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Children's Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Tuesday, 22nd September 2026 at 7:30pm

 
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  1. Webcast Finished

I'm chair of this committee.
Sorry, we seem to have got a reverb.
Shall I?
Right, we'll start again.
I'm Councillor Sheila Boswell, and I
am chair of this committee, the Children's Overview
and Scrutiny Committee.
This is our first meeting since the council elections in May.
And I would like to begin by welcoming both returning
members of which there are very few. We're nearly all new members but welcome to our
few returning members and those joining the committee for the first time. And look forward
to working with you in this very, very important area for the services and the support we provide
for all our children in Wandsworth and young people and families. So I'm going to do a
roll call and I will call out your name just so that the clerk can record it that you are
present.
So members of the committee, I will now call your names in alphabetical order.
Please switch on your microphone to confirm your attendance and switch it off again once
you have done so.
So Councillor Mertis.
Present.
Thank you.
Councillor Botting?
Not present.
Councillor Isla?
Present.
Councillor Fisher?
Present.
Councillor Gasser?
Yes, present.
Councillor Boswell, myself, and Councillor Lewis?
Present.
Now, this committee is unusual in that we have four co -opted members on this committee.
We have two parent governors and two representatives from the diocese.
So we have Ms. Irene Wilson -Hamm, who is the Southwark Church of England diocese representative.
Present.
And Claire Williams, who is the Southwark Catholic Archdiocese representative.
And Claire should be joining us online.
Can you hear me Claire?
Yep, prison Q
We have a new parent governor joining us from all farthing primary school. Mr. Farab would hear
present Thank You, Christopher
We also have on the committee
Dina Lamela panthaki from earlsville primary, but she has sent her apologies this evening. I
I would also like to welcome the cabinet member for children, Councillor George Crivelli,
and a warm welcome to everybody who is joining us or will be joining us online.
We do have a number of offices present, as you can see, around the table, and
they will introduce themselves as they address the committee.
So just a few words.
Since the last meeting of the committee, there have been some very important developments across children's services in Wandsworth.
Most notably, Wandsworth Children's Services received and
published the outcome of its off -stead inspection.
That's not schools, that's our children's services.
And it was outstanding.
And not only was it outstanding, it was outstanding in every area.
And this is a really significant achievement for children, families, partners, and staff.
And it really reflects a sustained improvement and strong partnership working,
an unwavering focus on delivering the best possible outcomes for our children and young people here in Wandsworth.
And it's something for which we should all be very, very proud.
We have got a paper on the full findings of the Ofsted inspection, which we will go to later.
And this period has also seen a change in our senior leadership in children's services.
So following her successful appointment as chief executive, I would like to formally congratulate Anna Popovici on behalf of the committee
for becoming the first female chief executive of Wandsworth Council.
And thank her for her exceptional leadership during the past five years as Director of Children's Services.
And I think all of us who have worked with Anna know that it really was transformational,
the journey she took Children's Services in Wandsworth on culminating in this outstanding off -stead judgement, which is wonderful.
Anna's determination and commitment to children and families have left a lasting legacy across
our services and partnerships and I'm sure that that legacy will be built on and continue.
So following Anna's appointment, Ian Dodds has taken up the position of interim executive
director for children's services in Wandsworth and I would like to welcome Ian to the role
and thank him for his leadership and support
as we continue to build on our strengths
and drive further improvements.
And we'll be introducing a paper shortly.
You have received the agenda
and you can see the papers that we have.
I hope you feel they represent a good spread
of different areas which we can scrutinise and look at.
and we will have the work programme also where we can look at possible areas we might like to take a deeper dive into.
So, I go to item one on the agenda, which is minutes.

1 Minutes, 10th February 2026

The minutes from the previous meeting agreed.
For those that were present, thank you.
And item two is declarations of interest.
Are there any declarations of interest or either pecuniary or registable
or non -registable interests?
Okay, thank you very much.

