Agenda and minutes

The apologies of Councillors Burke and O’Neill were noted.

The Panel noted that Councillor Jordan had replaced Councillor Lewzey as Lead Member for Children’s Social Care.  This change had been reported at the Council Meeting on 20 September 2017.  The Panel noted thanks to Councillor Lewzey for his work in the role of Lead Member of Children’s Social Care.

To approve and sign as a correct record the Minutes of the meetings held on 27 July 2017 and to deal with any matters arising, attached.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting held on 27 July 2017 be approved and signed as a correct record.

The Panel considered the report of the Service Director, Legal and Governance which provided the provisional 2016/17 key stage exam results in Southampton.

Councillor Paffey, Lead Member for Education and Skills, Councillor Jordan, Lead Member for Children’s Social Care, Hilary Brooks, Service Director, Children and Families Services, Jo Cassey, Service Lead – Education and Early Help, Derek Wiles, School Improvement, and Jane White, Service Lead – Children’s Social Care were present and with the consent of the Chair addressed the meeting.  In discussions with the officers, the Panel noted the following:

·  The data in the report was provisional and would be verified in December.

·  The provisional results were largely in line with expectation.

·  There had been a lot of change at Key Stage 4 with changes made to grades awarded using a numerical scale and the Education Baccalaureate.

·  The Attainment 8 Progress data had not been released in time to be included in the report.

·  The Virtual School, Social Workers, Foster Carers and the Corporate Parenting Committee were working hard to improve the educational attainment of Looked After Children in Southampton and to close the gap between Looked after Children and their city peers. Progress had been made but there was more to do with this cohort.

RESOLVED that:

  (i)  A breakdown of Key Stage 2 performance by school in Southampton be circulated to the Panel, including trend data where possible;

  (ii)  The recently published provisional Key Stage 4 Progress 8 results for Southampton schools were circulated to the Panel;

 (iii)  Officers should investigate:

a) The thresholds being applied by the local providers of post 16 education with regards to accepting Level 4 or Level 5 attainment, and;

b) The support that was being offered by local providers of post 16 education to students who were awaiting the outcomes of Key Stage 4 appeals;

 (iv)  The finalised Key Stage exam results for Southampton, including the performance of Looked After Children, were presented to the 25 January 2018 meeting of the Panel.  It was requested that the presentation referenced the work that was being undertaken to support Key Stage 4 attainment at schools in the east of Southampton;

  (v)  In preparation for the Panel’s scheduled post 16 education discussion in March 2018, consideration should be given to a suitable measure of progress for Key Stage 5 providers /results;

 (vi)  For future Key Stage 5 Executive Summary reports, attempts were made to obtain and report vocational outcomes alongside A-Level results;

(vii)  Anonymised destination data for the 2016/17 Key Stage 4 Looked After Children cohort was appended to the Educational Attainment report requested for the 25 January 2018 Panel meeting;

(viii)  To evidence the commitment to improve educational outcomes for Looked After Children, the Panel were, at the 25 January 2018 Panel meeting, provided with anonymised case studies showing how the performance of Looked After Children was being tracked, and how targeted support was being provided to Looked After Children to help them to achieve their potential; and

 (ix)  In addition to Key  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13.

Report of the Service Director, Children and Families updating the Panel on the progress made implementing the recommendations following the Southampton joint local area SEND inspection in February 2017.

The Panel noted the report of the Service Director, Children and Families updating the Panel on the progress made implementing the recommendations following the Southampton joint local area SEND inspection in February 2017.

Jo Cassey, Service Lead – Education and Early Help, was present and with the consent of the Chair address the meeting.  In discussions with the officers, the Panel noted that the outcome of the SEND Ofsted inspection was good and that the SEND Partnership had included the recommendations from Ofsted in the SEND Partnership action plan.

The Panel noted the report of the Service Director, Legal and Governance providing an overview of performance across Children and Families Services since July 2017.

Councillor Jordan, Lead Member for Children’s Social Care, Hilary Brooks, Service Director, Children and Families Services, Phil Bullingham, Service Lead – Safeguarding, Improvement, Governance and Quality Assurance, and Jane White, Service Lead – Children’s Social Care were present and with the consent of the Chair addressed the meeting.  In discussions with the officers, the Panel noted that performance continued to improve overall, although there were inevitable dips in performance due to the school summer holidays.

It was noted that the number of child protection conferences fluctuated frequently.  This was partly due to large sibling groups and also due to meaningful delay to get a good conference with the right people and information all in one place at the same time. The number of child protection conferences would decrease as robust child protection care plans helped families to progress rapidly, however there were also many repeat child protection plans as many families were close to the threshold between child protection and Early Help.

The Panel considered the report of the Service Director, Legal and Governance relating to recommendations made at previous meetings of the Panel.

Jo Cassey, Service Lead – Education and Early Help, and Jane White, Service Lead – Children’s Social Care were present and with the consent of the Chair addressed the meeting.

The Lead Apprenticeships Advisor checked what the provision was within the Capita/SCC contract for apprentices, it was noted that Capita’s corporate social responsibility obligations as regards apprentices were removed with effect from 1 April 2016 as part of the most recent major renegotiation of the SSP contract, the SSP Reset.

RESOLVEDthat:

  (i)  In response to the findings, the Capita contract now included no obligations with regards to apprenticeships, it was recommended that the Cabinet Member for Education and Skills raised the issue within Cabinet and would seek to identify opportunities to encourage Capita to participate in the Council’s approach to maximising apprenticeship opportunities; and

 (ii)  Officers should circulate to every Southampton City Councillor the table identifying the latest Ofsted rating for each Southampton school.  The Panel requested that the table was accompanied by an explanatory covering report and that the school’s previous Ofsted rating was added to the table.