Issue - meetings

The item was introduced by Becky Hale (Assistant Director, Strategy and Commissioning). She told members that of the 22 key business measures of relevance to the remit of the Committee, 16 were on track or had been completed. There were a number of positives, with the key business measures relating to the number of children subject to a child protection plan and applications for school places being highlighted as particularly good areas of performance.

There were two service areas where performance was static and four where it was declining. One of the performance areas that was not on track to be met related to the under 18 conception rate. Becky Hale said the most recent data was from December 2021 and a lot of targeted work had been taking place since then to improve the figures and understand the root cause of the current ones. One of the static performance areas related to the number of under 18s being admitted to hospital due to alcohol. Becky Hale said there had been a slight improvement but admission rates in Warwickshire were notably higher than the national average. Targeted work was taking place in the Nuneaton and Bedworth and Warwick districts due to these being particular outliers. A new liaison officer was in the process of being recruited to work with the Council’s commissioning provider, Compass. This was a priority as part of the Strategic Drug and Alcohol Partnership. Instances of self harm was another area of concern where targeted action was taking place as the key business measure was not on track to be met.

John Coleman said the percentage of care leavers in education, employment or training had decreased overall during the last year. However there was an interesting trend that had emerged when the data was analysed in more detail; the percentage of 17-18 year olds in care in education, employment or training had decreased but the figure for 19-20 year olds had increased. The reasons for this trend were being investigated. The number of careers advisors in the children in care team had been increased. John Coleman said around 45 per cent of children in care were unaccompanied asylum seekers, and although they had been engaging in education courses they were not able to work. There were further concerns however as they would generally take shorter courses; additionally there was limited availability for English as a Second Language courses. John Coleman said addressing this issue was an area of priority.

Shade Agboola (Director of Public Health) said a programme had been implemented to address declining rates of children who were receiving checks from health visitors at 6-8 weeks old. Following discussions at the Health and Wellbeing Board an action plan had been devised, whereby families who had high needs or were classified as vulnerable would be prioritised. All families would receive a health check by the age of 13 weeks. Shade Agboola said recruitment of health visitors remained a national challenge. However of the cohort of students set  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5