Children's Committee - Thursday 8 February 2024, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Children's Committee
Thursday, 8th February 2024 at 7:30pm 

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why does my might keep coming on?
welcome to the meeting this evening, my name is Councillor Sheila Boswell and I am Chair of this children's committee of the children's committee.
on the members of the committee are now going to call your names in alphabetical order, please switch on your microphone to confirm your attendance once you've confirmed your attendance, please remember to switch off your microphone, Councillor Birchall.
good evening, Councillor Corner.
Good evening, Councillor Calverley.
good evening.
Councillor Davies has sent her apologies, Councillor Lee, good evening, Councillor Osborne.
hello, everybody.
Councillor Owens, evening, Councillor Rigby,
hello.
and a special welcome to Councillor Zara Apps, who is new to the Committee, and we are delighted to have her joining us also in attendance as the Cabinet, thank you also in Tendencies the Cabinet Member for Children's Councillor Kate stock.
and then a a welcome to our co opted members, so this evening listener Bella Abou Haroon on her sent apologies, Mr. Anthony Langdon has sent apologies for the lateness on delighted to have Mrs. Arlene Wallsend home here with us.
diocese so that Diocese Board of Education, good evening Church of England and Ms Angela Cox, Catholic Southwark, Archdiocese, joining us on line good evening.
we also have several officers present and they will introduce themselves as they address the Committee.
so good evening, everyone to open this evening's committee, I would like you to invite you to join with the nation in celebrating National apprenticeship Week.
this year the theme is skills for life, highlighting how apprenticeships can help individuals to develop the skills and knowledge to fill their potential, as well as, in addition, how they support employers to develop a workforce with future ready skills so important and so topical in this borough and at the moment key to delivering apprenticeships are our schools.
who have an important role to play in supporting students to make informed career and employment decisions.
despite the enormous challenges they face due to woefully inadequate financial funding from the government, I would like to praise our education leaders for their resilience and doing all they can against such adversity to ensure children's needs are met.
and that they are receiving the information, advice and guidance needed to those next steps into adulthood and the young people's chosen path.
this week is also marking race, equality week and children's mental health week, so I would like to acknowledge the importance of our support services in place for our young people and community, our collective focus, to keep pushing forward the equalities conversation which never stops with our aim to be relentless in promoting diversity and inclusion and improving the way that we support our children and our families, and a special thanks to our health visitors, who right now, are supporting new mothers with their mental health, so important to place to be and to CAMHS,
hey, acronyms, child and adolescent mental health service, our child and adolescent mental health service who are supporting our children in Wandsworth, primary schools and secondary schools and to our jointly run a single point of access for mental health services and treatment across social care and health. And actually Wandsworth has recently expanded its offer with a whole school approach and community offer through place to be for our secondary aged children, and that is delivering interventions, support and counselling for them, and I think that's where they go through the door and they actually meter a youth officer before they meet a GP or a medical person very important. So as a Council we are fully committed to nurturing and developing opportunities for all those who want to broaden their choices and achieve their full potential, which I don't mean. It is of course benefits our community and those we serve. Thank you, I'll now go to I just have to run through this debate and voting will take place as follows, so that the Committee's deliberation and the decision reached is clear to the committee press public anyone 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 only start speaking when you are called on to do so, and please switch the microphone off after speaking for voting and we have three papers this evening will be voting on four papers this evening. As we will be voting on, I will ask for a show of hands or against for or against a motion or for those abstaining. Please keep your hand raised whilst it's counted, and I will announce the result for those watching the meeting.
now, if there is an amendment, if we have an amendment before us this evening, voting will take place on the amendment first on the amendment first, if the amendment falls, we will proceed to vote on the recommendations in the paper and finally I Rimbaud will remind the co opted members before each vote if they are able to vote on a motion or recommendation on and I will before each one but this evening the co opted members can vote on items 4 5 and 6 for 5 and 6, but we will remind you as we go as we go along.
and that brings me to apologies, apologies for absence has been have been received from Councillors R, A Davies from as Nabil Haroon.
Mr. Anthony Langdon for lateness, which I have already said and we have received some comments on from Ms Haroon, who is not able to join us, and I just wanted to say that the comments and her questions will be answered after the Committee and and sent out with the mid minutes and those answers will be shared with the whole committee so that we can take place.
but we didn't want to start a precedent with people not being here and sending in questions which I'm I'm sure you understand, Mr Ryan, if you're watching you will have answers to your questions and they will come with the minutes.
OK, thank you very much, we now come to declarations of interest.

1 Declarations of Interest

are there any declarations of either pecuniary, other vegetable or non vegetable interests, please declare your interest quoting the item and the paper number in which you have the interest in describing the nature of the interest, including whether or not you will be taking part in the item, are there any declarations of interest Councillor Corner,
thank you, I'm a governor of the Wandsworth pupil referral unit.
Councillor Crivelli, I'm a school governor with green meat school that would be relevant for budget finance Aiken Councillor Osborne.
yes, I am chair of the governors of the pupil referral unit, non-registered robo or non-pecuniary, rather, but I I intend to participate, nevertheless, just as long as the people take that interest into account.
Councillor Stock, thank you, I now not a member of the Committee, but I may well get involved in the discussion, and so I just wanted to declare that I am also a governor at Park Albert Primary School.
OK.
is he Anthony Langdon, is also a governor of Ernest Bevin School, I am yes answer.

2 Minutes, 16th November 2023

OK, OK, so now the minutes, so if I got the minutes I can sign them off to the meeting yeah yeah.
OK, thank you, we can now move to the first item.
which is the education performance paper, so that's education performance.
2023 24 paper number 24 to 45 I just have a brief preamble.

