Children's Committee - Thursday 16 November 2023, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Children's Committee
Thursday, 16th November 2023 at 7:30pm 

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Forums

Speakers

Votes

 
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point

Good evening, everybody and welcome to this meeting of the children's committee, my name is Councillor Sheila Boswell and I am chair of this children's committee.
I am now going to ask for your names in alphabetical order, members of the Committee.
starting with Councillor Birchall
good evening.
Q Councillor Corner.
Good evening, Councillor Calverley, good evening, Councillor Davies.
good evening.
Councillor Forbes, good evening, Councillor Lee, good evening, Councillor Osborne.
hello, everybody.
Councillor Owens, Good evening, everybody.
Councillor Rigby, hello.
also into in attendance is the Cabinet Member for children, Councillor Kate stock, good evening, everybody and I'd like to welcome our co, opted members Ms Nabila Haroon and Mr Anthony, London.
we also have several officers present and they will introduce themselves.
when they address the Committee.
it's impossible to open this children's committee this evening without acknowledging the plight of thousands of children suffering in war bombing and conflict right now.
and whatever the rights and wrongs of the current conflict in the Middle East, I know having worked for Save the children in conflict zones overseas, it is always always the children who suffer the most in these appalling situations, so I ask that this evening, as we strive to do our best for our children and young people here in Wandsworth, we also remember those children this evening. Thank you
so this is not actually this week, but earlier 25th of October, 1st of November has been national care leavers week.
and inviting the Committee to celebrate and champion the achievements of our amazing care, experienced young people and really really thrilled to hear that our click community have started off the celebrations with a huge bang, they came second at the amplify, a national voice awards event for the community ward for click together and the digital award for click, so I think we'd like to send them all many congratulations from all of us and very proud corporate parents, some of them and then tomorrow evening is very special evening as we honour our foster carers.
at the annual foster carers dinner on here at the Civic Hall at the Civic Suite at the Town Hall, I'm delighted that I shall be attending that with the Mayor, I am an active member of the fostering panel here or at Wandsworth and I regularly witnessed first-hand the transformative impact of that foster carers have on children's lives.
this event gives us an opportunity to say thank you to all our foster families for their all, inspiring commitment and dedication, and so many of them go above and beyond for our children and young people.
so.
thank Q we can now go to.
really the mechanics of the meeting which I have to read out so debate and voting will take place as follows, so that the Committee's deliberation and then the decision reached is clear to the committee, press and public and anybody watching online.
members of the Committee should indicate they wish to speak by raising their hand once I've invited you to speak, please turn on your microphone, please only start speaking if I call on you to do so, and please switch the microphone off after speaking for voting, I would ask for a show of hands for against a motion or for those abstaining. Please keep your hand raised whilst it's counted and I'll announce the result for the benefit of those watching the meeting, and if there is an amendment before us voting will take place on the amendment first, and if the amendment falls, we will proceed to vote on the recommendations in the paper.
and I will remind the co opted members before each vote, if they are able to vote on the motion or recommendation in front of us, so apologies have we had any apologies.
so are Ms Angela Cox from the Catholic, Sir Soviet archdiocese's and Andrew Irene Wilson, home Church of England, but no, no others?
thank you.

1 Declarations of Interest

no declarations of interest are there any declarations of either pecuniary, other registrable or non registrable interests, please declare any interests quoting the item and paper number in which you have interests and describing the nature of your interests, including whether or not you will be taking part in the item.
no, I OK, thank you.
and then I come to co, opted members voting, which we are men, which I mentioned earlier so.
May I remind the Committee that parent governor and Dyson representatives may only vote on decision reports which relate wholly or in part to any education function, although of course you are welcome to discussions on all the agenda this evening, now this evening we have one paper, the first paper which is for decisions so we will be voting on that but it is children's services not related to the educational function of the Council so you are very welcome to take part in the debate but you won't be voting on that paper.
the minutes,

2 Minutes, 26th September 2023

the minutes of the previous meeting held on the 26th September agreed and does the committee agree they can be signed as a correct record?
thank you.

