BOROUGH OF POOLE
COMMUNITY SUPPORT AND EDUCATION
SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
14NOVEMBER 2006
REPORT OF THE HEAD OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
OUTCOMES FOR CHILDREN ‘LOOKED AFTER’ BY THE BOROUGH OF POOLE
1. /Purpose of the Report
1.1 / To inform members of key outcomes for Children who are looked after by the Borough of Poole.1.2 / To advise members of the key recommendations of the recent Green Paper, ‘Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care’.
2. /
Recommendations Required
2.1 / That members note the performance outcomes outlined in the Report.2.2 / That members make other recommendations regarding performance as appropriate.
3. /
Children Looked After Context
3.1 / Routes into Care.There are two main reasons for children being in local authority care.
i)Children subject to a Care Order by the Court (Section 31 Children Act 1989) - approximately 65% of all looked after children. The Court has to be satisfied that a child is suffering, or would suffer ‘significant harm’ – normally for reasons of abuse or neglect.
ii)Children accommodated by the local authority on a voluntary basis (Section 20 Children Act 1989) - approximately 33% of all looked after children.
3.2 / Numbers of children looked after (CLA).
The chart on the next page shows the number of CLA from March 2003 to September 2006, with a trendline.
At 01.11.06 there were 118 children looked after by the Borough of Poole. This represents a rate of 42 per 100,000 compared to a national average (in March 2005) of 55 per 10,000. Overall numbers of CLA in Poole have been steadily decreasing over the past 5 years from a high of 162 in 2001 and have now reached a predicted ‘plateau’ around 120.
This chart shows the number of children looked after by placement type. Much of the decrease in overall numbers looked after has been from local authority foster care (from 100 placements in March 2004 to 84 in September 2006). There has been a small increase in the number of agency foster placements but this has been offset by a reduction in the number of residential placements.
4. /
National Performance Indicators
4.1 / The Government has set a number of key performance indicators for children looked after in the following areas.- Placement Stability
- Education
- Health
- Statutory Reviews
- Offending
- Care Leavers
4.2 /
Local Authority performance is ‘banded’ nationally against particular targets and comparisons are also available against Poole’s benchmarking group of local authorities. Local data on a number of areas is also available and adds to our overall understanding of Children Looked After outcomes. The performance targets form part of the annual performance assessment (APA) for Children’s Services under the Every Child Matters five outcomes.
Performance in relation to Adoption and Fostering was reported to Scrutiny Committee in September 2006 and is, therefore, not covered in this Report.4.3 /
Placement Stability
Performance in this area is measured in two ways.i)Short term stability – Children who have had three or more placements in one year.
Indicator / 2003/04 / 2004/05 / 2005/06 / 30/09/06 / BenchmarkLatest available
Stability of placements of Children Looked After (PAF A1) / (5)
12.5% / (5)
11.8% / (5)
7.2% / (5)
7.7% / 12.8%
Our 06/07 mid year position (ie. April to September) is 8%. This position will require careful attention during the remainder of the year.
ii)Long term stability – Children Looked After for 2.5 years, or more who have been in the same placement for at least two years.
Indicator / 2003/04 / 2004/05 / 2005/06 / 30/09/06 / BenchmarkLatest available
Long term stability of Children Looked After (PAF D78) / Not collected / Not collected / 59.2% / 53.2% / 65%
Performance on placement stability is influenced by a number of factors.
- Effective and timely permanency planning
- Effective matching of the needs of the individual child to the most appropriate placement.
- The ability to recruit and retain a skilled and experienced in house foster service
- The availability and effectiveness of intensive foster care, or specialist therapeutic residential placements for those young people with complex needs/challenging behaviour.
4.4 /
Education
i)School attendance is measured by children absent (authorised and unauthorised) for 25 days, or more in a school year.Indicator / 2003/04 / 2004/05 / 2005/06 / Benchmark Latest available
Children Looked After absent from school (PAF C24) / (3)
11.2% / (3)
11.5% / (4)
9.4% / 12.7%
Poole’s performance has shown a reduction in the number of children missing school and is comfortably below the benchmarking average.
ii)Educational Achievement
Key Stage 1 to 3 Results
The percentages shown are calculated using the number of children eligible to sit, not of the number of children actually sitting, the exams.
Key Stage 1 (pass at level 2 required)
Poole2003 / Poole
2004 / Poole
2005 / Poole
2006 / England 2005
Eligible to sit / 5 / 4 / 4 / 2 / 1,700
Sat all tests / 3 / 1 / 4 / 1
Level 2 +
Reading
Writing
Maths / 20%
40%
40% / 0%
0%
0% / 50%
50%
75% / 50%
50%
50% / 57%
52%
64%
Key Stage 2 (pass at level 4 required)
Poole2003 / Poole
2004 / Poole
2005 / Poole
2006 / England 2005
Eligible to sit / 9 / 6 / 4 / 13 / 2,900
Sat all tests / 8 / 5 / 3 / 9
Level 4 +
English
Maths
Science / 44%
11%
44% / 33%
17%
50% / 25%
50%
50% / 62%
54%
69% / 42%
38%
53%
Key Stage 3 (pass at level 5 required)
Poole2003 / Poole
2004 / Poole
2005 / Poole
2006 / England 2005
Eligible to sit / 5 / 6 / 13 / 9 / 4,000
Sat all tests / 4 / 2 / 6 / 5
Level 5 +
English
Maths
Science / 40%
40%
40% / 33%
33%
33% / 23%
31%
15% / 56%
33%
44% / 27%
28%
26%
GCSE Results
This table shows GCSE results for children looked after in year 11 in the years shown. Poole performs particularly well for children achieving 5 good GCSE passes.
