To receive apologies for absence.

No apologies for absence had been received.

To receive details of members nominated to attend the meeting in place of a member of the committee.

There had been no named substitutes.

To receive declarations of interests from members of the committee in respect of items on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest,

To receive the minutes of the meeting held on 27 May 2025.

The minutes of the previous meeting were received.

Resolved: That the minutes of the meeting held on 27 May 2025 be confirmed as a correct record and be signed by the Chairperson.

To receive any written questions from members of the public.

There had been two questions received from members of the public, which had been published, along with responses, as a supplement to the meeting agenda on the Herefordshire Council website

A record of a supplementary question and a verbal response provided during the meeting, are attached at Appendix 1 to these minutes

To receive any written questions from members of the council.

There had been no questions received from members of the council.

To scrutinise the Herefordshire Children’s Services and Partnership Improvement Plan Phase 3 and Quality Assurance Framework.

The Corporate Director of Children and Young People introduced and gave an overview of the report, the key points included:

Three Ofsted monitoring visits had taken place over the last 12 months. The October 2024 visit had focused on harm to children outside of the home, it was pointed out that the ‘Get Safe’ team had been praised for its effective partnership working in this area. The February 2025 visit had looked at work being carried out by the assessment teams, with strong performance in referrals, assessments and multi-agency collaboration being noted by Ofsted. The most recent visit had taken place in June 2025 and had focused on children in care, with findings highlighting positive outcomes, along with improved relationships and planning - due to workforce stability.

Ofsted had acknowledged how Phase 2 of the Improvement Plan had seemingly sustained the pace of improvement within the service and resulted in better outcomes.

Regarding Phase 3 of the Improvement Plan the Corporate Director provided details of the continuation of the ‘Plan on a page’ approach, which incorporated the ‘Family First’ programme. Engagement with the West Midlands Regional Improvement Alliance, and contributions to regional/national best practice initiatives were also detailed.

The Corporate Director explained that the Quality Assurance (QA) Framework was based on three pillars: case file audits, service user feedback and key performance indicators (KPIs). QA activity had revealed that the voice of the child and diversity considerations had been strong and that families had reported improved participation and engagement with the service.

Areas requiring improvement had been identified, specifically in relation to including the voice of the parent in assessments and the need for more child-friendly language to be used in documents. It had been noted that managerial oversight needed to be more visible in case files and that follow up and recording activity relating to cases needed some improvement.

The report acknowledged that there had been and continued to be challenges with syncing Mosaic (case management) and Power BI (reporting) systems and that a national shortage of skilled analysts had complicated data extraction and tracking within the service. The piloting and adoption of AI tools such as Magic Notes would potentially ease the work burden on staff.

The Corporate Director stressed that Phase 3 could be viewed as more of a Children’s Services business plan rather than a reactive Improvement Plan. Emphasis on maintaining improvement would come through: continued QA and KPI monitoring, scrutiny involvement, Cabinet and corporate leadership support and embedding relational practice and think family culture.

In summary, it was explained that the pace of improvement could be attributed to the simplification of plans, fewer and more effective meetings, clearer leadership and decision making, and greater stability within the workforce.

The Corporate Director and Cabinet Member Children and Young People provide the committee with an assurance that the improvement momentum would be sustained post-Ofsted and that there had been cross party agreement in prioritising Children’s Services.

The Chair invited comments and discussion from the committee in relation  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

To brief the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee on the development, management and learning from complaints and compliments.

The Chair noted that the papers for the item had been published late and proposed that a vote be held as to whether the item should be deferred to the September meeting - to allow the public and the committee members enough time to consider and respond to the report.

The committee members voted unanimously to defer the item to a future committee meeting:

Resolved: That the ‘Children and Young People's Quality Assurance Briefing’ item be deferred until a future committee meeting.

Terms of reference.

The Chair introduced the proposal to establish a Task and Finish Group to examine Early Help provision across Herefordshire. It was noted that the committee has considered Early Help on several occasions, but formal scrutiny meetings had not provided sufficient time or flexibility to explore the topic in detail. The Task and Finish Group approach was guided by the Council’s Scrutiny Review and would enable more in-depth, inclusive and flexible working.

The Statutory Scrutiny Officer outlined the proposal explaining that the group would consider both targeted early help (delivered by the Council and safeguarding partners) and universal/pastoral provision across communities.

The approach would adopt an ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ model, looking at what worked well and how services could be improved. The group itself would use methods such as roadshows, focus groups, site visits, and provider engagement.

Membership would be limited to a small group of 4-7 councillors, with scope to co-opt members/individuals with expertise or local insight. It was pointed out that all councillors (excluding members of the Executive) would be invited to express interest in the group, with final membership selected by the Chair.

The committee unanimously agreed the terms of reference for the Task and Finish Working Group

The terms of reference and following actions were agreed unanimously by the committee:

Resolved that:

a) The committee agree to form a task and finish group according to the terms of reference attached as appendix 1.

To consider the work programme for the committee.

The Chair note that a discussion outside of the meeting would be required to consider if and how the deferred ‘Children and Young People’s Quality Assurance Briefing’ item could be included within the agenda of the committee’s September 2025 meeting.

The committee considered the work programme included at item 10 of the agenda and unanimously approved the following recommendation:

Resolved that:

1. The committee agree the work programme for the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee contained in the work programme report attached as Appendix 1.

Tuesday 16 September 2025, 2pm

Tuesday 16 September 2025, 2pm

Supplementary questions from members of the public – Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee, 22 July 2025