3 Corporate Parenting – Our ambitions as a council (Paper No. 23-384)

OK, so we can go to our first paper, which is the corporate parenting paper, our ambitions as a Council paper number 23 2 3 8 4 and its pages 3 to 1 0 2 yeah, anyone's following on hard copy and also online.
I am proud to welcome this paper, which showcases our collective ambition, and unwavering commitment always look for ways to learn, innovate, improve improve services for our care, experienced children and young people.
I will now hand over to our cabinet member Councillor Kate stock.
thank you very much, cheering and good evening everybody.
this evening I'm going to introduce at this parent this paper on corporate parenting. I'm really proud at to introduce this paper tonight as it sets out our collective ambition to be the very best corporate parent we can be to children and young people who are cared for by the Council, so from the outset our aim is to be the best parent and always to think more parents than corporate. I I know from speaking to young people or at clerk and click past that they really don't like the phrase corporate parenting.
are our involvement in the national leaving care benchmarking forum. That's referred to in the paper is enabling us to learn and further him innovate and really strive for our offer to be the very best that it can be. And as a Council we want to be more compassionate. We've been very clear about that and this paper speaks exactly to that approach. It's rooted in love and care and a passion to make sure that every child who comes into care is given everything they need to succeed in life and to overcome any barriers that they may face along the way. But for me some of the most important paragraphs in this paper are paragraph 28 and 29, because this paper speaks to us all as as Councillors, and we must make sure that we take a whole Council approach to our parenting responsibility. That's officers partners that we may work with and all of us. As elected members. We all share this parenting responsibility
in every single decision we make, we need to hold the impact that it can have on our care experienced children, just as we would as parents, for our own children when we make decisions in our own personal life. Members of this committee, we are in really really influential positions across the councils and in our community, and I know that we're going to spend the next part of this committee discussing the paper, but I really hope that the conversation conversation doesn't stop there. We can all be really powerful advocates by holding children and young people in our minds at every opportunity,
every contracts that we endorse, or that's considered before a committee, every committee that you attend, and every action that you take in in the community, whether it's meeting with businesses or the voluntary sector,
it's been a real privilege, in the run-up, to bringing this paper to committee, to host the cabinet at our Falcon Grove hub and to facilitate the Leader of the Council and Cabinet Mayor Members hearing directly for young people about their priorities.
we want to ensure that young people can continue to directly shape and influence how this administration leads this council, and I'm delighted that we'll be launching our young people's challenge panel that will work alongside the corporate parenting panel so that young people can support and develop the Council services as partners not just as individuals who we consult with,
this paper at specifically also outlines our updated finance policy for care leavers and our savings policy for children looked after both policies only add to our existing offer, they take nothing away and they're based on feedback from our young people and bringing equity, no matter where of yet child or young person lives or what path they might use.
the additions to these policies embody the more compassionate approach that this Council is striving to take financially supporting children in moments that they have identified that really matter to them, such as setting up their home, their birthdays, celebrating festivals, annual enrichment, experiences graduating from university and commencing work. Supporting children at these moments in is what it is to be a parent being there for children in moments of change celebration and support them to achieve the best that they can as they grow into adulthood. So I think it's a really important job and I hope that as a whole Council cross-party. We will continue to embrace this responsibility and I thank the author of this report. Ms Ito, I think, is here this evening, I think is is going to take the questions are on the report
thank you very much, thank you Councillor Stock, and thank you for championing children, I think we should all be champions of our our children as part of the role of a corporate parent, Ms Sudha.
I'm ready to take any questions.
thank you, and thanks for putting the document together, it will be really useful for people to be able to look at what is available.
I am going to suggest some changes.
on page 33.
the paragraph about introduction to driving allowance
the this paragraph reads OK and then, when we get to the bottom paragraph from a Friday, looks like it's being put together as a has a bit of an afterthought, and it's not linked at all to our walking and cycling strategy, so it looks like nobody's worked how what the cost of a bike is going to be.
there is no practical test, it's Bikeability sessions that the paper would be eligible for we'd also need to be put in money forward for insurance because we have such a high rate of bike theft in the borough and limited places to store them a helmet lights insurance all of that stuff it needs working out so it doesn't look like it's just an afterthought to an alternative to driving and driving super-important for some jobs.
it's a very expensive way to provide identity when we can provide that through voter ID, so I'd say that we we flip it and put the whole what's the bike offer at the top, and that includes what does the bike offer for the membership of the London Paris cycle scheme which seems to be the most popular way for young people to be moving around London so it's like three parts what's the cost of bike ownership going to cover?
what's on offer for the London bicycle hire scheme and is that just Santander, or is that gonna include line bike, I think we need to have the policy defined and then, if somebody needs to drive for a job, then the driving lessons by I'd detach it from the identity document, because there's just cheaper ways of doing that, thank you.
yes, we can we can certainly do that, I think we, we've got a lot more detail underneath the cycling offer, I think the the wording is is to make sure our young people understand it as a as an equitable for that one isn't more than the other that we've we've got a lot of details separate to the policy for which we can add in the policy and switch them round so that the bike offer is the primary offer, but if a young person would like to drive because they have a reason why they would like to drive, then then then that's that come can follow.
Councillor Davies and then Councillor Osman, Councillor Forbes, Councillor McKenna.
yeah, it just reminds me about the the voter identification I thought maybe you could include a new paragraph about.
they are giving people per possible, but allowing sorry.
aiding their helping them to reply to vote.
year as part of the transition space for active citizens and transition to adulthood.
as a separate paragraph may be short paragraph short.
that information sits in our local offer, so we have a local offer for care leavers that sets out all of the things that we do for our young people to support them, to integrate into the community, to prepare for adult hidden transition. I think because this is a finance policy and the free voter ID doesn't cost any money it didn't doesn't sit in the Finance Policy, but it exists in our local offer and it is certainly something that we support our young people today. We we, we could add something that
directs them to that directs them to where it sits in the local offer perhaps.
you know, if I can punish, take a step back and look at the the paper as a whole at the thing that strikes me.
I'm really impressed at the scale of what we are, we do what our officers do in this area, I mean they say it takes a village to educate a child or to care for a child, but when we're talking about care experienced children, it's just on such an enormous scale beyond that.
what is it that we have to prioritise, what's the what's the trick, if you like, about making sure that coordinating and integrating the different partners in the process is supremely effective, which it clearly is?
I think there's, so we've done a lot of work around, we sit in kind of London, London forums and national forums where we pull together partners in and support them to understand the lived experience of of care of children in care and care leavers, so the work we've done thus far is is working with our colleagues in health to,
ensure our young people have access to free prescriptions, you might have seen recently that we've worked as part of the care-leavers compact, with tearful to access half price travel from from next year, I think the London work is complex because it requires the agreement of a lot of London boroughs who have different priorities and and that can be complicated, so I think,
one of our our kind of goals is to work more closely in that forum to make sure that we advocate for our young people strongly in that setting.
we've also worked locally with leisure providers, for free access to leisure, but again London wide for it, for our young people who perhaps don't live in Wandsworth or don't.
and there's a variety of reasons for that we'd like to have more London wide office for them in terms of leisure and wellbeing, our young people tell us that the most important things to them are housing, which we know is a challenge nationally, so anything that we can do to to advocate for care experienced people when new developments are being built and other things like that is really important.
they also will tell us that the support for their mental health is really important, thresholds for accessing mental health services are quite high and there are long waiting lists, so we have an in-house offer which were developing and expanding to include our care leavers up to 25.
but again, having that more broadly accessible within the NHS is is a real priority for them.
and then the other thing that they tell us about their mental health and wellbeing is that access to leisure facilities
are kind of culture, venues is really important, so we're also looking into thinking about what we've kind of in draft named a culture card, so thinking about access to cultural venues, venues that offer something a bit different and something more to broaden their horizons and help them see
different ways of life and different career opportunities for the future.
I am probably in a similar vein to Councillor Osbourne's question.
and something that some of the Councillors on this committee will be familiar with themselves, so I was wondering, especially when looking at paragraphs 5 and 6, but throughout the paper itself, how does a prevention framework and the health in all policies approach as?
as it came to Health Committee last week, how does that feed into the work in this paper and, more broadly, on court preparing, because we did have a good paragraph from the director at Committee last week and I think in terms of the committees that are probably best linked especially in health in all policies, children's is does seem to be one of the areas which is best linked into this strategy, so I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about how it feeds into our corporate parenting approach.
sorry, could you repeat Deputy to repeat the whole thing, but specifically that if the prevention framework health in all policies approach yeah sort of how that feeds into our corporate parenting strategy yeah I think we we so we have a lot of in-house services that we
add to for our our care experienced young people, I guess so I think we acknowledge that they need.
additional support in in lots of areas, outcomes for care experienced young people, research will tell you tend to be poorer in health, education and kind of life chances generally, so I think we add a lot in our offer internally that add to universal services to make sure that we give our young people the kind of step-up that they might need that that covers a broad range of areas but including health for example, so all of our young people will have,
dedicated child looked after nurse, that kind of supports their their health outcomes and looks to adulthood. We provide them with a kind of health passport, so acknowledging that care expenditure and people can live in different areas, they cannot have access to different services and as they move between areas, NHS boundaries mean that the services they access change and the their their journey can be quite disjointed at times, so we make sure we hold all of that information for them when they transition to being an adult. They have documents that are kind of clear and coherent in terms of their health journey immunisations, services, they've accessed, and we kind of support them to make sure that they they have, all of that, to hand ready for their their kind of adult journey and that they're linked into the right services. So again, our approaches kind of
designed to limit the the care cliff-edge that you might have read about in various kinds of leaving care documents. So 18 lots of things changed for care, experienced young people in a way that they don't change for their non care experienced peers, so services that they access if they access CAMHS or if they access child health services, they need to transition to adult health services, but it's not as simple as transitioning because they might not meet the threshold for the adults version of the service they access as a child. What we do is remove those boundaries for them, so we have an in-house social care CAMHS, service. They will extend beyond 18 so that they don't kind of fall through a gap of or of a transition between a child and adult service. Similarly, with our our health nurses they they will will hold young people beyond 18 if they need to so that we can make sure they're linked in with the right services in the area that they live in, which may not which may not be Wandsworth, but we hold them centrally, because we're their parents,
thanks Convener supplementary.
just so related to that and and why I'm interested in it was it was something where, as a change of culture in the Council committee members last week at Health Committee were really really keen on making sure we embed prevention in everything that we do and how do we how do we make sure that we are embedding the framework in what we do and councils were very keen to go away and actually make sure that they they are most clued up?
to know what to do, obviously, when it comes to corporate parenting there was there was a bit of a stall on what Councillors could help with during COVID and everything went a little bit quiet for a while and I noticed something I was I myself was very interested in what can Councillors do to be more involved in that sort of how can we all help you and work with colleagues outside of this committee to help the work that you're doing?
yes, I think there's there's there's lots of different ways, I think.
it would probably be relevant to start with what I think our young people would say, so I think our young people would say kind of be present, so be be present, corporate parents be meet them in the spaces where they are where they feel safe and where they feel comfortable so come to some of our events for young people and engage in conversations with them so that they know who you are you get to know them and you get to see them I guess for more than what gets written down about them.
I think.
in terms of the the the places and spaces that you occupy as elected members, you know you have you have forums and spaces in the community where conversations about about care, experience and care experienced young people can be really crucial kind of raising awareness of the care experience you'll see in the paper that I've I've written about the kind of discrimination and and,
bias, unconscious bias, or biased, that young people living in care experience, and lots of people have have really genuine ideas about what living in carers, and if you've been to any of our our training that our young people deliver, they will tell you about some of the things that have been said to them.
you know if they do well in school that it's you know you, you do well for a kid that lives in care, so it can be, it can be quite it can be quite difficult for them, sometimes so I think they're meeting people is really important when they, when they came to cabinet they they really relish that opportunity and they they felt privileged and and they felt heard and listened to by people who they consider to be really important in their lives. So that was really good. I think there's something about a decision making, see, referenced in other committee and sitting in other committees and looking at papers and thinking about what what those services and departments can add to our corporate parenting offer
the Council is the corporate parent for our children.
in children's services we deliver the corporate parenting function, but every aspect of the Council, when they're making decisions, should think about how it affects, are, are care leavers and are our children looked after because in your own life, when you make decisions it, you know you think about your children, so when we're when we're making decisions for the Council, we should think about our children and I think in the community you know local, local businesses,
Councillor Stock said at the beginning, you know when you're when people are investing in the borough, how can they invest in our children as well, and how can they invest in our care experienced young people who were parents for so can they offer work experience internships can they,
you know, come to one of our events and support that there are so many little ways that everyone sitting in this room can can influence just by talking about care, experienced young people and helping their voice be heard.
great thank you Chair, and I think I I welcome this this paper, I think there is a lot to to support in its are, and it's excellent that we take corporate parenting so seriously and are willing to are able to offer such an.
as such, a wide range of support to to our young people and care leavers, so that's really excellent, but we should always ensure that this.
made remains the case, and I am, as I'm sure everyone will will agree, that that should be our aspiration, there's been a lot said about benchmarking, and it's great that we are participating in that, but can we actually confirm that we are you know?
one of the more generous council, certainly within London boroughs, are assurances that that we are, if you could say actually see those numbers, and I'm really you know, publish those in these papers so that we can actually shout about how great we are and lead the way amongst local authorities can we do that I think sometimes it's it's difficult to quantify.
