Agenda, decisions and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Lodge Road, Daventry NN11 4FP

Contact: James Edmunds, Democratic Services  Email: democraticservices@westnorthants.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

32.

Apologies for Absence and Notification of Substitute Members

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Karen Cooper.

33.

Declarations of Interest

Members are asked to declare any interest and the nature of that interest which they may have in any of the items under consideration at this meeting.

Minutes:

Councillor Emma Roberts declared a non-pecuniary interest in Agenda Item 7 (School Improvement) as the Regional Schools Lead for her employer, although she did not cover Northamptonshire.

34.

Notification of requests from Members of the Public to address the Meeting

To receive notification of requests from members of the public to address the meeting on an item on the public part of the agenda.

Minutes:

There were no requests from members of the public to address the meeting.

35.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 405 KB

To confirm the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 16 November 2021.

Decision:

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee agreed the minutes of the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting on 16 November 2021.

 

Minutes:

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee agreed the minutes of the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting on 16 November 2021.

 

36.

Chair's Announcements

To receive communications from the Chair.

Minutes:

The Chair made the following points:

·         The first evidence-gathering meeting of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Scrutiny Panel took place on 13January 2022 and good input was received from Sharon Robson, Assistant Director Children and Young People at Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, and Jo Fletcher, Clinical Lead, Children and Young People Transformation Programme;

·         The first meeting of the iCAN Scrutiny Panel was due to take place on 26 January 2022;

·         She had been appointed by Full council on 2December 2021 as the West Northamptonshire Council member of the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee on the development of the Horton Hospital in Banbury.

37.

Children's Services Performance pdf icon PDF 1 MB

To consider an update on matters supporting children’s services performance in Northamptonshire and the outcomes of the latest Ofsted monitoring visit.

Decision:

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

a)     Requested to have access to information provided to the commissioning authority giving a greater level of detail about children’s services performance against key targets and about the Children’s Trust staffing establishment in time for the Committee meeting on 25 April 2022.

b)     Agreed that the Committee should take a continuing interest in the direction of travel for children’s services and how children’s services contributes with other services to dealing with cross-cutting issues in West Northamptonshire.

c)     Agreed to confirm at the Committee meeting on 25 April 2022 whether it would schedule further scrutiny with Children’s Trust representatives at the Committee meetings on 21 June 2022 or 30 August 2022.

 

Minutes:

The Chief Executive of Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT), together with the Assistant Director, Quality Assurance and Commissioning and the Assistant Director, Corporate Parent Services introduced the report updating the Committee on progress with achieving consistently good quality practice, the outcomes of Ofsted monitoring visits and measures to further improve recruitment and retention of social workers.

 

The Chief Executive emphasised that West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) had provided outstanding support for NCT during its continuing evolution.  Performance was improving, which was recognised.  The current Department of Education commissioner was stepping down in February 2022 and would not be replaced.  Ofsted had advised that following the November 2021 monitoring visit there would be no further monitoring visits but a full inspection with grading would take place in summer 2022.  This would be a two week process with preparation in the three weeks beforehand.  Although work to support improvement in priority areas was continuing it was likely that the best Ofsted grade that could be expected at this point would be ‘requires improvement’.  This reflected that Ofsted would consider the position in Northamptonshire back to 2019 and would need to be convinced that recent improvements could be sustained. 

 

The Assistant Director, Corporate Parent Services highlighted action being taken to improve the quality and consistency of professional practice and to ensure that services were informed by the voice of the child.  A skilled workforce was needed to achieve this.  The majority of posts in NCT from team leader level upwards were now filled by permanent staff members.  More tailored continuous professional development helped to maintain focus and show what was good practice.  The NCT Improvement Plan was monitored monthly by an Improvement Board.  NCT continued to implement and embed a strengths-based, child-focussed practice model intended to achieve sustained outcomes for children.  The Assistant Director, Quality Assurance and Commissioning further advised that NCT had implemented revised procedures and practice standards that gave managers and practitioners greater clarity about expectations and support.  The Quality Assurance Framework was now seen as a collaborative process, not a punitive one. 

