To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 6 November 2018.

Decision

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting held on 6 November 2018.

The Chair informed Members about the Committee’s recent visit to the Primary PRU (Bridgelea Primary School) at its new premises at Plymouth Grove.  He informed Members that the school was a specialist support school which did a lot of outreach work with other schools.  He requested that a visit be arranged to the school’s other site at Bridgelea Road.

Decision

To request that a visit be arranged to Bridgelea Primary School’s other site at Bridgelea Road in the new year.

Presentation of Craig Harris, Executive Director of Nursing, Safeguarding and Commissioning, the Strategic Director of Children and Education Services, Helen Scott, Senior Commissioning Manager, and Maria Slater, General Manager of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)

This presentation provides information on the practice, delivery and impact related to Manchester's Transformation Plan for Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing.

The Committee received a presentation of Craig Harris, Executive Director of Nursing, Safeguarding and Commissioning, the Strategic Director of

Children and Education Services, Helen Scott, Senior Commissioning Manager, and Maria Slater, General Manager of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) which provided information on the practice, delivery and impact related to Manchester's Transformation Plan for Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing.

Some of the main points and themes within the presentation included:

• The current position;
• The THRIVE model, which aimed to re-design how services were aligned to one another and shifted the focus to preventing children and young people from reaching a crisis point; and
• The key workstreams.

Councillor Midgley, Mental Health Champion, had been invited to address the Committee.  She highlighted the issue of children who were well-supported in hospital but who, on leaving hospital, currently had less support and were consequently re-admitted to hospital.  She requested further information on the crisis care pathway and the Manchester Beds for Manchester Children scheme. 

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• To note that good progress was being made to improve services;
• Work taking place with schools and that schools would appreciate partnership working with specialists; and
• To request further information on the membership of the Manchester THRIVE Partnership Board.

Darren Parsonage from Manchester Health and Care Commissioning (MHCC) reported that the Manchester Beds for Manchester Children scheme was a Greater Manchester-wide scheme which aimed to ensure that Greater Manchester children were allocated beds in Greater Manchester hospitals.  He informed Members about the Mentally Health Schools programme currently being piloted at a limited number of schools across Greater Manchester.  He also informed Members that all Manchester schools had access to a CAMHS practitioner.

Maria Slater informed the Committee that the crisis care pathway would be part of the highly specialised 24 hours a day, seven days a week offer, and that this would be supported by 10 new members of staff across Manchester and Salford, who were in addition to existing CAMHS staff.  She reported that the new staff would work flexibly and would visit children and young people in crisis at their home or school rather than the children attending hospitals’ Accident and Emergency departments.  She advised that the new team would offer support at the time of crisis for the first 72 hours, at which point the children would access CAMHS’ core offer.  She informed Members that many of these children were already known to CAMHS.  She outlined work taking place in schools to build children’s resilience and improve their mental well-being.  She informed Members about the Manchester THRIVE Partnership Board and invited Members to get involved in this.  Ms Slater also reported how young people were consulted on this work, including through the Young Person’s Forum and offered to circulate posters about the Young Person’s Forum to Committee Members.

Decisions

1.            To request that details of the Manchester THRIVE Partnership Board be circulated to Members of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 60.

Report of the Director of Population Health and Wellbeing

This report provides an overview on the health of children in the city, including outcomes in relation to the first 1000 days of life, dental health, physical health, obesity and malnutrition.

The Committee received a report of the Director of Population Health and Wellbeing which provided an overview of the health of children in the city, including outcomes in relation to the first 1000 days of life, dental health, physical health, obesity and malnutrition.

Officers referred to the main points and themes within the report which included:

• The Manchester Population Health Profile;
• The Health Visiting Service (including Infant Feeding Service);
• The School Health Service (School Nursing and Healthy Schools);
• The services to reduce childhood obesity;
• The Oral Health Improvement Service; and

·         Next steps.

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• The relationship between poverty and poor health outcomes;
• Concern about schools no longer providing fluoridated milk because they could not claim a subsidy under the Nursery Milk Remuneration Scheme for this;
• What could be done to further strengthen the involvement of Health Visitors in the  implementation of the Early Years Delivery Model (EYDM); and
• School engagement with the Healthy Schools Programme.

The Strategic Lead (Children and Young People’s Population Health) reported that there had been a national recruitment drive for Health Visitors a few years ago and that Manchester had been very successful in recruiting Health Visitors at this time; however, she reported that the population of the city had increased since then, while the funding for the Health Visitor Service had slightly decreased.  She advised Members that the Health Visitor Service was reviewing caseloads and working to ensure that Health Visitors in deprived areas had lower caseloads.  She reported that consideration was also being given to what additional work could be carried out by other staff in different roles in order to work together as a system to achieve the aims of the EYDM.  The Director of Population Health and Wellbeing reported that the public health grant had been reduced but that a working group had been established to develop proposals for consideration by MHCC for additional investment in Early Years to improve health outcomes.  He offered to provide these proposals to the Committee when they were available.