on offer, I think there's there's something about the the statutory offering and what we give our young people, but I think part of the difference that we offer is that the kind of value base of our offer so we're not here to deliver a corporate parenting function there is our work and and something that's that solely linked to statutory guidance we want to.
you know, be more put more parent and less caught for it, so we want to make sure our young people experience warmth and love and care from us as their parents, we want to make sure that we provide them with a place to call home and we we do that in a lot of ways are Herbert Falcon Grove is is a central place that all of our young people can feel like. They belong.
and they can come and have a shower or do their laundry or ask someone to do their laundry for them or or you know, hang and sit on the sofa and watch a film or listen to music or use the computer, and they'll always be someone there that they know and who knows them and who knows what's going on for them. So that's it's those kind of softer touches. I think that help us really really stand. Apart from the rest, we have members on the the manager steering group and the young person steering group for the national leaving care benchmarking forums. So we're very often asked to kind of present what we're doing are the structure of our service and the way that we overlap our teams of social workers and personal advisers to make sure that young people are held in that transition to adulthood is something that we've been asked to share nationally
you know our hub at Falcon Grove, as it is another thing that's attracted a lot of attention, so I think in terms of numbers, that's that's difficult to demonstrate, but but certainly there's nothing that's in someone else's offer. That's that's lacking in rs, and I think what we, what we bring, that is more than that is a kind of, and I guess the finance, the finance policy that you've seen hopefully exemplifies that in that we've added those softer touches. We would always provide those anyway, but we've added it to our policy document to kind of shout that loud and clear to our young people so that they know they can come and ask for those extra things like an outfit for their prom
like you know, they, their graduation outfits all of these those touches that parents provide, for, we want to make sure our young people know that they can come to us for those and that will give them to.
yeah, thank you very much Chair.
now the it's very good report, thank you and you've made nice and clear at the at the end in the chart watch what you're giving, but I was, we have care experienced children who aren't in care when they become 18 and and I find that a little bit complicated to work out how how much or what those children were getting because it didn't seem it seems to be at the discretion of of somebody.
which I think is probably fair enough.
but but but at whose discretion is that and then the other thing which is not the finance but the children who are care experienced?
are they still going to click, can they still go to click and on are they getting the support?
Even if they're not getting necessarily this financial bundle, but they're still getting the support that we're giving.
so there are, if you if you kind of read all the documentation around leaving care, there are various categories of of care leavers in in law, and we don't always refer to those categories because young people don't like the terminology in it you can be called a a qualifying young person or relevant young person or former relevant young person which is kind of the highest category of need, but it is one and not very nice term because it young people yeah quite rightly tell us it tells us they're no longer relevant, which is not true, so we don't use that terminology but if a young person has been has been in care for a period of time,
but they don't they become what is termed a qualifying person which is kind of the
the category I think you're talking about so they may have been in care for a couple of weeks before they turn 18, so they've not had a along a long period of of being looked after then they we give them what they need if that makes sense but our offer here in Wandsworth is broad and we are flexible and I think that's what I meant when I was answering Councillor Corner's question around that being the difference in our offer.
so if a young person needs something regardless of their entitlement, if they are, if they're a care leaver in some respect and they need something from us, they will get it, and you know we had our our Ofsted visit last year and they they they praised that about our offer that it, it doesn't matter where young person lives, it doesn't matter on their their status in law that they will always have what they need from us. I guess the difference comes in that we are obliged to support those young people all the way up until 21 if they don't need it, so if, if they are back at home and they're doing well or they have had a period in our care, but we've settled them into accommodation that they feel happy with, then they weren't necessarily need to have a personal adviser allocated to them all the way up to 25, so it's
they get the they get, the support that they absolutely need, they get the support that they want, they can still come to click, although for children that go home at a slightly younger age, we kind of tailor that, in line with their needs and in line with the needs of the other young people in our group, because I'm sure you can imagine it might be quite difficult if you've got a young person who's at home living with their family in the same group as children, that they aren't able to do that, so that can become quite difficult, but we always assess it on a case by case basis, because we want to make sure that every child has what they need, and we have a variety of other spaces and groups in which children can still receive support, but it's not dedicated support for children that live in care
OK.
Councillor Rigby and then Councillor Cavalli, Councillor Corner Councillor Davies.
Councillor Rigby's, stepping out Councillor cruelly.
sorry.
thanks I, I wanted to ask you a question about the expansion of the offer overall that you mentioned in paragraph 25 1 on pg you talk about taking the targeted support beyond 25, taking it up to potentially the age of 13 years there's a specific bit where you mention those in one or the are in custody and leaving custody and I think that's a very laudable initiative to expand particularly so for that sort of vulnerable group do I understand it correctly, though, would that person have to be a Wandsworth looked after child
before being incarcerated, to take advantage of the support you're talking about, would they be already be a Wandsworth, looked after child prior to incarceration, if I got that right say?
yes, but with a caveat so a young person they can become a a child looked after by virtue of being on remand so they don't have to have lived in care in a care placement, you know actually live and have had to live in foster care or a children's home if a young person under 18 is placed on remand in custody or is reminded into local authority care they automatically become a child looked after, so we support them under that framework, which will then entitled them to care leaving services when they turn 18
thank you, and I don't want to extend the conversation for any any longer than it needs to, but I do have to hopefully brief questions the first is that Councillor stock, he wrote rightly spoke about having a whole Council approach, I have to say I'm not 100% convinced that every single member of the Council knows the full extent of what being a corporate parent is all about and the extent to which they can play a positive impact in children's lives.
so can we commit to putting on more training for members and I appreciate not everyone will be able to turn up for training on a certain I might have to do it a couple of times over the course of a year or two, but we should be doing that I think because councillors on housing transport, whatever can all play a role in in making children's lives better in the in the borough I'm seeing lots of nods, I take that as a yes.
and then I'll I'll come on to my second question t, just to come to come in on that yeah, I agree, I'm sure we can.
work at run some training or again that I think, Members in this room, some of which will have attended the the training that we have already run. I think Ms Eater kind of referred to it briefly. It was an excellent piece of training, run by two of our care, experienced young people that I think, Councillors who did attend found really really positive, say I'm and I think this committee has also had its own training. Hasn't it? I think, when it first came together post 2022 and I'm I know, members of committee that attended that found it
powerful as well. I think that was a different group of of care experiencing people who ran that. So yes, I think we can. The the short answer is yes, I think we can run more training and just acknowledging that the that it has been very fruitful before brilliant. Thank you, and and just quickly my second question, so all very well and good. What we're doing to prepare and to support the young children with with for financial offers and also the softer stuff. That's been spoken about all very good, but ultimately parents should be pressured and given every opportunity to provide for their children, even if their children, for often for no
fault of the parents own are in care, so are, and therefore there may be, and I suspect there will be instances where parents are in a position to financially contribute to their children's upbringing, even if they cannot care for them themselves, so does this policy ensure that under all circumstances possible where parents are able to, they are financially contributing to their children's upbringing, and what is the Council doing to make sure that is always the case?
so this Finance Policy outlines what we as a Council provide for our young people but are outstanding practice very much, which guides everything that we do sets out our kind of core value, that family is the best place for a child to grow up, so everything that we do from the moment we make contact with the family is to support families to stay together and to,
kind of
look after themselves and to solve their own problems, we don't want to be in families' lives for longer than we need to be, so everything that we do is to make sure that that children can stay in their families and that families have the support that they need.
you're right, the most children come into care because their families are encountering challenges that they can't overcome at that time, and so children can't remain in the household, but what we do as a children looked after in care, leaving services that we continue to work with whole families so we don't just work with children lots of our policies clearly just refer to to what we give to the children but,
we work with whole families to make sure that children still have their parents in their lives to have their extended family in their lives, where possible we placed children within their families, so we have foster carers who are PR approved specifically for particular children, and they will be foster carers that we call connected persons foster carers so they are people connected to children already so close friends and family members.
and we continue to revisit that. So, even if children need to live in foster care or children's homes, we continue to revisit them, returning to their parents or returning to extended family members on an ongoing basis. Yeah, I completely agree with all the estimates in great, but if they are in care, yeah, perhaps temporarily because my parents can't look after them, perhaps they're in prison or whatever, but let's say, the parents are financially able to support that child. Are they still required to at least at least to an extent, rather than the Council taking on the entire financial burden? I appreciate it might be a ragged instance right where parents are wealthy enough to support their children but at the same time unable to care for them in person, if you like, but in those circumstances we should be ensuring those parents financially support their children to take some of the financial burden off of the Council
we make we make sure that parents are involved in their children's lives, and sometimes that might be offering them something that that costs money, taking them out, taking them a holiday, those kinds of things as a as a Department as a Council we don't ask parents for money to contribute to their children's care when their children live in care.
thank you very much, Ms Ms Souter or Councillor Davies, I think you have a question.
yes, I do thank you to.
I'm really really pleased to see this in our ambition to be a Borough of Sanctuary here in Wandsworth, I'm proud as well to see that we are to accept some unaccompanied minors working in collaboration with Kent County Council, and I just wondered what you know what what what's what it looks like to have you know what's what support is going to go out for this particular group of children and what challenges?
this is going to bring as it's particularly as it's a a new, a new sort of initiative with funds with.
so where, when unaccompanied young people come into our care, they become children looked after so they they will provide them with accommodation. We meet their health needs in the same way that we would meet the needs of children that come into our care locally. Obviously that's tailored to their particular needs, in the sense that you know we often don't have health history, they might may not have seen a Dr or dentist or anyone for for a long time, if at all we make sure they're engaged in education at whatever stage they need to be so for some young people that's learning. You know, day-to-day very basic English, for some young people who may already speak English and its existence at a slightly more advanced level,
we make sure they have the basic things access to a solicitor, we support them to you know, appointments with the Home Office, but I guess more than that we we want to provide them with with a home, so we make sure that wherever wherever that we were given to live is is well matched, so whether it be culturally language, religion as many of those factors as possible so that they have people that they can communicate with that they can identify with that they feel comfortable with and,
because we were acknowledging that they they will have had a traumatic journey, whatever that journeys looked like, it will have been traumatic because the child is travelling across the world and that coming to the UK and coming to Wandsworth and living in a culture that is not familiar to you where you don't understand the the the day-to-day basic things, and we need to be there for them as a day-to-day go to as a parent as a friend as everything that they need.
so I guess we we support our social workers and our peers to kind of walk in their shoes a little bit and to try and understand what that must be like to make sure that we don't miss anything lots of volume pupils won't ask or wait for what they want or need, so we need to make sure that we open spaces for them to be able to do that we support them to plan for the future that's really difficult when you're in the midst of an asylum process and you don't know how that's going to go our young people tell us that's really really difficult for them.
they really struggled to plan for the future, but we try and help them to to parallel plan and we have a
lots of participation opportunities for them as well, so we have a newly formed.
pit group called clique together, who also won an award recently, which is a group specifically for unaccompanied young people, and what that does is it supports them to meet peers who have experienced similar but different journeys to kind of yeah, and it's amazing how how you see young people present differently in those situations, so when they are in a room with other young people that they feel some kind of connection with it, it's really really important for them, but it also means that we can give them tailored sessions to access information. It means that we can support them to influence our practice as well, so and our practice specifically related to their needs.
we do take young people on a rota basis, but we've also you know, supported other local authorities who have more young people because they're there port authorities, so we've we've welcomed more young people than our allocation as well in kind of acknowledgment of the fact that we are looking to be a Borough of Sanctuary.
Councillor Owens, and then I think we'll draw this to an.
to a close, we've had over half an hour in it and I think it's very important paper, obviously.
thank you just picking up on Councillor Corbett, Ian Councillor Davies, the section I think is on page H and obviously discuss those in and leaving custody and the asylum-seeking children I just had a couple of concerns about the care experienced parents because obviously there's a section on named parents entitled to welfare benefits but also I was just wondering over the
the 22 to 25 year old is obviously you, this is the the the obviously crucial if you are a lone parents, I was wondering, under the section, under emotional health counselling and therapeutic needs, sort of somebody offering there and clearly it's pretty I mean pretty good if we're doing a lot better than other borrowers in London, but there's this obviously if a focus for you and I'd just like to have a bit more about it, thank you
specifically that emotional well, all the whole, that everything, but that I would say that obviously if you're a lone parent, that's pretty crucial yeah sure so yeah, for our care experienced parents, we we have a a strong offer I would say that we continue to revisit that and get their feedback and to expand that so we have
for our young people who are parents themselves, we have a a parenting group, that's for our parents, and that's it's called future talks because I live in care services called future first, they it's a kind of it's this is like a stay and play group, but it also offers the the parenting support that you would see in a children's centre so that came out of our young people telling us that they found it really difficult to go to children's centres.
because they felt.
you know, they felt judged, they didn't feel they belonged in those spaces, and I think that was more, there hadn't gone to try them and felt that, but they they felt that apprehension about walking into those spaces so we created a group in Falcon Grove which is where where are leaving care services now and we got lots of buy-in from young people so they they come to that regularly and then we move the group into a children's centre.
so they could get used to the space, but they could stay in their group with their peers and people they felt safe and comfortable with, and now they all feel very comfortable to go and access children's centres across the borough locally to where they live because they've a kind of acclimatise to two children's centres they've built relationships with people that work in children's centres and they've realised that that can be really helpful, so we tried to kind of do that modelling with our with our
our parents, they they want help, but because of their experiences, the system. Very often we have to tailor how how we offer that help to them, and so we yeah, we try and make sure that they have access to counselling if that's what they need and want, sometimes they don't because they just want to focus on the task of parenting and they feel that that's going to not be helpful to them, but we have a a counselling offer rooted in our in our leaving care service. That's