3 Education Performance Report 2023-24 (Paper No. 24-45)

wish to welcome this paper, which brings an informed view of our high quality school provision, clearly detailing the impact on pupil performance achievement and beyond.
and this has been made possible by our schools and dedicated education colleagues, and I would like to pay tribute to each of them acknowledging their hard work and dedication, preparing our children for their adult lives and additionally didn't mention this in the introduction also to thank our officers and they should be commended for the support they've provided in helping to achieve our collective ambition for our children and I think Mr. Huff is here and that you're going to give a brief introduction.
thank you Chair, but I think the first thing I want to highlight is that, on the whole pupil outcomes in Wandsworth are extremely positive and this is largely down to the quality of our school leaders, their staff and governors, but we are also fortunate as a council that we've retained positive and constructive relationships with both our maintained schools and are academies and indeed our dioceses and colleagues and we value those relationships highly.
our education advisory teams work extensively across both sectors to promote positive outcomes for pupils', as well as with a wide range of early years providers. There are, however, I'm sure you'll agree few surprises in the paper and there does remain work to do, in particular across disproportionality. Some underperforms of some groups and outcomes at key stage 5, although I, I will give a caveat there, because I will possibly argue that we've been a little bit too absorbed in the wrong indicators at key stage 5. I hope that this paper set out in a clear way, some of the initiatives we are undertaking to tackle these issues, and I would highlight in particular the work of our curriculum and equalities, adviser, Connan Murray, and I am pleased to say, has joined us this evening.
Carlos worked with over 60 of our schools, providing support and challenge organised to III conferences and establish an equalities leads network, this is a role we're progressing to make permanent, which further demonstrates our commitment to this work and recognises the significant impact she has already had.
I would also like to draw attention to, I think, attendance initiative which has a focus on a genuinely multi agency approach to improving school attendance.
and lastly, our establishment of an effective key stage 5 network, which has afforded a helpful forum for sixth form, leads to come together and look at the needs of ones where pupils' as a whole, and you may remember from our past paper that we've recently appointed a a key stage 5 specialist travelling advisory team who has worked closely with our research and evaluation unit to inform that work and would welcome any questions.
I thank you very much and Mr Hove, I'm going to take the liberty of asking the first question actually from from the Chair and yeah. Thank thank you very much and I it really is a good news story, but I wanted to ask about apprenticeships. Nationally, apprenticeship starts have dropped year on year and in 22 23 day, with 3% less, I think, nationally than the previous year. So what are we doing in Wandsworth to support young people to consider apprenticeships as a viable route into employment and, more importantly, ensure that all have suitable education, employment and training opportunities on? So I think the first thing I'd want to just refer to, as is our very high take-up of sixth form places and
for a journey into university, and I think so, but the figures have got to be taken in the context of that. However, I think there is more that schools can do to become aware of apprenticeship routes and, as you rightly pointed out in the introduction to this National apprenticeship week, some of you may be aware that there was an event held earlier this week, which was co-ordinated by colleagues in lifelong learning, and they had invited pupils from Graveney and South Fields to come, and actually some of those pupils' came with parents as well. He wanted to find out more about what was going on
I'm just gonna, give you a bit of feedback from one of the teachers actually said who said our students were full of enthusiasm as they headed back to school after the event was really bad valuable for them to have an opportunity to speak to the young apprentices that you have working at the Council, and I'm sure that some of them will be inspired to search the Council website for opportunities they can apply for, so I think the first thing was which is really powerful was using existing apprentices here because that's my colleagues Santino heads up. Lifelong learning was clear that they listened much more to the apprentices themselves than they did to our officers, but I don't think that's a reflection of the officers.
I also I think I would reference that there was a recent roundtable conversation about apprenticeships and I believe a future paper will be coming to committee about that.
but I think the discussion covered in particular the need for it for an apprenticeship Plus approach encompassing internships, work experiences and skills training, and also I think it's worth pointing out that there's some excellent work already being done by the virtual school who have an apprentice in the in the Council and have for care leavers who are now in full-time jobs or are as a result of that so I think yes, there is work that we are still doing with schools but I think as a Council ourselves we are,
taking, or are making a real effort to set a really good example and a one one as well, pulling schools into that whole process as well, as evidenced by Tuesday's event.
thank you, thank you very much and delighted to hear we have an apprentice from on the the virtual school, that's that's wonderful.
Councillor Stock. Thank you, thank you, Chair, I just wanted to come in as I attend books. This is terrible, but I just want to give you because I was lucky enough to attend the event on Tuesday celebrating National apprenticeship Week and it really was an amazing event, and I really paid tribute to the members of staff who organised it both from lifelong learning and are an organisation development department, and I they put a lot of hard work into inviting children of pupils from Southfields or Graveney, as you said, Ms Tuffin, to into this room right here, which was probably a moment for themselves or the young people
and I know they took a lot from speaking to our apprentices and our apprentices really shine a light on the amazing work that they can do and what they can bring to an organisation it was really heartening, I understand, from a staff that actually a lot of young people are really really interested in coming to work for As in local government and that's really heartening to me they want to come in and serve their own local communities and yet just to endorse as well he said around that kind of,
apprenticeship plus approach. I think we've got a really great scheme here in Wandsworth already again, led by lifelong learning, using our charity best business and education, succeeding together on a number of our secondary schools. Get involved in that, and I've been really pleased to visit secondary schools and and hand out awards for young people who've got involved in a lot of those schemes, and again I think that's a really good opportunity to encourage more young people that are secondary schools to get involved in in that scheme, and I also know him really and delighted to hear about the work of our care leaver apprentices across the council, and I hope that we'll see more of those and I know that we're working really hard and I know they themselves in areas such a procurement are trying to make sure in everything that the Council does, including its contracting. We're really trying to make sure that we're getting every opportunity that we can for our care, experienced children, so just to pay tribute to them and their work as well. Thank you, thank you, Councillor stock, any more questions, Councillor Osborne, then Councillor Corner and I can see Councillor Burt, children on the Owens right. Thank you
thank you Chair.
the fact is, there has been an increase in the number of suspensions and exclusions in our system.
and I want to ask a question about that, but I think it's important to add some preamble and put it to put the question in into context, I do recognise that.
we compare very well with the national statistics on suspensions and exclusions and, in fact.
one of the pupil referral unit sites Victoria Drive.
it has particularly good figures at their combination of the deployment of teaching skills and the fabric of the place, the the the way the building is, it is CA, is structured and constantly run, and so on, this all comes together, I in a a a a a very effective way so much so that the Department for Education,
the pinpoints Victoria Drive our Victoria Drive as an exemplar school, and all this so yeah, I think our record is good, but nevertheless there has been an increase is being are being arise, and so I think it's important to to ask and or and to identify.
how will we addressing that increase and they are, and especially what are we doing, to make sure that the the the teachers who deal with this are are properly supported and they can meet, they can meet these complex needs that the that they now face as a team.
or in our borough.
so I'm really pleased, Councillor Osborne, that you made the point that we do compare favourably nationally because, and we're an and in terms of London because I am sometimes frustrated.
the slightly sensationalist approach of some of the local press, which might give it a different impression, but you are right, they are, they are greater than they have been, but they are starting from a far lower baseline and rising at a much lower rate, and I think that is in part due to on the whole extremely inclusive heads who understand the impact that exclusion and now we have an amendment, leisure suspension of what were fixed-term exclusions, but I think also there has been a greater increase in our inclusion teams and our outreach teams and of course the
Work of
colleagues in the Wandsworth Autumn has Advisory Service and I'm really pleased that you make reference to the prose.
and I am pleased that we have to members of the governing board, one of whom is the Chair on on the Committee, because I think that's that's very powerful.
you are right, the work that Victoria Drive is is extremely highly valued both by the families that work with or for the organisation, but also the heads themselves, because they provide a combination of outreach, work of work on site, and they are also helped by a multi-agency process or approach to having members of CAMHS who worked as part of their teams and a play therapist.
I would also say that the secondary PRU it's a different set of issues which presents with adolescence so so whilst I absolutely applaud and recognise Victoria Drive and Primary 0 permanent exclusions, and I think we do also need to recognise that on the whole our secondary heads are working with some very challenging children and doing their best to manage them in an inclusive manner and I want also and this wasn't a set-up, I promise you I do want to
just tell you about an e-mail which I got.
a couple of weeks ago, which was from a pupil, I'll read it out some kind of self-explanatory, it says Hello, I attended Frances Barber which the secondary PRU in 2014 after being permanently excluded from secondary school I'm now halfway through a medical school with a batch of science, I wondered if I could be of any support to the students there thanks.
and I think what's key in that is that our secondary PRU works very hard with other mainstream secondary schools to ensure that young people where it's appropriate can go back into mainstream schools and have another opportunity where that's not necessarily possible. We have smaller smaller classes and again the secondary PRU have CAMHS on site. I think also it is closely linked with the issue of disproportionality, both in terms of disadvantaged Sen or ethnicity, and a lot of the work that my colleague Carla and the School Advisory Team have been doing. There's been around the notion of belonging and how important that is that young people feel that they are actually part of their community and that comes from the curriculum itself it comes from displays. It comes from the behaviour of staff
and it is also, of course, linked to attendance, and it's no surprise that poor attendance is the single biggest indicator of under achievement, so I think it is a complex picture, I think there has been, as I said, investment in Greater inclusion services.
and we also have taken on extra education welfare officer who works specifically with our non traded schools, looking at children who have severe attendance to give them advice and guidance on how they can approach some of those pupils, so I think there has been an increase, but I think that's reflective of the more complex needs that are coming through in schools and obviously schools are under financial pressure which is clear from,
all other papers, and they have to be even more prudent than usual about the how they use their resources, so I think it's a combination of all of those things, so it's a complex picture.
Councillor Corner, thank you Chair, I'd like to start off by just paying tribute to all of the officers and teachers and staff at all the schools in Wandsworth, who have clearly done an excellent job at keeping standards high in the borough, so hats off to them.
and long may it continue. I wanted to just focus on some of the areas that have been identified for improvement, though I'll come on to Key stage 5, but I'm because we're discussing attendance and exclusion and inclusion and exclusions at the moment. I just wanted to ask a question about that for fundamentally I I would have to say that you know I was a bit disappointed by the media coverage as well, because actually I think it's a positive thing to have
exclusion as an option of last resort available to teachers, because the alternative is to simply keep disruptive children in mainstream classrooms, which is bad for those children in question and bad for everyone else in the in the classroom as well, and including the the teachers and the staff who have to put up with misbehavior. So we shouldn't be afraid of taking that difficult decision when it's absolutely necessary and, as Councillor Osborne correctly says, when children are excluded in that difficult decision is taken, it's not about saying or you know, no one is going to look after many more, it's about us throwing our arms around them and supporting these children in alternative settings so that they can succeed. I'm delighted with the evidence and the feedback that's been received to say that that can happen so
I would urge all Councillors and officers to to kind of bear that kind of positioning in mind when we're considering exclusions, I was interested to hear that the Mayor of London has announced the London inclusion charter and I think this was referenced in the administration's manifesto as well and five Wandsworth schools are taking part in that. Could I just get an update for the Committee on what that is what it looks like and what success looks like in the minds of the administration.
can I just come in at that point, the the five, the reference to the five schools is about the research which has gone into the inclusion charter rather than rather than them signing up to the inclusion charities, including Shelter, was actually launched on Tuesday.
and the one of the key things which I think we are really keen to promote is the fact that there has also been a pledge to fully fund involvement with the rights suspecting rights, suspected rights respecting award in schools, and that's something we'll certainly be encouraging our schools to take up and also sign up to the inclusion charter again the charter it is broad. It was done with consultation with 4,000 young people as well as professionals, and those were the five schools that we were asked to put together a range of schools with academies approved and maintained schools to take part in that which which was just surveys really in getting pupils voice.
the charter, broadly speaking, is about it, it's more than just about inclusion in terms of avoiding exclusion, it's also about participation, so looking at the opportunities that young people have, for instance, for school trips, about the opportunity to get involved in school councils to have a voice to be part of a a processes of democratic process,
and yeah yeah, you may be aware I mean Wandsworth when we have signed up to it, we, we absolutely agree with the principles of it and I think the VAR you have been clear as well that this is a starting point for schools to really draw up what they feel are their own chances, that it's a kind of benchmark starting point for them, so I hope that gives a bit of context.
very quickly,
well, the research it is.
if it's on the value website, it was carried out by the University of Bath, it's called forgive me, I can't remember full name of it's called belonging and.
two other words which which escaped me at the moment and again I'd I don't think there are any particular surprises, it is about the importance of belonging, it's about the impact that exclusion has on young people and I think the key words he used Councillor Corner is absolutely necessary and there is an acknowledgment that in in the Charter itself that it is not promoting
0
a Zero exclusion policy, but obviously that that is the aspiration because if we can keep young people included, and that's why I think the the work that Councillor Osborne referenced earlier about Victoria Drive where all of the young people are worked with on a dual registration basis and go back to their mainstream schools, I think that that is a really powerful model if you can do that, obviously it is more challenging at secondary but but we do do a lot of outreach into your registration work at secondary as one
thank you, Councillor Owens, and then I've got Councillor Rigby Councillor Lee Councillor Abs
thank you.
no, thank you, Councillor Boswell.
I just had to have a couple of questions around Key stage 5, which is obviously we've had our attention drawn to in the report, and obviously you know other borrowers tend to have him you know, in my experience far more, for example, be tech at Key stage 5 and I obviously understand the T levels but I think it was reported in the past about Chestnut Grove and Barnwood showing and doing some work around that.
I was, I was wondering, is, is that part of the reason is that we don't have the the vocational subjects and at the same time it struck me with him and my children attended a once with the state secondary with a lot of academic, A levels, one of the things that struck me with children that have come in, and this has been brought up in the report. How you have children that are perhaps may be coming from out of borough, so you can't necessarily control the results you can at 16, but maybe not at 18 then, because of the pandemic, children that perhaps we're getting GCSE is perhaps that they may not have got and have struggled even within my own children's academy, or you know, and they haven't even taken the A levels, so you've ended up with situations where children have maybe only done one year and not taken any level, and I was wondering to what extent
how you work with the academies because obviously you have your schools, but this is clearly a problem because the the children themselves are disadvantaged, and this will continue, because obviously you know edibles are going back to the way there'd be ma mark before the pandemic and and we need a more of a focus, perhaps one less as academic subjects thank you.
as you may be aware, we have sort of wrestled with this conundrum as to why our key stage 5 outcomes are not as strong as our early earlier key stage outcomes and and we kind of think, will widen or fall off a cliff to use a phrase not entirely adequate.
and it just appears counterintuitive that a key stage 5, suddenly the teaching and learning becomes worse, and I I don't think that that is the case and as I referenced at the outset, are our key stage 5 advice from the are you have been looking really carefully at the data that sits behind this to try and work out why it isn't and I think the key points to consider that first of all all of our secondary schools all but one of which are academies have sixth forms, which is quite unusual.
and secondly, children Wandsworth are much more likely to stay on in the school sixth form, so that 75%, rather than other London boroughs, where it's approximately 50% plus, will stay where they are.
and we, which are, as I say, from the paper, you'll see, it ranks second nationally, so that is a significant or outlier in that sense, so arguably are sixth forms and our schools are much more inclusive than elsewhere because it seems that that children do want to stay on, but of course one of the implications of this are as obvious as you've referenced, Councillor Harrand, since the implications is that there are children with lower outcomes, doing some of the work, what we consider more academic courses and therefore that are less likely to have our outcomes are higher outcomes, which is why our average point score is looks worse and and that's not surprising. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing because I think that's a measure that, as I say, we've possibly been too absorbed in the past
and what are our EU colleagues I have been looking at is that?
if we look at the average.
sorry, the value added score it's roundabout where it should be given the young people who are coming in, which again indicates that this is an issue.
particularly with RE teaching and learning. But I think if we looked at the indicators, I think we should really significant to look at our. Firstly, that is achieving Level 3 by 19, we were ranked 29th nationally, which again indicates that these are young people who are getting level 3 qualifications, regardless of the outcomes which might then beg the question. What use of those outcomes for young people? Are they the right things, but then I give you one or another statistic apologies, which is that we ranked 12 for UK higher education admissions, which would seem to indicate that that this is clearly something is going right, and actually I think we should celebrate that it does offer a greater questionnaire which again I think you reference, which is is the offer across our sixth forms as good as it can be given the pupil cohort that we are the bit that we are seeing within there, and I think there is more that we can do and we have been working as a network with are, as you say, academies, so I don't have to sit round the table, but actually they do, and I think that's testament to the advisory service,