2 Declarations of Interest

3 Questions to the Cabinet Member

So we now move to item three and that is questions for the cabinet member.
This is a new item.
We haven't had this before.
And it is an opportunity for us to be able to ask direct questions to the cabinet member.
These could have been in a written form for going forward at other OSCs.
If you give five days notice and write in your question, that will be put to the cabinet
member.
But they can also be live questions today as well.
This will last for 20 minutes.
And we have four questions which were submitted to the cabinet member and sent in.
So we will start with those.
And the four questions were actually all from the opposition side and the opposition speaker.
So Councillor Judy Gasser is the opposition speaker.
And Judy, if you'd like to go to the first question to Councillor Crivelli.
Yes, thank you very much. Please could Councillor Crivelli update us on the actions rising out
of the task and finish groups that we all agreed on last February, so they were on EHDPs
and on violence against women and girls. So what work has been done since February to
implement the recommendations?
Okay, great. Thanks for the question. Can I start with the violence against women and
girls? You know that back in February, the 10th of February, we had a public meeting
meeting to discuss the report of the Task and Finish Group.
And that was a very well attended meeting with both members from the Children's OSC
and the Healthy ASC, and we had members of the Youth Council as well.
And I thought that that was a really productive meeting because it gave us a good understanding
of the task that we had ahead of us.
And it goes without saying that I'm sure everybody, it was very much a cross -party thing that evening,
and that everybody on Wandsworth Council wants to do everything we can to tackle violence against women and girls.
It is a very serious priority for Wandsworth Council.
The recommendations, if you don't mind, I'm going to use an acronym, the VOG, Violence Against Women and Girls.
The recommendation from the Volk Task and Finish Group is being taken forward and is
being taken forward through an action plan and we're going to try and refresh that strategy
in 2027.
The recommendations of the Task and Finish Group aren't just being progressed but they're
also trying to influence our delivery, our partnership governance and future strategic
priorities.
Since that meeting in February we've made significant progress.
prevention activity has expanded through the delivery of bystander intervention training to more than 500 residents,
professional students, members and nighttime economy workers, alongside the development of online training modules to widen access.
The Council has also commissioned programmes such as Everybody's Invited and Voicebox, just to let you know if people are not familiar with that.
Everybody's invited is a charity which involves the survivors of sexual violence
and they were founded about 2020. I think they officially came out a charity in 2022
and they are a charity about tackling sexual violence and we're working with them and Voicebox.
Voicebox again is an organisation that's tackling misogyny.
They're tackling violence against women and girls through a number of initiatives
such as tackling misogynistic behaviour and fostering respect.
So we are using them to deliver education in schools, issues about consent, healthy relationships, sexual harassment and challenging harmful attitudes.
Partnership coordination is continued to strengthen through the Volk Community Forum,
which now includes more than 320 voluntary and community sector organisations and community representatives.
The partnership has also progressed work across the multi -agency risk assessment conference,
perpetrator and management arrangements, specialist advocacy services and safeguarding activity
and is supported by the development of the new VOGG dashboard and the refreshed performance
framework.
The recommendation relating to survivor voice is also being progressed.
The VOGG community forum remains survivor -chaired, ensuring lived experience continues to inform
partnership priorities, service development and commissioning activity.
There's also a renewed focus on engaging seldom -heard communities and strengthening links with specialist
organisations and what we want to do is, looking ahead, work is underway to launch a borough -wide
sexual harassment survey with young people.
You'll note later on in the papers we're going to discuss, we'll discuss that a little bit
more but the youth council and the youth mayor are going to be involved in that. It's good
to have them. The young people were at that meeting back in February and I think it's
really important that we continue to engage them and ensure that we're actually paying
attention to the issues that they've got with violence against women and girls. So we're
going to do that survey and then from the findings, obviously we're trying to engage
residents through wider community safety consultation. The findings from that work together, the
VOG task and finish group recommendations, that's going to shape the whole strategy,
refreshed strategy for 2027. So that's the issue about VOG. But you did ask about EHCPs
and you appreciate there's going to be a lot of change with SAND over the forthcoming years.
We've entered the national SEND reform programme from a position of strong alignment with its
principles. A lot of the SEND reform programmes have embraced that and the task and finish
groups recommendations have reinforced and changed the direction of travel for ones with
that respect. The recommendations are going to be taken forward through the wider SEND
reform programme and there is a particular focus on strengthening early intervention.
We are going to come to this as well when we talk about SEND later in the paper. I just
I just want to try and nail this because we are going to discuss this.
But it's important that we are looking at early intervention, improving communication
with families.
That's a very key point.
We're trying to embed a lot of inclusive practise in the mainstream settings, improving the
transitions there, and better support across education, health, and social care.
Since February, the Council submitted its local same reform plan.
You appreciate that's gone to the DFE.
the government has a requirement for all local authorities to set out how they'll implement
and support children with SEND needs, but we are ahead of that anyway.
And the work supported by significant investment, you appreciate, it's not just about task
and finish groups, which are fantastic for setting us the proper direction and engaging
people, but we've also invested £45 million over the past four years, and you'll be
there's been recent developments including expansion of Smallwood, the
primary resource base and the plans for a new resource base at West Hill
Primary School. So you appreciate we've done a lot of work on that, there's a lot
of work to do but in respect of both of those issues that you asked me, Wandsworth
are, I would suggest that we're ahead of ourselves a bit with that, not to be
complacent in any respect but no I appreciate it's just an important, it was
I didn't want to leave with a point but it is comprehensive.
Thank you very much.
That's really encouraging and exciting to hear that all these things are happening.
These are things that were started under our administration.
It's good to hear you talking about the investment that we put in all these services
and I hope you're going to continue.
One quick question because I know we're short of time.
So, at your cabinet meeting in the summer, you voted to stop the funding for an extra
intro, which is jargon, isn't it?
Independent domestic violence advisor, I think, and a MARAC one, I don't know what that was,
multi -agency something or other.
But these are two key posts that support victims of domestic violence, and they need to be
funded into the future.
So will you work with Councillor Hedges to lobby your colleagues to refund those again
in the future?
Can I say on that, my understanding was that the service about tackling domestic violence
and the problems that arise from making sure that people can report, it's not dependent
on one person.
That was the…
Next year on will help.
You can see twice as many people.
Overall, I'm afraid I'm not inclined to agree with you on that.
I do think that the work that we've got in place where we're working to tackle domestic
violence overall, I don't think that we have done anything in any respect to undermine
that position.
We take domestic violence very seriously.
It's an overall responsibility for council officers, not only on respect of what we do
from a point of view of working with families, but also from a point of view that we work
from the impact it has on health and social care in the borough.
So I'm confident that Wandsworth will continue to prioritise that.
I appreciate the changes we make won't be universally popular, and people may think
I think that what we're actually doing is we're undermining the service, but overall
I think that the panoramic responsibility that we have is to tackle domestic violence
overall.
Any other questions on the recommendations from Violence Against Women and Girls?
No, okay.
The next question is from the opposition again.
And I think the youth bus is, it was actually a question for me, so going forward how will
the youth bus be used, Councillor Corelli, the mobile youth bus?
Okay, youth bus, we're changing how the resource is deployed so that it becomes more flexible
and it's got targeted outreach and engagement and asset across the whole of the three family
hub clusters that we've got.
It will continue to form part of Wandsworth's youth provision, however it's not going to operate as a largely stand -alone service.
Delivery is going to be embedded within locality -based youth family help and community arrangements.
This will enable the activity to be planned in response to local intelligence, attendance data, safeguarding information, partner feedback and identifying gaps in provision.
The change supports the wider development of young Wandsworth and aligns with national
reform priorities that have placed greater emphasis on early help -based services and
integrated support for children, young people and families.
Later on this evening we're going to be discussing the youth offer and you'll see that the youth
bus is actually part of the youth offer but it's not the only thing that we offer.
The council is reviewing how youth services are going to be organised to ensure resources are deployed the most effective way
and that support is available where it's needed most.
The youth bus has provided a bit of a valuable outreach service operating as a stand -alone provision,
but that's presented some challenges for us around staffing and resilience, continuity and flexibility,
and we feel that we need to make changes so that it can emerge for local change.
What we are hoping is that we can have an offer for
younger people in Wandsworth that's going to have a stronger local approach.
It's going to bring in the youth services, the family hubs, it's going to have early help.
We're going to have the half provision.
So the youth bus, the service it provides is going to continue, but not in its original format.
The role is evolving and instead of having the focus of probably more on a fixed service model
with targeted outreach so that we can respond to local need rather than the previous system
which wasn't as flexible as you would think it would be.
Thank you very much for that answer.
Councillor Gasser, do you want to go too?
Question three is about the big play out, which is a wonderful initiative that we introduced,
which was a free week of summer fun, basically, for all our access for all families.
Any child on free school meals or benefits could come and enjoy everything under the
sun you could possibly think of in Battersea Park.
It was a wonderful day out for them, and lots and lots of families enjoyed it.
But this year, I noticed the tickets had been very much cut.
There was only 750 tickets for those families, and there's a lot more families than that.
So I just wondered what the take -up had been this year.
I can give you the figures on that.
Big play out 2026, so 11 ,232 tickets booked in total.
Of those, 4 ,134 were paid for tickets and 6 ,261 were free tickets allocated to children and families
in receipt of free school meals.
A further 837 complimentary tickets were issued, including for children under three and personal assistants.
In 2025, it was 11 ,368 access for all tickets were booked.
The 2026 model includes a combination of paid -for tickets alongside targeted free provision
for families eligible for free school meals, enabling the Vent to remain financially sustainable
while ensuring that children and families who may otherwise face barriers to participation
could still attend.
The interesting point is the feedback received from attendees was overwhelmingly positive.
Evaluation findings indicate the event has supported children's wellbeing, helped their
confidence and social connexions, whilst also helping families feel connected to their
community.
Importantly, the combination of paid and targeted free places has enabled a broad mix of families
to attend and enjoy the event together, supporting community integration.
and we've ensured that families across the borough could benefit from the activities that were in offer from the big play out.
I'm going to have to ask for those figures in writing, I didn't catch them because you were talking so fast.
Let me give you them again.
No, no, no, no, because we're in a hurry.
So I don't just, I'll have them in writing, that's absolutely fine.
But what I just want to say is all these people have been enjoying Access for All for these three years that we introduced them.
But, Councillor Graham has slashed all these wonderful initiatives that we've been funding
through Access For All. Magic breakfast, baby boxes, play packs, family hubs food, holiday
food vouchers, all of these things, which are really, really going to affect our families.
So I'd just like to ask you, which one of those did you beg Councillor Graham that you
would keep?
Can I say to you that just to try and say that there's a tremendous difference, there
isn't the figures speak for themselves because the big player 2026 so 11 ,232 tickets in 2025
it's 11 ,368 so there isn't some big drop in participation. I was talking specifically
about the big play out, that's the one that you really can't answer. I'll answer your
question okay, I'll answer your question we're going to come to finances later on in the
paper this evening and you appreciate that all of us here, I'm sure irrespective of whatever
political party we are, we're here because we want to provide the best services possible
for the people in Wandsworth and particularly so our children. We want to see our children
in the borough do the best they can. We have got a particular problem in Wandsworth and
it's not just with children's services, it's with all of the committees we face a financial
crisis, there are massive cuts being made to Wandsworth's budget. And that's not caused
by Wandsworth Council. That's caused by a government that's decided it's going to cut
millions upon millions of pounds from Wandsworth. We have to make difficult decisions regarding
that budget. And in my capacity as the cabinet member, I'm doing everything I possibly can
to protect children's services and to make sure that children in our borough can receive
the best services possible. I hope, Councillor Gasser, you're going to join with us in trying
to persuade the government to reverse its very unfair funding formula, which is having
a dreadful impact on London local authorities, not just Wandsworth.
I think we've got the finance paper, so we will probably go into this in more detail.
Thank you, Councillor Crivelli.
The fourth question was crisis and resilience, but we have used up all the 20 minutes.
Can I say, I can give a written response to that, and I'll give you a written response
to it, and can I say to anyone else who's hoping to ask a question this evening, but
will burn through all the time, if you want to drop me an email, I will answer that.
Thank you very much, Councillor Crivelli.
Okay, so we can now move to item four, which again is a new item.
Responses of the cabinet to any reports of the overview and scrutiny committee.

4 Responses of the Cabinet to any reports of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Now this is where we might have taken a deep dive as a committee and looked at a particular area or issue.
Had officers write a report, done a task and finish group.
Now, as this is new administration in this new four years, we don't have one of those
for this evening.
But at the next meeting, hopefully, we will have the beginnings of that.
So we don't have that item this evening.
So we go to item five.
Now, this is relevant key decisions at the next Cabinet meeting.
And you all will have seen that there was a supplementary agenda paper.
I think you would have had it yesterday
Which is a finance paper and it was submitted as an emergency
But that paper actually does fit this item

5 Relevant Key Decisions at the next Cabinet meeting

Because it is pretty scrutiny. It's for this committee to look at
Before that goes to cabinet on the 12th of October
So if you all don't mind, I think we should take that paper now and then we can go to
the other three papers. So you will be looking at what is at the moment the final paper,
which is the outcomes of spending review, and we're now going to go to it. And I think