attuned to the needs of care leavers, we have our parenting group, we have a personal advisor whose parenting specialist, so she's a qualified social worker and she works specifically with our most vulnerable parents.
and she works very closely with children's social workers if their children are also known to our social care.
thank you very much, Ms Ceuta, and thank you for your time and thank you everybody for all those questions, I think we had some really really good scrutiny here on of this policy now on this paper is for decision and Councillor Rigby had a couple of suggestions of having paragraphs in a different order, so I'm going to in the interests of transparency say that this paper is for decision on including Councillor Rigby's points suggestions. Thank you so all those in favour of this paper,
this unanimous yes.
that's unanimous, thank you very much indeed, everybody.
right, so we come to the next paper, which is Ofsted, inspecting local authorities' children's services, known as I lacks our standard expo or inspection paper number 23 2 3 8 5, and it is pages 103 to 102 20 for anybody who may be watching with a hard copy online.
this is as an ambitious collective, we continue to strive for excellence for our children and families, very much heard that in the last paper, because better never stops from a momentous occasion, occasion last year celebrating an Ofsted good result, this report provides a progress update on the areas which still require our attention on Mr Pendry is going to take any question.
have we got any questions?
Councillor Davies,
yes to the the outcomes, a Bill of such inspection, a year ago, there'd be monumental for us and we've embraced the positive feedback and taking on the challenge to be even better, and I'm particularly interested in the work we've done for the 16 and 17 year olds at risk of homelessness and so can you tell me about how the practice has changed since the Ofsted inspection and the how many children have benefited there? Thank you yeah, yes, of course,
Ian say Emily, who said a service for the front door and managers in that part of the service in Joanna, give detail on that please.
Head of Service for advice, support and help, which includes the front door services where homeless or young people present significant amount of work. Since I LAX and we continue to I'm improve our practice, one of the things that we start with as we believe that children and young people are best looked after at home, so we work tirelessly with families to look at solutions. Many young people will present as homeless when they've fallen out with their mum and have had an argument and they know where the Council officers and they knock on the door and say I'm homeless.
you know, so parents are always part of that initial discussion with social workers to really understand what is happening, we have a range of practitioners in our Edge of Care team who work with social workers and to spend time with young people and their not just their parents or extended family grandparents, aunts uncles,
to look at options about how that young person can stay at home and it can be something quite straightforward, like you need to be in at 10.00, or it could be something quite more significant where we need to do a wraparound and a whole range of different services and to support that young person staying at home.
we have a range of
ways of making that happen. We have family meetings with family, so who is important to you to think about this year or your son or daughter is staying at home, get these people together in a very unformed informal way and look at a plans can you do that with your grandmother on a Saturday can you do that where your dad and also in pulling fathers into the discussion as well, you know dad lives somewhere in iron gate? Well, we need to get older dad and see what Dad can do, so it's a whole family pulling together and looking at options in the way that that a young person can remain at home.
young people often make their own arrangements and stay with my best friend's mum, she says it's OK, and again we we wouldn't just leave that we would want to understand, is that OK and is that a safe and appropriate per a place for that young person to stay at home, we're involves schools and that thinking about what is best, who schools obviously no our young people really well?
they are attending.
I'm home.
a school serving that multi agency. Thinking about what is the best plan for that young person where we believe, and there are not, that many are where we believe children are homeless, you know, we act quickly, we ensure that they have access to advocacy, we've got contracts, it used to be with cormorants. Now with another organisation called advocacy, is we always ensure that they have access because there are different options? You can consider becoming looked after section 20 accommodated, which means that you therefore have a range of different entitlements in Elizabeth part of leaving care service, or you can agree on that. Actually, I'm fine, I can sort myself, I am going to call the jolani, there's a roof over my head. We would always
want to be asking them to really understand the difference, so that's why it's key that they get access to advocacy, because the advocates will be are independent from the local authority and will give them the right advice, I would suggest that advocates more often than not suggests section 20 and in the data that we are submitted to the children's commissioner.
towards the last summer of 38 of the young people who presented as homeless, we had 24 became Section 20, so we have more section 20 than we do others, there's only two that agreed to be section 17, which means that they don't get that wraparound ongoing support and of the 38 with 11 that we managed to get home to cement that relationship to make that thing.
to make that situation at home better so.
always more to do, we've got the right protocols, the right relationship with housing, we've got housing worker at the front door and the MASH that are.
colleagues in Housing Fund and again that's a real asset to social workers, to helping them understand.
the housing situation, sorry, yeah, that's where we are, but did you know it, it continues?
thank you for that very comprehensive answer, I can see Councillor Forbes, Councillor Osborne, Councillor Corner thanks, and I think actually touching on from some of the points you you just raised, actually in that answer to Councillor Davies as a Council and through the way we work with children and families we're committed to keeping children within their family units.
and in local communities wherever possible and safe to do so.
and obviously within these kinship care arrangements, I was just wondering whether you could tell us the benefits a little bit a little bit further to keeping.
to be kinship, carer agreed arrangements.
and that's why it's important to children and young people locally.
Charlotte Griffiths.
so kinship care arrangements can come in a variety of form, so you can have family members who are approved as foster carers and say they're supported as foster carers to look after the children in their family. Equally, they can be kind of family arrangements, so families can make their own arrangements when parents struggle to care for their children, and then you can have some people who get kind of private law orders. You might have heard of a special guardianship order or a child arrangements order that mean that they they can look after a child for a child. The benefits that that brings is that they get to stay in their family so they get to live with people, they know they get to live in an arrangement that will likely last a lot longer than any other care arrangement because there's that bond and that love. That means that even when times get really difficult and even when there they hit adolescence and teenage years and things become really challenging, there's that commitment there that maybe more than any other care arrangement
particularly for
it are young people who come from Wandsworth and are a diverse group of young people. It means that their their identity needs are met both culturally and racially, as well as that that family history that you can't you can't replicate in any other care arrangement there are. There are challenges to kinship care arrangements in housing, particularly if you take on three of your nieces and nephews or your grandchildren that you weren't expecting to take on one, and you don't have the the space for them. We need to support with that. We also have to support with with trauma that young people have experienced to mean that they don't live with their birth parents, but they live with a relative and very often, if your answer, your grandma to to the children that you're looking after you'll just assume everything's gonna be fine because they're your grandchildren, but actually we need to help kinship carers to understand early childhood trauma and what that might mean for later in life so that they are fully equipped and we have a range of support services for family members, whichever arrangement they look after their their their their children in and that sits in a in in my part of the service who are kind of yeah well-versed in looking after
children and what what it means to look after children that aren't your birth children necessarily.
I thank you and Councillor Osborne, then Councillor Corner and Ms Haroon.
yes, there are recommendations here about the local authority designated officer.
and
I am sure I'm betraying my age here a bit, but the whole focus on the need for.
j, the focus of concern about adults in positions of power having to be safe for adults is relatively new for someone of my generation, I suppose, and indeed the the term lido is, is local authority designated officer a relatively newer, but because it's new,
if there is going to be quite a lot of learnings as part of that process, can you tell us a little bit more about about that particular role, but also what are we doing to learn and make sure that we get better or provision in in that area yeah I'll I'll tell you that thank you so that the the local authority designated officers are responsible for managing all allegations against adults who work with children to, as you rightly say, to keep to keep children and young people safe and protected when they are interacting with adults who are in positions of power over them.
so since since Ofsted, we we've we've done a number of things in order to.
ensure that we are doing the right thing for children, so we have reviewed all of our open lido pieces of work to make sure that there is no drift or delay so early if those allocations are acted on quickly, we've got much closer tracking and oversight of the referrals that come through.
we we ensure that decisions are proportionate and safe, and we developed an action plan which is in progress and being monitored closely by senior managers, we've got lido practice standards and we shared those across the organisation so, as you rightly said, the there are parts of parts of the practice system that might not be as familiar with the role of the local authority designated officer as as others some kind of training programme awareness so people know what to do, particularly at the at the front door when those allegations come in.
we've got a quality assurance framework for the LDO work now, so we're making sure, with senior management oversight, that everything is done quickly and of good quality, and we do that with partners police.
and we've got a an improved kind of recording system so we can pull the data on the work at a much quicker rate than we could before.
Councillor Corner.
are all going to have an thanks Chair?
a lot of lot of good stuff in this obviously wanted to focus on the areas for improvement.
and j ma am following on from the previous questioning just related to the our intervention and management oversight for homelessness homeless 16 twos and 17 year olds.
from I recall when the Labour administration were in opposition, they would always send out a.
I asked for the data on homeless children waking up on Christmas Day without somewhere to stay, so my question is to the Cabinet Member, surely her commitment has to be to eradicate homelessness amongst children altogether in the borough and that any homelessness in in the borough is is a is a stain on on what it is is is happening and yeah and that they will need to be accommodated.
what plans does she have to deliver that, well, I think thank you, Councillor Corner and I'm sure that the Cabinet Member is going to answer, I think, as Chair I'm just going to come back to you with homelessness on is because we don't have enough housing and the covers Conservative administrations for many, many years of have policies that have not been in favour of having housing which is available to everybody, or forgive me that I am.
no Chair, I think that was exactly where I was gonna start. Was that the housing crisis, I think the figure was around 3,000 families that are currently in temporary accommodation. I, I just want to be clear. That is different from what we're talking about here and the numbers of families that are on the waiting list and had been on the waste service during the Conservative administration. It is, quite frankly, shocking, partly because he thought of at least 20,000 council homes and the waiting lists that we're seeing for two bedroom still sustaining, we've really invested in homelessness, we, you know, we've gotten a brand new Department of officers working around addressing our homelessness duty in the housing department, but this is an A and yes, so
I think we should definitely be addressing health homelessness, and we very much are as an administration this this point here around equi effectiveness of our oversight of homeless at 16 and 17 year olds coming into our front door is is separate from that and that's about making sure that we ensure that we're providing children with the right guidance and options and the advocacy, as Mr Lowe has as spoken about so that they can make the right decisions as to what they do or at that point.
when they're facing that situation.
the garden.
homeless, 16 to 17 year olds, and young people in overall will dramatically fall under your tenure as Cabinet Member.
houses take time to build a much quicker sort of by your previous administration and they will take time to build, and it's not just about the homes that we're building, we're setting up other schemes like the deposit scheme or increasing the number of homes on the social care queue but that will all require more homes to be available for people to live in that's not just the challenge of this administration but it's the challenge of central government that quite frankly, have failed.
thank you, Councillor Stott, Ms Haroon.
thank you.
to check the effectiveness for homeless 16 and 17 years old.
what are the figures of homeless children last year, what are the figures of homeless children this year any improvement?
can I take that so the the number of homeless 16 and 17 year olds in the year 22 to 23?
so young people who presented to children's social care was 38.
I don't have the figures and for the previous year apologies for that, but I'm sure we can get that.
of a number of 38.
we worked with 11 of them to ensure that they could remain at home with a range of strategies, a range of services.
24, the decision was made that there were homeless and we would accommodate them under section 20 of the children Act, and therefore they would have had will have access to leaving care.
support, and we add to that said they did not want to be looked after and you know, as I said previously, we just need somewhere to live, so they made the decision to go.
down the section 17 route, which means that a child in need, rather than a child, looked after.
and one was deemed not to be homeless out of that, so that brings it to the 38, it's very timely, today there's just been the the.
publishing of the children's commissioner report on homeless 16 and 17 year olds.
and we fed data into that, as part of her view of this very vulnerable group of young people.
in the borough we don't have a huge number who present,
you know in other boroughs.
I am sure it is higher, but it was 38 for the last financial year.
so any improvement because one data you are telling so if we compare the data last year and this year to any improvement again, I'm sorry, I don't have the data on the previous year.
you know, the improvement we want is for families until for children to live with their families where their best cared for, and that is that history.
and you know that can be a grandmother, grandfather and tonka, you know we would work always start with that position, and very few of these young people are actually street homeless and where they are, we would act very quickly to ensure they had a safe place to live.
thank you very much, any Councillor Owen.
just a quick question on page 100 17, obviously it's great to see that the the the number of all the children that are subject to delays in child protection planning that that's
delays are being reduced, I was just wondering on.
the increased management oversight of children per proceeding to or initial child protection conference is obviously result in a reduction of the child protection plans, which is fantastic, I just want to hear a bit more about that and how you've achieved that and how that's compared to two other boroughs,
yes, of course, so currently we've got 97 children on child protection plans, which is a rate of 15 per 10,000.
which is which which is very low low.
lowest, certainly lower than our neighbouring boroughs, and I think the lowest in London, and is it's been purposeful, and we've we've talked about this commitment in in in in this committee before it's about working with families and offering them the right service that they need at the right time and then thinking about the framework to put around those families and not all families even though there may be challenges that they're meeting which pose some,
which posed some challenges to children and children's wellbeing, not all of those children need to be on child protection plans to be worked with effectively in order to help families meet challenges and get on with their lives without our involvement, so we've taken quite a pragmatic view which is if we think that we're able to work with the family effectively then we won't put them through an undue statutory process because often that leads to a kind of
are a bit of a a bit a bit of a kind of binary position between us and families, and they think that actually we're there to really tell them off, criticise them and think about removing their children when really, what we want to do is build relationships, work collaboratively and come opportunities to work collaboratively with them and help them manage through through life. So so, so that's what we do and we've increased the senior management oversight in the decision making around whether children go to a child protection case conference or not, and that kind of increase in management oversight has led us to be a bit more robust in the way in which we're making these decisions. So the numbers have gone down
are there any more questions?
no further questions on this paper from anybody.
this paper is for information, so I'm asking the Committee to note the report, did we note the report thank?

