Minutes:
The Portfolio Holder gave an update to Members on work being undertaken across the Education Portfolio.
Since the last meeting the Portfolio Holder had been on a number of visits. This included an informative and interesting visit to Glebe School which had been hosted by the Head Teacher, Mr Keith Seed. The Portfolio Holder reported how the School did wonderful work with children with Special Educational Needs. During the visit the Portfolio Holder had attended an internal Council meeting which bought together staff and students to discuss issues. The Portfolio Holder had also been invited to visit Westminster Academy which was run by the Harris Foundation. A number of Bromley children attended Westminster Academy. A further visit made by the Portfolio Holder was to the Bromley Rotary Club Education Day which had involved a debating society.
The Portfolio Holder had also attended Link and LA Governor Forums. These had been arranged by Michelle Graydon at the Octavo Partnership and the Portfolio Holder conveyed his thanks to Ms Graydon for arranging these sessions.
The official report setting out the outcome of the inspection of the Bromley Youth Offending Service (YOS) had now been published and recognised the progress that had been made in improving the YOS. The Service had gone from 1 star to 3 star with one element judged to be 4 star. The Portfolio Holder conveyed his thanks to the staff and management of the YOS for their work in driving improvement.
In relation to Children’s Services, managers had been working hard to recruit staff and deliver the Council’s Caseload Promise. The Portfolio Holder had recently filmed a recruitment video to encourage more social workers to join the Council’s workforce. The Portfolio Holder had also attended an Apprenticeship Day and had actively encouraged potential staff to join Bromley. The Council was now working hard to improve communication with Partners in order to drive further service improvement. To this end, the Portfolio Holder had attended a constructive meeting with the Independent Chairman of the Bromley Safeguarding Children Board to discuss work being undertaken to deliver the actions within the Children’s Service Improvement Plan.
In April, the Portfolio Holder, along with the Leader of the Council, Chief Executive, Deputy Chief Executive, and Chairman of the Children’s Service Improvement Governance Board, had attended a Quality and Improvement Practice Week. This provided Members and the Senior Management Team with the opportunity to see first-hand the work undertaken with children and families.
The Portfolio Holder reported that the third Ofsted Monitoring visit had been undertaken in May 2017, and the letter setting out the outcome of the Visit (which was contained in the agenda papers for the meeting) demonstrated that the Service was now moving in the right direction although there was still more work to be done. The Portfolio Holder confirmed that Frankie Sulke, the DfE appointed Children’s Commissioner for Bromley, had now completed her allotted time with the Council and had submitted her report to the DfE, although due to Ministerial changes the report had not yet been published. The Portfolio Holder thanked the Commissioner for the support and challenge she had provided to the Council.
Finally, the Portfolio Holder reported that work was underway on arrangements for the Corporate Parenting Fun Day which would take place on Sunday 30th July 2017 and highlighted the value of a good Member turn out at the event.
Responding to a question surrounding mechanisms for ensuring that the improvements that had been made in the YOS were monitored and remained on track, the Portfolio Holder explained that an improvement plan had been developed and progress against the improvement plan was monitored by the YOS Management Board. There was a good range of representatives from the Council and Partner Agencies on the Management Board and this provided a robust challenge mechanism.
In response to a question concerning how Bromley had come to have such poor outcomes in inspections of the YOS and Children’s Service and whether there were any common contributing factors, the Portfolio Holder suggested that since the poor inspection outcomes communication with partners had significantly improved. Partners were now members of strategic groups, there was increased data and information sharing and organisations were now working towards a common cause. The Portfolio Holder recognised that there was still more work to do, especially with schools but significant improvements had been made.
In answer to a question surrounding concerns that had been raised by Members of the Schools’ Forum in relation to school funding, the Director of Education explained that there was not a head teacher in Bromley that was not concerned about their budgets and the proposed cuts to funding. There was currently a question mark over the proposed National Funding Formula. In addition to this, there were tensions between primary and secondary head teachers in relation to the ratio of funding. In response to a question from the Chairman, the Director of Education confirmed that losses faced by schools had been capped and the maximum a school was likely to lose as a result of the changes to funding was around 3 or 4 per cent. It was agreed that the information on school funding that had been collated by Officers would be disseminated to the Select Committee.
Resoinding to a question from the Chairman surrounding accommodation for children from families that were homeless, the Portfolio Holder responded that following the question that had been raised at Full Council on Monday 26th June, work had begun on addressing the issue. The Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Director ECHS reported that a policy framework, agreed by Full Council in 2015, was in place. The Deputy Chief Executive had met with the Portfolio Holder for Care Services (who was responsible for the housing portfolio) and a review was being conducted by staff within the housing service. It appeared that where families were housed in Kent (which was the third option considered by the Council) a number of these families chose to educate their children in Kent. The Chairman stressed that Members needed to know how many of the Borough’s children were travelling large distances to attend school.
The Chairman noted that the recent Queen’s Speech had not mentioned the abolition of the 50% admissions figure for faith schools and requested that this be further investigated as there could be implications for the proposed Catholic Secondary School in the Borough.
The Committee discussed the issue of planning for future education sites in the Borough and the Portfolio Holder confirmed that he was confident that the allocation within the Council’s Local Plan was sufficient to meet demand. A great deal of work had been undertaken to ensure that all Members understood the challenges faced in relation to the Council’s statutory responsibility to provide a sufficient number of school places for the population of the Borough.
The Portfolio Holder confirmed that the Schools’ Partnership Board was evolving and a review of the remit and function of the Board was being undertaken.
The Chairman requested that the Schedule of School visits for the Summer Term be circulated to all Members of the Committee and the Schedule of Visits for the Autumn term be circulated as soon as it was available.