Transcript

We're delighted to have you all at this fancy new venue for tonight and I hope you can all see and hear OK. I'm welcome to the Education Children's Services Committee. My name is Councillor Penny Frost and I'm Chair of this meeting. A few housekeeping notes for you. Please switch on your microphone when you're invited to speak. When you're finished speaking, please send the microphone off. Speak slowly and clearly. Don't try and talk over or interrupt anyone and please ensure that you've switched off or on to silent any other devices you have that may interrupt proceedings. Now, present with me tonight, a member of the Education Children's Services Committee. So present with us here is the Executive Director of Children's Services in DODS and Michelle Beaumont, who's supporting us from Democratic Services and several other offices who will be presenting reports this evening. Now this webcast is being broadcast live via the Council's website and you're reminded that by participating in the meeting, you are consenting to being broadcast and to the use of images and sound recordings for webcasting and/or for training purposes. Now we have had no written questions submitted. We've had one request to speak on item seven, home to school travel policy. I'm going to move to item one of the agenda, apologies for absence. I've received apologies for Mr Andrew Cole, K-S-G, the church representative for the Arch Narcissus of Suffolk and Westminster, I guess, London. Are there any other apologies? I know we have two people running late tonight, two Councillors running late and that's Councillors Hull and Engel and they will be here as soon as they can. Now, declarations of interest. Do the members of the committee have any declarations of interest for any items on the agenda? Okay, so moving on to the minutes. The minutes are in your agenda pages five to 12 and I'm going to ask you to approve the minutes of the ordinary meeting which is held on 22nd February of this year. Let's just go through those minutes briefly. page five, any issues, page six, page seven, page eight, page nine, page ten, page eleven, page twelve, right. Members, will you please indicate that you're content to approve the accuracy of the minutes? Thank you. I confirm those minutes are approved. Item four petitions, there are no petitions tonight that require our consideration. Item five ward concerns, we have not received any ward concerns on this occasion. Item six, educational outcomes and you'll find that combined report on pages thirteen to forty six of your agenda pack. I'm delighted that we have Charis Penfold and Rosemary Hafiz with us tonight and I'm going to ask them to present this item. Good evening, everyone. Thank you. Have you got her? I have. Good evening, everyone. Thank you. I'm just going to do some brief headlines on the paper that there is and then we'll take any questions. So, as you can see, the recommendation here is just to note educational outcomes for the academic year which finished last summer. So, this is generally about summer 2023 outcomes and it goes up sort of chronologically. So, the first headlines are for our youngest children at the end of reception, where in that particular year we used a revised model of profile for the second year and we saw an increase with 76% which is considerably above national of 67 and a 2% increase with Richmond being ranked second. We then move on to our children in year one, who completed the phonics screening test which has been completed for a number of years now and again an increase in percentage point to the previous year and you can also see the national average at 79 in Richmond at 87. And then again, that phonics. That's better, you're right, thank you and also the number of children in year two who also complete the phonics screening test also improving. Key stage one which is the children at the end of year two and for those children this was the final year of the statutory assessment process, so moving forward schools would just be using their own internal assessments and you can see again 66% of children achieved the expected standard in the combined reading writing and maths compared to 56 nationally and again that's a percentage point increase from the previous year. Then there's the multiplication test which is year four, a relatively new one made the second time that we've done it, so no score D international but you can see again it's out of 25 with Richmond children at 21.6 and ranking us fourth nationally for that one. Then we have key stage two which is at the end of primary and we particularly initially focused on the progress score for children which the national average is zero so anything above that is better than national. You can see the progress children made from starting points and again attainment was also above national averages placing Richmond again very well second and first nationally. Then we move on to key stage four which is GCSEs and previously we've been there was some sort of change to pre-pandemic grading with assessment and you'll remember to teach your assessments being used and then young people being able to know a little bit more about the content of exams so last year returned to what we'd always had so comparing to the previous years is a bit difficult because it wasn't consistent but again the progress score was plus 0.5 for our young people indicating better than strong progress for peers nationally and also high attainment in that area as well across the main headline measures and the baccalaureate and then finally we come on to key stage five which is our eight of all young people and some of those also took T levels and you can see there again above national average attainment for our young people. The final part of this sort of summary of report is the outcomes for children looked after which was completed by our virtual school colleagues and they talk about the increase in children attending a good or better school, they talk about permanent exclusions and then they move on to the suspension rate being higher than national but is now you're being encouraged to know has improved since then attainment eight score for that cohort of young people above national and average absence at that point is also above national so that's data from virtual school colleagues. There was also attached to this particular paper an Annex A which is our school performance and science across Richmond and Kingston annual report which has a lot more detail about pupil groups and some of the trends over time. We need to take any questions that are involved in that. Thank you Chair, thanks for taking us through that. Could we have any questions please for Chair? I've seen Councillor Bishop and Councillor COOK. Councillor BISHOP first. Thank you. I wondered if I could ask a question on 3.9 outcomes for children looked after. If you say in there that there's another strategy that's been put in place to address the suspension rate which is higher in both the first paragraph and the second paragraph, I wonder if you could tell us what some of these strategies might be and how we're improving that statistic. Thank you. I have got some data from the virtual school so the suspension rate back in July 23 was 17.6% and according to the virtual school's data now it's 5.9% as of February half term. So that's a dramatic improvement. The reasons that they feel that there's been that significant improvement is improved communication with head teachers, particularly secondary heads, the extended duties of the virtual school and the only information I have is several new interventions. I'm afraid I haven't got the specifics and I know that there's been support across the authority from multi-agency teams such as the Mental Health Support Service, the Educational Inclusion Support Service and others but that's all the information I have. Did you have anything to follow up on that? Okay. Thank you. That is quite a dramatic improvement, my goodness. Well done. Thank you. Right. Councillor COOK, take. Just carrying on in terms of children looked after first, when do most suspensions occur? Is it sort of seasonal through the year? Have we not yet reached that time in the school year where we might get more suspensions? Is that why the rate has come down by so much? In relation to the actual outcomes, so the CLA attainment rate score is 34.5 or was 34.5 in July 23. The overall attainment rate score, if I'm reading this correctly, it's 55.9. So are children looked after of performing at half the attainment rate? So I'm just wondering if you could explain why you think that is the case, given that they are all a good or outstanding schools. Thanks. Councillor COOK, we're having some difficulty hearing you apparently, but I think have you, Rosemary, you're able to respond to that? Well, to a degree, because I don't know what time of year, I don't know the pattern across the year, and I'm afraid I can't comment on the attainment rate figure either for the virtual school. I'm sure we can take that question back, those questions back. The ones that looked after children that Richmond is the core parent for, will not necessarily all be in Richmond schools, so although the figure is, where is the figure? Yeah, so it does say 100%. I can't give any further details, Councillor interjecting. I was just going to say that, sorry, we know that children and young people who looked after nationally do not perform at the same rate as those young people that have not been a part of that care system, and that's for lots and lots of reasons that we all know about in terms of school turbulence, kind of significant additional needs that they might have as a result of, you know, the time that they have been in care. So the reference there is against that cohort nationally, as opposed to Richmond young people that looked after, and I would also add, it's really difficult with the size of cohort of young people in each year group, because sometimes you can have half a dozen, and sometimes you can have two children in a particular cohort. I know in the early years we've had a very small number, therefore it's quite hard to compare year on year, because each young person within that cohort is a small percentage and is also, will have a very unique set of circumstances. We know that young people with an EHC plan are also overrepresented in those that looked after as well. So I think if we wanted a breakdown of what and why for those it would need to be a conversation with the virtual school to provide a lot more context, which Rosemary and I do not have, but we could provide if it was helpful. That is actually taken to the corporate parenting panels, and I'm not sure which meeting is the education meeting for the corporate parenting panel, but that might be the one where you're not able to pose those questions. Councillor COOK, do you want some more questions? Yeah, thanks. I suppose yes, to follow on with that. Sorry, to follow on, I'm just trying to look at all my numbers at the same time, sorry. To follow on with that, children looked after obviously a part of the disadvantaged group, and actually the data, as you say, would be very useful to have more data, and I think we've discussed this a number of times, at least twice now in Education Committee. The data that would be really great to see is the non-SEN, because as you rightly say, there is quite a lot of overlap between the disadvantaged cohort and the EHCP or SCN deco walk. So just to see what the non-SEN disadvantaged pupils, how they compare to their non-SEN, mainstream or non-disadvantaged pupils, because then that takes out all those contextual factors that can impact performance. And I would really like to ask again, if we can please have that further breakdown for the disadvantaged group, because at the moment, as you rightly say, it's very difficult to interpret anything from the figures that you include in this report. I'm not sure that we can actually get that information, because it's collected by schools, and the children for whom they're making the