4 Ofsted Inspecting Local Authorities Children’s Services (ILACS) standard inspection (Paper No. 23-385)

5 Early Years - Looking back on a year of transformation (Paper No. 23-386)

okay and we now move to on paper early years, looking back on a year of transformation. Paper number 23 2 3 8 6 pages 1 2 1 2 1 4 0 early years, so this paper perfectly exemplifies the shared ambition and commitment of officers, schools and settings to deliver high quality early years provision and provide a positive childhood experience which enables our children, young people and families to be the very best that they can be. It's a great news story and my heartfelt thanks goes to everyone who has contributed to this work, which has transformed and strengthened our early years offer over this past year. This past 12 months, despite the ongoing challenges which the sector faces and and because of that, to thank you for your unwavering commitment to deliver excellent outcomes and
and support for our youngest children so important, and I'm going to hand over to Andy Hough to present this paper
thank you Chair, I think, key to our original wanting once you are to be a place where every child has the best start in life, is high quality early education provision and whether that's provided by schools by maintained nurseries, those in the private, voluntary and independent sector or through registered childminders, and, as I'm sure you'll have noted from the paper, the oversight of early years has recently moved into education and I believe a modified approach has re-emerged re-energise the leadership in the sector. We have new advisory teams who are bringing with them a range of experience from schools and PVI and they're working alongside longstanding members of the earliest team who've got valuable existing knowledge and expertise in the sector and now Étienne de colleagues in portage and early support are working closely together with education advisers, sharing intelligence and expertise.
our childminder advisers also continue to find ongoing support, including briefings, introductory training, registration and brokerage we've entered into this realigned early years model, with a real emphasis on bringing the sector together so that excellent practice is shared and valued across schools, PV eyes and nurseries alike and I think nowhere has this been more apparent than at the recent earliest conference, which saw the professional development centre full to capacity with delegates across the sector, attending workshops delivered by practitioners across the sector and feedback on that event was overwhelmingly positive and, as I say, brought together,
people from across the sector, I think also relationships have clearly been strengthened through the leadership forums through twilight training and are approachable and knowledgeable advisory teams, as well as through regular columns.
ensuring as many 2 year olds as possible are taking up the offer available and does remain a challenge, but we believe a fresh approach making better use of data and communication in tandem with our award-winning parent champions, will be able to impact positively on the uptake, I'm really pleased to be joined by Andy Bone in the advisory service manager and Andy Fysh inclusion service manager who have been absolutely instrumental in this work and between are simply happy to take any questions.
thank you, Councillor Rigby, and then Councillor Osborne.
thank you, and perhaps one of the absolute low points of the been in opposition was the terrible night where the decision was taken to vote to shut down Suad Road nursery for children with special educational needs and the absolute devastation and helplessness the parents felt on that night.
how how has this, how will this change help parents like that to get back on track after what was taken away in particularly thinking of of the children around the Elsfield and Wandsworth Common ward?
thank you, Councillor, I'll take that one.
I think one of the key things that we've been trying to do with with SEND and inclusion is to share their good practice to make sure that actually, rather than having it in certain pockets or across the borough, actually it was an expectation that that everywhere was it was as inclusive as possible and I think one of the the key things that we've done that she was really invested in that in that universal training so,
what we've put together is is a really comprehensive, an offer that the sector have really engaged with, so we've made it really flexible, it's it's a mixture of online training that they can access, alongside and a in-person training that I can come to.
we've had some really strong take-up, we've had our first and setting who've achieved the quality mark of a rounding sending inclusion, so our our vision is very much about making that offer accessible for families wherever they are, wherever they live or or or across the authority and certainly engage in that we've had with our parent champions and with a parent carer forum I'm really listening to to some of those concerns and thinking about what it is that is really needed in those localities has been really powerful in helping us to shape that offer.
Councillor Osborne and then Councillor Birchall Councillor Cavalli, yes.
I want to pick up Councillor Corner's theme, he is keen to compare administrations, and I think this is a topic and area subject area where administration should be compared because what's happened here is we're looking at the positive results, as the Chair says, of what's been achieved by officer team with a number of ongoing challenges.
challenges that can be laid at the door of the national administration we see at the moment there was a Sure Start programme in this area which had evidence based results.
providing life chances for children from less well-off families, saving money by reducing costs in the National Health Service, a very successful programme, thousands of children's centres working away, and David Cameron's coalition government, his administration came in and seized through those children's centres over 1,000 of them were lost as a result of policies created by that government I'm pleased to say,
we've achieved a great deal, despite that in Wandsworth, I'm pleased to say full marks to the current national administration, the current prime minister, the mistake has been seen, and Rishi Sunak, as prime minister, has promised us a new wave of children's centres by 2025 75 of them by 2025.
a meagre addition to the total, but at least I suppose it's an admission of their mistake.
did you have a question Councillor Wadsworth?
Councillor Bale Keir Starmer, open reopen all the Sure Start centres, and when will he do that by?
well, yes, no, we're not having a free-for-all here, but I don't have a Jew, and I don't blame you, Councillor Corner for wanting to come back on on on that and you may do so, but I have Councillor Birchall and then Councillor Cavalli, so we'll hear from you after them,
thank you very much, yes.
when we were looking at the statistics here on page 135 were basically for 40% of the 2 year olds that we want to get hold of are are taking up the offers.
there are what just over 700.
possible children with in the Borough.
that's not an awful lot of children, what is it, how do they have to qualify to be?
eligible for this for this service.
the families have to qualify by having a code and they're reported on the DW P list, once the children and the families are on that list, we can obviously identify them, we can work with them and we can encourage them to access the free provision that's available.
what we're doing, particularly through the parent champions again, and our colleagues at Graham Street is we're actively seeking where there are parents who may not have a code and sometimes working next to them to encourage them to get that code so it it is an issue and it's on our parent champions are working very hard to address. An example is where there was a parent champion who was working with a mother who was actually in St George's and the mother was very anxious that her children were going to be taken into care because she access the code.
an apparent champion was was actually very reassuring and help them other to qualify, and that child is now in in a ppi, so it's it's a very sensitive piece of work and it's a tenacious piece of work, and so it's a very good question.
and I wonder if you could.
to have a code, I don't quite understand what, or what I mean no, I I can understand in theory that you know there is a way that they've been identified, can I just wondered if what it is so if pair a bit more yes, so if parents qualify being at a certain,
financial.
for a financial benchmark. If there are parents and carers in need, they they will qualify for a code and they will qualify for some additional eligible care. But if they don't have the code then they don't fall into the database in order to be able to access the system. But I think perhaps Surrey Councillor Birch will just do intervene. I think maybe what Councillor Birchall is. An inquiring is the actual criteria that on is required to be eligible because that number of 703 is quite low for a borough with so many children short, so the parents need to to be able to qualify for a universal credit. They need to be at a certain level in terms of employment, in terms of financial income,
thank you, it's thanks to you, quite a small number of families, isn't it, yes, so we'll leave it to that, thank you very much.
Councillor Cavalli, next, I think, and then Councillor Corner, can I D A C burden to the officers in identifying the fundamental problem with the the the effect. Poor uptake of the the places for the 15 hours of free free childcare or a loses or less than half are actually taking up the the the position, and I appreciate you are doing a tremendous amount of work. You've you've identified that on page 1 3 8 or all of the initiatives, I know just one of the things you're seeing is more work with children's centres, social workers et cetera, and promoting the year 2 offer. It seems that a number of what you've said here on the feedback about why some of the appearance
don't take up, I know some of these things are never gonna be over to to to to to over overcome, but some of them are sort of misconceptions, whereas the child to pick up any illness from other children at nursery, wanting this child to speak before they go to to to nursery visited nursery but the field the child is too young. I was just wondering it, or do we use examples of parents who have used this and they can then sell the idea to all their appearance and say to them will listen.
this is one of the ways that you can you can do. I did it with my son or daughter and or you know it, they have benefited tremendously from it because often, I think, the best way to sell the thing as examples of parents who have used it and can see how effective it is. I think that's the parent or the parent's champion programme because we we, as a local authority, can can say as much as we like bullies and misconceptions, but it is actually coming from parents themselves who have used the services or who are far more likely to to be listened to. I think, and although I'm putting down officers in the local authority, but we're not engaged, it's much more powerful when it when it comes from your peers and that's that's why it has been a powerful programme
Councillor Corner, thank you Chair, and I look.
please to note that the administration at councillors are committed to ensuring that all Sure Start centres reopened in the borough in the event of a Labour general election victory, but I do have a question that is tangentially related to that, which is about demographics and and the numbers of young people in the borough, so actually it was this Council under a Labour administration this committee under a Labour administration last year that voted to close the school actually there were.
arguments for and against that for sure, but at.
the results of the consultation showed there was actually some people understood the the need for that.
and why it was happening, and I wondered if I am part of the reason was declining numbers of children in the borough, so I was wondering if that is also being seen in the number of early years children and whether there will be a reduction in the number of children of that age and therefore will be able to give more focus to those those are young children who aren't taking up these places.
and be able to make sure they take up the support those offering that's that's being offered to them.
and for the purposes of clarity, sorry, I'm just going to say this, we didn't vote last year to close the school, we repurposed a school to need, if you remember, so it's because of the need of SEND children that we've repurposed at school, which will meet their needs. We didn't close school. Broadwater is now not a primary school, it's a special needs school, so it's a secondary, it's a secondary special needs school
is the question?
who is addressed to children in the borough, OK, so could please one of the officers take the answer that question and I'm sorry no wonder I can't see anybody thank you Chair, I think I think we are faced with a perfect storm.
Brexit, the pandemic or cost of living crisis, poverty, housing situation in London and also, fundamentally, what we are seeing since the beginning of the pandemic 20,000 less birds in south-west London. This is what our health partners have been telling us. We've recently had access to all the census data, and what we are seeing is a more transient population and actually an ageing population in Wandsworth. So all of that is bound to have the effect that we are seeing, including in relation to the numbers of two year olds. Thank you for that clarification. I. It is just interesting to me that that transient nature of the population actually suggests that, even if the number of children requiring early years children eligible for early years support goes down, it might be harder to track because there they're coming in for a couple of years or more and then leaving right, so it'll be interesting to track this over yet and to see these numbers improve and I hope they do. I'm sure I know officers are doing everything they can to make that happen, as is detailed here, but it is something we really do need to are to keep an eye on, as as their Councillor, I think
thank you for your scrutiny, Councillor Davies was next, I think, Ben Councillor Lee and then cats.
yeah, I was wondering about whether you've considers you know, because the Children's Services Department seems to be very good at multi agency or cost departments working, and I was just thinking that possibly by working with health partners and housing, it might be able to possible to identify children's of will before they're two years old. So you know even sort of at the time that they you know people discharged from hospital after birth and you know start sort of for you know, forming relationships via some channels at that point and then also be using and community club rooms, and so on, like that and I was just interested, I went through a conference that had there's a range of charities, including Joseph Rowntree and people talking and say, if we could have a unique identifying number for all children well it could be the NHS number then that would be the way to be able to target people much more.
yeah, much more easily and holistically, now just wondered what you thought about that.
I couldn't agree more.
I couldn't agree more. Certainly, what we've done in in our teams is we've built up the education side and the SEND side, we think that we've got that, as you can see in this in this paper into a very strong position, however, are continued link exactly with our health. Colleagues with midwifery, et cetera, et cetera is absolutely the next. The next point, and there is a pace around GDPR and sharing information which I have to be honest, is is quite complex but absolutely right, the earliest that we can identify children the earliest we can begin to support the families
I was just coming from a from the same perspective because I think it's a really important point in saying that we've really made a commitment to doing, which is to identify those children earlier, because we know how much early intervention is so valuable, so one of the things that we have established is our a multi agency early years panel that meets by weekly. We have health representation on that panel and what we do, what we've strive to do is to form that sort of one front door where where children are referred in, so whether that be health visitors, whether that be speech and language therapists that come across children in children's centres, whether that be the early health notifications they come through that one panel, and then we then consider what is the right support for that child that could be signposting to a children's centre that could be bringing a family into our or our SEND and inclusion have to think with them around. What's the right support for that child? So still a work in progress we've now got a parent carer rep, who sits on that that earliest panel as well, so I think it's a real model of multi agency working that we can really build on.
it's something that she has.
yeah, I am.
I am very pleased to hear you at your responses, I I mean, I've got quite concerns about the number of families with very young children who, due to their housing situation,
they just find it very hard to leave the for their flat, Tina and baby on the third floor, without a lift and just getting a double buggy downstairs with a, you know a baby a one year old and a 3 year olds is difficult enough, you know and so they're not in touch with the Children's Centre to realise that actually they're very friendly warm places and you know learning through plays.
you know enjoyable getting people sort of warmed up to do that idea, and I I just don't know what what what can be done to yeah TV, so I think there might be quite a lot of hidden people who
not accessing services, and you know that concerns me, but it has to get those very hard to reach people.
who wants to do the very best for their their baby or very young child, but their conditions just make it very difficult indeed.
I think you're right again to raise that as it has an important issue. I'm I'm going to give the same answer again, which might not be helpful, but I can honestly tell you that our parent champions truthfully ostentatious once the children are on the list they will phone, they will call, we've got good links as well with our childminder so there is now a big joined-up network to identify exactly the families that you describe yeah yeah, but we're not, we're not there yet, though we're not there, you know and you're absolutely right to raise the profile of hidden children and baby is definitely
we've also got the family hubs are leased to has prompted me to to to to comment on, but truthfully the the family hubs are going to be really important. Our families look to those those locations, they trust those locations, but we're also hoping in the future to to grow those particularly places like Somerset nursery. Building up Eastwood nursery building on some of the PBS that we've got that are very successful on on the autumn estate in the various clusters around the borough, so that's another way to reach out, I think, to the community certainly,
it is really a fantastic example.
really being proactive, and I go find them and I I have heard that you also are leafleting outside, Don Greg's.
I have to be, I have to be honest and say that we were lifting, certainly in places.
there Ivan say this places, such as libraries, some of our parent community will not be in libraries, but we know full well that they will be frank greggs, for example, and so we are trying to go to places that without meaning to patronise genuinely we were trying to find places where our parents and carers will be. We're handing out postcards, we're thinking about getting a double decker bus, and you know we're trying to be really creative to to to to reach our our families, certainly, yeah, it's very commendable, Councillor Lee is next, I think
yeah
yeah, I think I just wanted to agree with what Andy said about the the importance of early intervention, which I think we all recognise on this committee, and I was really happy to see that our earliest offers is going to be extended also.
I also was yeah, we're happy to see the there's a proactive actions that that we're planning to take, the council is planning to take to increase the the uptake for our two year olds offer, and I wanted to ask, Will a will we be able to see sort of how that's going over the year?
of intervals, rather than waiting another year bef before we get that information and also if we do have a large uptake do we have the the sort of provisions available for those children?
we do have.
the DFC data dashboard and we compare our uptake with statistical neighbours so that's provided at an attorney basis. So we already know that from January 23 through to summer 23 that are increase in terms of our statistical neighbours, we've moved from fifth. Fourth, so that's some sort of progress. We, both the uptake has also increased by 2%. It's not good enough, yet so certainly we want to track this very closely and we would be looking at it terminally without doubt, and your second question I've forgotten to capacity capacity if, if we do have a large uptake, certainly at the moment one of our officers is working very closely on sufficiency and continues to work on sufficiency
we know where there are spaces, we know where there are challenges, we know where there are is over capacity, we'd like to think certainly that, with the new rollout from from April that we will have confident leaders and managers to be able to manage the capacity, it's still a problem and you know I'm not going to say that it's a done deal but as you can hear you know in our passions we're absolutely determined to get childcare and early early education right for our rural communities.
Councillor Owens, thank you, I have a question on the funding and I realised that, of course, this is national funding, looking on page 139, and I'm curious about it because I was one of those parents who had a two year old and was offered 30 hours a week, the main reason being and this is going back or under the last administration that might one of my toddlers under the sort of umbrella of Oak Lodge the hearing impaired school I actually turned it down but at the time
it was possible to have 30 hours a week under the system and I do realise that obviously the government under David Cameron, he changed it around in order so that working parents might have.
you know, 30 hours a week or whatever, it was that they only had 15 at the time, but I do recall that that and the local authority at once with would perhaps put money aside under. I think it was known as the block funding system whereby certain 2 year olds could actually get 30 hours a week, rather than say 15, which you haven't had a national policy, and I wondered if that was still the case today with with the state nurseries because of course, as has been mentioned, 15 hours a week is actually quite difficult. If you've got to get down off a flight of stairs, you've got there and you've taken 45 minutes to get there and then you turn round and go home and you gotta go back again and in the past under the 30 hours that was actually really successful, I didn't take my place, the main reason being that I had a carer for my other child as well, so I didn't need it, but I was just wondering, if you still did the block funding for that? Thank you.
given the no, yes, in a way.
through our maintained, nursery schools or schools Forum supports the three provisions with an 80 k a year contribution that to support our most vulnerable children we also have a 50,000 pounds per provision for C and D children that don't have any HTTP to put in that early intervention.
we've been able to push up our rates in the last year, especially for two year olds, that's hopefully going to make provisions more attractive for for children with a worker and working parents, as well as.
those are the normal 15 hours, obviously the new provisions coming in, naturally to support working parents, so in essence, yes, we do still have a vulnerable.
families fund for 30 hours a week.
for 30 hours, if they want to.
add Councillor Birchall and then Councillor Davies.
yes, thank you very much.
I was looking on page 132, you're talking about pork portage workers.
for helping families with them.
young children with special needs, how many workers?
do we employ?
so a portage service, where a service there were in existence previously, they lifted across into the education division that's there's there's a team of four portage workers.
I guess the shift has been since they've come over and have been part of our team is that it's much more of a joined-up piece of work now, so portage work with those families often that are identified.
straight from birth without the most complex needs and provide that small step support going into the home, working with parents around understanding, needs and supporting those children. What we've now got, because we're part of one division and we're part of education. Is there's kind of what next for those children, so think we're thinking with families, about the trajectories and where they can access some some early education provision. What does that look like and one of the the changes were made to the to the job profiles with those portage workers now go into settings so they would go in and work alongside the sitting for the first two terms to to support those children set to begin those journeys. So it's a team that is the capacity is the same, but the the the shift in emphasis is has been about those those longer term education trajectories and getting those children after that to those best starts
thank you.
Councillor Davies, yeah hello, I see on the the paperwork funding that there's a shift J in due to 2023 budgets, with the ratio change, and also it seems to be that the focus is more about supporting working parents rather than childcare being quality.
you know for to give the best start of life chances to the child, you know when we here at Wadsworth say you know, children are at the heart of everything we do.
which you know, obviously, we all agree with that.
it is also interested to see that the shadow Minister for Education schools, we're saying actually for her, the childcare system must be about the life chances for children as well as the work choices for parents, so I hope you'll be Kerry, I'm looking forward to that having a nice balance there, but my particular question is what you know so in this context, what are the challenges of recruiting and retaining high quality?
child carers.
it's a challenge.
this committee will be well aware that there is a huge challenge nationally to meet affordable childcare, for two reasons, firstly, to encourage our parents and carers into employment and into further education and training, but also actually, in some cases, just to have some some respite.
I think what are what I would say is certainly for us in Wandsworth, what we're trying to do.
is having established a baseline of a supportive partnership with our managers. I'm thinking particularly about our PV eyes here, we're giving them training, which might sound a little bit basic, but actually historically perhaps some of these organisations were quite isolated and there wasn't a sense of where that setting sat within a local offer where that setting sat within support for children with special needs for or business support for financial support, so we're actually again providing a framework to encourage managers to stay and also encourage managers to be
to do more quality assurance and pastoral care frankly, for there are existing members of staff, because certainly some of our our settings have a very high quantity of agency staff and with the best will in the world some of those are very good, some of them may not be very good and they're very expensive, so I think the framework is encouraging.
the staff who we've got to stay as much as we can.
slightly or another piece of work that we're working on is linking with South Thames College, linking with two levels thinking about.
a family or child development and two levels, so that we want to keep some of our students and young people in house so that they can.
therefore, have work placements in our settings and therefore be successful in terms of the recruitment, so we're trying as as as much as we can as much as we can.
supplementary.
and it's because you know that the high costs is partly going to be due to yeah, so the wages, but also the due to the land or the rent on the premises, and this is something that the council could do to look at doing like maybe have you, you know Councillor allowed to be used for nurseries to reduce costs or cooperatives or partnerships so anything there I don't know.
Michael
I just don't think there's the demand really to do that at the moment.
tourism are an option, but we wouldn't want to look at that at the moment, I don't think because of the numbers here, there is enough capacity.
I do I do think, however, that there is also.
in a communication strategy and informal communication strategy, so, as I think you know, we may have already mentioned.
childminder is thinking of having a drop-in centre at Somerset, for example, so Battersea is an area of of a priority area where those childminders will have play stay and play drop-ins coffee, mornings, et cetera, etc so that word of mouth spreads to be able to say Look, this one provision nearby, certainly working with our maintained nurseries to to do that, I think is going to be an important strategy. Yeah yeah
okay, thank you very much.
Councillor, thank you, Chair I, I just wanted to conveners, we end the discussion, ready to just say, been really grateful that we've spent their time discussing this because I think it is a really important area and I'm really pleased that we've recognised that you know, we're really making a positive impact on children in their early years by investing in this new team. You know, as Councillor Lay touched on, this really is a priority for this administration in terms of being able to intervene early, but it's not without its challenges as kind of Councillor Corner has acknowledged because we are facing a falling bath rate, but I think it is really good points made about how we should better track our children, perhaps working with
health partners or others, and we are absolutely committed to to going and find them go. Go, find them is is a clear limb of our strategy, and I'm pleased that we've kind of reflected on the work of our parent champions tonight, which we should definitely praise them there and award-winning team and they are going out there and making sure that we can link parents who are eligible for two year old provision and other services and making sure that they can enter quality provision and I think also that what we're doing around pulling
early years settings together in those leadership conferences is really important, we're really rebuilding that if you go and have a look at the website and it looks like the the all day comfort at conference was a really great day with some great sessions led by settings sharing their positive experience, but certainly this area is really right for reform and I think as Councillor Osborne touched on certainly previous Labour governments have certainly had that ambition and scale in terms of their Sure Start reform and clearly,
as a Labour Group and as the Labour party, we're really proud of that, and it's quite frankly, to compare and contrast administrations, it's still not really clear what this current government can be proud of in the same way.
thank you, Councillor Stokes, so this paper was for information, so I'm asking the Committee to note the report, do we note the report agreed thank?

