6d

BLACKPOOL COUNCIL

EXECUTIVE MEMBER REPORT TO THE COUNCIL

Report of the Cabinet Member for: /

Children’s Services

at the Council meeting held on: / 26th November 2008
This report provides the opportunity to report to the Council the latest developments on various matters relating to the Children’s Services portfolio.
Change for Children Programme
The Children’s Trust has discussed the following major items and its decisions are listed.
Play Builder Programme
Blackpool will receive £1.1 million over the next three years to upgrade and develop play facilities. Seven projects have been identified in the first year totalling £305,071. Consultation has taken place with children and young people including those with a disability and community members to collate and develop views on what the play areas should look like.
Youth Crime Action Plan
In September 2008, the Department for Schools and Families announced £180,000 funding for Blackpool to support the above. Plans include a youth worker and Police Community Support Officer to be established in every secondary school and the development of more targeted activities for weekends. The outline project plan has been submitted to the Youth Task Force and the full draft strategy will return to the Trust.
Combatting Childhood Obesity
The Trust received a report from NHS colleagues regarding the Childhood Obesity Strategy, which has four main strands:
1.  Family based intervention
2.  Infant Feeding
3.  Primary care intervention
4.  School based intervention
Members agreed to consider the importance of this issue when considering the priorities for the next Children and Young People’s Plan.
Commissioning
The Trust has established a commissioning group to review and agree objectively the commissioning of services for children, young people and their families in Blackpool. The group is accountable to the PCT Professional Executive and the Children’s Trust. The Trust Board has approved the policy and terms of reference. The first meeting of the group took place on 23rd October.
Children and Young People’s Plan 2009-2012
We are currently reviewing the priorities in the present Plan and consulting for the new Plan. Consultations have taken place with children and young people from 0-19 and there are a series of meetings to involve all sections of the community. There is also the opportunity to complete an on-line survey via the council website or intranet. Sue Crouch and Nicola Stubbins are the lead officers for this work. The new Plan will be launched in the spring.
School Organisational Issues
The significant increase in demand for Reception places this academic year has been successfully accommodated through the creation of additional places at Kincraig and Claremont Primary Schools with the latter being established on the site of Beacon Hill High School. Both arrangements are working well and plans are in hand to ensure future growth is managed in a timely and effective manner.
St Nicholas’ CE Primary School has completed remodelling and improvement work over the summer and provides enhanced facilities for its pupils. The programme to replace St John Vianney’s Catholic Primary School is well advanced with the steel frame in place.
The Authority’s Building Schools for the Future Programme has reached a key stage with the submission of the Outline Business Case on 20th November. The programme is still on course to see the first new build school opening in 2012. The successful Housing Growth Point Bid will add additional pupils to the town’s forecasts and these extra students have been factored into the plans for Building Schools for the Future.
Learning and Achievement
Ofsted Inspections
We have had two secondary school Ofsted inspections so far this academic year, St Mary’s Catholic College was judged to be a good school and Montgomery High School was judged to be a satisfactory school with some good features. We had a Maths Ofsted focus visit at Stanley Primary School, which was very positive. The Ofsted team commented on the positive impact of Local Authority support in the school. Ofsted also visited Waterloo Primary school to inspect inclusive practice and commented that the school is ‘fully inclusive’. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate visited Blackpool to explore our arrangements for educating excluded pupil and was very happy with our arrangements.
Music
The music service has been awarded a creative music making award, one of only three Local Authorities in the country to receive this award.
Cycling
Palatine High School and Collegiate High School both feature in Cycling England’s latest Bikeability Booklet as examples of good practice around cycling proficiency. This booklet is distributed to schools across the country.
Cutting edge curriculum development
Blackpool is one of four Local Authorities across the country to be asked by Qualifications and Curriculum development Agency to continue working with them on developing the exciting new look Key Stage 3 curriculum, which is now being trialled in all our secondary schools. It is great to see national recognition of this ongoing work between teachers and the learning achievement team.
Targeted Support for Children With Additional Needs
Assessment and Care Management
The locality-working model continues to embed in practice and early indications show an improvement in Performance Indicators around Initial and Core Assessments being completed within timescales.
We have now diverted resources to support a Domestic Abuse team to work jointly with the police on this issue. The team will initially consist of one qualified social worker and two support officers who will jointly assess referrals with the Police.
The team will be based in the police station at Bonny Street and will be managed by Andy Shackleton, alongside the Awaken Team.
Provider Services
Work has now been completed at Hornby Road and the unit was officially opened on 25th November. Over the next few weeks the transition of young people from Westbury to Hornby Road will be completed.
Hornby Road had a successful recent inspection and was deemed to be a good provision.
The Care Leavers Civic Awards Ceremony was held in the Spanish Hall at the Winter Gardens on 11th November and celebrated the many achievements of our older young people looked after by the authority.
Quality Assurance
Children’s Social Care Services across the country are now operating an electronic record keeping system that is endorsed by central Government. The objective of this is to promote the uniformity of core social work processes. Enhancements are being made continuously to reflect changes in social work policy and legislation.
Blackpool’s Children’s Services Directorate met the 2007/08 funding conditions and is now eligible to receive the Integrated Children’s System capital grant of £60,810. The successful implementation was recognised by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Integrated Children’s system project manager was congratulated for her efforts, she has also been asked to share her implementation strategies to colleagues in other Local Authorities by our system provider.
The Local Safeguarding Children’s Board has agreed to appoint a Business Development Manager and the recruitment process is currently underway. It is envisaged that this post will ensure that the activities of the board are well co-ordinated and the business is conducted in a timely and efficient manner. This post will develop strong links with Government Office North West and other Local Authorities across the region.