disadvantaged returns, they, I mean, those relate to children on – go on. Yeah, I think we can find the data, and I've only received your further request, well, and now I'll say before the meeting. So I forward you on to our data guy, and I think he can cut it from – because he matches the school census to the national pupil database of exam results. And as you rightly said, Nicky, but if you look at the key stage one to two value added or the progress aid measure, the negative pupil groups are disadvantaged children with EHCPs, and in some instances, children with, at sense, support. So I suspect there is over that, and it would be interesting, and I'll have asked him to pull that data off. Okay, so will that come to a subsequent meeting, how will we get that information? I can forward it on to you to go. Lovely. Thank you very much. Yeah. Okay. A further question, Council, please. Thank you, Rosie. That would be really, really appreciated. The other point on page 42, in terms of disadvantage, we talk about the gap narrowing from primary to secondary. I've distributed a sheet round, very similar figures, because they're all taken from the same databases, I'm sure, but I don't actually see that. I see the gap widening, and for that reason, I would just wonder whether you could perhaps again have a look at the figures and/or explain something about some of the strategies that you might be discussing with schools, in order to help improve the position of this cohort. Thank you. Rosie, you're going to comment on that, Rosie? Yeah, so the data that you've forwarded in the email, and I guess is what has been circulated, is from 2022 results for the academic year '21 to '22. Our report on what we're sharing today is for the academic year '22 to '23, so I've gone into detail and had a look this evening while I was here a bit early. So the early years gap is narrowed by 2%, from disadvantage in their peers, and it's less than the national. The phonics, it has increased slightly the gap, but it is still narrower than the national gap. Key stage one, it's the same gap, everybody improved, disadvantaged, and others. Key stage two, the gap widened, but it's less than the national gap, and key stage four, it's much, much lower, much narrower than the national gap. So there have been improvements in 2023, the exams in 2023, and in terms of the work that we're doing, so particularly around disadvantage, and I think your earlier question was about secondary. So I have to say we don't have as much influence on secondary schools as we would like, because not so many buy into our service level agreement. So we have one, two, three, four, four secondaries plus the specials have a school improvement partner through us, so we're able to influence them. We have deputy head and assistant head teacher networks on a terminally basis, and there's wide participation from the secondary schools, but I wouldn't say that we've had a big focus on disadvantage. There's been other priorities, safeguarding, racial justice, reading in secondary schools and so on. Where we have got school improvement partners working, if that is a gap, they will always, well it's always on our report, so they'll look at the people premium strategy, and they will look to see is it around attendance, because the children have to be in school, is it around engagement, because if they're not engaged that behaviour is not for learning, then they're not going to learn, or is it around achievement, and what barriers, and what research, are they building their strategies on and how they're doing that? So that's where there's a school improvement partner, that's always a big focus. Did you want me to also answer Nicky's other questions in relation to pupil groups? So in terms of black heritage, there's positive value added at Key Stage 1-2, and also progress aid, it's positive compared to national, so showing that children of those heritage groups have made greater than national, greater than expected progress as they've travelled through our school system, and there have been improvements compared to the 2022 data for reading and for maths, and we have a big focus on racial justice, we had a conference, I want to say, no, no, no, we've had one more recently, probably towards the end of last academic year, we've also had a racial justice pledge that's gone out to schools, we usually have it as an item with the head teachers, there's a very active network, and the gender in balance, if you're looking at anything, you've got girls or boys, you're going to have one group that is slightly ahead of the other, and the fact that boys are slightly underachieving compared to girls in writing, and the other way round in maths mirrors the national picture, so that's picked up through English and maths networks, and we have the spot book awards that I think are now in their fourth year, which looks for books that are going to inspire and motivate boys as writers, particularly, and there's very targeted work in schools where there is a gender gap, but those gender gaps with boys writing being slightly below girls and girls maths being slightly below boys, that is similar to national, and you're never going to have parity, you're never going to have them exactly the same. Okay, thank you. Before I bring you in, Councillor Humphreys, can I just ask one question on the information that you've given us, and that is so you're seeing that the gap, the attainment gap in the early stages narrows as the children go up through schools, so that by the time they get to Key Stage 4, the gap has narrowed, is that an indication of the length of time it takes for children to go through the school process in order to, you know, for that attainment to be evened out. It's not quite as consistent a profile as that Penny really, they might be narrowing in one statutory assessment measure, so a narrowing and then a widening, but overall, as they progress through, yes, the gap is narrow at the end. Right, can I bring in Councillor Humphreys now? Thank you. I just wanted to talk a little bit about schools of concern. I don't want schools named, I just want to talk in general. It's sort of page 24 where you talk about categorisation. The thing is obviously, and the only way to present the figures, but the figures that we're seeing here are the figures as they average out for the borough, and obviously we have some schools in the borough that are performing incredibly well, and so to some extent they may mask the one or two schools that perhaps aren't doing as well, and so I just wanted to hear a little bit more about what sort of numbers are we talking in terms of the number of primary schools and then the number of secondary schools where they're not where you'd like to see them be, and how cooperative are those schools being in terms of working with achieving for children in order to get them closer to or where we want them to be. As you say, the class internally requires improvement because obviously, for example, all our secondary schools are either good or outstanding, but it doesn't mean that there isn't a secondary school that might be on your radar for not being where you feel it should be. So I just want to hear a little bit more about what sort of numbers we're talking about schools of concern. If there are any schools of concern, there may not be. Who would like to respond to that? Thank you. So the category of schools of concern was one that we had when the schools that were not judged as good or better under the offset framework. So as you've mentioned, we're now in a good position in all schools in the borough, primary and secondary and special are good or better. And what we used to do for those schools was wrap as much support as we could around, and I suppose, additional scrutiny through something called Director's Review Meetings. So we used to meet the chairs of governors, Idid and Heads and the school improvement partner, and just talk through what their current priorities were and how progress was being made. Being good or better was one flag of concern, but there were also a couple of schools where it was a year or a period of leadership change or staffing turbulence or significant perhaps, so a couple of schools they might be experiencing for financial concern. That's obviously changed more as over the past few years, but schools can become vulnerable quite quickly and for a number of reasons. So some schools that might be waiting for an offset judgment could be causing concern or a school of concern for a number of years. Others it might just be four, two or three terms, while there was a significant leadership change or absence or sickness or a turbulent time in the school. And we always say that at the beginning that this is not forever, this is actually a piece of intervention with a view that actually you won't want us to come in beyond. So we don't have that group of schools anymore because they've moved that, but what we now do is a termally sort of rag-grading of our schools with some triggers, which include finance, leadership changes, staffing, outcomes, safeguarding, and we rag-grade all of the schools and we've now got a group where there's a potential at risk, if you could call it, and those risks with fortunate in the boroughs that those risks are not high for any of them, they're in the pretty goods, but Rosemary and I meet and then we follow up actions within the teams that might be able to support. And that's based on local intelligence, Offstead Referrals for safeguarding, intelligence from the team, EPs, attendance, a number of things. So that's more schools that potentially have some risks that we might want to intervene earlier with, rather than are no longer graded as good. That's where we are now with those. Rosemary will give you the numbers. So there are nine primaries with one or more risks, one secondary, one special, but, you know, those might just be the heads on maternity or there's a change of governor, a chair of governors and some instability within the governing body. So they are quite minor. So there's many of those and I've got the stats who've only got one small risk. The biggest has seven risks and we consider that one to be a biggest worry. And it is a school that is not a local authority maintain school. So there's been additional visits, there's been additional discussions with the trust. So, you know, I the chair is sort of myself will do that if there's not a strong link with school improvement partner. I think we're trying very hard now is use those sort of risk assessments as a way to intervene early and pick things up really quickly on a term basis and then to link in and back with the school of the trust. And you would say that schools that are being flagged early, you know, through this risk assessment thing that you're doing, are you, is there resentment at all that you guys are kind of going going in with some interventions or would you say that you're getting a very good level of cooperation from the schools. I'm thinking now in particular the one that has seven. I mean, as the person who usually makes the call and follows up or the email, no, I don't feel that. And I suppose it's all it's about I don't think it's the message that you have and it's about there are children within the school as well as part of a wider trust. And it comes from, you know, the intention of providing support that we can to support our shared children with a kind of common moral purpose to that. So, from the particular, I haven't experienced that now, we've been very fortunate and I suppose that's rooted in that whatever designation the school is, we should be supporting and working with them. And that's the sort of how we start the conversation. One other question. When you're looking at the kind of various performance indicators, does the quality of the Senko in the sense support, does that is that seen as something set with that dealt with separately or does that come under all the various indicators. So if you have a school where you feel that actually they're struggling or