6 Schools Decarbonisation and Climate Curriculum Support Programme (Paper No. 23-387)

so we move to the next paper, which is schools, decarbonisation and climate curriculum support programme, its paper number 23 2 3 8 7 and its pages 1 4 1 2 1 5 2.
this paper exemplifies how, through innovation and creativity we are doing our part in children's services to help deliver our ambitious targets of achieving our net Zero climate ambitions by 2030 and help our schools save money on their energy bills during this very challenging high inflation period and I want to congratulate the cost director work and particularly thank our schools for their continued support in developing and enhancing the climate curriculum.
which has been ensuring that our children are at the forefront of this new way of thinking and not going to hand over to our Mr Hulk to introduce the paper, would take questions.
thank you Chair, just with regard to the infrastructure we chose, LED lighting, as are.
starting point because it has the highest impact for both climates.
impacts, saving energy, as well as cost effectiveness in terms of return on capital investment, and you have a little pamphlet that we've put together with some stats and some before and after photos that covers our latest LED lighting, upgraded Garrett Park special school,
yeah, just for your information.
I am joined by Jameela from our property services department within the housing directorate between the two of us were happy to take any questions.
are there any questions on this paper from anyone, Councillor Cohen?
thank you, I welcome this paper, especially not just for the clear sustainability benefits, but it it has and gives evidence for, but also be, significant, extraordinary cost savings, but the it it are it identifies.
helping schools say between 30 and 50% on their energy bills is huge, given the cost of of energy, now that could mean that a lot of money is may is saved over the years and that can be used to to fund frontline education in those schools which would be absolutely fantastic of course it might also mean that,
very little money is made available because, of course, the PR price of energy it might the savings might just return the the costs to what they were a few years ago and, of course investing in technology like heat pumps has its own ha have has very large costs now I know this is a a to note paper. However, it does say if the committee decided the recommendations on it needs to be made, then then they can, so I think what we should do is aim to model one that doesn't have to be done by next meeting or in in
super quickly, but I do think we need to model the actual potential cost savings that this could deliver, so that we have an idea over the next few years of how much money this might make available for us to to to fund children's education, which is what we should all be interested in. I do think there is extraordinary potential here and but I do want to see that evidence so that we we can understand if if that money will be made available or not.
and if it is well, this is definitely something that is very promising and if we are able to make these savings, it's a public spending cuts that even Councillor Osborne should be able to support.
Will you do the money?
we've definitely got a model of savings, we already have a paper-based model for those savings, just doing the basic math on a LED light, it's about 70% less wattage with higher lighting and what better lighting and more distributed lighting already at Gareth Parker went there last week they were saying how nice the classes were, how much brighter there were and how much easier it was to read the papers and just less strain on eyes, which was just fantastic to hear they're lighting bulbs will reduce by just the lighting element, obviously with the impact of the ladies would reduce by 70% because of the basic mass of it, the 50 to 30% does, as you say,
will be more than just Leeds that does take into account the bigger high impact items are solar insulation, sorry, insulation, first lead for insulation, and then solar has become more and more attractive as the panels have become.
higher quality and cheaper, and obviously the electric price has gone or energy prices have gone up, I mean, it is very unlikely that energy prices are going to go down to anything like the levels proved Covid, just given scarcity, et cetera, et cetera, as well as we can see energy prices have already come down but that hasn't necessarily been transferred onto the consumer for various reasons.
so the likelihood of the math changing considerably downward, though it could change slightly downwards in the short term, longer term, is likely to have a sustainable impact and actually probably saved more and more over time, which is fantastic but happy to commit to the savings we had and accumulate you want to add in but we are having extensive while this for these.
projects, we will have a report that's just got some basic statutory, are ready to say,
the 387 lights that are installed in Garrett Park or so 41,000 kilowatt hours, which is the same as 65 tonnes of CO2, will obviously be able to convert that into pounds and pence as well that is significant, as you can tell and when do you think that work will be completed for us to meet in the next couple of weeks for this for Rivers, Dell and Smallwood who had just been completed at the moment shortly after as part of the contractors requirement?
we will measure actions as well to make sure.
he Councillor Davies and then Councillor Osborne.
yeah, so I'm I be interested in.
saying, yeah, I know this of hell, how this goes out and with that mottling yeah see as well that that the CEO T S saving I'm just thinking these yeah, we should look at the tumbleweed LeasCheann may save some money here.
but also like what next, what other steps could we take and look at the school premises and think about within the playground we can have, could we have rainwater gardens, for example, or you know, trees or green walls, or you know, I'm really sort of and then add that in to the the savings in terms of CO2 soak up them,
yeah yeah, of course.
we are definitely working on the climate side and will add and Inhofe could come in or as he leaves, our climate network, but helping schools develop those sorts of initiatives that they can do on their own planting trees, doing green walls, those are things that they can probably go ahead with their own funding is not costs considerable cost impact but obviously has a big environmental.
contribution we're going to target of funding on the bigger things that is harder for schools to to fund themselves, I think yeah.
can I just add that I mean we've had a climate change network, we we, we really encouraged schools to come along and give case studies of the work they've done, and we've had John Burns who've done some spectacular work in terms of what they've done with their playground and also we've had a sacred heart Battersea and again have been absolutely embedding the whole climate change both within their curriculum but but also in terms of of their practice.
Councillor Osborne.
yeah, right down to basics on this definition of objective, so what would you say which object objective if we achieve it, is the primary one and is the main and?
would be a success for this project, and how are we going to do that and the minority party are quite right, I am interested in sound finance, how are we going to fund it?
for schools, given the cost of living crisis, the falling rolls, possibly net negative increases in per pupil funding next year, I would very find it hard to choose at the moment it's likely would make bigger climate savings and energy cost savings over the long run because of, as Councillor O'Connor said, heat pumps etc Kanye increased eligible but have a significantly reduced.
climate impact.
year funding at the moment, we're finding this from the 5 million pounds that the council has put aside for climate change. That's being topped up, as has been used for the next tranche of of schools that we select, we will will will bid for funding there again and are very likely to be successful, as this has been very well supported across the council. And the big big money. Is it in the PSD EIS, which is the public sector? Decarbonisation fund, which is run centrally and very much oversubscribed Jamie Leigh, is responsible for the council. Putting on that. I don't know if you want to say anything, but it was. There's only, it's probably the only pockets out there at the moment, centrally that councils can use or tap into, and there was so much demand that the website broke down on the. I don't know how genuinely that you go for
F I'm Jameela at our energy and sustainability manager in property Services, with reference to your question around.
what is the most important, I think it depends on who you ask, I think, if you ask the schools, they would say their utility bills and their consumption, that's most important for you to ask someone like myself, I would say the carbon reductions are important, I think my role in property services means that I'm very pragmatic and I understand operations I understand that we have to balance what would need to be done with what is available and we need to make sure that it is something that the schools can manage.
what we're doing is taking a whole building approach for for QOF scores we did bid for P SDS funding.
we've put in an air source heat pump that should be commissioned with another month, but we've also done LED lighting and solar periods offset across that increase in costs, so we're making sure that the schools could manage that and we're supporting them over the next four or five years and make sure that that's OK.
thank you, are there any more questions, Councillor Lee?
yeah, I think it's a brilliant programme, I wanted, I saw that it says that we are in contact with the GLA and to all we've discussed the project with the GLA or presented it to the GLA, how we could you tell me a little bit more about that and how we're going to sort of share our pilot with,
other councils, across London and and the country again.
so we engaged the GLA who have paid for consultants.
Mr Macron, them raw they did the paper based analysis of our schools to allow us to choose the first tranche of pilots we then had to get or or or another contractor to do the detailed work which others investment-grade proof, proposals that do the exact working of what's required and the likely savings but the GLA helped us to do the groundwork.
but it was a paper-based exercise when it comes to sharing our knowledge.
there's a big impetus, obviously, within the GLA, to to work with London local authorities, they provided the funding for the consultants so they are trying to get us all to be doing this sort of thing for our schools and internally.
we probably will feed well, we do feedback into the GLA.
on the success of this programme,