and and help us map out where what are the courses that really mean that our young people need and, as you say, Burton Wood were the first of our schools to introduce T levels Chestnut Grove? I know thought about it long and hard and weren't quite sure, but actually in September 24 they will be introducing T levels, so there is an acknowledgment. I think that there does need to be a breadth of curriculum and we are getting the schools around the table and and having that conversation because ultimately yes, it is competitive and there is funding implications for schools, but I think
I genuinely think our head teachers want what's best for young people as well, and I think if we look at that in level 3 at 19 and the amount of children going into higher education, and I think it's it's not as dire as possibly we've been guilty of thinking in the past.
thank you, Councillor Lee, did you have a question?
sorry high, so my question is very specific, and it's Lincoln up one of my longest pieces of casework as a councillor.
so it's on the suspensions and exclusions, so I'm not at all surprised that the the group most disproportionately impacted by high exclusion rates suspension rates is the Gypsy Roma community, so Wandsworth has a very long and rich heritage of Gypsy Roma.
when I was a councillor in Elsfield,
I undertook the longest piece of casework with that community there there were several things going on one, somebody had decided to put an industrial recycling plant right over the homes that had led to levels of pollution that were of the scale, and I think there is a court case going on about that.
the conditions at the site were horrific, and for some reason, when I found out the grant was available from the mare to redo, it somehow it was being blocked, that was when I was in opposition, I know that has changed and the council is going, but there has been a period of very long hostility in previous under the previous administration towards this community, and so I would urge you to speak to colleagues in housing to see what is happening there because it will be having an impact on these children. I can't tell you how bad the conditions were
and also I would urge you to speak to the London Gypsy Roma Traveller charity, who do incredible work in helping I'm just flagging that there is a specific issue in Wandsworth with how this community has been treated, and so I'm not at all surprised to see this piece of data.
yeah, I would give the caveat I know, and I don't disagree with what you're saying in terms of.
that?
cohort's being you know.
being marginalised. However, and it's a really interesting point which has been raised, it was raised at the launch of the inclusion Charter. Interestingly and also we had a colleague from who who does some anti racism work for the Church of England actually know nationwide and they made the same point is that are actually our our our recorded Gypsy Roma cohort in schools is very, very low. That doesn't mean there isn't a significant number of them, it's the fact that they're not disclosing ethnicity because of the concern about what prejudice they might
encounter soap, so we are aware of that actually, but it is, I just give a caveat that those particular figures are because that cohort, as as recorded is very, very small, but I take your point.
thank you and, Mr Langdon, I think I saw your mood.
thank you Chair, it's a question going back to the
the
drop in performance on key stage 5, probably towards Mr half, please is there a piece of work in place across the BOA that actually informs our children finishing key stage 4 about the options?
in terms of their next steps, so that they are not necessarily sticking in the secondary school but are looking around to find the best fit.
offering advice about Wednesday.
thank you, that is, and that is something which Ofsted look at in every inspection as well, so schools are possibly shouldn't be, just as Ofsted were looking at it, but schools are particularly aware of we we, we do also get advice from an outside agency and actually we've just reintroduced.
the forum whereby careers advisers come together, which is facilitated by the local authority, to ensure that that advice and guidance is fully given not only by the schools themselves, also by third parties. Interestingly, one of our academies have been quite difficult to engage historically have just got in touch with us and said actually we'd really like your post 16 team to come in and speak to our year, 11 cohort, so they are clear about what the what the avenues are. So actually I was really heartened by that, because that indicates to me that that schools are they're not just protecting their own, they are genuinely looking to see that that that people do have the full range of options that they they do understand that
yeah yeah.
and Councillor Calverley.
yeah, I just wanted to ask Councillor Grayshon about attendance in another one about suspensions are you, you've talks at first infamously I?
obviously we are actually doing very well with attendance from quiet quite nationally, and it's not. The rates are or are quite high, but we've talked about all of the issues that we're trying to do to address a commonly cited reasons, mental health, complex family situations and send issues, but on the thing about longer holidays, I I, I'd be interested to know what we were doing to try and tackle the parents who were taking their kids out of school because the were trying to take advantage of a holiday that would say, for example, would be cheaper than one at term-time or see, for example, those ones who are taking extended family, who are families or because they're gonna see extended family abroad. I know that penalty notices and that are the local authority's disposal, but by and large I don't think they have very much impact. That's that's the question I wanted to ask you about what can we do to to try and tackle that issue?
the second point about the suspensions and the exclusions. I think you may have produced this information before at 1.00 stage, but it would be interesting for us, I think, to have a breakdown of the reasons as to why these pupil groups were. The most common denominators are amongst the the the the the groups so that we could perhaps dig down a bit further into why it is the see. For example, particular pupils' are being or it is suspended or excluded from school more so than than other groups and might be helped
thank thank you if I take the the issue of penalty notices at first.
it's actually we are dependent on the schools requesting that we start legal action with the family, so it's for the school to request it from us and we will only take that forward if we feel that they have done enough casework to justify its taken its court and the issue with holidays again it's at the discretion of the headteacher to to request that and we will, we will go forward with that unless I I believe the test is whether it's if it's not in the public interest.
so you know with with schools, there are a number of schools who have arguably more affluent population, where this is clearly an issue and we have issued a number of penalty notice with those schools there are others where.
we feel that possibly head teachers are a little bit.
a little bit lenient in granting not not holiday time off, but authorising absence, and so in some schools, with our education model, welfare officers have again have looked through those young people and had the discussion about will you know what is going on here? Why is that authorised and am doing need to be more robust with that one and again, I think the the the statistic about the attendance and the direct correlation between attendance non-performance, and it's not surprising, and I think it's such a powerful one that you know that and also I would come in about
I think attendance approach is fundamentally about, could you just introduce yourself apologies only spent early the Assistant Director for Education?
thank you for me, is thinking about families and our relational approach, and I think part of that is that conversation as Andy said, that schools have with families about the impact of taking children out. You know we appreciate why they might do it, but actually we recognise that taking children out of school missing lessons well known fact that if a child misses the first 10 minutes of a lesson, that's huge in terms of their level of knowledge and understanding, so you can imagine taking a child out for a week. It's got a significant impact in terms of gaps in their learning, their knowledge. So for me this is about that relationship that schools have with families to really understand why doing that is going to have such a significant impact on children and their learning
Q, I think Councillor Corner had a question.
yes and again, we we have our social evaluation unit does give that breakdown. I don't have details of me now, but I mean looking at that. It is generally because again we are always interested as to as to what is behind these. Very often I mean some of the most common issues. Are our violence towards other young people is common and also either threatening or abusive language to staff. Unfortunately, we do still have the persistent disruptive behaviour which is a little bit of a get out, which is frustrating because I think yet again, I think the being able to look at those figures and drill down with schools is indeed quite valuable, but
yeah, probably the most common are, and I think I've become more common over the last four or five years, is this that violence is actually physical violence towards them, and particularly other young people?
thank you, Ms federally, did you want to come in or could you turn your microphone off?
thank you very much, Councillor Corner, I think you had the next question.
yeah, thank thank you, just one really about key stage 5 again related to attainment, so we hear a page 11 pupils' Yankee day for really strong outcomes, I think progress 8 17th in the country must be pretty similar for attainment, I would have thought,
and we are really good at.
getting young people into higher education, and that's that that that's the real positive, but I think just drilling down into this could more be done about the the at the very highest end of attainment we see.
people leaving sixth form, with three A or more A stars to a level where national ranked 91st, that's pretty low when, when the bottom half of the country and really is a borough with very high levels of social mobility, I would be concerned that that might that might fall over the next few years with we've continued.
data like that, so we've spoken a lot about apprenticeships and appreciate the work there, but I think there needs to be a lot more work done at the higher highest end of academic attainment at getting children into the best universities raising expectations.
beyond our key stage 4, making sure that teachers are driving home, the importance of going you know aiming for the very top, so I just really wanted to get a reflections on that from officers, they're that perspective and one from the administration.
and if, if I may start off on that, I think one of the issues that we need to take into account is it which I refer back to earlier is whether the right young people are taking the right courses we have.
and and this is part of the research, the ongoing socials are you doing when we have a number of young people who take sciences, for instance, who who probably shouldn't be taking science in terms of if, if you're gonna get a or a really I'd like an A or A B and I think that's something that we need to address but there's also quite a strong cultural issue in terms of that with with parental expectations of of of young people and what,
subjects they take. I think that there is always more that we can do, and I think it has only been over the last. I said just pre COVID when we have really re-engage with a meaningful sixth form network, and I think key to that was taking on a a really experienced former secondary head who ran an outstanding school for many, many years with an outstanding sixth form, and that's been really valuable in terms of the insight that that can give us, and also the credibility of bringing together those heads of sixth to really think about what we can do differently. So I absolutely agree I did, and I think there is more that we can do. There are some clear factors behind the figures which I think it's important to be aware of that. Yeah, we can
Councillor stock.
yeah, I don't just come in clearly the whole of the stage 5 is a really important focus for us and we're working very closely with teachers across our secondary schools deliver this one and absolutely we are ambitious for our children, whether it's about achieving those top universities going to university at all the 12th in the country but also looking like Mr Langham pointed out earlier making sure that all of our children at 16 really understand what all of their options are so that they can make those decisions to make sure they can go on to a successful life that's appropriate for them.
thank you, Ms Fenner, rarely did you want to come in on our Councillor Birchall I think you had a question.
I even suggest equipment.
going back to exclusions.
it's obviously we don't want our children to be excluded from school, but if they then end up in the PRU and have this amazing health, it can't necessarily be a bad thing, but some some of these children obviously do have pretty severe problems when they are describing what.
has sent them to the PRU, do any of them then move on to somewhere like Nightingale School?
rather than going back into mainstream.
yeah, so I I am sure that when we are surprised that a number of young people who turned up at the PRU have an identified special needs and and often speech and language
difficulties which haven't necessarily been picked up or have been interpreted as poor behaviour rather than actually need. So a number of the young people who do go to the PRU will be assessed and will have the opportunity to meet with an educational psychologist and may end up with a or a statement of SEN statements. Special needs and education, health and care plan, and there are some children who will go to Nightingale we try, as far as possible, to reintegrate young people to mainstream school that often becomes more difficult the older they get, so by the time they get to this stage in year 10, it becomes quite a challenge, which is why the PRU has worked hard to ensure that it has a credible GCSE offer. But the young person I referred to earlier we managed to reintegrate that young person, I think in year 9, so they were able to start their GCSE from scratch and in in a mainstream school, but yesterday there are many young people who who go to the PRU, have an unmet nr, and often are unidentified special educational needs, the smaller environment there,
gives the opportunity for, and I'm offered him to have the kind of relationships they just haven't had the opportunity to have at mainstream school, and I think that's key as well in terms of building self-esteem trust again and and often they come from chaotic home lives which which doesn't help either. I think also I mean I haven't mentioned that one and I I think I've it's worth pointing out that because we're talking about the secondary career in particular that we do also have
the 5 million pounds from the DfT to redevelop the site in Tooting which, again, I think is really to be valued, because you know these are our most vulnerable young people and I think it's only right that they have really really high quality environment because, as we know, environment in terms of schools it is absolutely crucial to that again that sense of belonging a sense of worth so I really,
flawed that the fact that that redevelopment will be going ahead.
thank you on Councillor Rigby and then cancelling it, and then I think we're probably drawing to a close going back to the year the long holidays, because when my kids were a primary school there was a lot of cheeky skiing trips happening out of holidays, it's not so much about what that child who's gone off, scan or wherever it's what the impact is to the rest of the class because the extra family then expects their kid to be brought back up to where everyone else's.
and I know it, the the had used to turn a massive blind eye because those parents were big PTA mums, so it was like 0, it's OK.
is, though, is there a way of having a public list of schools that are doing this more because it disadvantages, say this, 30 kids in the class, it's 29 kids that are falling behind because they come back with a very different vibe to the rest of them, who've been light heads down for a week and they're bouncing back from a holiday, so I I know the impact it's made to them and I know it it happens a lot more than we talk about
yeah, I mean I, I don't believe we have a record of for a public record of where those schools were, whether there are more.
holiday, so I mean obviously it's something we work with schools to try and avoid because you're right that it is disruptive not only to the young people who go on holiday but also to the other class because the teacher no-one has to to help catch up but I think are the cohort across our school our schools vary so widely that it's you know it's very difficult to to say and as I said I don't think that's that's a matter of public record.
very quickly, I know Councillor Lee is next Councillor Kunar.
Councillor Lee
man was just a quick, quick question, which is that the young person he talked about I thought that was obviously all of us were touched by that one, and I wonder whether we could extend an invitation to invite them that person into to the committee and to meet with us all because obviously they would have a sort of invaluable insight which which we would all benefit from.
I am very happy to ask.
Councillor Corner for thank you is very quick one to build on Councillor Rigby's important point, I think it would be really good to given the the new responsibilities we have on attendance and be the issue with attendance in general nationally and the focus on that it'd be good to have a deep dive into attendance and have a report on attendance brought to Committee so that we can understand the underlying trends and what what the Council can do about that and just get a bit deeper into it.
thank you very much, can I come in earlier, just to say we've just recently had a DFC deep dive into attendance literally last week?
and that was in relation to our self-assessment around the new, the guidance, working together to improve attendance, which isn't statutory yet, however, actually we have almost taken as a council as if it were statutory, because we are already working fully against most of the criteria.
and I've had suggested actually that the next Committee, we actually bring that the report from from the D F, A adviser that attended to this committee with our self-assessment and also the areas that they have identified for further development and, to be honest, there wasn't very many, and actually they said we under graded ourselves and that we should be green in most areas which was really really pleasing for us, but there was a few areas identified for us to consider the development and obviously we will look at those as a group of officers are more than happy to obviously bring that back, so that you can actually see the content of that lovely. I think Councillor Apps wanted to ask a question and then Councillor Stowe well just related to that really, and I know that this is something you're gonna come on to later on in the meeting chair, but
perhaps Councillor Corner, we are looking at how we can do deeper, more interesting dives into different areas and looking at services and the impact that that we can have by having a closer look at some aspects of service, so perhaps that's something Councillor Corner might like to suggest when we have those discussions later down the line.
thank you very much, Councillor Alex Kerr, Councillor stock, I just wanted to come in to say that attendance is definitely or are a real focus for us, and I think it would be good for other members of this committee or members of this Committee to see that in some more detail either in this form in a meeting like this or as Sarah upstairs as Councillor upstairs sorry and at some type of separate working group of were considering different ways of scrutiny across the Council.
yes, Councillor Owens, and then I think we will, because we had nearly an hour on this paper, which is going to good scrutiny, I'd just be brave and I'd be fascinated on attendance, particularly with the school refuses, obviously, or as a cohort, they have grown dramatically since the pandemic. I noticed that my own children's primary school that prior to the pandemic you had a situation we still had sort of school refuses to say
in 2019 18, and in those days teaching assistants would go in to the individual child's house and perhaps bring the child to school, which helped now obviously you know, pandemic meant that people weren't so we were having contact with, we were with other people that doesn't seem to be the case and I wonder if there's a piece there for schools in terms of you know being involved in going round to collect the child as they used to.
we do have an excellent education welfare service traded service which will add the gold package, will provide exactly that, but schools, they have to decide themselves whether they wish to to to do that, and schools will have an allocated attendance officer, and now part of the new guidance is that every school has to have an explicit attendance policy.
I mean, you know, you're right the that the absolute what is, I think, has grown following the pandemic, and I think that's a reflection of the impact of the mental health, but I think again that that work on belonging and inclusion is absolutely crucial to that whole element of it is not a cure all but I think again schools looking at their curriculum is the curriculum engaging for all of their young people to the resources reflect those young people.
the displays welcoming are the staff welcoming. I think all of us, it is so interlinked and, and it's absolutely essential and the work that my colleagues have been doing on that one is absolutely crucial and I think Mr Bono, more antennae, I just wanted to extend the offer to Councillors to come to any of the EDHR workshops and conferences that were running and Carla does have a superb job. The discussions are very deep, they're very emotional and we go to places that perhaps we haven't been to before and issues around inclusion and belonging and looking at ourselves are now very, very powerful and at the forefront of our work, and I see at the beginning of this paper on page 4, we've got the equality impact and assessment statement, so I think you know we would want to welcome you to come and participate in any of those meetings. Thank you very much. I think that's a very nice way on to wrap this up and on perhaps I could go with the minutes, the details about that, how the how the councillors could and could do that. Thank you very much, Mr. Hofer, all of that information and handling all those some questions. We've really had excellent scrutiny so we can go sorry, this report is for information. We're not voting on this paper, it's for information, so

