Agenda and draft minutes

At this point in the meeting, Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary interest or other registerable interest they might have in respect of business on this agenda, if they have not already done so in advance on the Register of Interests. The disclosure must include the nature of the interest.

An interest must also be disclosed in the meeting when it

becomes apparent to the member during the meeting.

[Please see attached sheet for further guidance for Members]

Members were asked to declare at this point in the meeting any disclosable pecuniary interest or other registerable interest they might have in respect of business on the agenda if they had not already done so in advance on the Register of Interests. Councillor Crawshaw declared an interest in that he had a family member who was a member of York Disability Rights Forum, and declared a private interest in relation to item 7 of the agenda, on which he had received advice from the Deputy Monitoring Officer and had been advised that this interest would not affect his judgement.

To approve and sign the minutes of the meetings held on 23 January 2024.

Resolved: That the minutes of the meeting of the committee held on 23 January 2024 be approved and signed as a correct record subject to the following amendment:

·       The addition of a bullet point to Minute No. 33: SACRE Annual Report 2022-2023, which would read: “Independent, external providers of Religious Education to schools were not directly monitored as part of this process”.

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It was reported that there had been no registrations to speak at the meeting under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

This report sets out the projected 2023/24 financial position and the performance position for the period covering 1 April 2023 to 31 December 2023. This is the third report of the financial year and assesses performance against budgets, including progress in delivering the Council’s savings programme.

The Head of Children and Education Finance presented the report and in response to questions from members, the Head of Children and Education Finance, and Corporate Director of Children and Education, confirmed that:

·       Children Looked After (CLA) and Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Children had different trauma based needs and it was important to ensure CYC had capacity to support this.

·       Many CLA had been moved into the city and fewer CLA were being accommodated outside of the city, which has brought down accommodation costs.

·       City of York Council (CYC) had the ability to claim back Direct Payments funds which had been allocated but which had not been spent.

·       Once a school was on the path to transferring to Academy status, Local Authorities (LAs) had limited scope to reigning in over-expenditure. Debt owed by the school referred to in paragraph 22 of the report to CYC had been written-off as per CYC’s legal obligations through the school’s transition to Academy status.

Resolved:

i.                That the Chair would liaise with the Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board in order to request a report for information purposes on obesity from the Health and Wellbeing Board.

ii.               That the Children, Culture and Scrutiny Committee noted the finance and performance information.

Reason: To examine childhood obesity and ensure expenditure was kept within the approved budget.

This report is the bi-annual report for Safer York Partnership and covers the priorities contained within the Community Safety Strategy for the period 2023-2026.

The Head of Community Safety, and Superintendent of North Yorkshire Police presented the report and in response to questions from members confirmed that:

·        The Community Safety Strategy was updated every 3 years.

·        Although gender wasn’t a legally protected characteristic, it was recorded under North Yorkshire Police’s hate crime data and was a focus for North Yorkshire Police. The Head of Community Safety noted that gender related hate crimes were included within the work of the Hate Crime Partnership.

·        The arrangement of Multi-Agency meetings were a priority for Community Safety and North Yorkshire Police.

·        The Community Safety Hub had recently divided York into different areas to facilitate weekly area meetings with area coordinators.

·        There was an ambition for North Yorkshire Police to attend more CYC Ward Committee meetings.

·        Although the non-emergency 101 service was a nationwide service not controlled by local police forces, the data it received was helpful for North Yorkshire Police in receiving information on nationwide trends.

·        There was a focus on improving relations between the public and local neighbourhood police teams, and in ensuring contact details for local supervisors and neighbourhood teams were available.

·        York Channel Panel was considered to be good by the Home Office and there was a focus on increasing Prevent referrals, although it was noted that few referrals were expected to be escalated to York Channel Panel.

·        The Terms of Reference for the strategy were updated annually but had not been updated yet this year as these were to be updated following the York and North Yorkshire Mayoral Election 2024.

·        An update to this report could be brought back to the Children, Culture and Communities Scrutiny Committee in the 2024-2025 municipal year with the addition of a performance matrix.

Resolved: That the Children, Culture and Scrutiny Committee noted the information relating to delivery of the Community Safety Strategy.

Reason: So that members were updated on the performance of the Safer York Partnership and facilitated contribution to the development of the future strategy.

