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 lot of work going on with those groups and with partners in and amongst the Council to review the participation and engagement strategy and the current infrastructure to make sure that the voices of young people are engaged with and reach the right strategic forums and decisions makers.

3. There has been just one mention in the report of the ‘beewell’ survey; will Trafford be doing any more evaluation of the data from that survey as it gives a detailed understanding of how our children and young people are?

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

This year’s survey is just closing, with approximately 16 schools signing up to this. The survey provides a useful breakdown by neighbourhood, which can often be hard to source from other data sets and was found when producing this paper. The results do require further interrogation and interpretation and it should be noted that the survey is completed by specific young people, in specific schools, so it is not a representative sample but is nonetheless a useful starting point.

There is a dashboard developed by the University of Manchester to provide an after-glance view for neighbourhoods and different authorities to compare with each other. Anybody with an interest can access on that, so we would be happy to take views on how to make the most out of that.

In terms of within the Council, previously the results have been shared through the Start Well board, to consider the implications for partners. It is also valuable that schools have a line of sight to those findings. The findings have informed commissioning plans and are referenced in the mental health joint strategic needs assessment. Once this year’s findings have been published, we are committed to taking these through the young people’s engagement mechanisms to supplement the high level of data.