4 Schools' Finance Budget Allocations 2024-25 (Paper No. 24-46)

that's agreed, thank you to note the report so we can go on to Item 4, this is the schools Finance budget allocations 24 25 papers number 24 to 40 6. I have a very short preamble and then I'll hand over to Mr Halleck
I wish to thank our education partners, who have done a lot of work in the context of the schools Forum, which Ms Haroon is a member of she's not with us this evening to consider the settlement for 24 25 and whilst what this means to individual schools in Wandsworth and I'd like to commend the work that officers have done to maximise the resources and support for our schools current to continue to promote quality of education in our entire school system. This has not been an easy task in a tough financial climate for all, Mr Halliche,
thank you, Chair and evening all.
this paper outlines both the schools funding settlement for our once worth state-funded mainstream schools for next financial year, as well as the high needs and earliest settlements for our SEND and nursery provisions respectively.
once we have still uses the local.
funding formula to distribute nationally received funding to our local mainstream schools. Our local funding formula is, however, now a hybrid of the national funding formula and the local funding formula, as we are now required to move 10% closer to the national formula. Each year. Schools Forum have been pro, are quite protective of our local ones with formula, because the national former funder has the impact that one's worth in Wandsworth that it mirrors money from primary schools into secondary schools. At a time when primary schools are still hardest hit by falling rolls, the current micro and macroeconomic environment are incredibly challenging. High inflation is not easy for councils, nor schools to deal with increased costs have to be dealt with through efficiencies, reduced services or increased income
there's dysfunctional social care market and the unsustainable sense system by the DfE's own admission, coupled with the challenges of changing demographic trends, cannot be understated. In fact, not enough consideration is given to the changes in democratic trends by decision makers. What this means for the economy, public sector services and, yes, our local schools now in the short term, in the medium term, and especially in the longer term, and I go on about Japan, but Japan is one is the evidence of a modern economy or modern society that is dealing with extremely low birth rates and an ever-growing ageing population. This has been the case for over 30 years now and has only got worse, not better. This is a bad omen to any of those decision makers thinking that Kabul couples will decide to have more children sometime in the future and all will turn around
five to seven years ago, the Chinese economic machine was all the rage it was in the financial news outlets, and that's all they could talk about. Five years later, the population has peaked and the average industrial work is nearly 50 years old. It has hit on a democratic wall that is always going to happen, but was a surprise to many. China has a very low probability of growing in the future, like it did in the last 20 years, the only chances automation and AI replacing individual workers. These trends have huge implications for resource allocation in the UK
as I said when presenting the children's services general fund paper a few Committees ago, they were going to be tough decisions to make as to where resources are allocated and how much debt how much can be debt financed. Currently, nearly 10% of pre borrowing budget goes to interest payments, this will come down with falling inflation and lowering interest rates, however, however, if the current rate was to continue some analysts predict debt servicing costs at 50% of budget by 2 of 2050.
just to sustain increased demand alone, huge proportions of new revenue will have to flow into pensions, NHS, and adult social care this demand will be unrelenting for years to come.
how this impacts schools, while choices have to be made this year, financial year, 2023 24, has been a good settlement overall mainstream funding increased 5%, even after changes in per pupil in pupil numbers are taken into account at 5%. This has covered most school inflation pressures. Besides support staff salaries that increased by over 8%, a high needs settlement of 10% really did help to ensure our SEN system could be supported, while we tried to recover our overall DSG deficit.
Even with that funding settlement, it has been an unbelievably challenging year, not just for schools, but for our council services supporting schools, this is mostly due to dealing with falling rolls, resulting in some schools, having harmful classes was to require full staffing levels and the challenging social care, nursery, school and SEN systems I would be remiss if I did not take this chance to thank my team for all their efforts over the last year for many it has been one of the most challenging years in their career.
the teams have gone over and above in working in partnership with head teachers and ESPN to support the school community, and the result is that we have some of the lowest numbers of state-funded mainstream schools in deficit in the country.
schools, especially primary schools, because of their size, are not specialist financial management centres, we really do aim to provide that extra support tools and experience expertise through our espn academy, we aim to develop skilled espn's for the future.
that brings me to next year and the figures in this paper was, while some internal Council pressures are thawing good funding settlements and falling inflation, it is the first time in over all the period I could find records for that once was overall schools block funding has decreased in nominal terms school specific inflation has been consistently higher than core inflation for a number of years now, even if a 4% inflation and a slightly never negative funding settlement is a negative 4% in real terms.
at 3.00.4% settlement in the high needs block is unlikely to cover the prior year's overspend in Wandsworth, let alone any new demand and pricing pressures.
the good news is that the earliest settlement will see rates for 2 year olds provision increased by 30% and 3 and 4 year olds up nearly 6% which, alongside the changes in naff, nursery staffing ratios, will make the financial viability of having two year old provision in particular far more attractive final earlier rates needed to be agreed within by schools Forum, which is why they are not individually included here there's only the broad figures we are going to have to work even harder with schools. 59% of all schools in Wandsworth appendix 1 will see a fall in revenue next year, our schools have strong reserves and on the whole,
can sustain short term pressures on maintaining schools. Our reserves are just over 13 million, and when academies are included, this increases to 40 million the average primary school has reserves of about an average of 200,000. Some will need to use 50%, or more of that to balance their budgets. Next year some will be able to mitigate losses in income by moving from two forms to one form of entry
you have to start at reception, but in India classes could be a 34 35 that comes down to 30 and you can have one teacher one and support staff, some will have to absorb pressure and consider other options for balancing their budgets, reserves can only spend once and are not a long-term option not really a medium term option either happy to take questions, thank you very much, Minister Halleck so first out, Joe yeah, thank you Mr Hallock, I'm really sorry that the government put in Wandsworth in another boroughs in this position.
it is just incredible decision-making when we know that if we if we're starving the skills now coming out of schools, the impact on business is gonna be an absolute nightmare for the economy, and I I don't know why this government is punishing schools in this way.
and I spoke last night that what we've got right now is the perfect storm of falling rolls and low per pupil funding increase, but could you can you confirm to the committee that, even before, taking into account the impact of falling rolls on funding, that this settlement is in real terms a reduction on a per pupil basis and if so by how much
yeah, so McCourt AWPU, which is the funding every school gets on rises by 1.4%, and the free school meals supplement, goes up by 1.6%, the average for the borrowers and one just under 1.5% buying by the Bank of England's projections of getting to 2% I would still be as a net minus point 5% real reduction in per pupil funding.
as I said, school inflation has run higher than core inflation, we still have to wait for support staff and teachers settlements, which could well be above 3 4%.
to determine exactly what the net negative real impact will be.
thank you, Mr Langdon.
thank you, Chair can even Mr Halleck.
a question somewhat, jumping off your opening statement, where you said that the impact in terms of budget has been more significant on primary skills, and it has on secondary skills, is that because there are more primary skills than there are secondary schools, or is it due to the nature of the budgets that are spent within the primary school but they feel it more and I guess what I'm trying to get around to at the end of this is how far are we as a council and I sort of speakers that as part of that body,
from actually having a face into the difficult decisions that I know other councils and others are making in terms of when do we start to say, do we have to close some schools?
well, on the first part of the question, falling rolls has started from mainly the declining birth rates we have had the other factors Brexit, COVID impact working from home people at the cost of living people leaving London, especially the second child et cetera, et cetera and the trend dads in some areas children go from at year 4 5 into private schools so that has all mean meant that disproportionately primary schools have had a far bigger reduction in per pupil.
pupil numbers, there has been a bubble that's gone through secondaries that has basically moved through now, so secondaries have been getting quite a lot of additional funding in the last couple of years because of that bubble that was in primaries and it was in that bubble that we had it wasn't that increasing in population 5 years ago that we saw in the chart but that has now moved into secondaries so they've had but that will move past and they will start to experience some of the pressures that primaries have had.
Councillor Osborne, there was a Surrey Chair, there was the second part of the question, which was how far are we from having to face into a very difficult decision, so we made the decision to close Broadwater last year that has helped the whole Tooting area that's around 2 million budget that was at Broadwater that has gone into all the schools around.
both pupils and and the money that follows it that strengthen the whole area.
there is consultation on Christchurch at the moment, obviously that will support schools around crisis if it does happen.
yeah, as the paper does say, we still have quite a weakness in the Roehampton and town centre areas at the moment we manage it, managing it with resource allocation, sharing resources, sharing head teachers looking at new ways of doing things, but these are mostly one form entry schools we have even considered half form entries at the moment.
thank you for sterling, it was very useful, I think I had Councillor Osborne next and then Councillor Owens and then Councillor Corner.
okay so.
you've painted a dramatic picture of what Councillor Rigby called the perfect storm, and I I'd take all that on board the
it strikes me that the the series of crises heading towards us and negative factors impacting on our scores, inflation falling school rolls, a general increase in cost across society, the need of competing resources of all different kinds as our society shifts and there are demographic changes this perfect storm yeah yeah, I think Councillor Rigby is right, I mean the government.
the government I mean with the best possible will in the world seems at least to be like a rabbit in the headlights of a car piling towards it, and it doesn't seem to know what to do on any of this or one is a prevaricating sometimes dithering sometimes nevertheless the fact is once we've got to face this one on and deal with this mounting crisis the
you've talked a bit about the school business manager academy.
is there anything else you think that we could be doing that we are not doing to support the schools in and and help with schools that are facing this, and I know that
if I can add another layer to the question, I know that.
some schools, not many, but some schools have become schools in deficit or as a result of the scale of this problem.
how do we compare as a borough?
with the rest of the country in terms of schools going into deficit are, we are we one of the worst, are we one of the better ones, is it not too bad in in Wandsworth? I'd like to get a broader picture of of what we're dealing with, if obviously we got to face it and deal with it, but you know what is the scale of our problem on?
schools in deficit.
so I'll take those together really because they are linked the work we do to the work we do does affect the amount of schools, we have in deficit. Obviously, schools have to work with us, we can't make them, do things that they've done, the cart that they don't want to do so, we work with schools as a community to come up with solutions when, when you say new ideas, I think the most important one is being proactive and being early, rather than leaving things to the last minute, I don't think it's a revolutionary idea, it's just about getting out there and doing the work and doing it early and working with the communities of schools to get them on board. Understanding the issues
not putting your head in the sand and dealing with them, and when it comes to benchmarking, that whole of the extra resources we put in espn academies, the whole financial advisory service, my team of schools, finance experts, that whole wrap around, you put that together and we have only two schools in deficit that is and yeah Nettleton, and that is ranked near the top on the country as a percentage basis. We are surrounded by other boroughs that have some schools that are
40% of those schools in deficit, but the London average is 25%, so we were well below that.
the two schools we do own deficits that are that are in deficit, we have a plan to get them out and both will leave deficit this year coming mainly by reducing the forms of entry in the one.
Ms Hanna O'Reilly, also just to say I mean, obviously Michael spoken about the financial side, it's really important and that actually the advisory service, the financial officers work together on this, because the one thing also that we don't want to lose is the quality of our education within Wandsworth.
and I think the other thing for me is also.
we recognise falling numbers, we recognise their per pupil funding, but the other thing we're thinking about is how we worked really creatively in terms of looking at income generation for schools because I know we're delivering some of that work with schools as well, so we're thinking about every angle that we possibly can in terms of helping schools to be sustainable and and not to lose the quality of the education that we have, and it's really pleasing for me because even with ongoing Ofsted inspections, we are still retaining that quality in our schools as well as having to manage very, very difficult circumstances at the moment.
thank you for that reinforcement, Councillor Owens, and then I've got Councillor Corner and Councillor Apps, thank you very much, and I was particularly interested to hear what you had to say, Mr Horlock.
I am just a couple of points. The the conflict within the storm. I was the chair of governance for the best part of a decade, but prior to apparent that the pandemic in in once with one of the wards with scores, and obviously this has been going on for a while, I mean, it's not, it's not recent, it's probably six, seven eight years, something like that is there is. There is a conflict between those schools that are in the academy system that is still having a 5 form entry versus, obviously those that are not so so obviously there is parental choice in their aspects around that. At the same time, you obviously you are slightly different, but again part of it you, you mentioned that the independent school places that were which are for special educational needs and were flat this year. I know from my own
