Issue - meetings

This report analyses performance by reference to the service plan, the budget and the performance indicators for all of the services funded through the Children’s Services budget.

Advice of the Advisory Panel

That the Executive Member be advised:

(i)           That the performance of services within the directorate funded through the Children’s Services budget be noted and thanks to Officers be recorded for their hard work and particularly to all those individuals and organisations who helped after the recent fire at York High School;

(iii)    That the Executive be requested to agree to release the following amounts currently contained within the Corporate Contingency Budget:

·  £80k for Children’s Social Care Fostering;

·  £142k for Children’s Social Care Legal Fees;

·  £40k for Music Service Income Shortfall.

Decision of the Executive Member

RESOLVED:That the advice of the Advisory Panel be accepted and endorsed.

REASON:In order to ensure appropriate performance management arrangements are in place for the work of the department.

Members received a report which analysed performance by reference to the service plan, the budget and the performance indicators for all of the services funded through the Children’s Services budget.

There had been good progress in the first six months of the year against the actions from the service plans and key achievements to date and areas where further work was needed were set out in paragraph 9 of the report.  Particular attention was drawn in the report to the excellent feedback in the Audit Commission survey on the views of schools on the local authority, on the feedback on the Primary Capital Strategy submission, and on the actions arising from the York High School fire.

The projected net outturn for 2008/09 was £30,108k, which left a projected net overspend of £828k against the latest approved net budget of £29,280k.  This was split between the General Fund, with a projected net overspend on £528k, and the Dedicated Schools Grant, with a projected net overspend of £300k.  In relation to the General Fund, the report detailed work being undertaken by officers to identify further savings and set out a recommendation to the Executive for use of funds from the Corporate Contingency Budget.

Officers provided an update on the Directorate’s progress with a review of child protection arrangements, following the Baby P case at Haringey, and Members discussed how Executive Members with statutory responsibility for this area could ensure that this responsibility was fulfilled.

Officers also confirmed that a high quality Myplace bid would be submitted in the second round of bidding, although there was still some doubt as to whether it would be around the young people’s preferred site in the city centre, as this option was complex and could require additional capital injection by other parties.  A Bid Manager had been appointed to take forward this work.

Other comments made during the discussion of the report included:

·  A request to investigate if a local indicator could be developed for the number of three year olds receiving free early years provision who lived within the City of York, as the current indicator included children living in other authorities, thereby returning results of over 100%, and making it hard to detect if any York children were not taking up this opportunity.¹

·  The need to examine vocational qualifications, as well as academic qualifications, for looked after children and an officer update on work currently in progress to develop additional indicators to do this.³

·  The welcome progress with the Books for Babies project.

·  The issue of access to dentistry, which had been raised by the Show Me That I Matter Panel, and an update on improvement work being undertaken.

·  A correction to the quarter two performance figure for indicator CF4 (% of health needs assessments undertaken for children in care for more than 1 year) which was 70%, not 59.7% as written in Annex 1 of the report, and an update on the work being undertaken to improve performance.

Advice of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39