the Senko struggling or the sense support element of their offer is struggling, does that come under the same umbrella? That would be picked up through a risk rating because the SCM School Improvement Advisor is part of the school improvement team that provides that information and DPs and school improvement partners. So that could be filtered through that. Penny, I do have other questions, but I don't know if anyone wants to. I want to bring Councillor FEMMING in actually, so I'm going to come back to you. I just wanted to say that I've always, what I've heard back through offset inspections and so forth is that our schools have a very strong regard for the support that they receive from achievement for children. I mean, that's been documented in, and I think both the sanitary inspections that I've seen while I've been Chair. So thank you for what you're doing, whatever you're doing, it helps. Councillor FEMMING. Yes, Emily, question is also on spark engagement. I was just interested to know whether of the five schools that haven't engaged in it. Do you know their reasons why and are they actually doing well or worse, because of it all, is it a mixture? Some of them are access their support, perhaps from the Diocese or their Academy Trust. So some of them will be schools that have made the decision to academy as a part of the trust, so that would be where they would be accessing their school improvement activity. I don't think it would be possible to grade or rank schools according to whether they do or they don't buy us back, but Rosemary's just going to check that. I don't think it is thinking of those that don't. But sometimes it's a historic thing in that they've always access their support from the Diocese or an external kind of long-term school improvement partner that they might have known for many years. Do you want to come in with them? Yes, so if I run through them, I mean, one is a very high performing school in a trust, another one is also in a trust and national trust, so being drawn in that direction. I think they're all academies, actually, as I'm looking down the list with the possible exception of one primary, who as you say gets support from the Diocese. There's very few. They are all apart from that one primary, they're all secondaries and they're all interests, and one of the schools is very highly performing. So I think they probably feel that they have the expertise from within. Thank you. Councillor Flemi, you've been very patient. Yes, the reason why I was just asking was only because if there was a school that was poorly performing and hadn't engaged, whether we could like advertise or whether we would do or not say to them that this is a really great program. Are you interested or if it's just been left, but it looks like most of them are doing really well, and so it just feels like there's a bit of disadvantage for that school if they're not engaged in all the other schools are doing quite well and having the school improvement partners. I think they're all pretty aware of what's available to them, but I'm going to bring in Rosemary to comment on that. Yes, so they all engage in the secondary collaborative where we meet once a term, and often they'll buy particular things, so even those schools that don't buy into our packages, they might buy a one-off piece of work, whether it's around a safeguarding review or whether it's advice around racial justice and inclusion. So I would say that we have good relationships and they are fully aware of what we offer because there will be a link advisor visit once a year. It's a very short visit, it's about an hour and a half in length, but we think it's really important to get on site in those schools and pick up the atmosphere, that gives us an intelligence that we don't get from a desktop analysis, and so there is an open door, there is a dialogue, and I think they are fully aware. Those that choose not to for a variety of reasons, they know that we're here if they need them. That's great, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, Councillor COOK-DAKE, is anybody else, or you've got another question you want to pick up as well? I'll come back to you after Councillor COOK-DAKE. Thanks, thanks. I just wondered, it's interesting what you said, Rosemary, about disadvantage not being a priority, and I think this is what I find quite difficult to understand and reconcile because it is the biggest pupil group where the performance is under the local and national average, so I really don't understand why. But Michael, we never resolve it and that's the point, because nothing ever moves. I don't understand. I'm afraid- Hang on a minute, I just want to hold it there. Thank you for your contribution, I don't think you had your microphone on though, so I think that would have been picked up on the webcast, but basically what you were saying was that as a school governor, you spend a great deal of time looking at the areas of the school's development, for instance, how they spend their people premium money, et cetera, and looking at areas of disadvantage. Is there a very succinct question that you want to pose? Yes, it is, and the question again is why it is not a priority at a local authority level given that it is one of the only pupil groups that underperform both the national and the London average. I really do not understand that, and yes, this can be dealt with at a school level, but the point is at a local authority level it should also be a priority. We hear them from the local authority, Rosemary. It is very much a priority, which is why we have an advisor that's their specific job role. What I said was it's not been a major priority on the deputy heads and assistant heads forum, so for example the next deputy heads network is focusing on filtering and monitoring in schools to safeguard children, AI, which is on the forefront of everything, and thinking about the sparkhead projects, which are focused on quality first teaching, which would include a focus on disadvantage as well as children with SCN. Did you have anything to add there? Right, okay. Right, can I then move back to Councillor Humphreys? Thank you. I just wanted to talk about school absences, temporary exclusions and permanent exclusions, and I just wanted to kind of get your view on how we're doing in that whole area as a borough, and whether you feel that as a borough we're able to provide head teachers and schools with the sort of full box of tools that would help them manage these kind of situations, whether it be school refuses or problematic behaviour, etc. In particular, I'm referring to, as you know, I was very lucky and got to visit twice a couple of the Malden Oaks sites and was blown away by it. I think they had teaching there as an extraordinary, and I think the setup there is extraordinary, but it always just feels like we could do with more of that, and I'm just interested in your view on what we've got in this borough, what we might need more of, and how, as a borough, we're handling school absences and temporary and permanent exclusions. Thank you. Thank you. You look poised to answer that. I had a big focus on absence, particularly in the last two or three years, because it's absence following the pandemic has been, I would say, a priority for all schools, and it's been a private school improvement forums, but also encouraging schools to analyse reasons why children aren't coming to, because there's lots and lots of different reasons, and that you need a different approach to the different reasons for it. You mentioned, and we've also had a particular focus through the Educational Psychology Service on schools focusing on the sense of belonging, which actually encourages attendance rather than a punitive approach. So actually you come to school because you belong and you want to, which is much more effective than fixed penalty notices and that sort of thing. So it is a priority, particularly with the virtual school and their extended you to see young people with a child protection or charge in need plan. So one of the groups you mentioned was those that are anxious learners or who might not, who might think school really difficult and not be able to attend. So we've recently been able to increase the density bridge, which is an alternative provision in Richmond. So we've now got a Richmond base, which is just beginning, baby steps in through our ham youth center. So that's been really positive and well received, and we've also extended some of our provision at Morgan Oaks. So we have got, I suppose, again, a variety of alternative provision that meets the different needs of those young people who need it. So some of them are anxious learners that need more of that approach and others kind of need more of a kind of academic tutor group offer. So we've looked closely at that and actually the send inspection had a big focus on alternative provision and was very positive about what we were doing and how we were also monitoring the quality and the assurance of what was going on with the young people who were asked to see that alongside their mainstream offer. In terms of suspensions, you can see that we are very, very low compared to national, but you know, you still got to view that any suspension for young person is not where you'd want them to be. So we have a, you know, very in-depth analysis of the schools where they are, perhaps the highest and how we can intervene and support and work with them. It's also one of our triggers coming back to the earlier conversation. We did actually go to a secondary school and meet with the hedge recently to talk about the increase we've seen since September and how they could access some of not just the school improvement, but actually use service, some of those other services that might help the engagement of those young people. That's one thing. Sorry, I just want to say I'm delighted to hear about Ansti Bridge, so I should have mentioned them as well. I'm very lucky to visit them as well and they're incredible. Just very quickly in terms of the Malden Oaks, my understanding is that it's not this borough's provision that we kind of contract in some of those spaces and I just kind of wanted a little bit of reassurance that given that we don't actually, as a borough, own for want of a better word, any of our own alternative provision, are we exposed in any way or are we confident that the share of that provision that we have is secure? Yes, we are, we are confident, and actually, as I said, it was really tested out because the send-insubvention is now send and AP focused, so they were very clear about our commissioning model. So, you know, there is an annual commitment to Malden Oaks allocation of places through the high needs subgroup and the additional support that we're now doing through Ansti and the quality assurance of that. So, I mean, that's been the provision for many, many years through Malden Oaks that we commissioned, then they are at Kingston School, but actually the processes and the quality assurance and the opportunity to access those places goes through the same referral route, whether you're in either of the boroughs that we work in. And one thing we've done recently is introduce an alternative provision placement panel. We do love something, a panel in our work, but that looks at all the referrals and requests for alternative provision across the two boroughs and the referral process and the access is consistent. Thank you. We are going to have to wind up this item now. I know there are two people trying to get in. Councillor COW, is it a real quickie? Two quite quick things. One, can we have a very simple and straightforward definition of what disadvantage action means to make sure we're all on the same page and that? And two, I'm a bit confused by this paper we've got here, where, if you compare our results for disadvantaged children against the national different children, on most of them we're up. The only thing that we're down on is the gap between our disadvantaged and non-dislands children and could that be down to the