ward and people writing to me that normally they would hear, for example, in September of year 6 as to whether or not their child will be going to say Garrett Park because their child isn't Smallwood in special needs. Sort of set-up that hasn't happened this year and they're being told also in year 5, that perhaps they they might not have places because Garrett Park is full, so I'm just curious, obviously Broadwater is going to be wonderful, but it's not until 2025 and there's a lot of panicking amongst my residents as to where their child is going to school because on the one hand we seem to have falling pupil numbers, but just not in the Sen schools and finally, on on the nursery state nurseries, obviously we've been trying to keep them going for a very long time. You know what will happen there, hopefully they will stay. Thank you
thanks Councillor and I'll take on piece by piece the first one on academies, we have less control about academies, whether they want to expand or not, it can be detrimental if a popular academy expands and then absorbs all the the pupils' from the surrounding area.
we probably could give some examples of how that's happened in this borough in the last five to seven years.
but at the moment it's likely to it's less likely to happen, because the attractiveness of expanding is just not there. But, yes, if they really wanted to, they could really a really popular academy could make life really hard for the rest of the schools around it. Luckily we work well with our academies, we are and I don't believe they would do that now they all sit, while they all represent around schools Forum, they understand the issues and it is actually quite a community focused system.
Best interest, group of schools, Forum representatives, I'm really impressed with the community as aspect of it, even the secondary heads voted to have the the formula, the local funding formula, but because it supported primary schools because they were the ones struggling the most at the moment, that's the sort of college redness of the other schools Forum and since schools being full, yes, we do have a bit of a crunch period coming up in the next year while we wait for Broadwater to come online or open.
I mean the paddock expansion, sorry that on the Broadwater site we have got granted that we're expanding by over two classes every year so that will be enlarged base at some at 1.00 point was, with nearly 84 places at the moment, is going from 24 to 42 over from September we have the alternates come online as well to give some extra provision.
gareth Park is quite full without a Borough children, unfortunately, we don't have a lot of control on that, but it would be great if we could have some more of those places for our children, especially as you say that yes, 60 Year 7 transition, it will be a slight crunch point we have managed to keep. I think it's one of the great achievements of this year is to keep our independent placements flat year on year, first time and
since the children and families Act has come into effect, but we might have a slight challenge while we wait for that paddock to open nurseries, yes, nurseries is a very challenging environment, they are at the front of the storm, the 0 to 5 is the lowest population, birth rates are our lower 1.7% 2.2 2.1 is required to replace a couple so it is challenging
Irene, I do think the increases in funding this year will make a difference, and if expanding the provision should help nurseries as well get more children in.
I just wanted to give him in response to Councillor Owen's first point in relation to academies or alongside other cabinet members across London clearly this is an issue that a lot of us are facing it, it really is one of the most serious issues facing children them and borrowers are across lanes in London, so on a cross-party basis facilitated by London Councils, we have been discussing this issue and lobbying partner and LA London Councils have produced a number of reports including one
last month, which in fact, marginally could over the MP for Battersea raised in Parliament, I think either today or yesterday, one of the recommendations within that latest report from London Councils is for the government to give greater powers to the local authorities to look at managing pans.
four are academies are and it is just frustrating, I think, for many cabinet colleagues across London and myself that it does pay following meetings with the ministers that doesn't seem to be no appetite for.
any progress on the issues that are raising, not just that one but others as well, and so it would be good to think that we could be United on this issue locally and we could lobby government and collectively.
thank you, Councillor Stoke.
I think Councillor Corner was next. Thank you very much, and and it's obviously a very, very challenging time for schools with the external factors in play. So I have to say I think it's a little bit opportunistic for Councillors opposite to blame the government. I mean we've got the highest ever funding in real terms for schools amounts for 24 25, funding for complex needs has gone up a 60% over the last five years. The issue we face in Wandsworth isn't driven primarily by that, although obviously I'm passionate about education, I'd love the government to have to be able to give more money to schools. I think it's driven primarily bias. Mr Hallett said demographics and also fixed costs, with the falling pupil rolls and we've had a couple of Keogh mentions of the possible need to close schools in the future. No one wants to take those. No one wants schools to close and there are important parts of our community, so can we to bear down on fixed costs crisis which, to my mind, is what this is, can we work with schools to possibly encourage them?
to take action to merge or reduce the size of our estates or just to explore ways of reducing fixed costs in a sustainable way which they want to do, rather than having to be faced with our potential closure further down the line which I don't think anyone really relishes the prospect of.
no, I mean reducing fixed costs in a way that.
okay, I'm happy to elaborate if I need to.
yeah, it's it's an interesting question.
sorry to distract me for a seconds.
Julie JIF yeah.
school, we don't want, sir, thank you Chair.
yeah, can we merge and federate you know in a way that schools want to do rather than kind of put the decisions of to when they might need to close, possibly against their wishes, and no?
yeah, so merging and federation is not as simple as it sounds, executed, using Exec Heads and so on. It requires more than two schools to make it efficient and make it work, because you actually often need to have then ahead of school as well as the exact head, and you don't actually end up saving a lot of money, I think where you can share resources in is the layer below in the ESPN. MSc and you're saying cos, all that sort of area and we really are exploring that the dioceses that we work with were some of our smaller one form. Entries are particularly keen on sharing resources and they've done it in other boroughs and we are learning from them
some of our schools have shared their head teachers with other schools in other boroughs, even so we are doing a lot of that Councillor Corner.
and and it is effective to a certain extent, we have tried Exec Heads where that hasn't worked so well, because it sounds all good.
but we would probably moving away from that in in that way, but it is at the layer below.
some schools recommend having phased leads that shed, so you share your maths, lead those sort of thing, are you getting economies of scale below yours for your head teacher because we are finding that a school does need a head teacher or head of school?
as a priority.
I hope that answers your question.
thank you, I had Councillor Apps, Councillor Birchall and I've just seen Councillor Rigby.
thank you very much, and if Councillor Corner thinks this is a generous budget, a generous funding scheme, I look forward to hearing what you say next year when we get the new one.
I well remember your comments.
so I'm looking at the higher needs funding as very interest to read about it in the paper, but it was even more frightening hearing how you explained the impact on the high needs, block them in your comments, talking about not meeting even the existing need, let alone new emerging need is is really worrying indeed.
and it would be interesting to know about how you intend to manage those pressures which are going to be difficult in the year ahead and what we can do to help support in that particular area, where of course we've got some of our children who need the most support, thank you.
thank you, Councillor laughs, it is gonna, be challenging our recovery plan.
while we kind of needed two more years of that 10% high needs funding, our models do show that ARCP should top out towards the end of this decade which, as use as it was mentioned earlier, we've had falling rolls but SEN continues to go up and with every year ACPs does come across there's a perception that you need an EA HSP to.
receive the support that your child needs. We are trying to invest in early and early intervention therapies, all sorts of SEN support initiatives the summer innovative to so that parents and schools feel that they don't need to apply for an HTTP to get the support that they need. With the lower 3.4 settlement we're going to struggle to have as much expansion of that early intervention. We are going to struggle to give schools high increases in rates. Again, I'm waiting to see what our support staff
salary increased settlements are because special schools are very, very support staff heavy, and therefore that is the figure that really impacts, they're more than anything, they have a lot as a ratio basis, a lot fewer teachers than they have support staff.
so we'll have to see how that plays out in terms of comparison to the 3.4%, but it's going to be a challenging year, our deficit will go up when we were hoping what was or was always planned to go up, but it's going to go up by more more than we expected which is going to make us take longer to recover.
Councillor Burchill
4th June.
I just wanted to ask you about the pupil premium, because I think that some of the schools have been proactive in trying to encourage their families to apply for free school meals.
has there been an increase in the number of children getting preschool meals and therefore an increase in the income for the school?
yeah, so there has been increased in numbers and free school meals quite considerably, actually I think when we started the COVID vouchers three or four years ago it was 7,800 children, it's now nearly 10,000, we have got the auto-enrolment initiative which you've undertaken which is,
will help to uncover those families that are eligible, but don't apply that'll be beneficial for the families as well as the schools that receive 1,480 pounds for per pupil pupil premium, plus the additional per pupil funding that comes through the formula so that's all beneficial to the schooling system produced from a deprivation point of view it does seem likely that there's growth in that area.
Councillor Weekly,
yes, thank you Chair, so a question about the national funding, new national funding formula.
is that been is that at the moment, distributed evenly across the country, or are you seeing a different pattern?
so the national funding formula was set up under the framework of levelling up so.
London.
if a settlement is is announced, London will receive less than the average.
for per pupil funding in it is at per pupil funding level, so over time, the out of outside London rates have risen at a far higher rate than London.
yes, we in London has been historically higher funded than the rest of the country, and that is one of the reasons behind it, but they are also higher costs that come with being in London.
yeah
Councillor Calverley,
can I ask a question about reserves, you've mentioned that.
there's there's total reserves of of 40 million if you take academies an individual school revenue budgets first, infamously, am I correct in saying there's only a handful of schools that don't have reserved as first question on housing, and secondly, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but is that figure the total 40 million St 0 an increase on previous years?
so they increase on previous years.
it is down in maintenance and maintaining schools by a little bit pretty flat between 22 and 23, and we'll have to see our class schools closed and now, at the financial year March 24.
the number of schools in deficit is only two for ones with which is very, very low, so yeah.
we're talking about all the schools are under financial pressure, there's been a financial pressure for a while, but how do they who will be able to increase reserves, then I don't overall, what is it they've done, that has allowed them to do.
so during COVID was the when reserves went up the most, a lot of money was put into schools for the coverage recovery, some of that went into the reserves at the time it was, there was a lot of unknown and schools were very worried but at the end of the day especially special schools, their reserves to go up quite considerably, it was something like 30% over two years during that period.
but in the last year things have changed obviously, and they're starting to flatten out, so we've seen a decrease, but it's not, it's only minor at the moment we are, as I said, we had a good funding settlement this year going into next year it's going to be a bit more of a challenge I could see those coming down.
I thank you very much, Mr. Halligan, are there any more questions, Councillor Stop, did you want to make a comment I just wanted to come in a little bit, perhaps just to sum up and just I guess to share my disappointment that perhaps members of the opposition are trying to characterise this funding increase as a real terms increase because clearly,
it is not, and it was disappointing that our members of the opposition couldn't support our calls as a majority party and this Council's calls on national government to really increase this funding settlement, because clearly that does need to be done and, as I said last night, schools are where teachers guy to teach they shouldn't have to be constantly worrying about balancing the, but we've got some really really great schools in Wandsworth and, as Ms Fiona Rowley says, we want those schools to be able to provide a great education, quality education, teaching and learning for people's that's what they want to or need to be concentrating or not trying to constantly.
balance the budgets there are, as Councillor Rigby said, really is a perfect storm that schools are facing. You know, it's not just falling rolls was that is a really significant issue that we are facing, but it is also inflation in a spiralling fuel and energy costs. You know, teacher pay rises that haven't been fully funded by government. The government still has got time to step in and and act on that, as it has done before, or as well as rising and special educational needs that we really do need to make sure schools are in a position to intervene early as needs emerge and not waiting for children to have to be
I receive an HDP or a one and go into special schools when perhaps their needs can be addressed much much earlier, say I'm really disappointed to hear that the opposition are trying to mischaracterise this and when come together or and lobby government to support our local schools.
thank you very much, Councillor stock, so on I think that brings our scrutiny on this paper to a close, thank you everybody for really good questions, thank you, Mr Hollick, for taking all those questions and future such a detailed on introduction and I was fascinated to learn about on how things are going in Japan.
but I yeah, I know you're a student of global glow global economics and I follow it quite closely myself, it's a great interest, so it is actually relevant, I do understand that thank you very much and thank I thank you to all all of your team.
OK, so this.
yes.
this would decisions affect what you're telling me, yeah, absolutely so this on paper is for decision.
as it wholly on is all about our schools and education are parent governors, and I assume representatives do vote on this paper.
Angela Cox is still with us online, I, but obviously only those present on, can actually vote so, Ms Wilson home and Mr Langdon, you take, you, do take part in our vote on this, so the Committee is asked to agree the recommendations which are on page 26.
and that is paragraph 2.
points 1 and points 2.
does the committee agree to a show of hands agreed, thank you very much.