The Commissioning Lead (Children and Young People’s Population Health) informed Members about work to engage schools in the Healthy Schools Programme.  He advised Members that consideration was being given to how school governors could be engaged to support the Programme.  The Chair suggested that this be raised through the Chair of Governors’ briefing sessions.  The Strategic Director of Children’s and Education Services reported that he would raise this issue with a view to training being provided to school governors on the Healthy Schools Programme.

Decisions

1.            To request an update report in 12 months’ time.

2.            To note that the Strategic Director of Children’s and Education Services will raise the issue of providing training on the Healthy Schools Programme to school governors.

Report of the Head of Looked After Children

This report provides an update on the Council’s performance in relation to its adoption and fostering services.

The Committee received a report of the Head of Looked After Children which provided an update on the performance of the Council’s Fostering Service and the regional adoption agency Adoption Counts.  The Annual Fostering Service Report 2017/2018 and the Manchester Annual Adoption Report 2017/2018 were appended to the covering report.

Officers referred to the main points and themes within the report which included:

• Ofsted’s 2017 inspection of the service;
• The numbers of Looked After Children (Our Children) and the types of placement they were in;
• The recruitment and retention of foster carers;
• The Fostering Panel;
• The number, type and age of children waiting for adoption and the length of time they were waiting;
• Recruitment of adopters;
• Staffing of Adoption Counts;
• Development of Adoption Counts; and
• Adoption support.

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• To welcome the progress made in both fostering and adoption services;
• The training and support provided to foster carers;
• Request for further information on the staffing structure;
• What alternatives were there for older children who did not want to be fostered;
• Request to see the six-month report on Adoption Counts when it became available;
• What progress had been made in recruiting to the posts within Adoption Counts; and
• What was the outcome of the two complaints relating to Adoption Counts.

The Strategic Director of Children’s and Education Services outlined the recruitment process for prospective foster carers and the support and training provided to foster carers.  He offered to circulate to Members the recently revised Foster Carer Handbook which included the staffing structure.  The Fostering Manager outlined the structure of the service and the progress made in reducing agency staff and sickness levels. 

The Strategic Director of Children’s and Education Services reported that Alonzi House supported young people, along with their families, to enable them to stay with their own family.  He advised that, if a decision was made for a young person to become Looked After, the service would consider whether they could be placed with extended family.  Where this was not possible and the young person did not want to go into foster care, they might be placed in a Children’s Home.

The Strategic Director of Children’s and Education Services reported that he would review the information in the six-month Adoption Counts report and determine the most appropriate way to share this information with the Committee.

Mark Tobin from Adoption Counts reported that, when the agency had gone live, there had been a high number of vacancies but that now all but one of the posts had been filled.  He informed Members that one complaint relating to the agency had not been upheld and that he did not know the outcome of the other complaint.  The Chair requested that this information be shared with the Committee, ensuring that it did not reveal the identity of those involved.

Decisions

1.            To note that the Strategic Director of Children’s and Education Services will review the information in the six-month Adoption  ...  view the full minutes text for item 62.

The Committee will consider the reports detailed below as part of the 2019/20 budget refresh process.

The Committee considered a report of the Chief Executive and the City Treasurer which provided an update on the Council’s financial position and set out the next steps in the budget process.  The report summarised officers’ proposals for how the Council could deliver a balanced budget for 2019/20.

In conjunction with the above, the Committee also received and considered the Children and Education Services Business Plan for 2019/20, which set out in broad terms the directorate’s key priorities, key activities and revenue and capital strategy for 2019/20, which was a refresh of the directorate’s Business Plan for 2018/20 in the context of current resources, challenges and opportunities.

Taken together, the report and the directorate Business Plan illustrated how the directorate would work together and with partners to deliver our Corporate Plan and progress towards the vision set out in the Our Manchester Strategy.

The Committee discussed Manchester schools which had a significant under-spend in their budget.  The Head of Finance reported that, where schools had excessive balances, officers were in discussions with the schools about this. She reported that some schools had now put plans in place for this funding and that a clawback of some of this funding had also been agreed

Decision

To support the plans set out within the reports and to note that the Committee would receive and comment on the final budget proposals at its meeting on 5 February 2019.

Report of the Governance and Scrutiny Support Unit

This report provides the Committee with details of key decisions that fall within the Committee’s remit and an update on actions resulting from the Committee’s recommendations. The report also includes the Committee’s work programme, which the Committee is asked to amend as appropriate and agree.

A report of the Governance and Scrutiny Support Unit was submitted. The overview report contained key decisions within the Committee’s remit, responses to previous recommendations and the Committee’s work programme, which the Committee was asked to approve. 

The Chair drew Members’ attention to a motion in relation to exclusions from PRUs which had been passed at the Full Council meeting on 28 November 2018.  He reported that the Committee would receive a report relating to this in June 2019.

Decision

To note the report and agree the work programme, subject to the above amendment.