Poole 2003 / Poole 2004 / Poole 2005 / Poole 2006 / England 2005Eligible children / 15 / 13 / 7 / 8 / 4,700
Sitting 1 or more GCSE exams / 8
(53%) / 10
(77%) / 3
(43%) / 5
(63%) / 64%
% achieving 1+ GCSE grade A*-G / 53% / 69% / 43% / 63% / 60%
% achieving 5+ GCSE grade A*-G / 33% / 46% / 43% / 50% / 41%
% achieving 5+ GCSE grade A*-C / 7% / 31% / 0% / 38% / 11%
GCSE Results of Care Leavers
The key performance indicator for educational attainment is PAF A2, the percentage of children who left care aged 16 or older with one or more GCSE result at grade A* to G. This is counted for children regardless of duration looked after prior to the exams or whether or not they were looked after when they sat their GCSE exams.
Stats Year / 2001/2 / 2002/3 / 2003/4 / 2004/5 / 2005/6 /Apr-Oct06
PAF A2 – Poole / 67% / 38% / 44% / 69% / 47% / 33%PAF A2 – England / 41% / 43% / 49% / 50%
Special Educational Needs
The number of children who are looked after with Statements of SEN is significantly higher than the rate in the general population.
School Year / 2001/2 / 2002/3 / 2003/4 / 2004/5 / 2005/6CLA SEN Level 5
– Poole / 29.7%
(30/101) / 29.2%
(26/89) / 32.1%
(25/78) / 37.6%
(32/85) / 38.2%
(29/76)
CLA SEN Level 5
– England / 26.8% / 26.8% / 27.4% / 27.3%
All Children SEN Level 5
– England / 3.0% / 3.0% / 3.0% / 2.9%
Permanent Exclusions
None of the children of school age who were looked after at 30th September 2006 had been permanently excluded in the previous year. There have been only 2 permanent exclusions in the past 5 years.
School Year / 2001/2 / 2002/3 / 2003/4 / 2004/5 / 2005/6CLA Permanently Excluded - Poole / 0% / 2.2%
(2/89) / 0% / 0% / 0%
CLA Permanently Excluded – England / 1.2% / 1.1% / 0.9% / 0.9%
All Children Permanently
Excluded – England / 0.1% / 0.1% / 0.1% / 0.1%
4.5 / Health
Health performance is measured in terms of the % of children looked after who receive an annual health assessment. Performance in this area has been consistently good.
Indicator / 2003/04 / 2004/05 / 2005/06 / Benchmark Latest available
Health of Children Looked After (PAF C19) / (5)
86.8% / (5)
89.1% / (5)
92.4% / 85%
CLA with an up-to-date health assessment / 94% / 98% / 95% / 85%
CLA with up-to-date dental checks / 79% / 80% / 90% / 85%
CLA with up-to-date immunisations / 75% / 79% / 90% / 79%
4.6 / Statutory Reviews
There is a requirement for children looked after to have a statutory review every 6 months. Performance in this area is measured as
i)Reviews held within timescales
ii)Participation at reviews
Indicator / 2003/04 / 2004/05 / 2005/06 / 30/09/06 / BenchmarkLatest available
Reviews held within timescales / Not collected / 98.3% / 98.2% / (5)
96.6% / -
Participation at reviews / 94.7% / (4)
83.8% / (5)
95.2% / (4)
93.1% / 82.3%
In Poole, most CLA reviews are held on time and children participate in approximately 10% more reviews than the national average.
4.7 / Offending
Offending by children looked after is measured by the % of children looked after who have been convicted, or cautioned as a ratio of offending rates for the whole (Dorset) youth population.
Indicator / 2003/04 / 2004/05 / 2005/06 / 30/09/06 / BenchmarkLatest available
Cautions and convictions of CLA – Ratio (PAF C18) / (3)
1.7 / (2)
5.7 / (3)
1.76 / 3.1
During the past 3 years one young person looked after has received a custodial sentence.
4.8 / Care Leavers
The key performance measures for care leavers (young people at around their 19th birthday) are
i)The percentage of care leavers in education, training and employment as a ratio of the same figure for young people in the local population
ii)Accommodation
iii)Staying in contact
Indicator / 2003/04 / 2004/05 / 2005/06 / 30/09/06 / BenchmarkLatest available
Employment, education and training for care leavers - Ratio (PAF A4) / (3)
50%CL/
85% loc
= 0.59 / (5)
77%CL/
87.5% loc
= 0.88 / (5)
83%CL/
88.5% loc
= 0.94 / (5)
57%CL/
88.5% loc
= 0.65 / 0.71
Percentage of care leavers in suitable accommodation / 100% / 92.3% / 100% / 100% / 88.9%
Percentage of Care Leavers in contact with C&F / 100% / 100% / 100% / 100% / 89%
Poole generally performs well above average for these three indicators.
5. /Government Green Paper – Children Looked After
5.1 / The Government Green Paper ‘Care Matters’ – Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Public Care’ was published in October 2006. An executive summary is attached (Appendix 1). The key driver for the Green Paper is the consistent and growing gap nationally between the outcomes for children looked after and the rest of the population.6. /
Summary
6.1 /The performance data above provides an important measure of the overall well being of children and young people looked after in Poole. Outcomes are generally good and Poole is placed within a high banding for a number of outcome indicators. Particular attention is currently being given to the important area of placement stability.
Recent structural changes within Children and Families will support further consolidation and improvement for children looked after in line with the proposals made in the Green Paper and in the wider context of Children’s services developments in Poole.Gerry Moore
Head of Children and Families Services
Contact Officer:Gerry Moore
Head of Children and Families Services
Tel: 01202 714715
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