fact that our advantage children are much more vaunted and have access to. Can I just stop you there? I think what you're doing is you're referring to Niki's paper, which we've already talked about, has been a different set of statistics relating to a previous year and that would have been the year that children were still in and coming out of lockdown. And the definition of disadvantage is going to run through that with us again quickly. So there are four factors for which make pupils disadvantaged. So the first one is that they're currently receiving free school meals. The second one is that they've received free school meals in the last six years. That's called the Ever 6 measure. The third one is that they are looked after children currently and the fourth one is that they've left care through adoption or another court order. So there are four factors which mean children are regarded as disadvantaged by the Department for Education. Okay, thank you. Councillor COOK, it's got to be really quick because we need to finish this item. And it's just a quick one on AP. Please can you confirm that Kingston still get preferential access to Malden Oaks and can you also confirm the number of hours a week that a child in Richmond typically attends our AP provision? But there's not a priority. The referrals through the alternative provision placement panel are are agreed and considered by a panel that is across the two boroughs. So I'm not aware of a preferential treatment. Kingston has a higher number of places because they pay for more places through the high needs. But there isn't a preferential kind of treatment through that. They all come through the same referral process. And I don't know the average hours that a young person, there are a high number of young people accessing for lots and lots of different reasons. So we always assess a young person what they can start and for some that might just be an hour a day. Others might come in who've had an operation and be able to access quite a full curriculum. So it's quite hard to average or to compare what's appropriate for one young person's alternative provision with another because their needs are not consistent or the same. Right. Thank you very much now. I think we have to say goodbye to Rosemary and Charis at this point. And thank you for your time this evening. And it's happy birthday to Charis. Come on, everybody. She definitely didn't want that. All right. So we're going to move on to the to the next. Oh, sorry. Sorry. The committee has asked therefore to note the Education Act comes to the academic year 2022-23. Can you please indicate your ascent for these recommendations? Thank you. Okay. So we are now going to move on to item seven, which is the home to school travel policy and supplementary agenda. You please note that you will have received a separate small paper giving a slightly amended wording to 4.2 on page seven of the supplementary paper. I'm going to ask in Dodds, before I ask the end of the present, can I confirm that members have noted the original report found at pages 4750 of the agenda has been replaced by the updated report in the supplementary agenda. Have you all noted that right in, would you please present this item? Thank you, Chair. So at the last committee meeting we presented the home to school travel assistance policy and members asked us to look specifically at an amendment to the policy in terms of shared custody and shared care arrangements. You'll see a draft of a proposed amendment to the policy at 3.2 in the report in front of you. We haven't been able to provide any accurate costings of what that would mean in terms of implementing the new policy, because we don't collect currently information on children who are living in shared care or shared custody arrangements and therefore providing that information would have been contacting all recipients of home to school transport and asking them about their personal care arrangements, which we have not yet done. So we have provided some potential draft wording to the arrangement at 3.2, but we haven't been able to provide you with the financial implications of making that change. Again, I'm happy to answer questions. Are you taking questions now after the speaker? Okay, so questions after the speaker. So I'd like to invite the public speaker for this item, Holly Rose, could you please join us at the table? And I think you know how the timer works. Yes, good. And so please also ensure that you switch on your microphone before you speak. You will have three minutes and please begin when you're ready. Thank you. Thank you so much. I am the mother of a high-need autistic child and I'm afraid I haven't prepared a speech like I did last time, but I really wanted to come and just represent the parents that are impacted by this protocol and say that I really do think it needs to change, because without it, the implications onto everyday life of trying to transport a child to school whilst maintaining custody is just almost impossible. And I was presented with just an impossible scenario in my life where I was home-schooled for an entire year. He got a place in a special school and just because his father lived closer to that school, I wasn't entitled to any transport. So I had to drive for four hours transporting two children to separate locations whilst being a single parent trying to afford to live. And yeah, I am his mother. He's registered at the doctors at my address. I communicated all of this very articulately diplomatically. I went through all the avenues of complaint that were appropriate and I just got no sorry the protocol says no. And it wasn't until we adjusted custody that I became the primary carer whereby denying his father access to any transport when the school moves in Chezzington that I have been allowed to access transport from my son to get to school. I don't think it's fair, I think it's Human Rights Act that any local authority has any opinion at all really about custody access for a child to access a school that should be accessible from their address anyway. So I don't know if that's three minutes. Thank you. Now you have an opportunity now if you have any point of clarification but it's only clarification to Holly at this point. Anybody got a point of clarification? No, it looks like okay very quickly. Yeah, could you just outline what the consequences would be for you as a family? You know you've come to us obviously a certain arrangement between all of you about how you're going to bring your family up and the custody arrangements. What would be the effect on that arrangement that presumably is working at the moment? What would be the effect on it if the school moves and the protocol doesn't change and you could only have transport from one address? So this is a point of clarification so you just need to clarify that point for us. I don't know the difference between clarification and responding I'm sorry. It would undoubtedly cause huge conflict because then we need to fight over who's going to have the taxi or who's going to have primary custody over our child. Okay, thank you. That was a perfect piece of clarification. Okay, thank you. I think at this point, that's a point of clarification. Does clarification include asking if she's read the proposed recommendation and changes? Does that include clarification? Have you read? I have. And are you happy that that would capture your situation? Lovely, thank you very much. Right, I'm now going to ask you if you go back to the gallery. Now, while we're busy considering this proposed amendment, I think I just want to say a few words about it at the start because I think my concern about this is that we don't actually have enough information on the potential consequences of the amendments in front of us at the moment. I know and as we've already discussed, it's out of step with the DFE guidelines, it's out of step with London Councils, it's out of step as far as I can gather with the Global Government Association. And I think we do obviously have to think very carefully about that putting ourselves into that situation. We are currently heavily overspent on our special needs transport budget. We are always needing to exercise fiscal responsibility and I would urge you to just keep that in your mind because every time we have the budget discussions, which starts on about the autumn term and go through till March, I have to defend these special needs transport budget. I'm asked every point, I'm asked, okay, so are we going to go back to statutory only? And I have to argue to try to ensure that we are able to make provisions as far as we can do. Now, parents obviously must have built-in protections. Children need built-in protections. I need you to be aware that at the moment, well, and this will continue, children's needs are reassessed at every change of circumstance. In a particular instance that we have been looking at tonight, the parents' circumstances have not yet changed with a change of school, but that will be considered at the change of circumstances. Children's needs are considered at every key stage. The special needs transport team can and should exercise this question where that's needed and we do have an appeals procedure where parents are still dissatisfied. So, I want us to bear those points in mind when we consider the proposal and I think that one of the things that we need to be considering is that we ask officers to take this back and do some more work on it. I'm aware that we're not going to be able to have full costings, but I do think that we would then be in a better position to review this when we review the policy in 12 months. And one of the overriding intentions of our special needs transport policy is that the driver is to move away from taxes and towards enabling children to develop their own independence. And this is not something which is going to contribute to that overriding movement. Now, I've said enough, I'm opening it up now and I know that Councilor Engel wants to come in. Thanks. You've already started outlining some of the risks of the policy. You've already done quite a good job in outlining some of the risks of the policy. I just wanted to start off with a quick question and come back on it if it's okay. Ian, you might want to come back on this just about talking about risk in section 8 and wider corporate implications. We talk about the number being likely to be small, so I just wanted to get your opinion on the scale of the risk that Penny was outlining. I think we've made the assumption that the number will be small, but the truth is we don't know and the only way we would know is to ask all recipients of home-to-school transport around their shared or around their care arrangements to determine which are shared care arrangements or shared custody arrangements and how many parents would therefore take up that policy of funding from both addresses. So I suppose the risk is reasonably high given that we don't have all the information on which to make the calculation around the financial implication of it or indeed that the amount of additional time it would take to make those arrangements within the SEN transport service and therefore we might need additional staff in order to do that. So what I wanted to just sort of bring up was that the last committee I found myself reasonably convinced that this was a sensible thing to do and now I find myself in a little bit of a halfway house given the the risk that have been raised and articulated and what I wanted to just propose and add to the conversation maybe when we wrap up at the end of everyone's comments is that we could propose that this be, go forward as a pilot and be reviewed in 12 months and I think that would serve to the purpose of thoroughly evaluating the impacts and the sustainability of this policy, particularly against the financial implications and practical feasibility. So I think a pilot would allow us to gather data, insights on the practicality of the policy, specifically its effects on families, the aims to support and the