7 Wandsworth Corporate Plan actions and key performance indicators for 2023/24 (Paper No. 23-388)

thank you very much if there's no further questions on this paper on is for information, so I'm asking you to note the report, do we note the report, yes, thank you very much and thank you officers for your input on this one.
right so we move to the next paper, which is the Wandsworth Corporate Plan actions and key performance indicators for 23 24, it's paper number 23 2 3 8 8 pages 1 5 3 2 1 8 8 and just briefly, this report provides a mid-year progress update on the delivery of our ambitious Corporate Plan and quarter 2 performance indicator results related to the remit of this committee I am now going to hand over to Ms boss Ricci to give an overview,
thank you Chairman. I'm actually glad that you only took a moment, because I am gonna take my moment because, fundamentally, what we are talking about in this paper is the work of this department and an update. You know media, so I'm gonna talk about with the the corporate plan and I'm gonna talk about the KPI and I'm actually delighted to introduce this report because it's absolutely outlines the significant progress we've made so far against our Corporate Plan and against the key performance indicators. In the past six months we proudly achieved a number of things and this committee has been sighted on on those achievements, but allow me a moment to just name a few. The family hub launch at the vanguard centre, a one-stop shop at the heart of the community, creating the participation service called limitless. You know, co, produced with children, young people, as the Council and Department are truly listened to communities. We've launched our more mobile bus, which brings services directly to young people in our communities. We've seen the success of our social workers in schools well loved by our schools and parents at the school gate. Our summer half programme saw over 2,400 children actually joining gain.
in June we launched our new school food strategy, absolutely focusing on on breakfast provision and a new school meals service and proud of our work as national leaders in areas as family safeguarding only this week actually, we are having our friends from Hertfordshire doing a peer review on the department. We've also had a visit from the Department of Education that were keen to learn about how we are embedding this way of working with families in London as the only London borrowed to actually pilot families safeguarding with we've championed our outstanding practice framework and that's got some traction nationally. Everyone is looking at how simply we've made. You know this approach and working with with families that absolutely privileges, the relationship we've made with families as transformational for them to achieve change. You've already heard this evening about the great work we've done in with the the progress we've made says Ofsted visit in November last year and surprise surprise our regulators are back with a visit and there will be knocking on our front door literally next week. I'm sure they will want to say footage of this committee to just look at the scrutiny and the challenge and that actually this committee is posing and the Department, which is absolutely right, we spoke about our work on Sen D only on the in September committee
a lot of good work that has gone on, but of course better than ever starts we are not perfect and we know there is always more to do to achieve outstanding in everything that we stand for and you'll want to do for our children and families we are very proud of our work in education, 97% of our schools are good or outstanding, that's absolutely fantastic with a new framework that is more taxing and tough.
once work is that it is is the right ranking 17th nationally for good GCSE results in maths and English. However, some groups we know are not doing as well as their peers, particularly our disadvantaged black and Caribbean pupils, and we've made a commitment towards closing the gap for these children and for others, the KPI. As, generally speaking, they are good, they are healthy, particularly for looked after children. They are extremely good. We remain committed to ensuring good health outcomes and review. Health assessments for children looked after are really strong. Nine out of 10 children reviewed their heart and get their health reviewed in a timely fashion. Our initial assessments, however, are not where they should be, and you will see that you know we are open and transparent about that challenge. Scheduling appointments can be sometimes problematic and this, coupled with teenagers entering care who really don't want to know and see professionals, can make this target quite taxing for us. We are working collaboratively with St George's to continue to make improvements and think creatively about places and spaces with our young people, want to go and actually make that experience more friendly, and we'd that improve our target and performance. We're really proud to see that we've got fewer children entering the criminal system for the first time, with only 24 in the last 12 months. That is impressive because it's staff, but for many more children. Now that is staff. There is more work to do around disproportionality again in this area and we are working really hard and in partnership with our communities, to really look at the reimagining our youth provision. We want to think differently about children in our community and we want to find a place for safety for them, and we want to come back to committee next year with a new vision for that service,
we've got over 330 care experienced young people in Wandsworth most have a good place to leave 87% in a suitable accommodation and more than a half you know they go to to a job, they do training, they are at Guardian education, but this this is still a bit below our got goal. We need to do more, we need to do more to help young people, you know to be more aspirational and to become the future adults they they wanna be we've hired a new employment and education and training work in virtual school, and we really want you know to dedicate resources to help our children looked after
achieve their goals, and we hope next year is going to show resulting that area. I've been so proud to see the hard work and achievements of the Department this year and I'm excited to see the progress that we're gonna make in in in the future year. Our ambition doesn't stop here, and I really hope that regulators visiting ask you now we'll be able to reflect on what you've achieved since our last inspection and we really want to thank you, you know for your commitment and for your scrutiny, for your challenge and support. It means a lot you know, and it means a lot to officers in this room tonight, but fundamentally to those that are out there in the communities knocking on the doors and doing the hard work. Thank you and we now invite questions
we've got any questions for him and after that wonderful roundup, Councillor Forbes, then Councillor Corner and then Councillor.
thanks actually just touching on some of the points that the director just just talked about, so on page 184 on the health of children looked after just wanting to pick up.
on the point around only one in four 20% 24% of the children who came into care between April and September 23 had an initial health assessment, is it?
it appears to be stuck at around that that percentage is all obviously, as you as he flagged, it makes it hard to fit around the child's needs, so I'm wondering what the if we could have a bit more sort of contacts to understand what the problem is and what the impact is on children and the options going forward, and then is there anything that the committee can do to support working with health partners and in are in addition to health partners what we can do linking up with other teams across the council including health which I'm a bit of a broken record on this but like what can we do to help encourage the the cross team working here that I know has been done in various areas between children's and health before, but it would be really good to see how we can tackle this problem.
thank you, Councillor Forbes, I think I'm a suitor is probably best placed to answer that, so all of our children will have an initial health assessment when they come into care. The challenge with the the bar that were set is the 20 working days and are kind of health process procedure requirement that that is with a paediatrician at St George's hospital within two or 20 working days. If you look at our cohort of children looked after, we predominantly accommodate adolescence, they don't want to go to St George's and meet a paediatrician they've never met before.
they would more likely attend their GP or
Even more likely, if someone came to visit them, so all of our children will get there to their initial health assessment, but when a child comes into care.
particularly under traumatic circumstances.
they have to be in a lot of meetings and a lot of appointments, and that can be really overwhelming for them. The additional parties there is the capacity at St George's, so the chances are in 20 working days we'll get one appointment. What we know about our children is that they need more than one chance, so they might not want to go on the day that their appointment is and when they get offered another appointment. It won't be within that 20 working days, so that's the kind of context. It's not that our children don't know that we don't understand our children's health needs, we make sure we do we talk to their GPs, we make sure that they get medical attention that they need, but it's just that they don't always get to that appointment within 20 working days, because sometimes it takes a little bit longer. Our review, health assessments are very different so they can take place with with nurses in the community. Our children build up relationships with the nurses allocated to them, and you know, the nurses are really great, the children looked after nurses at St George's are great and they
they they chase our children around until they can see them, so they're very the re determined in making sure that our children get their health needs met, so I guess what what we're trying to do and what what I would say, that that help would be required in is engaging in those conversations with our health partners.
I had a conversation the other day about this very issue and and the the message coming backwards where this is the way it's always been, and I think what we try and do is is not just do things the way, they've always been done but think about how they work better for our young people so I guess in in forums with health partners thinking about how we might do differently to meet the needs of our young people and how we can still,
how we can achieve the same outcome in in meeting our children's health needs, but in a way that meets their needs first and puts their needs front and centre, rather than asking them to fit into a box that we create for them.
can I just check on that final point yeah around the box that we do, that we create for them and the fact that it's got to be with a paediatrician that they don't know in George's which might be more of putting.
while it had been, I'm obviously relatively new to this committee that can you tell me sort of the background for that why it has to be that way in the first instance and not be within the first guy within about 20 working days wherever it can be with someone who is more accessible, whether it is in their home or whatever it is their GP because obviously as waiting times for treatment in hospitals is on the increase, it's gonna be gonna make the problem worse, surely I agree, and I do I don't think it has to be that way, I think that's just the way it's always been done and I think you know perhaps there is a an idea that a paediatrician
you know, care has a greater knowledge base or greater expertise than someone else, but the the fact is that lots of our children, we have an existing health history for them we
we have information that we can utilise and a nurse.
having contact with them can help with that, I think and also say so.
Joe, if I may, I think I think we are very forward thinking in our approach and we are very much child-led and we are trying to influence health to think in the same way and in many ways to not not to be nervous to lead the goal of
practices that are actually very inefficient and very expensive and definitely unable to meet the need, so in recent conversations with our paediatricians and,
a lead officer has been held, we were presenting the ones with case. Most of our young people coming into care are already known, most of them are born in this country, they will have a GP, we will already have an understanding of the health needs speakers they have known and trying to encourage them to think about which children will need that triage by an expert paediatrician and actually have a bit of a menu of options that's available based again on the level of need rather than a a practice and a model that's been in situ for a number of years which is very much
medically led is nothing to do with the local authority practices. So we are already having those conversations. I think there's a nervousness in the system and I think the more we can have a collective voice, you know as local authorities in in in this space, so thinking about the ICB footprint in south-west London, we are having those conversations already, so our our local partners that placed level they, they are open-minded, they are encouraging, are still to come forward, then help them think differently and actually help others come come come with us on that journey and fundamentally, you know going back to Elisabeth's point being child-led. This is not a tick-box exercise, it's about really promoting good, good good outcomes for our young people and there's ways and means to go about that.
thank you very much, and it's really great to have Councillor Forbes on this committee because she chairs the Health Committee, so we're getting the cross-reference that we want all the time that is so beneficial and breaks down the silos that Wandsworth has had for far too long on Councillor Corner,
thank you great to have Councillor Corelli here because you go out on the Health Committee drop completely agree, but I do have a question about the action on improving educational outcomes for young people in Wandsworth at e y Fs, Key stage 1 to 4 and 5.
it does say that
the gap in disadvantaged black Caribbean children has increased in phonics and at key stage 1 and there was a drop in those achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and maths at Key stage 1 and the same measure at key stage 2 now, obviously the the most important thing for children's education is having a good school and a good good teacher, but I also think the curriculum is is really important here.
are there?
what are we doing to scrutinise and ensure that all primary schools in the borough of teaching a robust curriculum at primary school with effective?
teaching with very strong subject, knowledge and and but by teachers and well structured kind of learning and knowledge building so.
members will be aware that we have a very strong and well established link advisor programme and I think all but four of our secondary schools have link advisers and and those that don't do still engage with us, that they have, for instance, like OK have their own very well established.
and checks and balances themselves we also Members will also be aware from from the last paper that was presented in education that we have recently taken on a
inequality is curriculum adviser, who, seconded from one of our schools, regain, provides challenge and advice to schools, all of whom, I think, want to make changes for the better for their young people.
and different schools are at different points of the journey on on.
in that respect. So part of that work is about signposting, sharing, again sharing good practice. We had similar to the early years conference, we had our first education equalities conference at the beginning of this month, which Games was very well received. We had presentations from a number of different schools sharing their practice. So I think we were again from from presentation I made before. You will know that we are very keen to tap into practitioners themselves to use best practice. The advantage we have through our LINk Advisor programme is people on the ground who are able to identify where that best practices, and we will then share that through Twilight's again getting the practitioners to to know, so I think we have, or are we have good systems in him and checks in place to both challenge and advice in terms of curriculum
thank you very much, Councillor Birchall, and then Councillor Osborne.
thank you very much family safeguarding, this was something that we were very excited to be bringing in.
what was started a couple of years ago, didn't we, and has it actually been the success that we were hoping it was going to be?
yes, that's that's, that's my dependency, yes, it has in terms of two things I think, in particular one recruitment and retention of practitioners, so we now in the best position we've ever been in that I am in that piece of the practice system, legal permanency managers, permanent social workers very, very low turnover,
2 in terms of the services to children and families. As we were talking about earlier, we've got much lower numbers, we want much lower numbers of children on child protection plans, got much lower numbers of children being subject to care proceedings very much better at keeping children together in their families, where they should be, so our children looked after numbers of have gone, have gone down, so on every kind of metric, the the the the the model has been a success. Workers are happier, staying families are getting better outcomes. We've just had the Hearts team, this last couple of weeks come and do a peer review of our work which they need to report to. The DF is the the the the funding period has come to an end, and the informal feedback is that they are very impressed with the way in which we've embedded the model, very impressed with the culture in which we're working. They're very impressed with the outcomes and they'll be reporting that formally back to the DFC, so I think in every way we can say it's been a success
good thank you, and and presumably this goes back to where you were saying here with the number of looked after children has gone down this good, so it's rarely has been everything we'd hoped everything we hoped yet brilliant.
not good news all round are Councillor Osborne.
yes, clearly significant progress, but there are some areas of concern there's an increase in the number of re-referral since last year.
and we are not meeting our targets in that area, the matter of domestic abuse casts a shadow over the family's re-referred, and my question, therefore, is what work are we undertaking, therefore, with?
these are.
families re-referred and where domestic abuse is part of the mix, what kind of support are we giving?
yeah, I take that.
yes, re-referral, we've gone to a revised process and which will be part of the response, I think.
families get re-referred into the service for many reasons.
it could be that, for example, the designated safeguarding lead in a school was not entirely happy with us, closing our involvement with that young person, it could be a school nurse, was the same, the the same position, so there's something about us always ensuring that the group of practitioners around the family are really clear about our decision making about why so the we've started a new process, which I hope you'll agree is a more sensible process where, rather than a re-referral coming in and we automatically say it's a re-referral put in the re-referral box, we look at the information and that information goes back to the social worker and their manager, who's been involved right back to six months, and the onus is on the team managing the social worker to look at that information and sometimes it can be closed down with a conversation to the DSL at the school. It might be able to actually just need to phone mum to confirm that she's still going to the children's centre check out with the children's centre, so, rather than following that process of here's another referral, we go back to who has the knowledge around working with the family, social worker and the team manager get them to have conversations with,
the family or the
the re-referral and early signs would be that many of those actually don't move into referrals, the will of course be because you know we don't know what happens in families life, suddenly dodgy, partner, arrives and starts moves in the house again and many of these will be opened as re-referral and we've recently done a very a small dip sample of
of re-referral and the revised model of a referral and assessment service, which is a brief intervention service which works with families up to six months, is showing that where families have an intervention and are supported by social workers, through that brief and for that brief intervention model they are less likely to be re-referred because there's a longer piece of intervention but it's something that we have you know.
a view on we review that data and we're very clear that we need to continually look at re referrals because we do not want families to have to be re-referred back again so that we've that revised process and with the social workers and team managers reviewing the information that's come back into the MASH and will allow the right conversations for the right decisions rather than automatically it's come back and therefore it gets counted as a re-referral.
OK.
Councillor Crivelli and then Councillor Owens.
can I just say I was obviously slinging at the point within the KPI is about the work workforce, stability of recent years and the the fact that, in effect, things are period of stabilise in that respect, and the the you know the agency rates down at 16% which I think you know is it is very positive.
this. This is a a, a a a a problem. As long as I can remember, we've looked at a number of initiatives over the years to try and encourage people to choose ones with this, a place to to work if they were or are, a social worker, and it goes without saying things like job satisfaction and having a positive working environment are key to getting people to to be recruited and retained by one. So I noticed in the the people you talked about the career progression framework and you talk about how that's embedded for social workers and I was just wondering what sort of influence that that has overall, on social workers
choosing to work for Wandsworth. Do you have any feedback on? That is that this is something that we can emphasise in the future that you know, if you are somebody who who is looking at making proper career progression as a social worker in Wandsworth is the place that you really want to develop your career with yeah. I thank thank you. Thank you. We were really trying to emphasise that, because not only do we have a career progression framework, we've got a number of different career options for social workers, so traditionally social workers, if they want to progress in their career, and it could only go up up to two managers which, bizarrely would take them a bit further away from doing what they did best, which was seeing families. So we create posts where they will be paid an equivalent amount, but to be kind of more experts. Specialist practitioners carry on working with families
and and the career progression framework is a is, it is a kind of panel to put people through to a different grading in the in on the on the on the scale, so they can get an increase in pay if they show that they are able to do the job at a higher level, so I I think you're right I think we need to
advertise and make more of that because it is a real attraction to social workers they like being in Wandsworth because they can develop their career in different ways and there are different options for them.
is having an effect already, you can be career progression, panel that we run is always is always busy with lots of social workers looking to develop their careers and stay with us.
what what we do really well as well as we, we get them right at the start, so we get social workers when the newly qualified and when they are newly qualified we can, we can teach them how to do it the ones with way and then they stay and they develop, then you know that framework then allows them to develop and grow in so five six seven years' time that I'd expect those rates to go down because as those social workers grow into the roles and develop their careers further here,
Councillor RNS,
sir, thank you just sorry, sorry.
thank you, Councillor Wright's, thank you Chair no, just on just picking up on their workforce conversation, because it is really really important and really central to what we can achieve for children in Wandsworth. I think I've always said that relationships are again one of those guiding principles that that we have got in this department and what's really important to achieving better outcomes in for children. I'm really pleased that we've got we're doing well in terms of recruitment and retention and we've got that stable workforce to be able to build those long term relationships, and you know it does seem that maybe we're managing to buck the trend
at the moment, Tachwedd so yeah, I think it would be maybe nice for this committee to to see some of that work.
on the workforce, and perhaps another paper can be brought brought forward in the in the near
thank you, thank you, everybody, Councillor Owens, thank you just picking up on something Councillor Corner said, and it's about the disadvantaged.
children and in the mid-year update, I just wondered, looking at is if it were not to be expected that.
given the pandemic that perhaps that the reduction there's, obviously there's the the gap between disadvantaged pupils and and their peers has been reduced in the early years Foundation stage. This is the 2023, so of course these children have had a couple of years and they've been right at the beginning of of their school journey, so therefore you know, perhaps you know, that would be back to where we were, whereas you know clearly there'd be there'd been other areas where you know there's been a problem in with phonics and key stage 1, and surely that would be the case because those were the children that were at home during the pandemic and are now sort of finishing year, 2 and ditto with the yoghurt with a key stage, 4 I mean again, those are children that
were perhaps sort of at the beginning of secondary school when it's very difficult and you know it's all and they weren't really having much teaching, so an awful lot of this would be perhaps, to be expected given the pinch points for various age groups throughout the cohort. But just another point on the KPI as you've got 55%, reaching level 5 in both English and maths, and that's a red one. Is that related? I mean you've saying, obviously there was this ambitious target that was set that straddle the promising 2022 results in the pre pandemic results. But of course we know that that baseline obviously says here was reset for GCSE is perhaps it was a bit ambitious that perhaps our children would perhaps achieve as high as we thought thanks. Yeah I, I think we when we look at these targets, we certainly with our research and evaluation unit, and it was a real challenge to know
what to set and when we want, we obviously wanted to be ambitious.
the the thing looking at that, which I'm I'm I'm pleased, that is that actually it's certainly in terms of our progress score at key stage 4 we rates 70 internationally, so I think, although although that is indicators red, I think that's a or an indication of our overall ambition rather than a lack of achievement from from our young people, I think it'll be easier next year to gauge because obviously again that the whole the way that exams were marked changed, so it was very, very challenging to know what appropriate target would be spent
yeah, just also to say, I mean the benchmark actually was 2019, which is what we were, you know, we should be looking at and our improvement on 2019, the 7% look nationally, it was only 2% that actually our children have done very, very well, and I said almost the goalposts were changed, so we weren't to know the full extent of of what the
the marking was going to be and we used 2019, we used the London starts and we use 2022, but 2022 ended up not being a comparable stat that we could do so, as I said it, because the goalposts were changed, it made it more difficult but actually in terms of an outcome when you were when you did look at what we should have compared it to which was 2019 we did a lot lot better, our children then actually those nationally.
well, thank you everybody for all your questions and thank you, Councillor earns for that last question there, that's given us the opportunity to explain and understand why those figures are as the as they are, so this report is for information so I'm asking the Committee to note the report, do we note the report yes?