 

In relation to recruitment and retention of social workers, the Chief Executive and Assistant Director, Corporate Parent Services advised that Northamptonshire’s position relative to other areas had improved compared to pressures experienced in 2020.  NCT’s vacancy rate for social workers was 22.5% and the rate of agency social workers was 16.6% in December 2021.  There had been more starters than leavers in the last year and NCT managers were being contacted by people looking to work in Northamptonshire.  A further 10 international social workers were due to join NCT in May 2022 with a good package of support.  The NCT Workforce Strategy set a clear vision and priorities that provided a framework for action to support recruitment and retention.  It reflected that NCT was still on an improvement journey but there was an absolute commitment to act when issues needed to be addressed.

 

The Committee considered the report and members raised the following points:

·         The overall numbers of social workers  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37.

38.

School Improvement pdf icon PDF 469 KB

To consider an overview of activity by West Northamptonshire Council to support school improvement.

Additional documents:

Decision:

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

a)    Requested to be provided with an analysis of the number of academy schools in West Northamptonshire required to become sponsored academies, the length of time since those schools converted and their current Ofsted outcomes.   

b)    Requested to be provided with confirmation of the current number of children missing from education in West Northamptonshire.

c)    Requested to be provided with confirmation of the recent direction of travel concerning permanent exclusions in West Northamptonshire.

d)    Agreed to invite the Regional Schools Commissioner to attend a future Committee meeting to discuss matters relating to the performance of academy schools in West Northamptonshire.

Minutes:

The Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Education introduced the Interim Director of Children’s Services, who would be covering this role until March 2022 to give WNC more flexibility regarding the timing of recruitment for a permanent appointment.  

 

The Interim Director of Children’s Services introduced the report setting out WNC’s legal powers and duties relating to school effectiveness, arrangements to carry out this function and the Ofsted outcomes for local schools.  It was highlighted that WNC monitored the performance of academy schools and would seek to work with them in cases where there were concerns.  The Ofsted outcomes for maintained schools in the authority compared well to national and regional averages.  The position for academy schools was less good, although this reflected that a significant number of these schools became academies in response to concerns about performance.  Assessments in 2022/23 would provide the first validated school data since 2019, which meant that this would be an important year for school effectiveness.

 

The Committee considered the report and members raised the following points:

·         Did WNC make use of potential complaints about a school when considering effectiveness, particularly when there was no current validated data?

·         Concerns were expressed about children who were missing from education and the quality of education provided to some children who were home-schooled.

·         Further information was requested on the number of academy schools in the area that had been required to become academies and when they had converted.  An academy trust needed to take responsibility for poor performance by a sponsored academy if it had been running it for a reasonable time.

·         The information presented reinforced the need for the Committee to meet with the Regional Schools Commissioner to discuss the performance of local academy schools.   

·         What action did WNC take to address different levels of effectiveness between schools in different parts of the authority?

·         Over half of the 65 maintained primary schools in the authority were in south Northamptonshire.  What were the reasons for this concentration and was it WNC policy to retain the remaining local maintained schools?

 

The Interim Director of Children’s Services provided additional information during the course of discussion as follows:

·         Complaints about a school should be directed to the school and then to the Department for Education: WNC did not have a role in this process, although it did provide information about how to make a complaint.  WNC did consider soft intelligence as part of its overall approach to school effectiveness.

·         WNC had a statutory duty to know about young people missing from schools and monitored the position carefully.  This would be assisted by a forthcoming cleanse of data to ensure that it was up to date.  WNC also had good data on young people who were on-roll but not attending school full-time.

·         All parents could choose to educate their children at home and local authorities were not able to check the standard of education provided: a local authority could only take action if there was a safeguarding concern.  The statutory duty on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 38.

39.

Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Support and Alternative Provision pdf icon PDF 461 KB

To consider an overview of SEND support and alternative provision in West Northamptonshire.

 

Additional documents:

Decision:

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee requested to receive an update on the development of SEND support in West Northamptonshire to the Committee meeting on 30 August 2022, to include performance against the timescale for completing Education, Health and Care Plan assessments.