administrative process involves looking at financial oversight as well and overall policy effectiveness. Everything you're talking about might be served by a pilot scheme and give us the sort of flexibility to come and review it for 12 months from today. So I just wanted to add that just as an alternative to what we've got in front of me. Okay thank you. Right we've got Council Fleming, Council of Humphreys and Councillor Butler. Yes I just wanted to I don't know if it's a question or comment but even if we trialled it for a year I don't think that necessarily that will tell us what will happen in subsequent years because you know different years there might be different outcomes and then again you're delaying what could really help people that are in desperate need of this help and I do feel you know I know we have fiscal responsibility and I totally understand that but from my experience over the years I have found that when we've cut costs it has adversely impacted the female population and mothers in particular with certain nurseries and help being closed. So I feel quite strongly that I do want to help you know this part of the population and I do think that perhaps we just need to you know make a decision today. Thank you. I would just point out that we've only had one person who's requested this just to keep the proportion of it. Council Humphreys. Thank you. So what I wanted to say you know I will start off by saying of course I understand and I appreciate that we all have fiscal responsibilities in terms of balancing you know the council's budgets. However the legislation also says that our decisions especially in the area that this committee covers that the child has to be at the center of every single decision that we make and ultimately we know that bringing up well bring up children is blooming hard anyway but bringing up children with additional needs is extremely difficult it's extremely pressurizing and the pressure that it puts on couples and on marriages is enormous and we know that there is a higher percentage of marital or relationship breakdown when there is a child at home with additional needs and if we are going to put the child at the center of that decision what is the best for the child the best for the child is that both parents continue to remain involved as much as they can with the upbringing of that child even when that relationship breaks down and I feel that the policy that we currently have at the moment is not helping nor encouraging both parents to remain involved in that child's life in as much as a 50/50 share as is practically possible or that what that that couple wants. I know in every system there is probably always going to be people who will take advantage but I do find it difficult to think that a parent who isn't wanting to be or isn't able to be involved on a permanent you know shared care basis at the moment is going to do so suddenly just because they can get a taxi and I just feel that therefore those that come forward are those that genuinely need this help and support we know that because of the shortage of special school places within the borough that there are sometimes there's no choice but for a child to travel quite some distance in order to be able to get the educational provision that can meet their needs and often it's not like there's a plethora of schools out there that will meet a child's need often it takes a long time for officers AFC to work very hard to find that fit to find that right school for that child and if then it turns out that that child either can't go there because the parents can't get the child there or somehow we then have to ask one parent to step back from the caring of their child in order to be able to get their child to school it just feels wrong on so many levels and it's for that reason that I would like to see changes in the protocol but I do have one question for Ian if that's okay so Penny you mentioned in your speech that the officers in the San Transport Department are able to use their discretion and there might miss have understood but it felt like he was saying and therefore we didn't need to change the protocol because there's always room for discretion yet from what I'm hearing from the experience of this one particular family is that that discretion was not used and things have been extremely difficult and would continue to get difficult so Ian my question to you is if they're able to use discretion why has it not happened why have we now felt that we've cut to touch actually change the protocol to ensure that families like this particular family that have presented to us this evening that the right decisions are made for those families what exactly is the situation with the current protocol and how much discretion can be used so I guess my short question is do we need to be changing the protocol is the fault here the fact that officers didn't use their discretion properly so I think the answer that is probably yes I think that there wasn't sufficient discretion applied to this family when they sought different transport arrangements for their child I think the difficulty with discretion often is that it's not consistently applied and that is an issue that we need to take back to the leadership of the SCM transport service to make sure that they are more consistent in their application or discretion of course the ultimate discretion can come through the SCM transport appeals process which is you know the appeals are independently heard then outside of the SCM transport services my understanding I'll be corrected if I'm wrong but Ms Rose did not go through the appeal process that's my understanding but is your is your conclusion that the protocol doesn't need to be changed because it is not set in stone and therefore if there are families with shared care arrangements that can't manage that in the future those families will be properly served or should we be changing the protocol as is suggested this evening in order to make sure that we're not reliant on officer discretion well the current protocol is very clear around shared custody and shared care arrangements in that we do not provide transport from two addresses it's very clear that said discretion can be applied on a case-by-case basis but it you know in I've already said it was not done in this case and is often inconsistently applied so we would get better consistency by changing the protocol we guess because it would be the policy there looking to it but what I am saying is that there is work that I need to do to make sure the SCM transport service is more flexible in how they apply the current policy or all of it not just this aspect of it that you know but they are under significant pressure on me because they are significantly overspent and you know they also have to be fiscally responsible in terms of the budgets that they manage and they also have to make sure that the services that are delivered are fair to all children young people and families and that is a difficult thing for them to do so you know this isn't an easy situation it is a challenging situation for them in terms of fairness and consistency but also the pressure they're under to operate within budget okay thank you I'm going to call in Councillor buttling oh I've got the several hands have gone up now so it's Councillor buttling Councillor Cambridge Councillor HOWL, Councillor COOK, thank you I think that I think the kernel of this is the child and that's what we're here for and it's what we should be delivering and what costs it is is to a certain extent irrelevant when we're looking about the child's needs when we're worrying about meeting budgets as you've pointed out that shouldn't enter into discussions about offering the ability to deliver a child from two different dressings because it's the cost of one child one service and even the cost of one child in one place being delivered to the school and back can vary you know you've got the child that can possibly make it on their own with their help on public transport on the other end you've got the child who cannot move except for the great big machine the electronically carried machine a physical machine so there's a machine that may be coming from one address but their cost is quite big being able to deliver that particular vehicle so what I'm saying is we need to discover the child's need and how that child's cared and how it has supported because that is just one figure so you can have one child costing enormous amount and another child not going through so much so we don't pick out with a high cost because the high cost is because the child needs it so therefore when we come to balancing the books if we have to God forbid and say oh we're going to afford 95 percent of the over cost then every child only gets 95 percent therefore it's not you don't pick out one child and say well that's savings and not a lot of money we don't do it that way we think about the child and in this case brought to the head is a child actually lives in two different places and is cared for in two different places so for my way I think it's just one of the costs same way as right oh actually what you have to remember is that we are coming right away from the theatre developments of this and then so a decision with where I don't know. [ Pause ] Well I think I think we are discussing it because we've been put here to discuss it for some reason it wasn't agreed we're not we're not looking at individual you know this child's more expensive than that child we're not looking at that we're looking at whether a policy needs to be changed so I'm going to move on now. I agree that the policy needs to be changed. Right I'm going to move on to one Councillor Cambridge. Thank you Chair I mean what what I would say is yes members have made the critical point about the child being at the centre but if you overspend or you don't balance the budget in one area it might include rationalisation for another area which is of benefit for the child. I mean I'm quite my question to Ian really is about the costings I mean this this committee quite rightly always asked for quite a high level of information before they make decisions and it bothers me that in this instance we don't even have estimates in front of us so if this was referred back in a way for that and this committee demanded you know more scrutiny on it would that be able to be achieved would you be able to at least give some sort of costing or projection of this. So I think as we've already discussed the transport arrangements relate to each individual child so it depends in terms of their level of needs how much support they need on the transport what type of transport they're using where they're travelling from and where they're travelling to. There are a number of variables for each individual child and Councillor buttern is right we make child-centred decisions around the type of transport that people need so we would need to contact all 353 families who are in receipt of SCN transport to understand their care arrangements and then to look at what the costs would be if we were transporting that individual child in their current circumstances from two different addresses and provide the costings on that basis so that is an extensive piece of work that the SCN transport service would have to do which would take them away from their core work and purpose so we need to look at additional resources in that service in order to do that detailed costing to give you the information I think you need in order to fully understand the financial implications of this policy change so that would take time and a relatively extensive amount of time in order to complete it accurately. Councillor Humphrey has really delved into this issue about appeals and discretion which was one I really wanted to know about in the current policy away from this amendment. And this could be an unfair question but do you feel since this was highlighted at the committee that officers understand the element of discretion perhaps more than they did before? Yes we've had