10 Outcomes of the Spending Review (Paper No. 26-230)

Mr. Dodds is going to give a preamble and an introduction to it. Thank you very much,
Mr. Dyl.
Thank you, Chair. Good evening, councillors and committee members. I'm Ian Judts. I'm
the interim executive director of Children's Services, and I'm joining you on my fifth
week in the role. Councillors and committee members will be aware of the current financial
challenges facing the Council, and the report you have in front of you this evening sets
out the current proposals resulting from the spending review, which has now been completed.
The purpose of the report coming to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee this evening is to
review and comment on the intentions in the spending review related to children's services
before the report goes to cabinet on the 12th of October.
And the details are set out in appendix one of the report.
In making these proposals, we are looking to do four things.
First, to protect the strong performance of children's services whilst managing demand
for our services, which is increasing.
And that is especially true of placements for children who are in our care.
We're also looking to invest in prevention and early intervention, including the delivery
of the Families First and the SEND reforms, which have a focus on earlier support to children,
young people and families so that we don't meet their needs at the point they are in
crisis.
The third thing is around targeting our resources to those families and communities who need
our support the most through smarter commissioning, better contract management and financial discipline.
And the last area in the report is about focusing our capital funding on those priorities that
deliver our wider ambitions for children, young people and families.
As I say, the details of the proposed financial efficiencies are set out in appendix one.
I and colleagues are happy to answer any questions you may have on that report.
Thank you very much, Mr. Dodds.
Are there any questions?
Yes, Councillor Gasser.
Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Dodds.
And I'm quite surprised, disappointed there are no finance officers here tonight,
because this is the biggest budget change we've ever made.
And I'm not quite sure how we, well, I'm sure you're a financial expert.
I'm going to be asking some pretty demanding questions.
Also, I did ask in advance for this year's figures,
the in -year figures, because it's very hard to judge next
year without knowing what's happening this year.
And I'm sure you can give me a verbal update,
but it would have been really useful to have
had those figures in advance.
And then so looking at these projected figures,
what I noticed straightaway is this huge inflation figure,
$9 .1 million, $13 .6 million.
And I'm just wondering, that's my first guess.
Where's that come from?
Because we had budget figures back in February prepared
by your finance officers which had the inflation predicted at 3 million, 4 million.
So why has this suddenly become so huge because national inflation is nothing like at that rate?
So all I can say in response to that Councillor Gasser is that those are the inflation figures
provided by the corporate finance team. So Mrs Mary's team have provided those figures which
have been plugged into our budget. Well I'm not able to scrutinise those am I? So I would like to
I make a request to somebody, I'm not sure who.
Can I be invited to finance committee so I can scrutinise properly with finance officers
that can answer my questions?
I don't know who I'm asking, but.
Can I suggest that prefer if Miss Mary gave you an explanation as to the inflation figures
and where they've come from?
Would that be of assistance?
I think we need to do it on camera because I think residents will want to know as well.
So if I can't do it here, because I haven't got the figures, I would like to do it at
the finance committee.
Can I ask a guess?
You can request from the chair of finance to attend as long as it is within time.
And I have advice from the monitoring officer that that is possible, but the committee questions
would be taken first before anyone else.
So that may not be entirely satisfactory.
So I would imagine you would like both and also the meeting with Mrs. Merry.
Yeah.
Okay.
Can we have that in the minutes, please?
Thank you very much.
Can I ask Mr. Dodge just how the figures are looking this year?
Because that was another part of my question.
Because are we massively overspent or are we managing?
I mean, last year, your wonderful officers
brought it in on budget.
I can answer that question, Councillor.
So the current budget is just over $100 million, $100 million,
$400 ,000.
Currently, we have an overspend of just over $4 million.
We have mitigating actions in place to the value of $1 .4 million, and we are currently
working to mitigate a further $2 .75 million.
That would bring us in on budget.
So the risk currently is $2 .75 million, which we're working to mitigate.
Are there any?
Yes, Councillor Isloff.
Thank you very much for joining us this evening.
This is quite astonishing reading, if I may say so.
There are huge inflationary and demand pressures on your services, on children's services,
and that is before the effects of fair funding reviews, et cetera, et cetera.
Has the children's services budget ever met so great a challenge, and can you expand on
that?
So I think from my perspective this is the most challenging budget we have ever seen.
It is the conflation of a number of issues.
So as you rightly say, inflation is running at an incredibly high level and at the same
time we are managing unprecedented demand for our services.
In particular they're focused on some of our most vulnerable children, so children who
are in our care, young people leaving our care,
but also you'll see in the report
those young people who have special educational needs
and disabilities, both in terms of their educational placements,
occasionally the residential care,
and also their transport to and from schools.
So there are significant budget pressures for children's
services that we need to manage.
So in order to manage those, we are
proposing a number of actions.
First of all, to address that demand by trying to meet children's needs much earlier in the
system and provide wraparound support around children, young people and families to prevent
their needs escalating into some of those higher cost, more intensive, more intrusive
services.
We're also looking at how we employ smarter commissioning and better contracting so that
we get the best deal where we are negotiating placements and that includes looking at more
regional solutions to that so we effectively have bigger spending power, bigger buying power
and we're able to negotiate costs down and we're also looking in particular at how we can
effectively develop our services so that we are supporting children at the earliest possible
opportunity through investment in issues like family hubs. But it is a particularly
challenging financial position, you're correct to say that, Councillor.
And I'd like to follow that up if I may.
So that's a really good answer, I'm grateful for it.
You've addressed kind of two of those three pressures that I highlighted there very, very
well, demand increasing and inflationary pressures.
Could you comment on the third as well, the impact of those central government cuts?
Thank you.
So we are seeing a real -time cut in terms of funding for children and young people's
services as part of the fair funding settlement.
There has been additional funding provided to local authorities to deliver the Families
First reforms, for example, the SEND reforms, and also to implement the Best Start in Life.
That has been given to us as a block and therefore it is not ring -fenced and we are using it
to deliver those government outcomes.
But we're doing that at a time when our remaining budgets are under significant pressure.
And we are now trying to shift the system so that we provide support much earlier on
and that is difficult to do when the demand for those intensive services is still carrying
on.
So that is where we are at the moment, trying to move that support earlier into the system
whilst also meeting the needs of children and young people and families who need our support.
Are there any more questions on the finance paper? Yes, Councillor Lewis.
I noticed that in this paper the investment in the number of play areas, including Tuting Triangle and Fersdown Rec,
which is in my ward, is to be scaled down.
I've also heard that the park ranges
on the Winstanley Estate have been withdrawn.
So we know that children and parents alike care enormously
about safe, accessible play spaces
for children and young people.
As a teacher, I know the importance of play.
It's both work and learning.
What's more, we know that young people care and recognise
that shared gathering spaces, safe, shared, accessible gathering places, are an alternative to social media
and prophylactic actually against the online harms associated with social media
such as misogyny, indoctrination into violence against women.
I mean I find it very interesting that that's actually where we started tonight.
So my question is, can you assure me that play remains a priority within the Council's youth offer,
and that you recognise its incredible importance?
And actually, because we started with a discussion of violence against women and girls,
I have to say, I was listening to that, and I thought about this withdrawal of funding from these spaces,
these spaces and I thought that it might indicate a non holistic response to violence against
women and girls and a lack of deep understanding of the causes, issues and approaches in solving
and reducing violence against women and girls. Thank you.
Thank you Councillor Lewis. I'm happy to provide the assurance you're looking for that play
remains a key priority for children's services and is part of our early
intervention and targeted support programme for children and young people,
particularly those who are most vulnerable. I would just clarify we aren't
looking to cut the funding to those playground improvement areas but rather
as I said to look at smarter contracting, better commissioning to make sure we get
the best value from our contractors who are delivering those programmes and that
we provide play spaces that children and young people in this borough need and deserve.
And I agree with you that play is important in terms of developing and building family
and community relationships, which is essential to tackling violence against women and girls
and other social ills as well.
Ms Wyatt, did you want to come in?
And then Ms Wilson -Holm.
Thank you, Chair.
Yeah, just to pick up your point, Councillor, regarding the PlayRangers, just in response
to that, actually we recognise the impact that the PlayRangers have made and actually
those PlayRangers were only funded until the end of this financial year.
What we've moved to is integrating the delivery that the PlayRangers have been doing, particularly
on some of our estates, into our Family Hub model.
So the work that they've been doing has been integrated into that model of delivery as
part of the outreach offer from our Family Hub, so we're sure that that work is continuing
just in a different way.
Thank you very much for that. I can feed that back to the resident. Thank you.
Ms. Wilson -Holm.
There were three things that I spotted and I just wanted to ask about.
I think it seems that the council is doing its best to be imaginative in how to reduce costs without doing too much harm, as it were.
One, two things I just wanted to mention though.
The Breakfast Club scheme, I see that there's a national rollout.
Does that therefore mean that by a different means, children will still be getting as good
a Breakfast Club an offer?
The second one was, I thought it was very interesting that you were getting surplus
stock of school uniforms from someone or other who's evidently quite generous, but is that
actually sustainable. And the third one which I think I rather have to say in
terms of my role is on the last page it talks about the council will not extend
the contract for additional school -based spiritual health support and I'd rather
like to know what that is. Thank you very much Miss Wilson -Holl. I should have
pointed out that our co -operative members take the education function only
so ask questions and vote on education only.
But all of those questions were on education.
Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you.
I may need some colleagues to help me with some of the detail.
But you're right to say that there is a national rollout
of breakfast clubs across schools.
And that is a phased rollout, so it isn't available
in all schools at the moment.
We are working with schools who are interested in joining the programme to support them to do that.
And the intention is that eventually all schools will have access to that breakfast club activity,
providing breakfast alongside 30 minutes of meaningful activity in schools.
I'll pause there in case colleagues want to add any detail on that before I move on to school uniforms.
Yeah, Gary Apple, Assistant Director, Children's Support Services.
Yeah, just to add that we've had 40 schools on the local breakfast programme.
We've talked about that here before.
And I suppose we've been a little bit of a victim of our own success because of that,
because we've been trying to get schools to move to the National Breakfast Programme for
the last six months or so.
But they've been slightly reluctant to do so because they're on our scheme, and why
wouldn't they?
We spoke to DFE about moving all our schools together onto the programme, but again, the
DFE's responsible as well.
You've got, you know, you're running a local breakfast programme, so, you know, carry on
until we've got space free.
Since we've talked about the change to our model, the DFE have been really, really helpful.
They've come back to, we've had lots of meetings with them, and they've opened up the September
cohort and we are waiting, they said to get back to us this week, on a third of those schools moving on to the cohort now.
As Ian said, there is some eligibility in that criteria for