Minutes:

The Interim Director of Children’s Services introduced the report providing an overview of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) support and Alternative Provision in the local authority area and key current issues.  It was highlighted that there was currently a significant shortfall of specialist places, which had an impact on the cost and quality of provision.  A business plan was being put in place to provide 500 additional SEND places over the next 3 years with an ambition to provide a new special school in 2023/24.  Reliance on independent school places for SEND had contributed significantly to the budget being overspent.  The proposed 500 places would be made up of resourced places in mainstream schools, the expansion of existing special schools and the creation of 220-250 places at a new school.

 

The Interim Director of Children’s Services went on to outline the recovery plan for the high needs block of the Dedicated Schools grant (DSG), which had a £2.5m overspend that would increase to almost £8m by 2024/25 if not addressed.  The provision of additional SEND places would form part of the recovery plan.

 

The Committee considered the report. Members sought further information about educational psychology provision in West Northamptonshire; the status of the proposed new special school; and WNC’s current performance on the completion of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans.

 

The Interim Director of Children’s Services provided additional information during the course of discussion as follows:

·         There had been a shortage of educational psychologists (EPs) locally because the national EP pay scale had not been used.  This situation had now been resolved, which would assist future recruitment.

·         The proposed new special school was legally required to be an academy school unless there was no interest in operating it.  In practice it would be an academy school commissioned by WNC.  Securing a good trust would be crucial to the effectiveness of the school.

·         WNC currently completed 20-25% of EHC plan assessments within the target of 20 weeks after a period in which performance had been much better.  Work was being done to address shortages of case workers and other factors affecting performance but would need time to take effect. 

 

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee requested to receive an update on the development of SEND support in West Northamptonshire to the Committee meeting on 30 August 2022, to include performance against the timescale for completing Education, Health and Care Plan assessments.

40.

Review of Committee Work Programme 2021/22 pdf icon PDF 400 KB

To review and note the Committee Work Programme.

Decision:

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

a)    Agreed that the Committee would still seek to scrutinise the West Northamptonshire Council interim Housing Strategy on 1 March 2022 as scheduled in the work programme.

b)    Agreed that the Committee meeting on 1 March 2022 should have a short agenda to enable a workshop-style meeting to scrutinise the interim Housing Strategy to be held immediately afterwards. 

c)    Requested to receive further information on the following matters relating to the Healthwatch function in Northamptonshire:

·         The organisational relationship between the Connected Together Community Interest Company and Healthwatch Northamptonshire

·         The membership of the Healthwatch Northamptonshire board

·         The role of Healthwatch in the Northamptonshire Integrated Care System

Minutes:

The Democratic Services Assistant Manager introduced the report setting out the latest version of the Work Programme, highlighting the following points:

·         The Committee had previously identified WNC’s new interim Housing Strategy as a topic for scrutiny at its meeting on 1 March 2022.  Information received about the timescale for the development of the draft Strategy indicated that this might be better scheduled in April or May 2022.  Scrutiny might also be done through a workshop-type session rather than an item at a formal meeting.

·         A briefing on the operation of the Healthwatch function in Northamptonshire had been circulated to Committee members ahead of the current meeting.  The Committee should determine whether it wished to take any further action on this matter.

 

The Committee considered the report.  Clarification was sought about whether the timescale for developing the interim Housing Strategy had changed.  Members urged that the Committee should still seek to scrutinise it at the planned time, although this might best be done through a workshop session.  It was suggested that such a session could be held on 1 March 2022, as members were already available on that date, following a shorter formal Committee meeting.    

 

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

a)    Agreed that the Committee would still seek to scrutinise the West Northamptonshire Council interim Housing Strategy on 1 March 2022 as scheduled in the work programme.

b)    Agreed that the Committee meeting on 1 March 2022 should have a short agenda to enable a workshop-style meeting to scrutinise the interim Housing Strategy to be held immediately afterwards. 

c)    Requested to receive further information on the following matters relating to the Healthwatch function in Northamptonshire:

·         The organisational relationship between the Connected Together Community Interest Company and Healthwatch Northamptonshire

·         The membership of the Healthwatch Northamptonshire board

·         The role of Healthwatch in the Northamptonshire Integrated Care System

41.

Urgent Business

The Chair to advise whether they have agreed to any items of urgent business being admitted to the agenda.

Minutes:

There were no items of urgent business.