that explicit conversation with them around the application of discretion in the use of the SCN transport policy. We've had that conversation with the team and therefore I think their understanding is better of that and they're more informed about when and how to use discretion. Okay thank you. Councillor HALL you have the question. Thank you Madam Chair. Mr. Dodds, thank you. Under 3.2 it says about how if the primary address for the child must be within Richmond-upon Thames and the secondary address if not within the same local authority area must be within 48 minutes travel time to and from the child school for primary pupils and 75 minutes for secondary pupils. Just wondering obviously those are the limits but is there an average that you know of the average travel time please. Are you asking about average or are you asking about typical? Sorry, a typical reading or an average reading sort of so we could determine this. Thank you. I honestly think there isn't so these are the limits which were set in the DFE guidance that a child of primary age shouldn't be travelling to school or from school for longer than 45 minutes and for a secondary school pupil longer than 75 minutes. So the teamwork hard to make sure that the choice of transport and the route are within those limits. Obviously there are factors which come into play including traffic congestion and accidents which sometimes means that that's not possible but that is what they would use in terms of route planning but there isn't such a thing as a typical length of journey for a child on SEM transport. I think if we were to give you a figure it would be fairly meaningless so there will be some children who travel very short distances on transport which might take 15-20 minutes and there are other children who will be travelling for the full 75 minutes or longer if there is traffic congestion or other factors delaying them. Thank you. So the Council crook date was next. Thank you. I just think it's just not the borough's job to force families to change custody arrangements nor should policies push families to the point of breakdown. We need a solution to remove the unfairness that currently exists in this policy and until we have a better one and that might in future be increased discretion then we need to pass this amendment and in relation to protocol greater training and guidance would be very welcome so the officers do you know have to apply the policy fairly equitably and with consistency. Do you want to comment on that or? So I'll just comment on the second part so I agree that the training of officers in terms of implementation of the policy is important. We have begun that piece of work already with the team as I mentioned in response to council I have a first question. Okay thank you. I've got Michael Wilson next then I'm Councillor Fleming then Council admission. Thank you Chair. So can I just clarify child and family at an point A and they go to B school? Yeah they get a taxi to five days a week. Yeah I'm trying to just clarify the council but if they happen to be in that would be assessed and given the through the system they're given the costs for the taxi service of five days a week. They just happen to live in two different places for half a week so it's not that we're asking for anything in addition it's just a slight tweak to be addressed. So the majority of children travel to and from school on buses rather than taxis because that's in line with our move towards children being more independent. So if the child is on a bus and they're only travelling a lot or two or three days a week it's less cost effective for us than a child being on the bus for five days a week. Therefore if we were to plan for a child on from two separate addresses we would need to use a taxi because that is the more cost effective route rather than taking rather than losing a seat on a bus for half a day a week or half of the week. So that's the financial increase in it because I know that on paper it looks as if we could just move the taxi from one place to another place but actually the majority of children travel on buses. In relation to the cost then how many requests so that he has have been received for a change in particular policy. Wow! Okay and can you also tell me to confirm that when we do the reviews at various points that we go into these details in terms of kind of family arrangements and child's different sort of changes for their needs and everything else that's considered. So there is an assessment of the child's needs using their education health and care plan or another plan and there's a conversation with the family I'm not aware that there's a conversation around shared care or custody arrangements in those conversations because the policy currently works on the basis that the child has a primary address and the transport is organised from the primary address and then the last question on this the policy is I've read it tonight so I understand the sort of lore and kind of consequences of pushing someone through and I realise why you're concerned about that in terms of the financial position but I guess sort of one of the things you'd be worried about is if a parent moved to Scotland for example and therefore opened the door to challenge does this policy out present to the limits of the potential exposure in terms of what constitutes a place? It's been drafted in such a way to try to limit that yes I mean I think Scotland is an extreme example Councillor but it's not necessary but you know it is not unusual for children to live in Richmond or between Richmond and Brighton for example you know so even a relatively close place you know locality would be challenging in terms of arranging transport so the policy is written in such a way using the DFE guidance on travel time to try and limit that I mean in this case we're talking about a child who lives between Richmond and Kingston which is obviously much more manageable Councillor Fleming you had a question. My first question was I'd be interested to know why the DFE recommends against I don't know if we have the reasons why because I think if that's what the audience are using we should know why have they addressed the issues that we've you know mentioned here probably not maybe it was just a quick kind of like okay we're just going to do this and there's a cut off without genuine thinking around it so I don't think we should ultimately rely on that as being a good reason to do you know to follow the policy if we are going to reduce taxis use in the future I'm assuming the cost will also go down with that and so you know will there be a further discussion in the future where we will say okay in these circumstances we will provide taxis in these circumstances we will encourage bus use because I'm sure ages they get older we haven't really I think this is a blanket policy but it doesn't discuss age surely somebody who's much younger will require a taxi whereas as they become an adult or over you know up to 25 they might not so I think there's lots of discussions in places where we can save money in the future and I think there's lots of discussions to be had but that's why I'm leaning that this is not a situation where we should be trying if it is about money in fiscal issues there's other discussions where we can reduce costs but I think in this situation it just doesn't make sense to me that you would increase the burden on a situation such as this it just seems like why put the burden on one parent when they're already having a difficult time so that was my comment so I think the only thing I need to I can respond to on that is around the guidance or the policy so to be clear it's statutory guidance from the Department for Education on the home to school transport the council currently operates beyond the statutory guidance it has an enhanced offer because it offers support for children under 5 and over 16 when the statutory requirement is just between 5 and 16 this would be an additional policy above the statutory guidance if you were to adopt it so the DFE guidance is based on the law and that's that's the way it is yes thank you chair in terms of taxis the report actually highlights in the environmental considerations the extra taxi arrangements can just clarify it that by changing an arrangement you're less likely to use a bus resulting in more individual vehicle journeys which would have an inevitable environmental impact compared to a bus and that there would be ongoing costs in terms of arranging taxis in terms of the logistics of the arrangements involved in making sure that every journey is correct and to the right addresses and at the right time so I think you're correct that there is an additional environmental impact because we would not be able to use buses we would need to use taxis which means the use of more vehicles I think the depending on how many people were we were considering in terms of these arrangements there would be some additional burden on the on the team in terms of making those taxi arrangements I wouldn't have thought that would have been extensive but it mainly depends on the amount of arrangements we're making thank you um I've got um counselor came bush then counselor Carol then counselor helped me so I think we probably need to oh and and counselor angle and so I think then I think everybody will have had a good crack at this and I'm very aware that we've still got officers waiting for us for the next item as well so um let's let's press on and keep it all nice and sharp and succinct thank you just just because it's on my mind um and I'm sure you're going to be able to answer this but um are any outstanding or existing cases to do with shared custody arrangements um unresolved are they in appeal stage or have they been shown discretion so I'm not aware of any other applications I did check today the team informed me that they were now outstanding applications thank you chair um I've had the distinct pleasure of having to use the um send transport system when my oldest was in primary school um and I'm like you're thinking that what you're referring to as buses are in fact shared taxis that you go on the public transport no they're mini buses counselor 17 seats and mini buses right okay because I do know that some of the kids go down multiple kids to what I would call a taxi um to my son's school um the other thing is would these children in a taxi have both the driver of the taxi and a escort that's it I keep wanting to say handler and I really shouldn't um because I do remember that um when I do the school run picking up my youngest from school the kids who are on these uh send transport vehicles there is at least one other adult in the vehicle evidently driver is that an additional concern cost wise on top of the cost of their taxi um so we do use mini buses those are um we have a fleet of mini buses 17 seats and mini buses which are used to transport children from school often they will go to the same school so children traveling to the same school sometimes we use shared taxis so children going to the same school sharing a taxi with each other and sometimes we use individual taxis depends on the child's needs where the school is etc. um some children will require a passenger assistant to be with them depending on their behavioral or medical needs that um not all children require that some children do um it's the last part of your question it's difficult for me to tell because it's so reliant on individual circumstances yeah I just wanted to come back having now kind of listened to what um everyone has said um first point I appreciate that normally we would have very kind of detailed financial information and those sort of reports however I think that because um everything each case is so individual in its circumstances that officers could end up doing a huge amount of work to produce a report which effectively would be a snapshot in time because people move houses care arrangements change children move schools you know school suddenly doesn't meet their needs they need to go to