national breakfast programme in that you need to run a 30 minute club alongside that.
And so we're working with our schools to make sure they can all do that along with the provision of the food.
Thank you, Mr. Hippel.
Councillor Gasset.
Just to follow up on that, and that's really good to hear the government's being flexible and things are moving,
but there is this gap at the moment and parents are emailing me saying, it's just stopped, what am I going to do?
So there is talk of transition arrangements, but what's happening right now while schools have lost the funding and
the children are going hungry and not coming to breakfast and not being able to study hard?
So we're working with all those schools.
We talked about the ones that have been moving on to the national breakfast programme.
All the others are working with Magic Breakfast to look at what interim arrangements can be
put in place, and that's different for different schools.
You'll also – we're expanding the Magic Breakfast programme to secondary schools, as
you remember, and as the National Breakfast programme is primary only, those secondary schools
were sort of left out of that, but we've come to an arrangement where Magic Breakfast
have been able to – because of the move for national supporting primary, they are
shifting their charitable funds to support secondary schools.
So our secondary schools have now all been invited and
have accepted membership of the Magic Breakfast charitable service.
So that's good for them.
And then there are some primary schools that don't quite meet the criteria that
we're working with because they're not, at the moment, the DFE are accepting those
schools that have got 40 % free school meal eligibility onto their programme.
And we've got some schools in our programme who are lower than that.
And so we're just looking at the arrangements with Magic Breakfast for those schools at this moment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Hiffel.
Are there any more questions on the finance paper?
Yes, yes, yes.
That was very much a question.
Apologies.
So in terms of school uniforms, so there is a new programme which is a change from the previous provision.
And this is a partnership between Donate to Educate and local charities, which provides
new school uniforms to children in the borough.
In terms of your question around sustainability, Donate to Educate are looking to roll this
out as a pan -London programme with financial contributions from all London boroughs to
ensure there is a sustainable model going forwards.
As with any roll out from a local to a national scheme, we will be cognizant to make sure
that Wandsworth children continue to receive what they need as part of the national roll
out.
Not national, London, sorry.
Thank you very much.
Councillor Gusset, did you want to come back?
Yes, I mean as I mentioned the other day, there were some problems this year.
There wasn't enough uniform to go around, which I did highlight with Councillor Crivelli
And you asked me to send you the email, but when I checked, actually you were copied into the email, so you did know about the situation.
I'll show you.
But I'm just, I'm worried.
So if there wasn't enough this year, and they're going bigger, how can we be sure there's actually going to be enough for all our families next year?
I mean, we are aware of that issue in that some uniforms run out in some sizes and some completely.
As part of the London rollout, they are cognizant of that and are working to ensure there are sufficient uniforms going forward for
all children and young people who need them in those buries.
So teething problems in the first year, which I'm sure will be ironed out as the scheme develops.
But the offer, if you have families who did miss out, who need some support,
then please share those details with us and we will follow those up with individual families.
Thank you very much, Mr. Dodds.
Yes, Mr. Hippel, because I think I should have actually said before we came to this
that there's an error at the top of page 12 on the, it says more than 1400 children received
uniforms and I understand it was much lower than that.
Did you want to comment, Mr. Hippel, on that?
Indeed, yes.
And on that, so we were allocated 1400 initially and then as Mr. Dodds has said, the Donate
to educate wanted to develop a pan London approach to this
and so shared some of that with both Southwark and Merton.
So our numbers were lower.
But to, as a kind of pilot for this programme,
we've also negotiated this morning uniform
for another 250 to 300 children,
depending on sizes, availability.
And it's really quite exciting what the organisations
and the charities working together have done
in a short period, scaled from zero
So to be able to provide that and the logistics of it are quite intense.
And the community came together with a range of partners to develop that.
Scaled up across London, I think there's really something really quite interesting and fantastic
that we can develop here over the next year.
And there's a lot of political support behind it from all sides now.
That's very good to hear.
And I know that you are so much a part of getting that off the ground, otherwise the
children would have been left with nothing.
So thank you so much for that.
Okay, so any more?
The other part, yes.
So, Mrs. Wilson, I'm equally flummoxed as to what spiritual health is.
I think this is a typographical error in the report and it should say emotional health rather than spiritual health.
Although we are interested in the spiritual health of all of our children and young people.
Councillor Gassner.
Yes, so I'm actually very worried if we're cutting support for mental health, emotional
support.
We've got absolute mental health crisis with our children at the moment.
I mean, it was just on the radio yesterday, one in four young people have mental health
problems at the moment.
This is not the time to be cutting, and I think it's a false economy because you're
going to have worse problems further up the line, and we're going to end up spending a
of money on sorting out their problems later on, apart from which it's a horrible thing
to do, to leave children to be struggling.
So I'm interested in what conversations we've had with our health partners.
I know we were part funding with our health partners already, actually, and can we be
sure that we can have some sort of support in our schools, because it's desperately needed.
So there continues to be provision in schools through the mental health support teams in
schools, but also a continued place to be model,
although funded differently by schools and the integrated care
board.
And yes, we continue to work with health colleagues
to make sure that they are developing and delivering
relevant and responsive services to our children and young
people.
And that includes support for mental health and emotional
well -being.
So it remains a priority for us.
as you rightly say, it is highly prevalent in our casework in children's services at
the moment.
Yes, Ms. Hollis.
Thank you. I'm Pascale Brammer, the Assistant Director for Commissioning and Transformation
for Children's Services. Thanks, Mr. Dodds. Just to add to that, we've actually secured
an additional amount of funding from the ICB for this contract. So, as Mr. Dodds said,
We are committed to trying to sustain these services as much as possible, but also add in the additional funding.
But our health partners and this will then mirror, hopefully mirror the contracting arrangement for
with the primary schools having place as well in the borough.
Thank you.
Thank you for that contribution.
So if there are no more questions.
Okay, Council Lewis one and then I think we get on to the next paper.
I note that the paper says that some of the efficiencies will be raised through increasing
independent travel training with regard to Zen transport.
And I was hoping that I might be given an idea of what this will look like because I
suspect that quite a few parents will look at that and wonder because most parents, you
is possible, it will be being done.
I'm actually an ex -sen teacher, and I've worked in several specialist provision schools,
teaching independent travel amongst other things.
And it's not easy, it's not quick, and it often requires highly trained teachers,
such as myself actually, conducting it.
So I would like, I'm really hoping to seek assurance for any parents listening or watching
that any transition to independent or lower cost travel will be child -centred, well -managed,
and not just a cost -cutting exercise.
So I'd be really happy if you could give me a really full idea of what that's going to look like.
Thank you.
So you're right to say that independent travel training isn't right for every single child,
but it will be right for some children.
And we would want, obviously, to help them prepare for independence and adulthood longer
term.
So independent travel training is an intensive programme where a travel trainer works with
and young person based on their identified and individual needs
to determine how they can be supported
to develop those independent travel training skills,
whether that is using a bus or a train,
walking safely, cycling or scooting.
Or it could indeed be how they might travel with less support
from a personal assistant or less support from a driver.
So it's a combination of things, but it is an intensive programme.
over a number of weeks and months to build confidence of the young person
so that they can begin to travel more independently.
That doesn't necessarily mean they'll be left on their own.
I think you'll appreciate there are wider benefits to that as well.
Young people, as they develop, will want to try new things.
They'll want to go to the cinema independently.
They'll want to go shopping and meet their friends.
And independent travel training beyond going to and from school
will help them build those skills that will give them a fuller and more meaningful and purposeful life,
which is what we're intending as part of our work with children and young people with SEND.
But as I say, it won't be right for every child, and we will need to choose those children carefully
in consultation with them and their parents or carers.
Ms. Van der Roelle.
Yeah, can I also add, this isn't done in isolation.
So we don't look at, I sit on transport panel as does a member of the SNAS team.
So all of the applications for travel for SEND are overseen by
the travel team and but also by colleagues from SEND.
And I think what's really important is not only are we thinking about it through
the panel, but also this aligns them with annual reviews through the conversations
that happen.
And that transition starts as soon as they start secondary school.
So we're thinking about developing that independence.
We're thinking about when they hit year nine,
would independent travel training be appropriate?
Would that be something we should consider?
And those are the discussions that actually take place
in panel.
The team that delivered the travel training,
they are specialists.
They know exactly how to work with young people.
And as I said, it's very much assessed
in terms of the child's needs,
whether it's appropriate or not.
And the other thing I just want to say,
and I know you've mentioned
about independent travel training,
I just want to say the whole conversation around send transport is that it's about delivering efficiencies
But it will continue to develop a child centred approach to send travel assistance
This is not taking support away from children. This is looking at things in a different way thinking about
You know the appropriateness as I said of that approach to working with children thinking about
personalised travel solutions, thinking about commissioning.
So we're thinking about everything.
This is about really making things better for children
and at the same time creating efficiencies
and looking at cost savings.
Thank you very much Ms. Santoroli.
That was very reassuring.
Yes, Mr. Walter.
Thank you.
Just one question.
The prevention and the...
Sorry, I need to take my hands off it.
Is the largest single saving in the budget reaching $3 .7 million?
How much of that depends on the reduction of send escalation?
And what happens to the figure if demand does not fall as assumed?
So the line on prevention and demand reduction does include some of the savings that we've
spoken about in terms of more efficient home to school
transport.
It doesn't include wide ASCEND services,
which are funded from the dedicated schools grant
rather than the general fund.
But it will include placements for children in our care
and young people leaving our care.
So I mean, demand is very difficult to manage
because it changes all the time as children come in to our care unexpectedly
or indeed leave our care. So we will work hard to make sure that we're meeting
needs as early as possible, preventing the need for care wherever possible,
supporting children to remain with their families where that is in their best
interest and safe for them to do so. But we will also look at where children do
need to be in care, they're in the right type of care, so family -based care
wherever possible, either with foster carers or with kinship carers, so carers from within
their own extended family network.
And where we do need to use residential care, we'll make sure that our commissioning is
robust and that we're paying what we should pay for those children rather than inflated
costs.
Thank you very much.
If there are no more questions, I think we will go to the next paper.
That was a really important paper and thank you all for taking part, particularly the
parent governors, with very important questions.
And this is all being minuted and recorded because it's pre -Cabinet, pre -decision.
We haven't had that before.
We will make sure that Cabinet is aware.
And through Councillor Crivelli as well, I'm sure he's taking this all on board.
The actions that I took from it, Ms. Wright, if you could note, would be a meeting with
Mrs. Merry, Finance Director for the opposition speaker on children's council at Gassa, and
to attend the Finance Committee meeting, which would be asked for through the Chair of the
Finance Committee.
Thank you.
So we now go back to the top of the paper and
we are at item six, which is quality of social care practise.