5 Proposed additions to the General Fund Capital Programme of capital maintenance schemes to schools in 2024-25 (Paper No.24-47)

my microphone, we can move on to the next paper, which is the high needs capital allocation, on its item 6.
sorry.
yes well item 5 sorry pages 47 to 50 for the general fund capital programme.
pages 47 to 54, as I have on, as I have said.
so this is proposed additions to the general fund capital programme are the Committee welcomes the proposals on which in Appendix A reference, all the work that a number of schools across the borough will benefit from in order to ensure that the learning environment for our Wandsworth children is the best it can be and Mr. Charles Booth is with us to give us an overview of this paper.
good evening volumes, Charles Booth, on the head of the programme management office, my team delivers the capital projects.
comma I'm sorry, this paper is probably not gonna be exciting, as Japan has the last one, but more poor engineering, I think then culture may be.
so the paper sets out for the 2024 25 schools Capital Maintenance, its programme, which is funded from the daffy schools, condition allocation capital grant, which is a yearly grant Leigh allowance on it.
the grant there is to address major maintenance items for community and foundation schools, Darcis and academies don't receive this grant, they actually received a condition monies directly from the defeat, so this is just communities and foundation schools, so the major maintenance items, her range from a roof replacement boiler replacements, electrical systems, lights, windows, doors general large maintenance in in schools,
the schools are invited to submit bids on a yearly basis, and there they are encouraged to submit multiple bids as well, each bid is assessed by our external consultants and prioritised.
and there's a list there in terms of prioritisation which is done on the health and safety safeguarding impact on the curriculum and the potential to close the school on it.
so, after they are prioritise, are prioritised, you can see the list in Appendix A I'm not proposing to go through them in in detail on there, but they are listed there.
this year, the programme is based on the what we received last year.
for this current year of grant, which is 1.7 0 5 million pounds on the, we do ask for the schools to contribute 10% of the total project cost up to a total of 20,000, it's capped at 20,000.
by doing that, that actually helps and an issue, it's generated a further 95,000 which normally allows us to bring another project via online and into the programme.
so we have a total project Budget here that we'd be managing a 1.8 million of which 1.7 we are expecting to come to the from the DfEE, the the DfT don't actually make their announcement until May, but if we wait until that announcement we would not be able to take benefit of the school and school holidays to carry out this major maintenance work which can be disruptive on the
think it's probably just worth noting to the committee as well that.
we've had the same level of funding from the DDA fee for the last three or four years, there was an additional amount given around about 2020 during the Covid period I think we'd received another half a million pounds on top, but the the funding has remained static or less with it it is based on the number of schools,
and also the number of pupils', but what we are finding and have seen is construction inflation in that in that time, period running anywhere between 35% or on year, and it's probably currently running around about 8% at the moment.
and that is not factored in, so if you we have included the list of the projects on the reserve list which didn't make the cut for the actual budget.
and if we are able to add value engineer some of the projects down, it's possible we may be at spring, maybe just the next one, into into the programme for this this coming year, but you'll see that the next five is more or less taking up the complete next tranche of capital funds which will come in.
and we are on a gradual sparring spiral downwards in terms of backlog maintenance on there.
happy to take questions.
Councillor Crivelli is still talking about the the the reserve list, just to I, I know that you, you always produce the the figure for the the similar to this chart and you've done it before, but did we reach stuff on the reserve list last year was just wondering if we we managed to get any of the projects done?
able to actually bring any of the reserve projects onto the list no.
did everything that was on the we've completed the the items which were wrong there, yes?
Councillor Apps and then Councillor Corner.
so I'm interested in meeting the needs of the the schools because this seems very focused on health and safety and safeguarding essentials rather than kind of looking at any funding that would affect the improvement of the school in terms of looking at learning and welfare issues as well and I wanted your opinion on whether or not this adequately supported one of the core maintenance needs of the schools, it seems to me that when we're doing things like not fixing roofs that are leaking I I think perhaps not, but perhaps you could give me your reflections on to what extent we were meeting the needs.
and you know if there would be, if additional funding would help us to actually enhance the learning experience for children in a way that we're not able to do at the moment.
the the schools actually do have a small amount of of Capital Maintenance money which carries on their basic kind of compliance checks and health and safety aspects on their, and the schools often use some of that too, and to help and enhance the actual appearance of the schools internally.
the actual capital maintenance programme we run here is for the major maintenance items which, as you can see from the cost here, would far exceed the the funding that would be available to the schools on the and, as I said, we've got a reserve list as well and these these are effectively these are essential, these are kind of wind and watertight items on it.
and there's there's not spare capital at the moment to do if you like, the nice to have.
Councillor Corner and then Councillor Lee, thank you, so can the projects on the reserve less which is probably unlikely that any of them will be brought forward in the coming year were of a kind of guarantee to be on the or all but guaranteed to be on the list for 25 26?
there's a high likely that they will be on the list and because, whilst they will be also, can they surely don't deteriorate any further as best we can things like roofs were obviously there'd be patches to make sure that they remain watertight the extent of that may actually deteriorate during the actual year so they next year when they get evaluated they will they were likely to have a higher score and therefore come into the actual main programme.
so just need to follow up to that, do you foresee an issue with in future years with inflation eroding the capital resources available and with possibly next year's?
lists already committed, do you think there is an issue with regards to the capital funding of the the type of the projects in the long term, and should the Council, in your view, be raising more capital receipts in order to fund them?
with the the funding comes directly from the from the DfT, so each government funding that that is there to support the schools and I think the from in terms of what the number we've got on the list at the at the moment it is decreasing and yes, I'd love to see further funding coming from the from the DfT to support that.
thank you, Councillor Lee, and, as Ms L Wilson home yeah, I think that's the the question is more whether the government will.
will increase the funding, in line with inflation, to match the construction inflation that you talked about.
I wanted to ask because we had Les, I think it was last Committee, Mr Hallett talked about the decarbonisation fund and we looked at the lighting, we had the illustrations of the lighting update, how so with the twos, all I think there was two schools that had the replacement of the emergency lighting did any of that funding come from the decarbonisation fund or how do they work together?
because we we do actually, or I make bids for the for actual climate change, bunny as well from the former Council for certain items, things like air source, heat pumps or as well we'd look at doing that.
whilst the air source heat pumps and solar panels to tend to be the more kind of if you like, the sexier side and more well-known side about decarbonisation, actually decarbonisation really stems from the actual fabric of the building and making sure that heat is retained or not lost, particularly in the winter time and it's kept cool so things like roof replacements are actually are equally if not more contributing to to a decarbonisation on that.
but, as I say, actually some of the projects that we we've actually delivered, we are delivering air source heat pumps on the on these schemes really because the old boilers have now or gas boilers have come breached the end of their life expectancy and they're now replaced by air source heat pumps so we do cover it in in here.
yes, Councillor Lee, thank you and the other thing I just wanted to ask about the asbestos because it feels quite shocking that we've we've got primary schools with with asbestos in.
how did how did we find out about about that one?
is there any way that we can make sure that all our primary schools, all our schools, are free from asbestos?
there does remain a specialist in in a number of our schools t in places you can't actually really remove it until we actually demolish the building or on itself on it, various specialist management and condition surveys carried out on a regular basis to check there's no deterioration if there is, or there's a narrow area which gets damaged, then it will get and it will get removed.
and again this is this is one of the areas and items we are removing on the health and safety basis on the
Mr. Wilson,
thank you and I'm a representative of the Dodson Board of Education and we have it as a similar programme with the vast scale which I have to I've.
being with recently, I was wondering, and there were four lines here, the that are not specifically to do with any one school, but which are in in the the, they actually well, not the reserved lists, so the urgent health and safety condition survey design development forward could programme contingency. I was wondering if you could make any comment on that but particularly the condition survey and design development as I imagine those are things that you can.
control, rather more than you can an urgent health and safety issue.
yes, so just running through them we've got an A and L or an item, therefore urgent health and safety items, these are the ones where a border or something will will happen, that's not expected, and we have to go in and rapidly repair it of it so the money is is held for that.
if we get to the end of the actual year and we actually haven't spent it, then we will look to see whether we can actually utilise it, one of the other schemes, on the the condition surveys we carry out a rolling programme of condition surveys to understand the the the the building fabric and also to help us plan the the level of maintenance and the delivery of this this programme in future years the design development area it is,
we include that each year and that money there is to actually assess next year's bids, so it allows us to understand what the bids are and prioritise them, and also to start on some carry out some of the early design work on it, and again this is to help us to deliver the schemes over the over the summer holiday.
thank you very much on our other any more questions, yes, Councillor Burchill.
and I just wanted to was 111,000 pounds for safety and lighting seems an awful lot of money.
but I'm presuming that's the correct price, could you explain it?
yes, the the the the rates of Venner, the the they're being produced from feasibility studies at the moment on that they are not tendered prices, they're estimate prices on it and they're based up from our quantity surveyors cost in terms of the scope of the works and the the type of light fitting that's required in the school and that that is a fact tends to be rather than a typical price for replacement of light fittings.
that is often more expensive and emergency lighting, because I have an emergency battery backup units to them as well.
are there no further questions? No, thank you are Mr Booth for answering all of that, so ably and done, I think we've had some good scrutiny on that down to some re drill down into some really good detail now this paper again is for decisions, so we're going to vote on it and again it is to do with schools. So parent governors and DASSs representatives may vote
so we are asked to
except the recommendations on page, it's page 47, and this is paragraph 3 this time we accept those recommendations.
yeah just a question about the nature of the recommendations on 0, the last point that we're being asked to vote on is in relation to consultation with you about bringing forward the projects.
therefore.
I'm sorry, I'm confused, are we in a different paper yeah, thank you very much.
thank you, so I am sorry or distracted there on, so do we agree to the recommendations on page 97 now are worth 3?
Page 48
yeah, OK, we're now on pay, I do understand page 48 minute in and yeah, it's point it says See, yeah, that's only with consultation with you, so that would that's just someone, will you know, basically the best committee would be surrendering it.
scrutiny in year on that point, I think I think I have to refer to Democratic Services, because that's a.
issue, so just so we all know what a Councillor Corner is referring to, it's on page 48 and its points C, and the recommendation, so you need to turn the page from where I'd wreck a suggested page 47, and it reads delegate to the Head of PMO,
Councillor
following consultation with the Chair for children's committee, that's myself the authority to bring forward projects in the reserved list to be included in the programme delivery for 24 25 and otherwise receive this report for information.
I don't know if the usual practice there is it for to be it if it's in consultation with the Cabinet Member, perhaps Mr Booth can clarify.
yes, apologies, I believe that some are mistaken, or in a paper it should be with the Lead Member.
could could we vote on that basis and I would also like to propose a very minor amendment, which is that this committee has been notified of those decisions, not through ESSA 83, which only comes to certain members of this committee.
agreed on both of those points and thank you for your scrutiny, I actually saw that myself too, and I had not seen that before and thought it was odd, so thank you very much for a.
do you want me to vote on raising it, so we need to vote on on the amendment, so we will agree to Councillor corners agreed agreed.
thank you very much, so we now move to Item 6 that was trying to take us to to promptly.

