To note receipt of the non statutory Improvement Notice, establishment of Improvement Board and the involvement and role of cabinet in the Children Services Improvement Plan.

The chief executive introduced the report and explained the improvement notice and work that had take place to date to address the issues raised. The report set out the intended cycle of reporting on progress, commitments to openness and engagement and details of the resources required for success.

The cabinet member children’s services, safeguarding and corporate parenting commented that she looked forward to meeting the improvement advisor, who had already established a good relationship with the service.

In discussion of the report cabinet members noted that:

·        The membership of the improvement board was quite a large group, the council had taken advice from the improvement advisor and examples from other councils that had received an improvement notice to identify good practice;

·        Work was taking place to get the right people around the table for particular subject matters, for example health partners, and a lot of other groups would feed into the board;

·        A separate forum was being put in place where the improvement advisor would speak directly to young people so that they could contribute in a safe space;

·        If improvements were not secured this would have a detrimential impact on young people and particularly those from certain backgrounds so the equality impact assessment needed to be tightened up;

·        The role of the chairperson of the children and young people scrutiny committee was under discussion, the improvement advisor recommended that the chairperson should keep a degree of independence so they would join the first meeting of the strategic board and then review future participation;

·        There were already a number of strong advocates on the board but consideration would be given to including a parent and/or citizen advocate, a representative of foster carers, someone from the voluntary sector and a cross section of young people including care leavers;

·        The agenda papers and minutes of the strategic board would be published to the website as much as possible but the meeting itself would not be public as some confidential information would need to be discussed.

Group leaders and representatives were invited to present the views and queries from their group. It was noted that:

·        The input of those people who had had bad experiences was important, the helpline that had been set up was receiving information from across the county and it was good that people were coming forward;

·        It was important that sufficient resources were in place and the council should seek additional support from central government;

·        There were some reservations about the size and makeup of the improvement board and the reporting lines between the various groups;

·        It was important that improvement was sustained in the long term.

The chairperson of the children and young people scrutiny committee spoke on the role of scrutiny and the steps being taken to ensure there was capacity for the committee to receive reports from the improvement board. The arguments for and against the scrutiny chair being a member of the improvement board were noted and a decision would be taken on this after the first meeting.

The cabinet member children’s services, safeguarding and corporate parenting concluded the debate and stressed the need to get things right and rebuild trust in the services. She encouraged any councillors with concerns to contact her or one of the senior officers involved.

It was unanimously agreed that:

a)     The improvement notice is noted;

b)     Cabinet reflects upon the establishment of an improvement board and what role it will play in ensuring that the improvements set out in the improvement notice are achieved.