8 Children's Services Annual Statutory Complaints Report 2022-23 (Paper No. 23-389)

we now move at nearly 5 pounds 10 to the final paper. This is Children's Services. Annual statutory complaints report are is paper number 23 2 3 8 9 and its pages 1 8 9 2 2 2 8, so this report provides an analysis of children's social care complaints received for the period of 1st April 22 to 31st March 23. The report also includes a summary of the learning from complaints and actions taken in 22 to 23 to address themes arriving from arising from our complaints. I think we have Ms Carissa online registered, join us if there are any questions, do we have any questions on this paper? Councillor Lee
yeah, I think obviously, as it's a.
it is a.
statutory, you know we have, we have to have this report, but I do think it's good for us to look at complaints that we've received, I think, working with such vulnerable young people, you know it should be easy for families, children and young people to make complaints or raise concerns with us and the most important thing is is that we we learn from them.
and I think it's also worth pointing out that there's a huge huge decrease decrease of 46% in the complaints we've we've received, but I wanted to ask how how are we we learning from these complaints or is the other any sort of areas of of learning that are emerging from from the complaints we've received and and how that's influencing the council's approach this year?
thank you, thank you, Councillor Lee yeah, that's a good question and so I worked very closely with the principal social worker quality assurance manager, social work, learning and development, lead and head of participation. They invite me to a meeting regularly, it's called a learning loop meeting and at that meeting I take the learning from complaints and the themes and it's triangulated with other quality assurance work that's taking place, for example social care practice reviews, so any practice improvement is being implemented, its further strength strengthened from the additional learning that comes from complaints,
in addition to that, I attend Mr Hendrie's operational management team meeting attendees empties regularly and I take the learning and themes from that I think, going back to your question about what other things coming through the good news is that the learning that comes through from complaints are the things that we expect and they're already things that are being picked up in the services, for example things like delays needed to do things a bit quicker the way that we communicate with parents, for example, making sure that they really understand that the processes they're going through and what the likely outcomes are.
thank you.
any further questions miss her own.
thank you, the Chinnor services has improved since last year based on the number of complaints reduced, which is great congratulations, however SEN education under corporate complaints shows the opposite and actually has gone worse, based on complaints data patient number 221, which is 68% increase compared to last year.
and there is no further information about this data, how many upheld or partially upheld it looks like 6 36 complaints understand education is partially or or upheld, which is 80% of total complaints.
so I'm concerned of sand team when everyone is improving except one department, which is SEN team, what's gone wrong and what are they doing to solve the problem, my expectations, therefore, should be that SEN leadership team should be more proactive, perhaps they need to look what are they look at root causes of ongoing difficulties and also if their team is falling the policies and make sure that their policies is allowing?
with the law, so I look at the ombudsman cases, page number 223 all cases linked to withstand either is education or transport, or so my question is who checks the policies before they became official, does someone from compliance check it, and I have a suggestion if it's possible please can we overview the policies especially links with the SEND education?
thank you, I'll I'll just make a comment about this, which may not be clear, so the second complaints form the corporate complaints report and that there are no comparable corporate complaints report that goes to finance overview and scrutiny committee. So those numbers are included in a statutory report to give a breadth of the complaints that the Children's Services deal with, and I can see that by looking at it it might look alarming but complaints per cent have increased, but that is the national picture. The corporate complaints report, which I would be happy to provide further information on to the committee that gives a lot more detail about some of the really good learning that's been put in place by the same service and also gives more context about some of the difficulties that are causing complaints arise. So, for example, delays in the HSP process that are impacted by difficulties in provision from external organisations, for example, providing therapy support
I don't know if any other colleagues likeness for Federer, you would like to add anything via I I'd like to come in on this one.
I think the increase in SEN complaints doesn't reflect fully the position. Firstly, l we get a lot of complaints that come in which actually should be addressed to schools, as opposed to the local authority, so in terms of the responses that that's provided to parents, we are seeing challenges around therapies and again you know that's a national issue and we're seeing it in Wandsworth as well. So yes, we all recognise there are delays in implementing some of that support that's needed for children as outlined in their plan,
but that is something that we are working with health colleagues again on, but it is a challenge we also receive complaints when actually the route to redress should be the appeals process, so you might you'll see an increase in SEN complaints, but they are few times and we have worked with our colleagues in in corporate complaints about whether they should be accepted as complaints or whether they actually the parents should be advised that actually,
your your route to redress is through appeals, sometimes also we get cases that are in live appeal and we have a complaint come in as well, and actually we shouldn't be addressing them both. So, as I said, I think, with the detail around the complaints that you will get through the corporate complaints report, it will give a lot more detail in terms of that, but one thing I would say in terms of our SEN team they are not only do corporate look at the learning as a service, they look at every single complaint that comes in and they monitor that and look at. Are there any themes that are coming through?
they use those through team meetings to have those conversations with officers, so I'm confident that actually, as a service they do listen to parents and carers and schools in terms of the challenges and they are working together to try and address them.
as an increase, so can we get at least data, how many complaints upheld partially upheld and was the nature of the complaints please?
I can arrange that to the committee.
thank you.
thank you very much for your for your scrutiny, Ms Huron arm, are there any further questions on this paper, no okay again, this report with this report is for information, you and I'm asking the Committee to note the report, do we note the report?
it has this evening.
thank you very much, everyone for attending, and thank you officers for all your time.