Agenda item

For discussion and noting by the Committee.

The Committee considered the relevant sections to Children and Learning in the Annual Cabinet Performance Report 2012-2013.

Early Years

The Early Years Provision was 76.4% which was 3% above target and an improvement on last year.

The Committee were advised that there were private companies/individuals providing early year care and although they were subject to robust quality assurance, they were not local authority maintained and therefore the Authority had no control.   A Quality Assurance team had been retained by the Local Authority to check on their provision. It was noted that there would be an increase of 500 places for this year. Officers confirmed that 15 nurseries situated within schools formed part of the maintained sector.

Apprenticeships

The 14-19 Partnership had set a target of 500 apprentices to be recruited as part of a three year programme and that 242 had already been recruited in the first quarter. Officers confirmed that next year’s academic outturn would be included in next year’s target.  A member queried the number of NEETs that would be included in this year’s figures and officers agreed to obtain this information confirming that a NEET report was due soon. Another member wanted to know if the 242 included children who are resident but who do not necessarily attend Havering Schools. Officers explained that all data was recorded nationally and was linked to the Academic year not the financial year.  There would be further comments relating to this in the next report.

Fostering

In fostering placements of two years or more, the authority did not achieve it performance target of 75% although the figure of 63% was an improvement on the previous year. Officers advised that in having reached 63% with an outturn of 49.1% had been very challenging and therefore the service had made significant progress. The Chairman suggested that this may be a matter for a Topic Group to address.

Learning.

It was noted that performance at Key Stage 4, pupils achieving 5 or more A* - C grades had improved significantly with current Annual Performance at 65.2%.  A report would be made available which would provide comparisons with other local authorities.

NEET

Officers advised that the government had changed the processes in calculating NEET.  Every young person who counts as unknown is marked as being NEET. It was noted that performance was better than target although slightly worse than last year.  A target of 4.9% had been set for 2013/14 which was allowing for 3000 additional 17 year olds to be factored in. Havering was actually below target but hoped to retain performance. 

Members questioned how the authority obtained accurate numbers and information about NEETs. Officers advised that local authorities commence the count in July so as to ensure an accurate measure as possible by early September. The intention of government policy was that all children/young people are in either school, training, college, an apprenticeship or employment. It was known that a small percentage of NEETs were in actual fact teenage mothers but that was only one group in a small NEET cohort and was typical nationally. Members enquired about putting young people through apprenticeships and asked what jobs would be available upon completion of their training.  Officers advised that they would ask Trevor Cook to provide further details on any schemes in relation to work done with Job Centre Plus and report back to the Committee. It was also agreed that a representative from Job Centre Plus address a later meeting around policies and outcomes for NEETS.

Child Protection Plans

It was noted that there had been an increase in Child Protection Plans however the duration of these had remained relatively short.  In the current financial year, there had only been one child who became subject of a Child Protection Plan for the second or subsequent time within two years.  The wording of the indicator had been modified to include within 2 years as per the Munro Report.  The Authority’s performance was better than target for 2012/2013 however the target had been reduced by 4% for 2013/2014 owing to the additional measures now in place to support children and families. Members requested that further information on Protections Plans be provided.

Teenage Pregnancies

The Committee felt that 40,000 teenage pregnancies in the borough was far too high and were assured that Public Health was addressing the issue. The Chair stated that the subject formed part of the JSNA and further discussion on the issue would take place under the forthcoming joint scrutiny topic group on children’s Health Services. It had also been previously discussed at the last Children’s OSC at it had featured in the Children and Young Peoples Plan.  Officers were asked to provide the number of

LAC children pregnant at the next CPP meeting. Members enquired whether movement from other areas or out of Havering had affected the figures. Officers affirmed that these would be health figures and would therefore not be available to Social Care. Officers asked the Committee to note that there had been a lot of positive work done with the Condom Card Scheme, however, the Committee felt that further work on sexual health needed to be done. The Committee requested a breakdown on pregnancy figures and agreed to review the subject again.

Adoption

It was noted via the adoption indicators that the authority had not performed very well last year but performance overall was improving. It was hoped through better placements and quicker court proceedings, the situation would continue to improve. A member cautioned that adoption was about people’s lives and that there should be time for reflection in the process. 

Summary

The Committee noted the Annual Cabinet Report and expressed concerns over the method of target setting where there was a lower level of provision and a greater cohort in a number of areas. Members also questioned whether the targets were subject to a robust challenge process. The officers present confirmed that the targets were externally benchmarked, the challenge process was robust and that the figures were signed off by the Chief Executive.

Members discussed the format of the Annual Corporate Performance Report which did not show how Havering was performing nationally and requested that the officers provide this information.