Agenda item

The Sub-Committee received twelve of the sixteen corporate performance indicators that fell under the remit of the Children & Learning Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee.

The Assistant Director of Policy, Performance and Community outlined that three (25%) of the indicators have a status of Green while the other nine (75%) have a status of Red following the withdrawal of tolerance for the ratings.

The update report outlined the following area of highlights:

•      The percentage of early years providers judged Good or Outstanding by Ofsted remains above target. Nine inspections occurred in the last quarter of which 6 were of new private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sector providers.

•      The number of new in-house foster carers was better than target.  There  have been 6 new in-house foster carers recruited which bodes well for reaching the full year target of 20 which should increase the total number of in-house foster carers going forward. The innovation programme would be officially launched in quarter two, it was projected that performance should improve further in Q3 and Q4.

The Sub-Committee noted the following areas where improvements were required:

•      The percentage of young people leaving care who were in education, employment or training at ages 18 – 21; it was stated that the figure was  below target and worse than the previous quarter and the same time last year.  Additional staffing have been recruited specifically to help young people and care leavers plan their transitions to adulthood, including their education and employment route.  A number of care leavers were due to take up further education and university places in September 2017.

•      The percentage of looked after children who ceased to be LAC as a result of permanency (adoption and special guardianship) was recorded as below target. The Families Together Team has expanded its remit to provide support to families and young people where a Special Guardianship Order (SGO) was the permanency plan. Members were informed that a greater expectation has been given to the use of Family Group Conferencing to explore family options as early as possible. 

•      The percentage of looked after children placed in the authority’s foster care’ was below target.  The indicator was based on the total of in house and family & friend placements. It was stated that by reforming the in-house offer it was expected to bring an increase in performance throughout the year.

•      The percentage of children becoming the subject of a child protection plan for a second or subsequent time within 2 years’ was above target (where smaller is better) and higher than last quarter. The Sub-Committee noted that the director had commissioned a review of child protection activity and processes within the service, along with the development of an action plan for improvement, to be completed over the summer.

•      The percentage of care proceedings completed in less than 26 weeks’ was significantly below target. The Sub-Committee was informed that during June, two children’s completed cases which were not completed within the target timescale had impacted on the year to date performance to 33.3% against a target of 80%.

The Sub-Committee noted the performance report.