665 school places. Due to the pressures the Council had had to place children further away than usual and would provide those pupils transport costs when it went beyond the statutory distances.

 

The Head of Early Years, School Places, and Access then moved onto Secondary school sufficiency. The Committee were informed that secondary school were a much more complicated picture as Trafford only had responsibility for 1 of the 19 schools in the area. The RAG rating for secondary school places was shown to be red across the whole of the borough and the SCAP 2021 analysis stated that Trafford needed 607 additional places, but the situation had changed greatly. The Committee were shown the development options that the Council had considered with short term measures that included the need for Trafford Parents to fill out all 5 options with Trafford schools to protect places for Trafford residents in schools. With regards to long term options the Committee were informed that there was enough evidence to show a new secondary school was needed within Trafford and the Head of Early Years, School Places, and Access explained the funding routes available to the Council to build a school.

 

Following the presentation Councillor Welton asked if the Council could increase the number of preferences beyond 5. In response the Head of Early Years, School Places, and Access stated that 5 was already above the requirement and the evidence showed that it did seem to work if all 5 of the options were utilised.

 

Councillor Blackburn asked about the cost of creating school places in Trafford compared to the funding schools received per pupil. The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.

OFSTED UPDATE pdf icon PDF 597 KB

To receive a presentation from the Corporate Director of Children’s Services.

Minutes:

The Corporate Director of Children’s Services informed the Committee that the next two items could be taken together with the slides being around the latest visit by Ofsted and the second item relating to the overall journey since the inadequate rating. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services then went on update the Committee on the feedback received at the last visit from Ofsted. Ofsted had identified areas of improvement across all aspects of the service. The Councils had begun the improvement journey from a poor original position following the inadequate rating which instigated the creation of an improvement plan looking at fixing the problem areas as quickly as possible.

 

The Corporate Director of Children’s Services spoke of how the Council had moved from the delivery of the improvement plan to envisioning of an ambition of where the Council wanted to be. This transition had involved a full review of all elements of children’s services and data gathering and analysis played a key role in recognising what was needed for Trafford to deliver that ambition for Children’s services. The Covid 19 pandemic had actually aided the Council in progressing along the improvement journey as it required the service to build strong relationships with partners in education and health that had not been their previously, which furthered the development of the holistic approach to children’s services Trafford was transitioning towards.

 

The Director of Early Help and Children's Social Care spoke to the Committee about children’s social services and the improvements that had been made within the practices. The Committee were informed of the work that had gone into the creating a stable leadership team within the service. While there was a higher level of interim workers than the council would want many had worked at the council for many months to a point where they also provided stability within the service. The Director of Early Help and Children's Social Care expressed to the Committee that despite the progress Trafford had made within the service there was still a lot of work to be done.

 

The Corporate Director of Children’s Services then provided the Committee with the picture of services across the Northwest. Out of the 23 local authorities across the region 10 Councils had received Ofsted ratings of requires improvement and 5 had been rated as inadequate. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services assured the Committee that she had not raised those Ofsted ratings to make Trafford seem better but for the Committee to understand the context that Trafford were on their improvement journey in.

 

Councillor Bennett asked whether the difficulties in recruiting qualified social workers was hindering the delivery of the improvement plan. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services responded to Councillor Bennett that staffing had been a huge issue at first but Trafford had started to see an improvement in the levels of stability within the workforce. The Corporate Director of Children’s Services spoke of the role the training programmes, which were available to all staff including agency staff, had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.

OFSTED IMPROVEMENT JOURNEY OVERVIEW pdf icon PDF 508 KB

To receive a report from the Corporate Director of Children’s Services.

Minutes:

This item was covered under Ofsted Update.

8.

BIKEABILITY

To consider the attached report.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee were informed that there were no officers in attendance at the meeting to deliver this item so any questions raised would be noted and passed onto officers for a response.

 

Councillor Welton noted that the report came in at the last moment and the programme was up and running. However, the problem was ensuring that the young people who had missed out when the programme was not running were caught up and Councillor Welton noted that it said TFGM were to do this, but did not provide any details as to how. Councillor Welton spoke of the importance of this programme being promoted to secondary schools and asked how the Council would monitor how may had missed out and how many had since received Bikeability training.

 

Councillor Welton also noted that the report spoke about the programme being a third stage to programme which covered key skills including how to plan journeys as well as just riding on the road. Councillor Welton asked whether there were any plans to expand the programme to the third stage across Trafford.

 

Councillor Dagnall asked whether the Bikeability programme linked into the soft skills within the curriculum around personnel development as a way to promote it. The Chair asked that a question around the promotion of the service within Secondary Schools be put to officers.

 

Councillor Blackburn asked about funding as the programme ran by the school year and funding ran by financial year and how that worked.

Councillor Hornby asked for more information about the level of staff available and if it was adequate.

 

Councillor Hornby asked for the Committee to be provided with a breakdown of take up by ward so can know where the gaps are.

 

Councillor Welton suggested that Members look at the Bikeability website and the value of the programme being done throughout young people’s time at school. Councillor Welton then asked whether the Bikeability programme linked into the Council’s Walking and Cycling Strategy.

 

RESOLVED:

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That the questions asked be captured and sent to officers for a response.

 

9.

URGENT BUSINESS (IF ANY) pdf icon PDF 128 KB

Any other item or items which by reason of:-

 

(a)       Regulation 11 of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012, the Chairman of the meeting, with the agreement of the relevant Overview and Scrutiny Committee Chairman, is of the opinion should be considered at this meeting as a matter of urgency as it relates to a key decision; or

 

(b)       special circumstances (to be specified) the Chairman of the meeting is of the opinion should be considered at this meeting as a matter of urgency.

 

Minutes:

The Chair introduced the piece of urgent business which had been received from the Health Scrutiny Committee. The Committee were informed that the item needed to be considered urgently as the creation of a Task and Finish group required agreement of the Committee and waiting to the next Committee Meeting would make it unlikely that the work could be completed within the municipal year. The item related to a request to create a task and finish group to look at access to mental health services for Children and Young people within the borough. The Chair spoke of her support for the creation of the group before opening the floor for comments and questions.

 

Councillor Whetton, as Chair of the Health Scrutiny Committee, informed the Committee that the proposal was for this to be a joint piece of work and that three Members of the Health Scrutiny Committee were interested in taking part if the group was agreed.

 

The Executive Member for Children’s Services asked whether it was to be focused upon the CAMHS service or the broader mental health provision. The Chair responded that it was around access to all mental health services, not just CAMHS.

 

Following the discussion, the Committee agreed to form a Task and Finish Group.

 

RESOLVED:

1)    That the reasons for the item being considered as an Urgent Item of Business be noted.

2)    That the Committee agree to form a Task and Finish Group to look at access to mental health services for children and young people.