This report provides an update on plans to develop a Youth strategy for the city. The purpose of the strategy is to develop a new local landscape of how the council and providers of youth services work in partnership.

The Head of Innovation and Children’s Champion, and Head of Communities presented the report and in response to questions from members confirmed that:

·       A supply of E-learning licences were purchased and shared free of charge to members of the Youth Network, and a multi-agency workforce induction tool was being developed to facilitate safeguarding training for partners.

·       Staffing issues were providing difficulties for youth provisions which young people relied on and this was a focus. The development of a Local Youth Partnership would aim to address this through the council and providers working together.

·       The role of Councillors in the development of a youth strategy was integral and partners were supported to work together.

·       An update to this report could be brought back to the Children, Culture and Communities Scrutiny Committee in the 2024-2025 municipal year.

Resolved: That the Children, Culture and Scrutiny Committee:

i.                Noted and commented on the development of the York Youth Strategy and associated Local Youth Partnership.

ii.               Commented on the proposals for the £40,000 funding to support the delivery of youth work provision, linked to the local Youth Partnership, local ward priorities and neighbourhood action planning.

Reason: To have supported the successful development and implementation of the York Youth Strategy.

This report provides the members of scrutiny with an update on the delivery of actions outlined in the SEND Operational Plan, 2023-2025.

The Assistant Director, Education and Skills presented the report and noted that this was an update to the report previously received by the committee on 5 September 2023. It was noted that actions 4.1 and 4.5 of Annex A to the previous report were both now in place.

The Assistant Director, Education and Skills noted that 9 primary schools would work alongside professionals for training on neurodivergence as part of a focus on neurodivergence via a national-led PINS (Partnership for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools) approach; a further 8 schools would be working on the ADHD Friendly Schools Award.

In response to questions from members, the Assistant Director, Education and Skills, and Corporate Director of Children and Education confirmed that:

·       In relation to point 2.4 of Annex A of the report: Work was being done into developing a SEND sufficiency strategy which would consider trends and map them against available provision.

·       Allocation of Special School places was not restricted to the City of York and were open to consultations from neighbouring LAs, CYC needed to work with partners in neighbouring LAs on this.

·       Secondary Schools were currently more full than in previous years due to current demographics which was seeing a bulge of children working through the secondary phase, and this trend would be reversed in future years as the lower numbers in primary begin to work through.

·       The Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) had adopted SEND as one of its priorities and was reviewing it as a mandatory work item.

The Assistant Director issued a correction to the report as follows:

·       Point 4.2 on page 133 of the agenda should have read as “4.3”, and point 4.3 on page 135 of the agenda should have read as “4.4”.

Resolved: That the Children, Culture and Scrutiny Committee:

i.                Considered the progress that had been made on the delivery of the SEND Operational Plan since September 2023 to be assured progress is being made, particularly in relation to actions 4.1 and 4.5.

ii.               Noted the continuing challenges being faced by the local area SEND partnership particularly in relation to sufficiency. To ensure the members of the committee had an understanding of the on-going challenges to the delivery of the improvements for children and young people with SEND in the local area.

Reason: So that members were aware of the progress made on the delivery of the plan, and of the challenges being faced by the local partnership.

Members are asked to discuss, and receive a verbal update, on the work of the Task and Finish Groups set up by the Children, Culture and Communities Scrutiny Committee.

The Children, Culture and Scrutiny Committee received an update from its established Task and Finish Groups.

·       Councillor Wilson confirmed that Councillor Clarke had recently joined Councillor Cuthbertson, Councillor Crawshaw, and herself as members of the Education, Health, and Care Plan Task and Finish Group, and that feedback would be brought to the committee following their next meeting.

·       Councillors Knight and Nelson confirmed that, as members of the Food Insecurity Task and Finish Group, they had undertaken meetings with various partners and the Assistant Director, Customer and Communities, and more meetings were to be arranged. It was noted that they planned to present a report to the committee at a future meeting.

Resolved: That the Children, Culture and Scrutiny Committee received an update from its Task and Finish Groups.

Reason: So that members were aware of work being undertaken by the committee’s Task and Finish Groups.

Members are asked to consider the Committee’s work plan for the 2023/24 municipal year.

Resolved: That Members considered the committee’s work plan for the 2023/24 municipal year.

Reason: To have kept the committee’s work plan for the 2023/24 municipal year updated.