a different school or they move from primary up to secondary you know or onto college or there's a million reasons why a report that would take up a huge amount of office of time I think would only give us the details of now it wouldn't protect us from what may happen in the future where needs could go up but equally actually needs could come down so I don't really see that it's a good use of office of time it's always nice to have those reports but I don't think it's going to be particularly long-term uh productive um the second thing with all due respect I know air quality is really important but I think I would just need to say that I can I get people's concerns about fiscal responsibility but in terms of what we're doing here in the child centric I think that that has to take precedence over any any other concerns and then I've had another real look at kind of what this the paper says on page 66 about the shared custody arrangements and looked at the wording and the reality is is that based on the current wording you know some terrible decision was made and and discretion was not applied at all um in for what in just my personal opinion seems reasonably clear cut and therefore I think in terms of helping officers as much as anything else I think you need to give officers clear guidance on on on how one makes these very difficult decisions especially under the pressure they are to keep budgets down and therefore I think it's perhaps our job to be brave and give them that kind of really clear guidance about how they make those decisions and the last point I would make is yes it's going above and beyond what the Department of Education is telling us we should be doing but quite frankly the Department of Education we've had over recent years I would be delighted to go beyond what they're telling us to do um so I think that would be my my conclusions on that and so um as much as I ask the discretion question I'm very much appearing now towards the fact that we need to change the wording and we need to give clear guidance to officers. Okay thank you um Councillor Engle I think you're the final speaker. Yeah it's really quick I just go back to originally what I said there's a lot of good points being made and on having some caution and all I will say is I'm supportive of this too but I think that if we don't add some caution to this and give the committee some flexibility in 12 months to come back if this policy does have some uncertainty around it then I think that would be a mistake so I would urge us to think about amending it and running it as a pilot scheme and giving the committee some breathing space 12 months to in case there are those unforeseen sectors we lose nothing by running it as well. Okay well thank you I mean that we've had a very very full discussion on this and I think everybody has has gone through has picked up some important points and we've looked at those in great detail. We've got a suggestion from Councillor Engle that we we adopt this but as a pilot only I mean I as you you know from what I I said at the start that I think we we would be better in a sense actually not pursuing this at this stage and and asking for more details especially because it is predicated on the needs of one particular family and we've heard that that family did not experience the the discussion which perhaps would have would have helped avoid this and it did not go through the appeals procedure where it would have had much more detailed scrutiny rather than have a committee decision under under under proposal to to make a what is actually quite a significant it is I'm not making any bones about this it is a significant proposed alteration to our policy which I do have concerns about. Now we have so we have on the table we have the the proposed alteration to the policy we have a proposal that it's run for a year as a pilot and we have a suggestion that we we hold it back for a year and consider it again at the end of the the the point where the policy comes up again for renewal. I would be interested first of all to just a sort of test Councillor Engle's suggestion that we we put this forward that we agree it as as a pilot to be scrutinized over the course of this year and to be reviewed again at the at the point where the policy comes up for for its annual renewal. So I'd like to put that first of all Councillor COOK - Can I ask a point of clarification to Ian? I mean presumably Ian can bring an alternative proposal at any time anyway to the committee so you could bring an alternate proposal next year if you so wished. Is we required to present the transport strategy for approval the home to school transport policy for approval by May every year? So so can I put it to you then that we we consider this as as a pilot to be scrutinized over the course of this year and that we we then pick it up again at the point of of the policy coming forward again next year. I don't think that's what people want to do but may I test it actually Councillor COOK - Thank you. So I'm putting that forward I'm picking up the proposal that Councillor Engle has made. Do you have a seconder for that Councillor Engle? Thank you Councillor Carroll so let us put that to the committee and I would like to see those of you who would like to see this put forward as a pilot for this year to be looked at again in the future so I've got one, two, oh yeah I don't think you were allowed to vote on this I'm really sorry you are allowed to vote ah great okay right one, two, three, four um for you any further? Sorry can I have clarification? Am I allowed to vote for this and then also vote for making it permanent because at the order you're doing it in just so to me it's like I'm not against it being a pilot I would just prefer it to just be a change and we review it in a year like we would review normally but I'm not against it being a pilot just does that make sense? No but if for example we don't get a majority in a second for it being a permanent change I would have liked then can we do the permanent change first and then the pilot does it make any difference? I do. Yeah, no. Come on, yeah. Are we going to be called to order by Democratic Services by close? So the order for them, yeah if an amendment or addition to recommendation and report is proposed you debate the report as a whole amendment to recommendations in the report are proposed and seconded you debate the amendment and the addition and officers to advise on the content of that proposal you vote on the amendment and then you so we vote on the amendment first and then vote on substantive motion so the original recommendations of the amendment addition is not carried or the recommendations with the additional amendment if it has been carried so you'd be voting on the amendment first and then if that falls there'd be we need an alternative proposal if you want to vote on another amendment otherwise we'd go back to the original. Right. So we're currently looking at that proposed amendment. Okay, right, okay so can we then, does it, do members need any more advice from officers there anything else that you might want to ask Ian that would help this stage? I think look I'll just be really honest I'm just concerned that the amendment will fall and then those that voted to do as a pilot are not prepared to go as far and vote for it as a permit as a change until obviously we review it in a year's time and then they both fall and then we end up with no change. Can I just ask if it was to go forward as a pilot scheme would it be a help hindrance or make no difference to officers in defining this policy and reviewing it? So I suppose I've got questions rather than answers on that so I think it will probably best if we were to agree it for the year of this policy and then to bring it back and consider it as part of the renewal of the policy next year so effectively it would be a pilot but actually we have to renew the policy, review the policy of it anyway. I suppose my question would be for those families who we do agree this arrangement during the pilot year would we then sustain that arrangement or would we then review the arrangement after a year and they might lose it if we decided to change the policy back again. That is where we need some clarity. My advice would be if we agree the arrangement that should be until the child is 16. Councillor interjecting. I've actually got a smear release once the coming. Councillor interjecting. I think the point that perhaps Charlie was putting forward was that if it went as a pilot then it would be under scrutiny but we can have that same scrutiny for it in place for a year. Any changes that are made to children's situations during the course of the year as Ian has pointed out would then have to remain in place for that child for the duration of their time until they are 16 which is the end of the statutory age which is covered by the DFE guidelines and this policy. Sorry. It could be a commitment of 11 plus years. That's the situation and we are debating something which is going to make some fiscal decisions which will be in place for a very long time. I will reiterate my concern that this is based on one person having brought this issue to us. We see it and we can see that it will be a marvellous opportunity to show how much we value children, we put children at the heart of anything which I think we try and do as far as we possibly can do but we are in this situation that we are being asked to make a binding decision which will be binding for some children whether it finishes at the end of one year or not. I thought we had finished the debate actually that we have moved to the vote. I forgot what I was going to say. Could we move on, could we move on to, so I am taking it that people do not want to take this as a pilot. Councillor Engle, you have that as a pilot. You proposed it as a pilot. It was second day to do you wish to proceed to a vote. Okay, you are going to withdraw it. We are now in a situation where we have the proposed change to the home school travel assistance policy. We are asked to approve the amendment to enable eligible children of compulsory school age living in shared custody or shared care arrangements to receive travel assistance from both home addresses. That is the amendment which is before you. Can I see those in favour, please? We have got eight in favour. It is going to stand anyway but just for the record. Can I see those against and can I see those abstaining? So we have got three abstentions. Okay. So that then stands. Thank you very much. It has been a very long debate. We are at 10 to 9 now. Does anybody need a comfort break? Should we take five minutes? That would be helpful. And I do apologise officers, you having a long evening. Thank you. [ Pause ] [ Pause ] Sorry for youth service strategy. In your time to preserve the science but would you like to introduce your officers for this? I can. So I am introducing the youth services strategy. So you will be aware that for some time we have had a legal responsibility to produce a local youth offer. The Department of the Culture, Media and Sport who is responsible for youth services have transferred that responsibility to the Department of Education. We have now got some revised guidance on what makes a good youth offer and part of that revised guidance is we must consult regularly with young people to make sure that our local offer is relevant and responsive. This report sets out the consultation that we have completed with children and young people and our proposed strategy for the next four or five years. I am joined at the table by Roberta Evans who is the Associate Director for Family and Adolescent Services and for Sarah Reed who has some job title, head of early intervention. I have remembered it. But both Roberta and Sarah are responsible for leadership of the youth service in Richmond. So we are happy to answer any questions on the proposed youth service strategy, anything technical or difficult or need to go to either Sarah or Roberta. Did you want to say a few words just at the start