Agenda and minutes

[The Chair to welcome everyone to the meeting.]

Cllr Rita Potter, Chair, welcomed everyone to the meeting and advised it was also being live streamed to the press and public.

[The Chair will explain how the meeting will proceed, how questions are to be asked and any matters of meeting etiquette.]

Cllr Potter explained the process to be followed during the meeting for asking questions.

Apologies were received from the following members of the panel:

Cllr Lynne Moran

Cllr Lovinyer Daley

Apologies were also received from Emma Bennett, Executive Director of Families.

There were no declarations of interest recorded.

[To approve the minutes of the Strong Families, Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel meeting, held on 11 January 2023, as a correct record]. 

That the minutes of the meeting held on 11 January 2023 be approved as a correct record.

[To approve the minutes of the Strong Families, Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel meeting, held on 6 February 2023, as a correct record]

That the minutes of the meeting held on 8 February 2023 be approved as a correct record.

[To approve the minutes of the meeting as a correct record]

That the minutes of the meeting held on 13 December 2022 be approved as a correct record.

[Alison Hinds, Deputy Director of Children’s Services, to present report]

The Chair invited Alison Hinds, Deputy Director of Children’s Services, to present report.

The Deputy Director advised the panel that the presentation will give an overview of the work being done to deliver the vision for early years healthy development through the setting up the Family Hubs network in Wolverhampton.

The Deputy Director advised that following a review of early years healthy development a report was published in March 2021.

The Deputy Director commented on the overall findings from the review and highlighted evidence of a strong commitment across the early years sector to improve how families are supported and areas where improvements in practice were needed to respond to the concerns of families.

The Deputy Director commented on the importance of the first two years of a child’s life in terms of the development of their language skills and cognitive function, as examples and the long terms difference making an investment at this stage can make.

The Deputy Director commented on the three objectives of the Family Hub programme.

The Deputy Director advised the panel that Wolverhampton was among the 75 local authorities invited to submit applications to join the Governments Family Hubs programme. The programme has been funded by a Government grant of £300m for the next three financial years to support deliver a range of activities. The application made by Wolverhampton Council was successful and will help to implement quicker changes and improvements in how services are delivered to children and families across the City.

The Deputy Director commented on the importance of the programme in supporting parents and carers to help them nurture their babies and children and to get the appropriate level of support needed to improve long term outcomes in terms of health and education.

The Deputy Director added that the programme also aims to contribute to a reduction in health inequalities for babies, children, and families across England by sharing management information that will influence practice in the future.

The Deputy Director advised the panel about the range of services that Family Hubs are being encouraged to think about delivering as part of the offer, many of which are already being delivered across the City.

The Deputy Director advised that the panel that there are eight Strengthening Families Hubs which currently deliver a range of services with statutory partners such as the police, health visitors, midwives as part of targeted support offer to families. The aim will be to use the Family Hub programme to extend this offer to other families much earlier.

The Deputy Director added that the Council will be expected to deliver specific programmes, for example, infant feeding support, early language support.

The Deputy Director outlined the priority workstreams for the Family Hubs programme and details of the funding arrangements. The plans for delivering the programme will be informed by a local needs assessment. The work will be led by colleagues in Public Health.

The Deputy Director advised the panel that the Council is required to publish a Start for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

[Courtney Abbott, Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner, to present report]

The Chair invited Courtney Abbott, Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner, to present report.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner advised the panel that presentation summarises the findings from the main report. The annual health check report covers social work and general workforce working within children's social care teams.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner advised the panel that the report aims to identify areas of strength and areas requiring greater focus to support workforce development planning and continuous improvement. The survey was open for six weeks between September and October.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner commented that the overall findings were generally positive and there was evidence of significant improvements since the previous annual report.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner commented on the low response rate to the survey despite a range of initiatives aimed at improving the situation.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner gave detailed comments on the main areas of strength and development based on an analysis of the survey responses. The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner shared a range of quotes from employees about their views of working for the Council.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner advised the panel that an action plan has been developed to address areas of concern. The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner highlighted specific action focused on improving the survey response rate, for example, giving social workers protected time to complete the survey.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practioner advised the panel about work being done to improve recruitment and retention in the workforce, for example, benchmarking pay and incentives.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practioner commented on overall positive views from employees about working with colleagues and across teams and the impact that their work is having on young people and their families.

The panel were invited to comment on the presentation and the report.

The panel thanked the presenter for presentation and report. The panel commented on a recent visit by Cllrs to a MASH team where the issue of managing workload pressures as part of a specialised small team working to strict deadlines. The issue of workload pressures was also highlighted as an ongoing issue in the survey responses. The panel queried the timeline when it is expected that employee numbers would stabilise to provide sufficient cover, while accepting the high turnover rate and recruitment challenges in the sector.

Jennifer Rogers, Principal Social Worker, acknowledged the challenge locally and nationally in the recruitment and retention of social workers. The Principal Social Worker commented that the turnover rate of social workers across Wolverhampton is lower than the national average and generally there is stability within the children and young people in care service.