I am pleased to inform members that a Local Authority Designated Officer has now been appointed on a permanent basis. This post was created to ensure that local practice adheres to guidance as stated in ‘HM Government’s Working Together to Safeguard Children 2006’. Working Together both increases the breadth of organisations affected by the revised guidance and the nature of what constitutes an allegation itself. Inter-agency processes must now include dealing with allegations that suggest a person may be ‘unsuitable’ to work with children. The Local Authority Designated Officer role relates to the management and oversight of individual cases where allegations have been made against staff working with children. The monitoring is designed to influence the timeliness of the process and ensure that the process is both thorough and fair. The Local Authority Designated Officer will provide regular reports to the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board and promote awareness raising with employers in the voluntary sector and non-statutory agencies. This post will be instrumental in contributing to safer working practices across Blackpool and will develop positive working links with the advisors appointed by Government Office North West.
Children With Additional Needs
Following two unsuccessful attempts to appoint to our vacant post for an advisory teacher for children and young people with a hearing impairment, we have this term finally made a successful appointment. Helen McCann, a qualified teacher of the deaf, currently employed by Preston Royal School for the Deaf, will be joining us on a full-time basis in January. This is an important post with responsibility for close working with health services providing early support for parents of deaf and hearing impaired infants as part of the neo-natal screening programme, as well as advisory support for children and young people with a hearing impairment in schools.
Our educational psychology service has also been successful in appointing an educational psychologist in training as part of the new requirements for educational psychologists to obtain direct experience within a service whilst completing a new Doctorate course.
Services to Children and Young People in the Community and To Promote Inclusion
Blackpool has successfully bid to be one of only 10 Local Authorities to pilot the new Work Focussed Services in Children’s Centres. The aim of this pilot is to contribute to a reduction in Child Poverty by a new way of working with Jobcentre Plus Personal Advisers located in Children’s Centres as an integral part of Children’s Centre teams. Their role will be to identify and engage with groups of parents and work with them to become work ready, progressing along a continuum from confidence building through to learning and development and employment. Peter Legg, Head of Economic Development, will chair the Pilot’s steering group, demonstrating the cross-cutting nature of this Local Area Agreement target, which has been included within the Economic block of the Local Area Agreement and is pivotal to the Every Child Matters Agenda.
The Government has recently consulted on proposals to give Sure Start Children's Centres a specific statutory legal basis, as part of the forthcoming Education and Skills Bill. The purpose of the proposed legislation is to establish Sure Start Children's Centres as a legally recognised part of the universal infrastructure for children's services, so that their provision becomes a long-term statutory commitment and part of the established landscape of early year’s provision. The proposed new duties reflect current good practice as reflected in existing guidance issued from Department for Children, Schools and Families, rather than creating any new requirements on local authorities or other service providers.
The Childcare Act 2006 extended the Local Authority's duty to provide information to the public on childcare and related services. The Family Information Service (formerly the Children's Information Service) now has to provide a free and impartialservice giving detailed information and advice on childcare as well asgeneral informationon a wide range of services, facilities and publicationsfor children and young people aged 0-19yearsand theirfamilies. The aim is to ensure that all parents, prospective parents and young people have access to high quality, accurate and timely information.The Local Authority has now secured a database provider for the Family Information Service and existing hard copy information must be input by August 2009. Subsequently, it is planned that a website will be developed which will have a gateway for parents, young people and professionals.
Integrated Youth Services continues to lead on the implementation of Targeted Youth Support for more vulnerable young people. Pilot work has been conducted with Beacon High School and Collegiate High School and development is on target to meet the Government deadline of December 2008. Efficiencies achieved through the integration of services have enabled reinvestment in more frontline work including two new Connexions Personal Adviser posts and four new Targeted Youth Support Youth Worker posts. These staff have been deployed in three locality based multi-disciplinary teams since April 2008 and the new delivery arrangements have contributed to strong performance against the September Guarantee to make every school leaver an offer of learning by the end of September. The Locality teams have also helped to provide a greater diversity of summer activities for young people compared to previous years.
The Access and Participation Unit has helped to set up ‘Our Voice’ a Looked After Children’s Council to ensure the voice of this vulnerable group is heard. In the Blackpool Council Awards, a Youth Participation Worker, Hayley Mills, won ‘Winner of Outstanding Contribution to the Lives of Children’ for her work to promote diversity issues that culminated in the town-wide Diversity Fortnight early in October. This work has also been short-listed for the national Children and Young People Now Awards in the anti-bullying category
A further project has also been short-listed in the Involvement of Young People in Decision-Making category.
In the Hub (Substance Misuse Service for young people) a fully operational pathway from the Accident and Emergency Department at the local hospital is now in place. This now gives immediate access to young people with a significant substance misuse situation to provide appropriate support.
The Teenage Pregnancy Team has extended their reach to the availability of Sex and Relationships Education for young people within further education. This is a crucial piece of work as this is the most at-risk age group and 70% of 16-18 year olds attend further education. Delay training (R. U Ready) continues to be rolled out across the town.
A £4 million capital Big Lottery bid has been made for a world-class youth hub centre to provide a wide range of activities for young people as well as discreet services for those who need them. This is a competitive bidding process and the outcome will be known in February 2009.
Permanent exclusions from schools have reduced once again from 17 in 2006/07 to seven in 2007/08. This is a positive reflection of the effective work undertaken by Educational Diversity and the Inclusion Support Team in collaboration with schools. Ofsted following a visit in October as part of a survey inspection to judge the provision for excluded pupils to be good and relationships with schools to be very good validated this work. This has been further recognised with Educational Diversity and Inclusion Support Team winning the recent Council Outstanding Service Award for contribution to quality services.