6 Programme update on High Needs Capital Allocation (HNPCA) Grant (Paper No. 24-48)

with
so we now vote as amended, we are all in agreement, thank you very much.
so we can now move to item 6, which is programme update on high needs capital allocation paper number 24 to 48 pages 55 to 70 72.
yes, and I will hand over to Mr Halleck on this paper.
Mr Booth, it'd be myself, thanks very Mr Booth, so I would like to go straight to thank you.
as has been discussed, actually quite a lot in the meeting today, and the number of pupils' with with educational, health and care plans has increased by around about 78%, so quite substantially, causing significant pressure on esa se indeed places within schools on it.
in 2022 this committee actually proved an ambitious capital programme to create the much-needed places.
the report sets out the details of the schemes and the locations which has delivered 130 places to date on the I wasn't proposing to go through the individual schemes, but they they are are listed there in terms of locations. As a result, this is probably the first year where there has not been an increase of pupils' going outside the bud outside the borough, which I think is a tremendous achievement to create it from a more lesser standing start for construction capital projects on the
one of the projects on the capital programme was the redevelopment of the former Broadwater School site for the really key relocation of Paddock School, whose site cannot be expanded any further the purpose built development will provide around about 192 places initially.
Broadwater closed in July 23, and the project is on a challenging construction programme for opening for September 25.
the capital programme is funded through the DFC, at high needs, funding, capital, finance and grant, and up to March 2024 it had received circa roundabout 28 million pounds of which seven and a half million pounds has actually been expended on delivery of those places.
20 million pounds was actually brought into the capital programme for for
for the paddock at Broadwater scheme at that time that was to allow for early feasibility works and design works to progress and also some enabling works, it didn't represent the true value of the cost of the scheme which at the time was only on based on a feasibility study, but then it was estimated to be roundabout 25 to 28 billion pounds on it.
the scheme has actually now progressed a lot further on there, we'd done the detailed design, it does have planning permission and we've entered into initial discussions with the contractor for delivery of the scheme and that the total project cost is now estimated at 34 million pounds.
now there is a fund, obviously there is a funding gap at the moment of Ransome roundabout 13 and a half million pounds of it, we are expecting further DFC high needs funds to come in for 24 to 26, it's normally two year announcements.
the DFC normally announced these things at a year in advance, which does help for the planning, but they haven't to date, and we're expecting that announcement to be made in May.
for us to actually meet the CA, the construction programme, we need to enter into the construction contract by March next next month, essentially so we're requesting the papers supports approval for the Council to support the project.
with an additional capital of 13 and a half million pounds to be brought in in advance of the daffy announcement to allow the Council to actually enter into the construction contract and for us to meet the construction programme, are there any questions, Councillor Apps, then Councillor Corner?
so thank you so much for that introduction and I think it's clear to me that we do need this additional provision, and it's you know, I warmly welcome this, it's fantastic for the borrower and and for families, I think, for children to be able to be educated within within the borough.
I thought, maybe a big good, though, for the committee to hear a bit more about why it's so important for children with special educational needs, to remain within the borough and the borough of schools, and and how that's good for families and and for the borough itself.
I think to be honest, it's it's important for those young people to remain in their communities close to their friends and family.
because we recognise actually children travelling, distances to school or having to live away from their families is has an impact not only for the child but the family themselves, so it's actually really critical for us that we retain children locally.
we also recognise the the benefits of that for the wider school system, because it retains money within our within Wandsworth that we can then invest in our local schools, thinking then about our inclusion agenda and just making sure we retain the quality and can support our schools to be as inclusive as possible and and retain children locally, so I think it's it's sort of twofold really in terms of the benefits for those children, their families but then the wider education system as well.
Councillor Corner and then Councillor Osborne.
thank you, and thank you to our officers for bringing this forward, I think I think I, as we discuss what happens to the Broadwater site previously, it's great that it's going to be used for the expansion of paddock.
but I have to say, looking at page 63 there, there must be concerns raised over the funding of this project, we've got our an allocated budget of 20 million.
and the a negative variance of 14 million, so could we please have an explanation as to why this is running so over budget?
the 20 million pounds was the that was brought into the capital programme back in 2022 was a residual amount of funding that was available at that point from from the high needs the actual project was estimated at that time around about 25 to 28 million pounds on on the
we have since then carried out detailed design, we have obtained planning consent as well, and we also have been able to since the school vacated in August and September, being able to get into the actual junior block which will be retained on there to understand the the the fabric and the structure and what is actually required to bring it up to the current standards.
and those have now been factored into the actual project costs.
so that accounts for just to follow up on that, thanks to that's 6 million pounds worth essentially.
Murdoch tha accounts for 6 million pound and we've got some of that is due to the specification of the building is that good value for money?
the design of the building and the the air, the area because they are predominantly the cost of the building, relates around the actual square matriarch in the area.
and for there were compliant with the would, the daffy design standards for the accommodation of this type of of building, although we are also dealing with an existing building, we did look at many options about actually whether we retain both buildings or whether we just keep the junior block or whether we actually add or completely demolish all the buildings on that site.
but we are again with we, we were trying to maintain the main junior block, which is a nice building in itself.
and actually a rebuild which actually cost even more so we again there is an element of cost of refurbishment which is of slightly cheaper value than the new build, so we are trying to reduce the cost and provide value with it.
the the figure we're looking at there and we're looking at aiming as a not to exceed cost.
thank you, Councillor Osborne.
sorry, I just like to add from a sofa, one of the reasons, not the only reason.
for this, this work is to ensure that we make those revenue savings from reducing independent placements, I can't tell you how important Paddock is as a school in this borough.
and a provision that's got 380 300 children will save us nearly 9 million pounds a year and the differential between of all those children had to go into independent just the extra 67 places is 2.6 million, the school pays for itself in three years.
maximum 10 years we're building something for 50 years into the future, I really think, still good value for money, yes, there's all sorts of issues, but we do need to build this right, they are the children right at the end of that the need spectrum they go from there into the Brad stars at 2.00 400 k a year.
the 90 k at the low end 60th K minimum these days, and we're doing it a paddock for 35,000 a year and higher quality outstanding support.
Councillor Scott. Did you want to come in yeah? I just wanted to come in just to emphasise Mr Horlicks point. Really, I just to remind the committee at what the kind of business case was behind the suggestion to convert Broadwater School into a special school, and it was exactly as Mr Halleck mentions. We had a paper that came to this committee talking about the deficit or an overspend that we're facing in the designated schools grant because of the overspend in the high needs block and we're spending 11 million pounds a year on Independent School places and the difference between an independent
school place that were currently at having to spend because there aren't any places left at Paddick because it is full and it is putting a lot of parental pressure on that year in year out revenue spend and alongside that, as Councillor Apps pointed out, we've got a really clear ambition around keeping children with SEND in their local communities to reduce their travel time so they can stay close to their families. So I'm on both cases. There is a a very clear business case and I think we should also underestimate the significant change in specification of a building that was at a primary school into a special needs school, and these are, as Mr Hallett said, for those most complex pupils'. I I have attended the secondary school at Paddock and I've I've I've been in their school as it stands now and then and they do need better accommodation and I can completely see why people's do need a school designed in a certain way to meet their needs. Thank you, Councillor Stowe, I'm going to go to Councillor Osborne,
yes, I suppose this is the silver lining to the dark cloud of having to close one of our schools, it's not the only one, actually I'm interested in the site because there is the option of temporary provision there for some element of the pupil referral unit for example, but if we talk about the paddock secondary expansion there,
can you tell us, will I take it that will cater for current demand but
Will it also be able to cater for any expansion in the demand for that kind of provision, and indeed?
is there always the outside possibility that it might be able to cater for some interest from outside the borough boundary.
yeah, good question.
this will cater for what we think will be with dovetailed with the Granade expansion.
all we need in this category of need for the future, at least the foreseeable future, putting through our quite sophisticated modelling we've got nowadays on ASBCP by need all the factors are fed in population growth, all the rest it says that there should meet I need at the high end we obviously conscious bring children are, I'll just destabilise them and take them from independent and put them into these.
into paddock you would have to choose transition periods or at reception, what does what is great about this expansion is it frees up a lot of space on the primary.
site at the moment, which has a middle school, that will just be primary and it will have far more facility and space for primary schoolchildren and be able to take more children, and then we have a very much purpose-built lots of outdoor space.
extremely excellent secondary provision.
I have Councillor Birchall next and then apse Owen's corner and cooler.
thank you very much, I think that.
you must understand that we are totally in favour of panic school, we are totally in favour of the extra provision for our asked very special children.
but my problem here is being told that it's going to cost 20 million, and then it goes to 34 million.
and it, and that inflation is where are my problem is that?
you know, we've told it, it was 20 million, and now we're told it's 34 million, and now, but then you've told us that it was always going to be 25 to 28 million, which is sort of not being transparent with us to show, so you know really what your your feelings are what?
who wants to take that, Mr Booth, are you happy to tell you about an honour to take that on on the?
as I cannot, as I explained at the time when the paper in in 2022 presented the case and listed out the projects on the 20 million was just allocated, it was, if you like, the residual amount after the other projects had been or had gone through 20 million was was left on their there was an estimate for paddock at Broadwater roundabout 25 to 28 million pounds at that point in time so it would have still required a at least a 5 to 8 million pound funding on the
so we've now got better, as I say, we've now got better costs 0 0 on their uncertainty on those because the designer has progressed, and we're also working with the contractor to get construction rates in into that, and that's why we have great uncertainty around the 34 million pounds there is an element of construction inflation that that has happened in that as well, there's also understand the actual design,
and what's required on the on this particular site, and I think it's one of those the Council has mentioned it, converting a effectively a primary school into an Étienne school.
and changing the actual kind of floor layouts and the actual the the the the accommodation and and bit one was inside it and making installing things like lifts as well, it also adds to the cost of it.
thank you on the next question is Councillor Apps.
I only wanted to ask about the possible investment, given the increasing revenue cost of children going on to borrow, and that was covered very fully by Mr Halliche, thank you.
Councillor Owens,
thank you, I just send a couple of quick questions about some of the other scores obviously elicited.
at Oak Lodge or are in particular only because one of my two own children was had oversight from Oak Lodge for many years, I just wondered on the allowances would take more children with more speech and language and Autistic needs is that a recent change and also I had in the back of my mind the mothers I recently met with in my own ward who are small Smallwood mothers who are concerned obviously again about Gareth Park and not being able to get in this year and not and not hearing just on Nightingale Academy which I haven't really seen on that's a school which I understand does have space at the moment.
and I just wondered what sort of I mean, maybe not one viewer on the building site, but sorry, but it's just kind of curious what the you know when it will there be any more funding there in future.
Councillor as I missed, the first school Oak Lodge closing as it is, that's what we knew, that sort of set-up so Cluj, we supported them to expand, they mostly have out of our children, they are a regional school.
they needed the extra space, there was the demand.
and we felt well we had to it also supported their overall budget, their sustainability.
the DFI have are going to rebuild their school at some point when that.
but I think after racks being sorted out, but those the projects seemed to be delayed at the moment, so it's a temporary building, 500,000 for a whole class is actually very, very cheap, it's leased and I thought and we're Gregory that it was a good project and return on investment was solid on the Nightingale question.
as far as I know, Nightingale has got very few spaces. I'd say, if we had more capital over and above the next 15 million, and I know that if you've done a lot of work with local authorities this year, that's one of the reasons the settlement is late is because they've asked us for detailed returns. They want to understand for demand and therefore the capital implications. We are hoping we get a settlement over the next two to three years, because I did do a two year settlement last time. Something similar would be great and give us the opportunity to turn either the current secondary paddock site into an Asda. MS provision or something like that, I'd say one of the only
demand areas is that CMOG.
Nightingale.
space, but we obviously have to do more work and we are getting some basis in the primary school in the nine arms.
and so there is a bit of new demand, come a new space coming online, but yes, I think Nightingale.
is an area where we will have to look in the future.
Councillor Corner and then Councillor Quigley.
Banks could we get an update on the negotiations that led to the price of the contract with Willmott Dixon, was that competitive, what we kind of, can we get kind of update on how that went?
the the actual construction contract itself has not been placed with them, we are still in discussions with them for that, two to agree that price they are currently tendering the works packages out on a competitive basis, and once they all come back, they will be checked by a quantity surveyor on their what we have done is we've entered into what's known as a pre-construction services agreement which is essentially a design service for them to provide the design service.
and take the design from where it was up to the actual, to produce the detailed works packages so they can be tendered on them on that.
it also includes for some early works for things like a specialist removal and also demolition of the of Butlers the the the Infant block there as well.
can I just quick follow up on that LA date, obviously an overwhelming case for that, the supporting the work that is being done on the Broadwater site for paddocks school and not in opposition to that at all but surely berries if if the negotiations are still ongoing we should be bearing down on the costs here and seeing what can be done then especially if it's a competitive tender with multiple bidders vying for it.
the process is a it's actually a single contractor, but those works packages of are tendered out or the subcontractors are competitively tendered, which is the normal way of construction contracts on the
we are certainly looking at the are going through looking at value engineering.
on there I once the wants the sub-contractors have also been engaged again, there's further value engineering that the that takes place we are looking at a at the 34 million we're aiming as a not to exceed figures, so we're actually aiming at below that figure if we can,
Councillor Cavalli, and then Councillor out.
can I ask about the you produce the figure on the the table in p, page 63, and you said the the 34 million figure, this figure is an upper level figure, you've just alluded to that in your last response, but on page 59 paragraph 18 you said surveys on the existing junior building headed it has identified the condition is worse than expected and requires substantial upgrades to the building fabric to meet current building regulations. Et cetera,
are you completely satisfied that, with an additional 14 million pounds to the budget of this project, that you can complete the project for that figure, or is the potential that there may be additional cost on top?
though there is always a risk that the the the prices come back from the sub-contractors higher than the the contractor, and our quantity surveyors are expecting on that. That, unfortunately, the nature of the construction market at the moment and it's very variable in terms of the packages some can be, some can be high, some can we actually on on price. The one area we are tracking is the actual mechanical and electrical packages gained, they are most of the
projects are coming back above where the quantities of hours are expected we have included, we've allowed for that on that basis, we've also allowed for an element of construction inflation in there, and there's also contingency, so, apart from perhaps one very unexpected kind of costs that come back, we are expecting wood to be delivered within the 34 million.
Q. Councillor Apps.
thank you just want to say I'm very impressed by the thoroughness of your approach and and giving us this level of details credibly helpful, how will we make sure that the building is it sustainable as possible, as well as a partly to make sure we keep down costs of the future running?
although the the building was required to to meet Wilson Eynesbury BREEAM regulations on there which BREEAM excellent in this particular case, which has been set by the by the Planning Case owner so that can require a high level of insulation to go into that tall building for any deficiencies so we've got a solar PVs to go in there as well as things like air source heat pumps we don't put gas borders in anymore so again we are trying to we were building it with a good thermal and energy efficiencies to meet the current standards.
so good here, thank you so much, thank you Chair.
well, thank you, everybody on at the time is pressing on and I don't want to hit the guillotine, so I think one more question, then Councillor Corner and then are we going to vote on this because this is for decision.
it's really just a statement of how I will vote, as the opposition party Les we do absolutely support this work to add to develop the Broadwater site for Paddock School, as Mr Harlech and officers are currently set out overwhelming case for it.
but we do think there is more, there is leeway here to bear down on the costs, so 4.2 point 2 we'd like to vote on that separately and abstain on that on point 2.4 we're being asked to delegate to the Executive Director for Children's Services and the Executive Director of Finance for the Council to enter into the contract.
I know them both both very capable people, but there should be oversight here from the Cabinet Member.
and whilst I don't want to bind the Council in commercial negotiations, I do think that we need to be making sure that we can bear down on the costs there, so we will be opposing 2.4.
Councillor Rigby, I I just want to know how we spent the whole lie hearing how diligently our officers are trying to make do with horrendous budgets and how carefully they're managing that, so this deeply cynical questioning that somehow, after all they're going through trying to manage the budget, they're somehow just throwing money at builders is just the most cynical awful thing to put our officers after after everything they're going through. I don't know why you're doing this
do you want to respond Councillor Corner and then we will take it to be made our position clear?
and this is about supporting the project to go ahead whilst getting good value for money, and I'm surprised that Councillor Rigby is willing to forego that and forgo democratic scrutiny of the process of redeveloping the site.
to come in, thank you to both Councillor Colerne and Councillor Rigby for their intervention.
I completely agree with Councillor Rigby, we have a fantastic
a team of officers who are working in relation to the finances of our scores and financial sustainability, I hear the points about the opposition in terms of ensuring that we've got value for money here, but that's the whole business case behind what we're trying to do and in terms of delivering this outstanding special school for children in our borough, so we will keep an eye on the costs we will continue to value engineer where possible, but we will deliver this school.
thank you, Councillor stock, and now I'm going to take it to a vote on its full decision is to do with schools, so our parent governor and our diocese representative canvass vote you can vote on this, so the recommendations on on page 56,
you can see them at point at paragraph to the various points, so I'm going to take them one by one.
so the first is a number 1 note, the progress made in the delivery of additional high need pupils places, we vote yes.
agreed. Thank you, I am now going to to approve additional capital budget of 13.5 to allow the Council to enter into the main construction contract for the paddock at Broadwater project and that can I ask for a vote on that, can we do count everybody who is,
for that.
everybody.
yeah, have we got all the votes?
everybody who is for everyone who is against abstain.
OK, so those numbers were.
7 4
none against and 4 abstentions.
that's also for the benefit of anyone watching online, so we now go to three, which is note, the reallocation of high needs, capital funding to specific scheme budgets, as set out set out in paragraph 34, How do we vote on that we agree,
that's yeah, the unanimous agree, so we go to point 4, which is delegate to the Executive Director of Children's Services, in consultation with the Executive Director of Finance, the authority for the Council to enter into the design and build construction contract with Willmott Dixon for the delivery of the Sen School at Broadwater at a contract value not to exceed 30 point million pounds. Can I ask for all of those who are voting for
7 4
all of those who are voting against.
and any abstentions.
7 4
not no abstentions and 4 against.

7 Children's Services Annual Review of Charges (Paper No. 24-49)

we move to Children's Services annual review of charges number 2004 to 49 pages 73.
to 80 and I'm gonna go straight to Mr Hallock in the interests of time.
fees and charges.
because the public directly, there was a very small amount of income raised from youth services and became a slightly bigger margin.
a bigger amount raised by running after-school and holiday play provisions, this year's fee increase aims to raise about 18,000 pounds the 7.6 point 7% increase figure was determined by the September 2023 core producer price inflation, reading this is the standard period in which government funding inflation levels are determined for the following year.
this year, by the time of this Committee, the increases above inflation, current inflation levels, but in the prior year it was below inflation at the same time, so it's swings and roundabouts happy to take questions.
any questions to Mr Halleck.
Mr London.
thank you Chair, Mr Halleck high, have you done any work on price elasticity and at which point the price rises may actually force people to choose not to come to use the facilities.
it is a very good question.
so we benchmarked against what private providers charge.
the average in London can be a bit lower than our 5 pounds 60, I think it is an hour.
to 15 pounds were towards the lower end at the moment are provisions to?
that's especially at Huddersfield and St Michael's are close to full Smallwood with a slightly different demographic is not, but it serves an important purpose there.
Councillor Cohen, I do you have a question yes, thank you, it's such a small amounts of money being discussed here and I appreciate that the report is just a bit of a shame that that this administration, across a number of different areas of the Council just always resorts to putting up.
putting up charges, and I'd really like to know why that is when there's such insignificant sums of money at stake, or can't we do residents and these organisations that use these holes a favour?
thank you, Councillor Corner for, and the question I I think it was the policy of the previous administration, which was to say that council services should be paid for by those who use them, and there shouldn't be any direct subsidy to say from the taxpayer in order to keep Council Tax low in terms of the policy this year we have frozen concession charges now for the second year in a row that means that,
prices, as I understand it, are now roughly 16.8% lower in real terms than they were two years ago bracken, and for those who have concessions and you'll see, as is referred to in the paper, when we do look at those who are using our facilities we very much do bear in mind the charges that they can afford and we are flexible aware of where appropriate and I think that's probably why actually in effect this rise won't actually raise that much money but it is a Council wide.
policy and this year to raise charges in line with inflation became in below inflation at last year, but inflation still is very high of due to the policies of national government.
thank you, Councillor stock, for making that clear, are there any further questions, no, none of this paper is also for decision, but on the parent governor and Diocese representative do not vote on this paper because, as far as services for children, it's not just an education, so the recommendations on page 73,
and it's at paragraph 2.
A and B are we agreed.
we'd like to bang on.
yes, do you want to vote against, okay?
whose voting for?
and abstaining.
and voting against.
so that was 5 voting for or 4 against.
thank you very much.