6 Quality of Social Care Practice (Paper No. 26-222)

And this report provides an update on the quality of children's social care practise following the Ofsted inspection.
You've already heard that it was outstanding across every area.
And it was for overall effectiveness.
inspectors recognise the highly responsive and compassionate support provided to children and families,
the strong relationships, the early help, safeguarding, support for children in care,
and care leavers, unaccompanied asylum seeker children, I noticed in the report,
exceptional there, marked by the Ofsted inspectors.
So I will hand over to Ms. Souta to speak to this paper.
Thank you.
Hi everyone.
I'm Elizabeth Souta, Director of Children's Social Care.
So the report that you've got in front of you is an update on the quality of social
care practise following the offset inspection in March of this year.
We were really pleased that the inspection report
highlighted the progress that we've made since our previous inspection in November 2022, when services were judged to be good overall.
The report highlights that children in Wandsworth benefit from highly responsive and
compassionate social work that's centred on their individual experiences.
It talks about highly skilled practitioners that know children well and
We've worked really hard over the last number of years to stabilise our workforce to reduce our reliance upon agency social workers.
To really build solid foundations for practise and
it highlights our kind of strong leadership, purposeful partnership working and
a committed workforce that makes sure that children and care experience, young people have high quality services that promote their safety,
stability and well -being and support them to make meaningful and sustained progress.
And I think that's why we all come to work every day and what we're all here for.
We had one area that inspectors reflected back to us needed to improve and
that related to the way that we record our dynamic thinking about children's plans.
So it refers to permanence plans and for everyone here that's about when children come into our care,
how we help them to feel that they belong, that they know what their next step is.
And that they understand where their future sits, which is something that I suppose if you grew up in your birth family,
you might take for granted that you're going to stay in your birth family until you reach adulthood.
For children in our care, they can worry about moving and a permanence plan is our plan to them that tells them where we hope they will stay or where we hope they will live in the long term.
And sometimes those plans have to shift and change and inspectors reflected back to us that
the way in which we record that on our system and the way in which we communicate that to children.
For a small number of children, it wasn't as strong as they would like it to be.
So that's an area that we've taken forward and submitted an action plan to Ofsted,
alongside a couple of other areas that we identified for ourselves, we wanted to improve.
Because we are always looking to be better.
I'll pause and I'm happy to take any questions.
Any questions for this paper?
Councillor Gasser and then Councillor Richard.
Actually it's not so much a question, it's a thank you and well done and congratulations.
I've never had the chance to say that publicly, but it was an amazing feat that you, all of you,
from top to bottom, every single layer of children's services were so professional, so dedicated, so focused on the children.
And you worked so hard, and it's just thank you for everything that you've done and what an amazing service it now is.
Outstanding in all areas, so it's absolutely fantastic.
So I'm so proud of you all, it's wonderful.
And it was part of our ambition to support you to achieve that, and you absolutely did.
So that's fantastic.
One tiny question, do I need to ask that?
Just about corporate parenting.
So we are, all of us, corporate parents.
I'm sure hopefully new counsellors know that.
And I would really recommend that new counsellors that don't know Falcon Grove, the service
down there, should go and see it.
Meet some of the young people, have some training from the young people, because it really brings
to home what our responsibility is and how we can support the young people.
So I'd really urge everybody to do that training.
Hopefully officers will arrange for us all to go down there.
Thank you, Councillor Gasser.
Councillor Fisher.
Thank you.
I'd echo Councillor Gasser's remarks as well about a fantastic report.
The report mentions recruitment and retention
of social care workers.
Could you just talk a bit about how,
about whether retention has improved
of social care workers in Wandsworth,
and if so, has that continuity led to,
or contributed to the outstanding rating?
Yes, yes it has.
We've worked really hard over the last four or five years
to improve our retention
and particularly increase our volume of permanent social workers.
Local authorities across the country often operate with agency social workers
and that naturally leads to higher turnover.
We've really worked hard to make Wandsworth a place where people want to come and practise social work
and that is based on kind of our vision for practise with children and families that's rooted in values.
And I think the work that we've done over the last four to five years has been really about
Demonstrating, which I guess is one of the proudest things about this report,
is demonstrating that you can lead a values -led practise system that is robust and
rigorous in terms of the way that it supports children's safety.
And that's through a workforce development offer, an investment in our staff,
and supporting them to have the tools to be the best that they can be in a really challenging environment.
It's been about the day -to -day culture.
When you're working with high levels of risk, high levels of complexity,
it's really important that you work in an environment where leaders are visible, where they want to have conversations about children, and
where they will support you to think through the complexity of decisions that we have to make and steps that we take with families every day.
And I guess really recognising that the culture that we build internally and
And the way that we talk to each other and the relationships that we build internally
are the way that our social workers will go out and practise with families.
So through all of that, through giving social workers the tools that they need and through
creating a culture that means that Wandsworth is a place where people want to come and work,
we've achieved really significant workforce stability to the point where we had an agency
rate in up in the 40 % in our previous inspection and we're currently at 1%.
Thank you.
Councillor I will say wow to that final thing that you said.
That's very impressive for government services in general.
I want to take us to an area of interest for me if it's okay and it's in the OSTD section
of the report, the OSTD branded section.
It's about the health assessments,
both initial and review ones.
And it talks a little bit, there's very little
in this paper that is concerning,
but it talks about them being outside
of the time scales needed to match their requirements.
I wondered if you could talk about that
and what the impact on the child in question
might look like to paint a picture for us,
I think would be helpful.
Thank you.
Yeah, I think the challenges with initial
and review health assessments are not unique to Wandsworth, so that's the first thing to point out.
The time scales are very strict, I guess for good reason.
So a child should have an initial health assessment within 20 working days of coming into care.
When you think about a child's journey into care and what that looks like and what that feels like, that's a fairly swift time scale.
So it has a good rationale in that it's really important we understand what children's health and well being needs are in order to meet those needs effectively.
Our cohort of children, the children in our care is weighted towards children over ten.
And for them that means that they have to meet a number of strangers in their first few weeks in care.
They have to move to a new home.
They have to think about what that means for them.
They have to meet an independent reviewing officer and a doctor is another layer on top of that.
and our initial health assessments take place in a hospital setting.
So sometimes we have barriers where children don't want to go to that assessment.
That feels very overwhelming for them.
And what we try to do to mitigate, so in real terms what that looks like for
a child is that we may not, if that child has not been previously known to us.
So if they are new to the UK or if they're a child that we haven't known previously,
We may not have as much information about their health as we might want.
For most children that come into our care, we do have some history with them, which means we will be in touch with their GPs.
We will have a sense of immunisation history, and we will be able to make plans to meet their health needs in the short term, whilst they're waiting for initial health assessment.
I think it's an ongoing conversation with our health colleagues.
we've been continuing to kind of advocate, I suppose, for a rethinking of
the way that initial health assessments are commissioned and delivered through
our corporate parenting panel and through health and well -being board and
other spaces. So it's a continuous conversation with health colleagues. But
yeah, I hope that answers your question. Does. Can I ask a follow -up? Thank you
very much. It's just too gently on a little bit. It's really good answer. But
do you have a sense of how often it's missed times? Yeah. So in terms of
initial health assessments, our data usually sits around 25 % fall within that
initial 20 working days, that has been lower and it has been higher, but that's roughly
where it would sit.
For review health assessments, that's much, much higher.
So that's closer to between 75 and 100 percent.
And I guess that talks to the point I made about the way that those assessments happen.
So review health assessments are conducted by a nurse who specialises in working with children looked after.
There are more nurses and they are more flexible with their time.
They can go out and meet children.
They can do that in a way that means that it is more accessible to a child.
Initial health assessments are conducted by a paediatrician in a clinical setting.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you for such intensive answers, Miss Suta.
It's really very useful for the whole committee.
Councillor Lewis.
Thank you. I also would like to follow my colleague and say that I would like to commend everybody responsible and involved in getting such an amazing report.
because as my colleague pointed out behind the words outstanding are amazing
outcomes for families and children and that really really matters so thank you
so I'm pleased that this paper highlights the impact of staff
retention and you were talking about that. This was something that was developed under the
previous administration and it led to better outcomes for children alongside
reducing agency costs and therefore the overall budget costs and this is a
question for councillor really really given the council is seeking to raise
council tax by a level that many residents think is excessive would
councillor crevelly please assure me that cabinet is discussing translating the
learning from the children's department to other departments for example adults
and social care. The learning being increasing staff retention, raising outcomes, lowering
costs, all go together. And that means making creative and diligent efficiencies rather
than taking the easy route of making residents take an unnecessary financial hit. Thank you.
Councillor Crivelli, did you get that? We should have opened by saying this is a question
to the cabinet member but everyone's new and we're all learning this.
Sorry, I didn't understand the point you made about council tax. Just repeat that again, sorry.
I'm very happy to. Given the council is seeking to raise council tax by a level that many
residents have told me they think is excessive, would Councillor Crivelli assure me that cabinet
that is discussing the possibility of translating the learning that has been made and the precedent
that has been set in the Children's Department into other departments, for example, adults
and social care, the learning being that increasing staff retention raises outcomes, lowers costs,
and that means making creative and diligent efficiencies rather than taking an easy route
of raising money through raising the council tax.
Thank you. Councillor Loeson.
Okay, let me respond to that as follows. You probably are correct in respect of saying
that at cabinet we could probably learn from the success of what's happened with
children's services and as you pointed out and Ms Souto made the point
recruitment and retention is a fundamental point the continuity that we've managed
to sustain with the issue about social workers obviously it's improved outcomes
not only improved outcomes but we're no longer relying on agency staff so I do
think that there are lessons to be learned in that respect and if my cabinet colleagues
or any other, anybody else on the council wants to learn from the successful fund on
children's services then I hope that they would impart that knowledge.
Obviously what we want to do is we want to ensure that the rating that we've got, the
outstanding rating that we've got is maintained.
And in respect of the council tax, you've said that many residents thought it was excessive.
I have to say that the emails that I've been getting from residents are more along the
lines of how can the government do this to us?
And I know that a number of people, certainly in Putney, are quite irate at the government
robbing Wandsworth blind and forcing council tax increases as this sort of nature, because
the fact is it impacts very heavily on Wandsworth residents. We're talking about
substantial increases in council tax, particularly so on people who are going
to struggle to meet these increases. And the interesting thing is of course
it's not just us, it's not a decision made by the administration in Wandsworth.
You're seeing other local authorities with massive increases in their council
tax in London and we've been singled out. When you consider the fact that there's no
reason to cut funding to Wandsworth, we seem to be on the receiving end of some very unpleasant
financial decisions by the government. So I'm afraid we're caught in a vice here, we're
getting a financial settlement imposed on us that's making things exceptionally difficult
for us and if anyone wants to join with lobbying government to reverse the very unfair funding
formula, I would be very pleased for you to do that.
Councillor Lewis, do you want to come back or respond, or Councillor Gassard?
I don't mind responding. I would say that, well, we'll have to agree to disagree with
this because I know that the Labour group put forward different suggestions for making
efficiencies. And in the words of somebody else who's very prominent in public life,
we decided that we would not treat parents and residents as a cash machine. We'd actually
try creatively to make any fundings and efficiencies more creatively. Well, more creatively. Thank
Thank you.
If you want to, and then I think we'll move on to the next paper.
Can I say to you, if you've got a situation whereby Labour councillors are supporting
the fair funding formula, which takes millions of pounds away from Wandsworth, and then you're
complaining about cuts, it's like the boy who shot his parents and then asked the judge
for compassion on the grounds that he was an orphan.
These cuts are being made because the government are imposing them on us.
And seeing that you've got an alternative with efficiency, I'd like to know how it is
that you can plug the £138 million budget gap by increasing Council's tax by a paltry
5%.
I don't think that anybody believes that's possible.
Councillor Covelli, could I just say that that analogy you've just drawn at Children's
is incredibly inappropriate with the talking about the boy who shot his parents.
It's a quote from someone I'll have to dig out. It's a literary quote.
It's extremely inappropriate.
Jesus, if anyone is offended about it. But the point I'm making is you can't see you disagree with central government cuts.
You can't see you disagree with cuts and then and then support the cuts that are being made by central government.
That's a fact. Yes, I take that. Councillor Gasser, did you want to come back?
Well, I can't let you have the last word, can I?
Obviously, we had a different plan,
and our plan did not involve a massive hike in council tax.
We had, as Councillor Luce said, a lot of creative ideas.
Council has hog -owned some of them
at full council the other day.
There are other ways of approaching this.
It is a challenge.
Of course it's a challenge.
But we had started addressing it,
and had we still been there, we would have been addressing it
over the summer.
And we would have a medium -term financials, whatever it is,
TFS ready for you to scrutinise and it would not have been as cruel as yours.
Thank you, Councillor Gussa.
So we will now move on to the next paper, which is youth provision in the borough.
And Ms Wyatt is going to speak to the report for us.