The Principal Social Worker accepted the specific challenges in the MASH and child protection teams where there is a struggle in recruiting experienced social workers. The Principal Social Worker highlighted the inherent stressful nature of social work and the issue of secondary trauma which adds to the challenge when trying to recruit  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

[Andrew Wolverson, Deputy Director - Commissioning & Transformation, to present report]

The Chair invited Alice Vickers, Co-Production and Youth Engagement Manager, to present report.

The Co-Production and Youth Engagement commented on the development of the Youth Engagement Strategy (#YES) and the range of programmes aimed at improving the wellbeing of all children and young people living in Wolverhampton.

TheCo-production and Youth Engagement Manager commented that as a result of the success on co-production work with young people the service has been funded by Adult Social Care to support their plans to undertake similar work with social care service users.

The Co-production and Youth Engagement Manager gave a summary of the key performance indicators and successes of the #YES programme since August 2022 to date against the following themes – Being Connected, Being You and Being Healthy.

The Co-production and Youth Engagement Manager commented on the success of the National Make Your Mark Vote in Wolverhampton in January 2022 where 10,500 children and young people across the City took part and chose their top four themes.

The Co-production and Youth Engagement Manager commented on the leading role of young people in allocating grants to commission services with an estimated value of £2.5m.  This work was supported by the new co-production hub which has provided the opportunity for young people to get together.

The Co-production and Youth Engagement Manager highlighted the increase in the number of activities for children and young people over the summer holidays.

The Co-production and Youth Engagement Manager advise the panel about progress in the development with young people of the YO! Wolves website. The website will provide information about activities and support to young people and their families. The website will also have a separate dedicated sections and related information for young people, which is intended to be jargon free and easy to navigate.

The Co-production and Youth Engagement Manager gave further details of the planned activities and funding to support the delivery of the themes.

The panel were asked to comment on the report and the presentation.

The panel thanked the presenter for the excellent report.

The panel queried if there was any specific funding for children in care who may need help with transport costs to take part the planned activities.

The Co-production and Youth Engagement Manager acknowledged the issue of transport costs for children and young people in care and care leavers and more generally for families in financial difficulties. The service has been working with regional partners such as West Midlands Combined Authority, who have responsibility for transport provision within the city and with colleagues represented on the West Midlands Children's Participation Leads Network to improve the situation. The group is working together to see what extra support can be given for care leavers and to share best practice.

The Deputy Director of Children Services commented on the importance of children, particularly children in care being able to take part in activities across the City and the role of the Council as corporate parent to think about supporting this aim. The Deputy  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

[Brenda Wile, Deputy Director of Education, to present report]

The Chair invited Brenda Wile, Deputy Director of Education, to present the report.

The Deputy Director introduced Jameel Mullan, Inclusion and Attendance Service Manager, who would also be contributing to the presentation.

The Deputy Director explained that the report was presented in response to a request from the panel for detailed information on school exclusions rates and suspensions, with a specific focus on how pupils with protected characteristics are represented in the data.

The Deputy Director advised the panel that data on exclusions, suspensions and attendance is published annually and the information in the presentation covers the academic year ending 2022.

The Deputy Director advised the panel that the presentation will explain the findings from the analysis of the data and the action being taken and or planned in response.

The Deputy Director commented that the presentation would give a summary of the findings from the Inclusion Summit in October 2022. The Deputy Director commented on progress made in drafting the Inclusion Framework Development, and the Alternative Provision Framework documents and their contribution to reducing the number of exclusions.

/The Deputy Director commented on the work being done to engage with all schools to create a shared ownership of the issue. The aim of plan is for schools to work towards achieving the highest standards in respect of inclusion.

The Deputy Director gave further details about the development of the Alternative Provision Framework, which is due to be implemented in April 2023. The Deputy Director advised the panel that alternative provisions are settings where young people who need some additional support after being excluded to enable them to continue their learning journey. There are 18 quality standards that are used to measure performance and to provide a level of assurance about the quality of the current offer. 

The Deputy Director commented that a directory of alternative providers across Wolverhampton will be published shortly which schools can also use to commission services on a temporary basis.

The Deputy Director advised the panel that the presentation slides are based on EDI Education dashboard. The dashboard has been developed to provide an analysis of the data based on age, gender ethnicity, religion and SEND against key performance indicators, for example, EDI KPI measure - permanent exclusions (all) ethnicity group compared to Census data 0-17 population with starting point and current snapshot.

The Deputy Director commented that the Inclusion Summit held in October 2022 was a very successful event and was attended byhigh profile local key speakers and national figures. The feedback from school staff who attended the event was very positive. The Deputy Director advised that panel young people were involved and led a series of the workshops. The event was attended by 100 people.

The panel were invited to comment on the presentation and specifically their views of the data and what additional information would be helpful in a future report when reviewing progress against the performance targets.

The panel welcomed the reference to the work done to agree a data  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.