8 Children's Social Care Workforce (Paper No. 24-50)

will go straight on to the paper. I won't do the preamble. It's students, social care workforce, and we have Lewis Jones, who's been waiting patiently to talk to us about this Lewis Jones, although if they my name is Louise Johnson, head of practice and principal social worker, so I'm really pleased to bring in this paper actually because it's an overweight overwhelmingly positive picture of the workforce stability that we have achieved over a number of years in children's social care. The paper lays out the national context, the regional context and then our local picture by way of comparison. So you will see, in terms of the natural national context that nationally vacancy rate for child and family social workers is increasing. The numbers of those social workers in post is decreasing, agency rates are going up, sickness rates are going up, levers are increasing and case loads are increasing as well
we have quite a different picture at a local level, but I just wanted to give you a little bit of context around the national level in terms of the DFC F, A produced stable homes built on love which is the national reform agenda for children's social care last year, and that has a big focus on building a stable workforce in order to be able to do very high quality work and change work with children and families as well, so it has a number of different strands that is working on nationally around retention of social workers, recruitment of social workers and investing in the early career development of social workers as well.
there's a number of things that we've been doing at a pan London level, so that's a collaboration between the Association of London, Directors of Children's Services and the London innovation and improvement alliance Lee.
we now have a pan-London workforce steering boredom and most importantly one of the innovations is we have what's called the London pledge so where the majority of London boroughs are signed up one and the whole purpose of that really is to reduce the flow of permanent social workers moving into the agency market which is one very expensive for local authorities doesn't create the workforce, stability that we need and most importantly creates instability for children and families because it interrupts relationships that social workers will have with children and families as well and we've seen some really positive benefits from that and are very active in the pan-London workforce steering board.
and then at a local level, there's there's many contributing factors really to how we've achieved the workforce stability that we currently have, I think one of those is a very clear vision about how we want to practice and how we want to work with families and that we want to support them to create change for children to remain within their families and that's very much at the level of values and beliefs about the type of social worker that we're trying to recruit in.
and the sort of work we want to enable them to do with families. Obviously, we've have launched embedded family safeguarding, which creates multidisciplinary teams for social workers to work in which are a dream for social workers to be able to work in. We have co-located family therapists again all supporting the work that social workers can do with children and families. We've got very strong, continuing professional development, a programme, and that's important, because social workers stay for that as well. And, most importantly, we've created the conditions to provide lower workload so that social workers can do that concentrated, highly demanding work with children and families. And that's probably the primary factor that social workers are looking for, which is manageable workloads to be able to have the time and the space to do that, work alongside a career pathway that helps them develop conditions or workspace that they want to come into each day and generally the culture that we've created within the workforce, that people want to choose ones with common practice as a child and family social worker. I think some of the things that we're most proud of is that our agency rates reducing it is the lowest it has been in
I don't know five years in relation to that a vacancy rates have reduced as well, we are converting agency workers to permanent social workers, so we've set the conditions in place to be able to do that, clearly, one of the things that we have to do is is keep our eye on the ball in terms of retention,
and to ensure that we continue to create those conditions as well, as well as continuing to promote ourselves as a destination as a place where people want to come practice, social workers, though we do we had there's we have community community care is a journalistic magazine for social workers and we had journalists come in and spend a whole day shadowing social workers and wrote an article as part of their Whitehall social work campaign that they're running nationally.
one of the things that pan-London that has happened is the development of a London social work for children, website that anyone is interested in working in children's social work in London can go in and essentially browse the whole of London, and we've got a really nice profile and the story of one of our social workers on that so we take those opportunities.
and to really promote ones with as a place, and I think in terms of feedback that we take from staff, we know that staff and social workers will only stay with us if those conditions remain right.
the and and, most importantly, that they have really high quality supervision in terms of the work that they do so for us, it's really critical that we've got high quality managers and supervisors of practice that isn't without challenge, because there isn't acute. of social workers, no one there isn't a or or or an oversupply of of high quality team managers as well, so.
we are always endeavouring to, and I suppose be better and to be attractive as well, thank you very much, Ms Jones, and thank you all for your passion, I can I can I can hear it in everything you're saying Councillor Birchall and then Councillor Crivelli,
yes, thank you very much, he said.
it's a very good report and it's a lovely story that we're hearing, so so thank you very much, and it's good to know that people want to come to once was.
and it's a you mentioned the family safeguarding, do you think that is something that has had a helped in this whole job satisfaction?
absolutely, I think when we did a lot promotion around the launch of family safeguarding, we ran a campaign in the Guardian that ran on Facebook, we had long views, so we attracted quite a lot of attention, we were the first and still remain the only London borough that's implemented family safeguarding and,
and I think there's this thing about when, when you're a social worker working with a family and you know that family may the parents may have some mental health needs where they need to access a service, there may be domestic abuse, domestic abuse is quite prevalent with a lot of the families that we work with or substance or drug misuse issues.
as a social worker, you can spend time trying to get those services involved in working with the family, and we've gotten co-located, so it's better for families, because we can really quickly get that, help out to them as well, but also it helps social workers work in those multidisciplinary teams. You have supervision environments where you've got all of the different perspectives of those professionals coming together and it it makes more effective work. Yeah, Ms Stephanie Lee
Councillor Calverley and then Councillor Corner and Ms Jones were sort of really getting close to the guillotine. So when you could give short answers that would really help, and if people could ask short questions, I am so sorry as my bad cheering we should've got here much quicker, you blame me, OK, so, Councillor Cavaliers, next and then Corner, can I can I just say, I think, the the the the table on page 90. It is absolutely fantastic what you have achieved Bobby in reducing the reliance on an A or A agency workers that was demonstrated by the fact that you've halved and are more than half the expenditure on it. You really are to be commended for I know what was, in effect, a perennial problem that you seem to off over the grass, because clearly one of the issues about recruitment attention is the the the workforce fuel that the work units are supported in environment, and you've talked about old initiatives there too, to do that, one of the things that again you point out is that it trying to get people to work for Wandsworth, it's not just about
telling them that you know, it's a good place to work on it, but it is not just a job, but you can pursue a career here and you've talked about trying to encourage the career development. Can you give us any idea is sort of examples about some of the you've talked about innovative opportunities, what sort of things is that you're doing to allow people to say listened if you come to Wandsworth, you can actually develop a career here
we developed a career pathway, so opportunities for people to progress through at different levels, we have a career progression panel that they can come to, I think we listened to the workforce about opportunities that they want, so we developed some roles called practice specialist roles where we enable practitioners to stay in practice but also contribute to kind of service development practice improvement.
and to develop the skills to be able to do that, and we've invested a huge amount in systemic training of staff, so that's accredited level qualifications to enable them to feel more confident in their change work with families, and through that we also tie them in which is really good.
because we are investing in them as well, and people really want to do that really want to do that and really want to stay
Councillor O'Connor Grit, thank you, and I'd like to echo the thoughts and the comments by colleagues really fantastic story about what is being achieved in in this Director of the Council, so well done to everyone involved.
did?
I want to focus on the local picture on page 88, firstly, I love the fact that bottom right tea with Anna is like a really important parts of the induction induction period come on sambuca, shots through Kate stock, yeah Con Abbott.
but only on a more serious point.
no, we hear a lot about how great the DA how great the leadership is in the in the director and also the quality of social work, but also on this page, we hear about the extra interviews and that people most often leave because of poor working relationships, sorry most often with their line manager could we comment on that what evidence have we had to hear that and what are we doing to?
we talked to people when they leave about why they're leaving, we talked to people what had come about why they come in as well, and I'd inevitably, there isn't always a fit between a social worker and a manager, and they become the most important person to them that in their team that they're working in so sometimes we might support them social workers to move within services within different teams,
it's not a huge number, but we know that sometimes that that's the primary reason why they're going, because they don't see themselves to be a fair, sometimes I think we've got much better at recruiting people with the right values and beliefs about the way we want them to practise, but we don't always get that right or sometimes when people come in and practise maybe it's different than how we assess the interview so sometimes they don't fit what we want and then that becomes apparent quite quickly as well through that process so,
thank you very much, Ms Jones, young, quick follow up on that and no, because we are nearly approaching the guillotine and I'm not having Mr Pennbury have sat here the entire evening and we hit the guillotine and we don't hear from him so very quick question Councillor we'd be all right, it's more of a thank you for everything you've done, I know or am I very good friends is just leaving one borough and is very excited about getting a placement at Wandsworth so she starts very soon and I know she's already finding the experience night and day
so thank you so as a statement rather than a question OK, this paper is for information, so do we note this paper, we note it, thank you very much.

9 Ofsted's Focused Visit to Wandsworth Children's Services (Paper No. 24-51)

so finally, we are at the final paper, which is Ofsted focus visit paper number 24 to 51 pages 95 2 1 0 8 and Mr Pendry, it has been waiting on ready to take any questions on this yeah I worry I won't give you a proper introduction of them to say you've read or it's really positive, it shows us that we're on the road to OK an outstanding judgment, which is where we want to be a reflex to work on the workforce any questions.
Councillor Stock, you're not a member of the committee, so you can't ask a question, but I believe you want to comment.
with that, thank you very much, I, I think Mr boundaries and and the selling himself yeah, we're really pleased to have had this visit by Ofsted last November and to receive the letter that that we did, albeit that there were further improvements, that Ofsted pick out and those are those that we had acknowledged or as they came into to visit as,
but I just really am pleased, as I think members of the Committee across both sides have acknowledged tonight the really hard work of officers in both areas of education for all and finance, and also.
social care, and perhaps just to link the two lasting papers together, because I was really pleased that the previous paper was so warmly welcomed by committee. You know we really are committed to our workforce and that relational practice with families and I think that's seen a gross,
both papers, and I think you know, really having Ofsted, come in and and comment in the final paragraphs of the paper in the final paragraphs of the whole pack for tonight, just how positive staff are about working here in Wandsworth that they feel highly valued by managers and leaders. You know it really is a testament to officers' hard work and we are all collectively, I'm sure are very thankful for the service that they're giving to the children and family of Wandsworth
thank you very much, Councillor Stott, you took the words out of my mouth. I think that was exactly how I was going to finish up by quoting the final paragraph of that letter from Ofsted, which is really you cannot ask for more, that the staff feel supported by managers and leaders, so a huge huge. Thank you, Councillor Corner, did you have one? We must be nearly yeah I I'd like to associate myself with those comments. I think it's really fantastic report, the journey that the team has been on. It's been incredible, so well done for that. I I also just linking the two babies as well. I really liked the fact that we've got a grip on case loads and the case loads are low and manageable, and that I think will mean better quality social care for four for the children we're caring, for which is really fantastic. I do just want to highlight the fact that there is an improvement area for homeless 16 to 17 year olds. I'm not saying this is an easy thing to solve, but when the administration were in opposition, they routinely brought up the the real and troubling issue of of young people being homeless. Surely this has to be the top priority for this administration to make sure that no homeless 16 and 17 year olds who are homeless for more than a second and in this borough, and I would like them to reflect on that and bring forward plans to get that down to 0
thank you, Councillor Corner, for that. I think Mr Pendry will respond yeah, of course, thank you, Councillor, so homeless 16 and 17 year olds we we, we don't have any 16 17 year olds who present to us as homeless, who are left homeless. They are always always always accommodated. We take the view very clearly that 16 and 17 year olds should be at home wherever possible, so we will accommodate them while we look at how come their homeless often is because they've had a falling out at home, maybe the parents had kicked him out of or for whatever reason, and and they are not always street homeless in that kind of
or a definition. We will accommodate them in supported accommodation while we do the work with them and their families to see if we can get them home, if we can't get them home, there'll be accommodated via the the homelessness route and they are given a choice as to whether they want to become a looked after child, with all of the support that they can get, or whether they want to be accommodated under the the homelessness legislation but no accompanies reassured the Committee that when a 16 and 17 year old comes to social care through the front door, saying the homeless, they are not not accommodated, they are not left homeless.
and that's really positive to hear, but the report did highlight that the work that goes into those people and identifying them before that comes around the is important, but I am sure that sure that we'll see improvement in that area.
thank you very much for your scrutiny, Councillor Corner on, and just to finish on, I know we've had a good report and done, Mr Pendry, I think, on on route for outstanding for the the next visit that last that's the aim and that's what we're all working really really hard together to achieve.
so this paper is not for voting, it's for information, so do we note this report, yes, thank you everybody and that brings the meeting to a close at 10.24, so it didn't hit guilty.