7 Wandsworth Youth Provision (Paper No. 26-223)

Thank you, Chair.
Kat Wyatt, Director of Children's Place and Partnerships.
This paper provides an overview of Wandsworth Youth Offer and the breadth of opportunities
available to young people across the borough. Through council run services,
sports providers, the voluntary community and faith sector, we now have more over
210 provisions across Wandsworth, delivering universal, targeted and
specialist support for children and young people. The established Youth
Partnership Board has provided a platform for providers to come together,
share practise and opportunities and we now have over a hundred members of those
210 organisations represented. The latest data shows that we continue to engage
more and more young people.
Over the last two years, Council -led youth services
has delivered more than 3 ,500 sessions,
recording over 55 ,000 attendances by young people.
We've also seen a 33 % increase
in the number of young people accessing services
during the same period,
with growth across all localities and areas.
Importantly, we're now reaching increasing numbers
of young people living in our most deprived communities,
supporting our wider ambitions
and prevention in prevention, early intervention, and reducing inequalities.
Now around 50 % of children living in our 0 to 30 % lower super output areas are attending
one of our community youth provisions.
We've seen an increase from 18 to 21 % of children who are living in the 0 to 10 % lower super
output areas attending our council on youth provisions.
The data that we collect also helps us to understand where we need to deploy resources
to increase that engagement through targeted provision.
Overall, the picture of the youth provision is one of increasing reach and strong engagement.
The paper sets out how we're continuing to work with partners and young people themselves
to ensure that our provision remains responsive, accessible, and focused on positive outcomes.
I welcome questions.
Are there any questions for Ms Wyatt on youth provision?
You've read the paper, yes, Councillor Eyelove?
Thank you. Thank you very much for this report and it's of great interest. I spend quite
a lot of my time thinking and working with the youth and young people in Wandsworth.
Very broadly, I suppose what I want to understand is how this wonderful work goes on in perpetuity,
sustainably. And I wanted to understand how do we make it both sustainable financially,
but also ensuring that the services that we have for our children don't feel transient, don't feel passing,
feel, you know, rooted in the places that we know and love here.
So perhaps you could speak to that.
Thank you, Councillor.
Around 18 months ago now we established the Youth Partnership Board in Wandsworth,
and this was a platform for providers to come together, exactly picking up the points that you've talked about,
about rather than working in competition to reach young people for funding opportunities,
there was an opportunity to come together and think about how we share practise, seek
those funding opportunities, but also develop about where we know there's gaps in provision
as well.
Within the report, we talk about the opportunity for the mayor's funding, some from the Greater
London Authority.
Actually, it's true that we have a voluntary organisation that's leading that bid.
They've brought together over 18 organisations to think about how they can secure that funding
and support delivery into spaces and places that we're not reaching currently.
Also data has been key to conversations at the Youth Partnership Board, because actually
drawing together that data as to how organisations think about how we can target delivery into
those areas, reaching those children and people who can't currently walking in through the
doors of any of our youth provision, but also then how do we handhold them into sustainable
opportunities beyond those youth sessions as well, whether that's education, training, and employment, whether that's mental health services.
How are we making those connexions for young people so there isn't just a one -off contact?
Lovely answer.
And I love that there's an emphasis here on data so that we can ensure that those changes and improvements are tangible for those young people.
Do you have any examples that you would like to show off about that, of data?
Certainly, Councillor, and actually I would like to introduce Hollis Blake, our Head of Partnerships and Participation, who can talk to exactly some of those key examples.
Hi, good evening. Yeah, we have a number of examples, really, and I've been a part of the Youth Service for over 20 years now, and I, yeah, it's a struggle to actually pick out individual examples.
but there are some. We have a provision for our SCND young people at the George
Shearing Youth Club. We have one attendee there who had complex needs and also had
issues around mobility and through working with the youth club, through
working across all of their programmes including physical activity programmes, art
based programmes and so forth, building his confidence to actually help him actually
move, that helped him actually outside of the youth club as well to access other services
and other spaces as well in a more confident way.
And certainly helped him in terms of reducing his isolation and made him more able to access
services throughout his school and made him more easily accessible for transport services
and so forth as well.
So it's a real impact not just on his confidence,
but actually on his confidence in the wider setting as well.
So he was able to access wider services.
And that's a really lovely storey.
Just to kind of push on the question,
which was examples of data that demonstrate,
but a really nice anecdote, thank you.
Yes, a follow up on the data point.
So actually in terms of the mayor's bid, for example,
That's been a data -driven bid in terms of identifying areas that we know we're not currently reaching,
using our local super output data, areas of deprivation.
Currently we've got a geographical spread of our youth offer as well, so we know where those areas.
So for example, we know West Hill is an area.
We know that it's currently underserved, our youth offer,
so we're using that data to mobilise with our partnership services into that area.
Thank you very much Miss White.
Councillor Lewis did you have a question?
Yes.
Sorry I think I'm asking too many questions but thank you.
Maybe try and keep them a bit short.
Councillor Crivelli I think this one may be for you but it might even be for the chair.
I'm very new.
So this was a wonderful paper again and I'd like to thank the officers for their work
on it.
It was just fascinating.
I'd like to ask, and I thought it might be Councillor Crivelli, if data is being collected
on older needs, people not in education or training or employment, and if there is coordination
between children's services and the new opportunities committee area to develop links between the
voluntary sector, private sector and the council to improve job opportunities and work experience
for young people in our borough.
And actually, it was an ask, is there room for more work
to be done in this area?
You know, a paper to be brought or a task and finish group
looking at and developing our offer around needs,
especially older needs.
So it's basically a sort of, it's an ask.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Councillor Lewis.
I think that probably fits better into the work programme paper
but I'm sure Councillor Crivelli will answer on some of that.
And you said also to the chair,
you're thinking that maybe I could work
with the chair of opportunities
to see if we could do something together.
I think we have, am I correct in thinking
that Councillor Murtis, that you are the chair
for opportunities at OSC?
Yes, so I'm sure Councillor Murtis has listened
to everything you said as well.
Councillor Crivelli.
Can I say it's a fair point that you've made there?
I'll have to defer to the officers
about the data for NAICS, but certainly the point that you've made about young people
who are not in education, employment or training, it is a very serious national problem that
needs to be addressed.
And in Wandsworth, if we can do our bit to address the issues with young people who have
got that problem and linking it in with new opportunities, of course it goes without saying
that that's something that we should be doing.
So any ideas in respect to that, I'm sure Councillor Murtis has heard the point.
We can work on that.
I don't think there's any problem with us trying to do everything we possibly can to
address the issue of young people not in education and training and linking that with trying
to create new opportunities for these people to either get them into education or employment.
But I'm afraid on the issue of data, I'm going to have to defer to the officers on that one, because I'm not 100 % sure.
Are you, Mr. Dodds, happy to answer?
Yeah, I mean, in terms of the position,
one thing I would say is that our neat position for 16 and 17 year olds is massively improved over time.
We've got a dedicated team that work with them.
And obviously I can get hold of that information for you in terms of the neat position.
One thing I would say again, underneath me, and not only do I have the post -16 participation team,
I have lifelong learning, which is adult learning.
And those teams work very closely together.
They work as well with the Economic Development Office in terms of joined up working.
And we are very focused on work experience.
So we have BEST within lifelong learning that delivers work experience opportunities
and a number of our schools sign up with that service to deliver their work experience.
We have got a Trailblazer programme, so we've got lots and lots of activity happening,
particularly for our vulnerable learners because the thing is our stats are so good for our 16 and 17 year olds.
So now it's very much targeted support that's needed to really
look at those young people who have more complex needs and that those are
the barriers to them engaging with education employment and training
because actually the opportunities are there it's whether they're able to
engage with them which is some of the challenges but we can absolutely you
know in a future committee bring a paper around post 16 work and neat position
and also all of the opportunities that not only the post 16 team but our life
lifelong learning service is actually delivering not only for our 16 and 17 year olds, but
obviously more widely for adult learning.
Thank you very much, Miss Vanerelli.
Did you want to come back, Councillor Lewis?
No, I just wanted to say thank you.
Councillor Gassard, and then we move on to the next paper.
Yes, thank you.
So Miss White mentioned the Youth Partnership Board, which actually was a great innovation.
It came in about two years ago, I think, and it has been wonderful to see that grow.
And it does have about 100 organisations as part of it now.
And they get together.
They have sort of serious business meetings.
They also had a big celebration event and sharing information
event, which was very, very useful.
And one of the innovations was that we allocated the Youth
Partnership Boards and funding.
Rather than me or officers deciding who gets what,
the Youth Partnership Board had 300 ,000 pounds
to allocate as they thought best.
So the groups bid in.
Decision makers knew where the areas of need were.
and they decided accordingly.
So it was really led by the voluntary sector youth groups,
which I think was fantastic.
So I'm just going to ask Councillor Crivelli,
will he commit to putting that funding forward again
for the Youth Partnership Board?
I think it was 300 ,000 pounds.
You appreciate that that's not the sort of financial decision
that I can make on the hoof, and I certainly
can't make it at this meeting.
But certainly, the points that have been made
about working with young people, and the point that
was made by Councillor Lewis about trying
address the issue with needs and the stuff that you're talking about, the youth partnership
board. I'm more than well aware of the need for us to have a proper response to ensuring
that we can help young people in the borough, so certainly I'm quite happy to look at that.
Councillor Murtagh.
Thank you. I would like to wear my opportunity chair hat for a second and move the question
on private business, which I'm sure is probably very helpful in helping our youth progress
in life, because not everything has to be funded by the public purse. So can you please
make a few examples like busses, power station, how are they helping us, you know, taking
on some of our youth and providing some type of courses or some kind of work experience
so that we can maybe leverage even further the private business sector.
Thank you very much.
Absolutely Councillor.
I think that's probably a question better asked in terms of with our lifelong learning
colleagues, but that's what we're very closely with them in terms of the work experience
opportunities, job opportunities, we're actually reaching out across the sector
in terms of supporting and enabling young people into those opportunities
with regards to that. And also as a council ourselves as well in terms of as
an employer how we're seeking opportunities to support our young
people into those. We actually hosted a number of internships over the summer
and actually the two young people who we hosted internships within children's
were actually previous children looked after as well so this is about providing
a platform for young people to experience the workplace, explore and understand the
skills needed for that to go on to future employment.
Thank you very much.
Any more questions on this paper?
Yes.
Yeah, this question has an education slant to it.
The paper mentions same participation activity and youth voice through the Youth Council
and click, how are young people with SEND specifically involved in shaping the offer
rather than being represented in general?
SEND Young People, we have a SEND Youth Council which operates out of the George Sheeran Youth
Centre which is our SEND Pacific Youth Centre. So when we conduct consultations and we want
to engage with young people.
We also ensure that we hear that voice as well from send
young people.
We've also conducted some surveys and consultations,
again, with young people who are attending
some of our special schools, and also
young people who are attending some of our schools that
have bases as well.
We've conducted what we called belonging conversations, where
we were trying to ascertain from young people
their sense of belonging in their schools and their sense of belonging in their communities as well.
So over last term we had a number of workers who went in and conducted those conversations with small groups of young people in schools.
And also we included the supported internships as well.
And just to add on to that, a lovely very recent example for you is we're undertaking
some refurbishment of our Tooting Family Hub.
And actually we've ensured that we hear the voice of all of our communities in terms of
the look and feel for the hub as well, ensuring it's a welcoming space for everybody.
And particularly we heard from our families in Tooting about a space for children and
families with SCMD.
So they've been part of our shaping what the internal and external space will look like
and have had a walk around through construction as well to make sure that we're delivering
what we promised.
Thank you very much.
That's very exciting to hear that.
Okay, so we will now move on to the next paper, which is SEND in Wandsworth, Special Educational

