Agenda item

John Coleman noted that there are 22 performance measures for CYP OSC and all of them were on track apart from six. Full details were in the report.

In response to Councillor Roodhouse, John Coleman said that the third party spend was not met because the original plan did not happen, but this was not being amended by reducing costs with building rentals. Maximising income is, when children there is a statutory duty for health services to contribute towards a care package. For children in residential care, the local CCG (clinical commissioning group) would make a financial contribution towards that package. In the past this was not utilised so more work with the health centre was being done. Contributing towards these costs made it possible to increase income. The education safeguarding training target had not been met because most of that is free as it partly paid by schools or the private sector where there was a target of £50,000. Elements of these income targets have been met.

In response to the Chair, John Coleman said there were more children on CPPs nationally because of national cases and rising awareness. A lot of auditing was done around this around the north of Warwickshire around domestic abuse issues. There were also more children needing support during the current economic climate. Work was being done differently to children at risk of CSE in a multi-agency way without a CPP. Councillor Simpson-Vince noted that it was important not to miss anything while trying to get this back on target.

Following a question from Councillor Simpson-Vince, Nigel Minns stated that some targets like the Early Help one would be met because of the work being done. However, targets like children of a EHC plan (education, health and care) would be more difficult to achieve because progress was slower because they had to stay at their placed schools. It was important to get the right help given at the right time which would be done by increasing resources to mainstream schools. 

In response to Councillor Humphreys, Nigel Minns stated that there was a national health worker shortage, roughly 6-7000 in the UK. A recovery plan was in place to look at alternative approaches and one of these approaches is to change the skills mix so they use a different range of people who can do these visits to enable them to get the capacity needed. However, this meant anyone who was not a health visitor who carried out a visit did not count towards the national statistics.

Following a supplementary from Councillor Seccombe, Nigel Minns said this target could be changed from the national to a local one to provide a clearer target.

In response to Councillor Kerridge, John Coleman noted that the number of children entering care had reduced by 1/3 because of the early support for the families keeping children safe. These reports are now aligned to the Council Plan, and it showed the ones that were not on track and what the plan was to get them back on track.