8 SEND in Wandsworth: Delivering Better Outcomes for Children and Families (Paper No. 26-224)

Needs and Disability, Delivering Better Outcomes for Children and Families.
This was paper number 26 to 224.
It provides an update on SEND services in Wandsworth, some of which we've covered already,
and the support available to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
And it outlines current performance, trends in demand for education, health and care plans,
which have been the source of great expense to the council, and
steps being taken to increase local capacity and strengthen provision for children and families.
And I think Ms. Fenaroli, you're going to speak to this paper.
Thank you, Chair.
My name is Lisa Fenaroli, I'm the Director of Education.
This report highlights the strong progress being made by Wandsworth Send Partnership in improving outcomes for children and
young people with SEND, whilst recognising the significant pressures facing the system nationally and locally.
Wandsworth starts from a position of demonstrable strength.
It is one of only five local authorities nationally to have achieved 100 % compliance with the statutory 20 week EHCP timelines.
Maintaining this for three consecutive years against a national average of 46 .1%.
Educational outcomes are also strong.
With Wandsworth ranked third nationally for progress eight performance for
pupils receiving SEND support and 10th for pupils with EHCPs.
And for children with EHCPs, 92 % are progressing into education,
employment, or training after key stage four.
These outcomes reflect a sustained focus on inclusion, early identification,
and timely support, alongside significant investment in local provision.
Over the last five years, more than 45 million has been invested in expanding SEND capacity and specialist support.
Helping more children access appropriate education closer to home and
remain connected to their families, friendships, and communities.
The report is also clear about the challenges ahead.
Demand continues to grow, needs are becoming more complex, and
National SEND reforms will require careful implementation across education, health, and care.
Wandsworth is well placed to respond as many of the principles underpinning the reforms are strengthened,
mainstream support, early intervention, locality based working, and
greater parental confidence, and they are already reflected in our local practise.
Further investment in specialist provision, including resource based expansion and
approaches such as experts at hand provide an opportunity to build on this foundation.
The overarching message is therefore one of confidence, ambition, and realism.
Wandsworth recognises the scale of the challenge, but does so from a position of nationally recognised performance,
strong partnership working, and a clear commitment to ensuring that children and
young people with SEND are supported to thrive, achieve, and prepare successfully for adulthood.
I'm happy to take any questions and I also have the assistant director for
sending inclusion Deborah Johnson with me so she can also help take those
questions. Any questions? Oh Councillor Eyelith. Thank you very much chair.
So I mean nearly every week I I meet with parents of children of various
kinds who are very worried about the decisions that councils will make about
their children. Usually this is in the context of safeguarding. But there is another one
that I think is posed to this council more presently. I was, how do you make the case
to parents about their son's child going into mainstream schools where maybe that hasn't
been the case before or they have concerns about it? And in the face of pushback from
them, you know, how do you put that argument across positively? Thank you.
Yeah, I'll take that one, Deborah Johnson.
The SEND team are obviously underneath my service.
One of the key things that obviously we have is currently 3 ,500 plus EHCPs.
And we've got a very, very strong performance and very,
very talented people in our service, which is why we've managed to have the performance that we do.
But one of the key things is that obviously every parent is very concerned about their own child.
But what we do and the approach we take is that obviously the EHCP
is the real key to the decision around the placement.
And so therefore, the needs are listed and then as part of the needs being listed,
that then identifies what provision each individual child requires.
And that will tell us to a larger extent whether their needs can be met in mainstream or
whether they need a different type of provision, whether it's a resource space or a special school.
But also, when we nine times out of ten actually state that a mainstream school is appropriate,
we have a mainstream school that says they can meet the needs, but that may not be what the parent wants.
So there's a big difference.
Just also as well to add I think there is something in this as well particularly around
the SEND reforms and we you know we recognise that this has created huge anxiety for families
particularly that unknown of what's coming next and I think part of our work through
the reforms is to provide that reassurance to co -produce with families so we don't do
but we work alongside.
And I think for me as well, it's about working with schools,
about creating that confidence in the school system
in terms of being able for schools to articulate
that they can meet that need
and looking at the ordinarily available provision
that schools have in place.
And so there's gonna be a big piece of work
with schools, with families, with our parent carer forum
about really building that confidence in the system
as we move forward.
And that's gonna be a tough ask,
but it's one that we recognise we need to do and it's really about ongoing communication
and bringing them on the journey of understanding with us.
Mustafa and then Councillor Gasol. The paper says there are no financial implications
yet in the spending review that we saw earlier sets out that sense savings. So what is the
current high needs block position and is this held under statutory override or is there
a level of provision sustainable once the override ends?
Yeah I mean I think it's recognised nationally. I mean the reason why the Senate reforms were
brought in is because the current system is unsustainable. It's you know the high needs
block across every single borough across London is under pressure. We're no
different in Wandsworth although I think we're probably in a better position than
some. In terms of the position we we are overspent and that is as I said it's not
an unusual position. In terms of the write -off of our high needs block it's
very much dependent on our action plan and obviously we've not had a response
from the DFE yet and if that does happen, we hope it is because we're confident in our
action plan, that will obviously considerably bring down that high needs DSG. But the reality
is that unless there is leisurely change in government, it's not going to change the position
because parents can still request the HCPs, they can still make representation around
the school they want their child to be in and therefore the position is going to become
more and more challenging.
So I think there is recognition across the country,
all my counterparts will say, that we
agree with the ambition.
We agree with the direction of travel,
because it's one that in Wandsworth we've been working
to for a long time.
But if it doesn't come with the change that is required,
then the high needs block is going
to remain under pressure.
Thank you very much for that very interesting answer.
And that's really an extremely good scrutiny question, if I might say so, Mr. Woodhough.
Councillor Gasser.
Yes, thank you.
I mean, to follow up on what you were asking about, how do we reassure parents that their
child will be in the right place in mainstream?
Actually, a lot of parents want their child to be in mainstream, but we have to be sure
that the support is there and schools need that support.
And a key element of this is the experts in hand, isn't it?
And so we are going to need extra speech and language therapists, occupational therapists,
educational psychologists, all of that.
So I wondered where we are in the recruitment process,
because every authority in the country is going to be wanting these people.
I think we're in a very, very lucky position in Wandsworth
in the fact that we've already got a lot of these services in place
and that have been in place for a substantial amount of time,
which a lot of other local authorities haven't.
We have no vacancies in our EP service at the moment,
which again makes us very different from other local authorities.
But the recruitment for the expert at hands is all underway and that will include speech and
language, occupational therapy, EPs, specialist teachers across the board.
So recruitment is underway and it's all been approved, ready to go.
Ms. Wilson -Holm.
I was just looking at the distribution across the borough of these various
particular resource bases and special schools.
I was wondering if you could particularly say something about the Nine Elms expansion,
which I understand is coming and what's going to be there.
And also what other specific things you're looking at that you would hope to expand, given the money.
Yeah, so at the moment, in Nine Elms, we're actually planning to build a 16 -place SCMH provision.
So that will be inside a new school that's being built there.
It's not a new school per se, it will move in one of our existing schools.
So it's not replacing.
We're also building 24 SCMH places in West Hill, in West Hill Primary School.
Grand -
So can you explain what SCMH is?
Sorry, social, emotional, mental health.
So that's for children with behavioural needs for different reasons.
Granard School, which is an ASD provision in primary, we're increasing the number to 84.
We've also got a speech language and communication provision in Smallwood School, and
we're increasing the numbers there from 45 to 80.
Currently we've got 17 resource bases, but
what we're looking at now is actually increasing our resource bases in our secondary provision.
So that we match the number of primary provisions and
their designation so that we have the same in secondary.
And we're also working with the secondary schools around their own secondary inclusion bases,
which is part of the centre form, and obviously then we've obviously got the capital spend,
which is between 10 to 12 million, where we're looking at alternative provision that we build there.
So quite a lot going on in terms of expanding our specialist provision.
Thank you very much.
Any more questions?
Yes, Councillor Gasser.
Can I just follow up on that?
I mean, do we think these new places are anywhere near meeting the demand because we know what the demand's going to look like?
I think the answer to that is if you build them, they will come.
Around it's still not enough because they are coming so we need to build.
Are we keeping up?
The primary difficulty is obviously to a larger extent whilst the SEND reform is asking us to still have suitable provision,
they're also asking really for things to be, for children's needs to be met more appropriately in mainstream.
So we've also got to put that provision into mainstream schools as well.
and that's what we aim to do with the expert at hand.
Thank you very much.
So I think we can go to the next paper,
the last paper, which is the work programme.
Hope everybody's had a chance to read this.
It gives an updated overview
of our scrutiny work programming
and new ways of working as an OSC.
We brought this in in the last year or so to sort of modernise the way that we do scrutiny.
It's very useful what we're doing here this evening and those of you who are attending for the first time, I hope you found it informative.
But we also wanted to really be able to take deep dives on some issues that the committee would like to look into.
So go out into the community and look at some of the services and the facilities and speak to parents.
So that was what we did.
And this is the opportunity to look at that.
So we call it the work programme.
And I don't expect us to come up with what we are going to do going forward in this committee.
that can happen in a subcommittee.
But if any of the members have ideas around something
or an issue they would like a report on,
or a task and finish group, a task and finish group
is when a group of us really dig down into an issue.
We did it around violence against women and girls,
and we heard the recommendations this evening.
And we also did it with the HCP's
because this was coming as really a serious issue for the Council
and we looked into that in great detail.
I'm very pleased to see a lot of those recommendations going ahead
and a lot of that work which has placed us very well for the oncoming reforms.
And I know as Wandsworth is so often leads in the country and our officers lead
on these various issues working with government that we were able

9 Children's OSC Work Programme (Paper No. 26-225)

to actually influence some of the SEND reforms in that way.
And it put us in this really good position
that we've just heard.
So that was with EHCPs.
So if you were thinking of an issue
that you would want us to look at in more detail,
I know people have ideas.
But if we looked at page 35 and we have benefits of scrutiny,
And I found it, when we started doing this, quite useful to use that to then think about what we might like to look into.
It's this really clear criteria around it. It has to be relevant. It has to have clear outcomes.
The democratic services need to be able to have the officer time dedicated to it if it's a task and finish group.
So, sort of use that to sort of guide what you're thinking about issues that we might
like to go into.
One that's been mentioned to me was the effects of temporary accommodation on children.
And temporary accommodation, as we know, is of great concern to the administration because
of the cost.
But from the children's committee point of view, I know various members had wanted to look into that,
the effects of temporary accommodation on children.
And then another issue which we just touched on actually with Councillor Mertes and
the opportunities OSC was to look at young people not in education, employment or training.
our needs and go out to businesses and put a programme together. Wandsworth has got some
fantastic work going on but I think there's the potential to do a lot more with business
and education succeeding together. I know I've been involved in that in the past. It's
really, really impressive. Anyway, as chair, I think I've probably introduced that enough
so any questions? Yes?
Not so much a question but a comment perhaps.
Yeah, I'd like to lend my small support to that.
I think the NEATS issue is a really important one, perhaps with a particular focus in general,
of course, in children, but in particular in care leaders and SEND groups would be an
interest for me.
But yeah, I just want to lend my support to that as a broad topic for report and scrutiny.
Thank you very much.
Any more thoughts or ideas?
Yes, Ms Wilson -Hellman.
I'd just like to know how those of us who aren't necessarily on the council might suggest things that have one or two possibilities.
Please go ahead. It doesn't need to be just around education.
I think it's for the four of you, the co -operative members, it's when it comes to voting and particularly your scrutiny,
we try to guide it to education because that is your remit representing the diocese and also being parent governors.
But please go ahead.
My particular concern is the data led one probably rather than anything else, but the sort of pupil place planning and the general demographics of children really currently and how that's going to affect our schools.
So that's the one I'm particularly concerned about.
I don't think that would be a huge one, but I think it is a very pertinent in that it's so much thinking about what we can do in the future.
Thank you very much.
That's incredibly helpful.
Perhaps that would be a report.
The committee could ask for a report into place planning.
And yes, I know demographic change, and we know we've got falling numbers in our primary schools and our secondary schools as well.
So that would be really good to look at.
Okay, any more ideas?
Yes, Councillor Gasser.
It's not an idea, it's just an endorsement, absolutely.
I think this needs, and focusing on particular groups, is a very good idea.
I also think children in temporary accommodation is a good idea, but I think we might need to work with housing colleagues.
We might need to get their view on that as well.
But it is absolutely a good idea how we can improve the outcomes for the children because we know they're suffering
Yeah, and I think a paper on school sufficiency places would be really really useful
this one
Chair if I could make a suggestion actually and we've talked about children young people today
And we talked a lot about hearing their voice, and I know in we've had previous committees over the years
Well, we've had children young people actually join committee to talk about their experience of being heard
And I wonder if the group might take a paper on participation, how we hear the voice of
children and young people, but actually to invite them along as well to talk to their
experience.
Perhaps we put that first on the agenda when the time comes.
I was going to say I'm pretty sure we're all in agreement with that.
We have done that previously, and I think we should, any task and finish group, or when
we have representation here and first -hand experience to have young people as a part
of that is very important.
Yes, Mr Woodhope.
Maybe as we know, primary roles are falling across inner London with real consequences
for school budgets and possible closures, mergers.
Could the committee maybe look at around that, please, if possible?
Thank you very much.
So that kind of is similar to what Ms. Wolfson -Holm has asked for around pupil placements and
Councillor Gasser, what did you call it, school sufficiency.
Yes, so I think we could definitely roll that into asking for a report on school placements,
school sufficiency, falling numbers, and looking ahead.
Thank you very much.
Well, that's several ideas there.
What we did before was we went away from this committee and with the help of Democratic
Services officers, we set up a sort of subcommittee or a smaller meeting which people were invited
to and reached agreement amongst everybody and the opposition and the majority party
as well on what we would look into.
So it sounds like we've probably got agreement on looking into needs,
so we'll set something up on that, and requesting a report into school placements.
Anything else that I've missed?
And young people coming to it.
Yes, youth participation, as suggested by Ms Wyatt.
That will be wound into everything.
Okay, well, unless there's any more questions, thank you everybody very much
and for your excellent scrutiny.