to say how you have brought the report together or? It's a collective piece of work with Ian as well. Just to say that I first want to acknowledge the commitment from the Council in the Richmond youth service and that is appreciated and I think we have a very rich youth service in Richmond and we have undertaken a commitment to also ensure that the feedback from the participation service through the Youth Council has fed into the strategy but that is an ongoing piece of work. So we have an establishment of youth forums across all of the youth services and we want to strengthen that and make sure that that is a live process, not just a one-off piece of consultation that we have been responding to. We want to make sure that that is a live iteration of co-production moving forward. Yeah and just to reiterate that that then covers a broad range of young people as you know we have a very active youth council and very articulate and able young people on that and we've just had the induction tonight for the new members and it's very diverse but we also want to ensure that the service users on the ground that maybe are not youth council members have a voice through the forums and also reach those young people that we don't know about. So trying to have different mechanisms to reach out peer-to-peer through the schools and our networks to try and reach young people who are not necessarily attending as well as those that do regularly attend. Okay now questions. Councilor Cripdak, I could rely on you. Go on. Thank you. I've got a few but maybe just start with the first one really which is I'd like to hear from you just a bit about the profile of those who you feel would most benefit from using our youth services given the sort of stats that appeared on the first page there. So just what type of people really are we supposed to be targeting our youth services at? Obviously they're open to all but who where are we going to get the biggest impact in terms of changing those stats? Just to say yes we do welcome all and any young people across the borough and that's a principle we stick to and we agree that that open door is vital for all young people and within those that are currently accessed in an average of around 30 percent of those are open to targeted statutory other services such as child protection, children in need. So we're already serving 30 percent of our regular attendees are from those cohorts. I suppose the other groups are those groups that don't engage for whatever reason and I would say the representation is really broad already but we would love to see more of the minority groups that could be the LGBTQ population. We have really proactive groups of young people with send or neuro diversity so I think we've got a good spread and I don't think we're missing an obvious group but there's always more we can do with those young people that don't know about us so when we did a survey we do regular surveys but we did one a couple of years ago and it was really clear that lots of young people across the borough didn't know what we do so I think if we can get support in promoting what we do if everybody's aware of what the offer is and young people are constantly offered by access then that would catch all really but there isn't a particular cohort that I would say we are missing I don't know if Robert wants to add but I think we have a good spread of access from a wide range of target groups and I think that's just to add to that I think that's through the partnership working with our monetary sector providers that offer some of that more targeted work whether that's for children with disabilities or special education needs but also with project X who will then provide some of that targeted work maybe in a different location and then integrate young people I think by having a sustained youth service and established places that young people are familiar with it becomes a space that is promoted by young people for young people and that's made it a lot more accessible so and also then those targeted groups so I think that one area that we're looking to improve on is in that data capture because the data that's been provided around that 30% is through staff manually having to cross reference whereas we're moving into a shared case management system we will be able to pick that up a lot quicker and we'll be able to see them and some of the needs a lot better but I think from the feedback from staff around who's engaging with the youth service we have quite a good diverse group it's not leaning towards any one particular demographic or because I think there has been a misrepresentation sometimes for school students to think oh it's not for me sometimes that comes out in the council meetings or the youth service it's not it's not for me it's just for the poor children which actually is something that's faded out with each youth election has become a much more universal and diverse group and yeah just to add to that as well the free school male children that are eligible for fuel those older age children that across the country actually local authorities struggle with engaging them because over the holidays if you're 15 16 you're likely to go off with your friends and you're not going to want to go to a paid provision our youth service and and it's quite unique um offers fuel places the holiday activity fund places for children up to the age of 16 and because they have good engagement we get quite high attendance at the youth service during the holidays which means they get access to activities and they get food um where other boroughs really struggle as soon as young people get to come 13 14 in trying to entice them so we're well placed in capturing some of the free school male young people as well that are slightly older sorry anyone to come in on that well I think if you look at the data I think there are two areas probably that stand out as unusual for Richmond and and the first of those is a really high rate of young people who have um mental health or emotional health worries so you know the fourth lowest school in London for children who have good emotional well-being the third highest rate of hospital attendance for self-harming behaviors so whilst our youth workers aren't necessarily clinicians to provide that kind of intensive mental health support they do have a role in in you know positive mental health and well-being and so the work that that that they do in Richmond around the beautiful mind which is the mental health conference and the mental health interventions I think is something that we would want to amplify through this strategy going forward and you'll see there's an action on that in the plan and the other area that that that stands out is the young people engaged in risk-taking behavior so you know highest rate in London for 15 year olds who've been drinking the previous four weeks high rates of cannabis use so though that targeted youth work of which project X is a really important contributor are also issues that we would want to continue and amplify through the strategy. I've seen that I think Councillor Humpfries wants to ask something, Councillor Fleming and then back to Councillor Crook take. Oh I'm sorry I've missed out Rob, sorry go for it first. I've got this in mind, the restaurants I kicked on the overlooking me. Not such a question as a quest that it would be nice if we could hear from the service users about this issue so I remember we've had presentations for youth council in the past I'm pushing my mind trying to remember when and I know we were meant to begin one which got constantly delayed but going forward it would be nice to hear from your service users and the people were basically here to act in the best interest of through the youth council at some point in the future. So the youth council has just changed so we announced the results of the new youth council last week on Wednesday and Thursday and they're meeting this evening or have met, I hope they've gone home now, they've met this evening for their first induction meeting so they're a very new group of youth councillors and two new members of the youth parliament as well. Not through this strategy but through the children and young people's plan there is a good plan for them to engage with this committee and other committees so that you can hear directly their views on how well we are performing and how well we're improving and that would include the delivery of this strategy so there are clear plans to do that but they're very new so it's tiny tiny baby steps at the moment. Yeah just following on from that, my recollection is that the last time we we had a presentation from the youth council it was during lockdown because it was a virtual and I thought it was very lively very interesting but they were actually more interested in presenting to the environment committee than to the education children services committee so they decamped to the environment but I mean I think we should really you know get an invitation, an early invitation to the youth service, to the youth council to come along and tell us there's something about their hopes and plans and intentions for the coming time that they're going to be in place so that'd be good so who will deal with that is that is that you Ian? Marvelous right okay it's an action thank you um right okay the next we have council Humphreys I mean a lot of it's been answered by what Ian said but I just kind of wanted to reiterate and I'm trying to get my head round these really quite shocking figures in terms of the risky behaviours with drinking and drugs, self-harm, mental health and well-being and it's it's really hard to read that alongside kind of reports that says health outcomes for young people in Richmond is very good the large majority groping caring and supportive families you know it's an affluent borough it's a desirable place to live there's all these like really you know educational outcomes are actually very good um yeah this is these are terrible figures for these risky behaviours of this mental well-being and I'm trying I don't understand I just think I don't understand how this is happening why in in this borough and I'd love to hear from you I mean obviously the report is telling us the direction that we're going in and you talk about Project X but I just kind of want to hear more strongly what are we doing about it because this is scary well I let Roberta come in on um what is happening in terms of the targeted interventions but there's a really interesting report called what about youth which is a public health report around Richmond which does delve into some of these issues and whilst I'm generalising you know it does point out that some of these issues are linked to affluence you know these are children who can afford to buy alcohol can afford to buy cannabis and who have the opportunity to do that more frequently than others and there are particular areas of the borough which are points where young people gather together to do that Richmond Riverside is a good example of that I mean the other issue is a more tricky issue but has been highlighted in a number of serious case reviews which are now called child safeguarding practice reviews around permissive parenting so we do have a cohort of parents who allow their children to experiment with these things um and may well invite you know their children to have house parties where they are present but allow these activities to go on and what they do to be a safe environment so combined affluence and permissive parenting are probably two of the factors which drive our higher rates in terms of risk-laking behaviour and self-hummeling but I do commend the report what about youth it is a Richmond specific report I mean that's really interesting and I know you're going to answer in a second so to me it sounds like is there any work going on or any focus on educating parents quite frankly and and the link up with with schools you know because that's obviously it sounds like that's kind of really part of the whole thing but sorry yeah so revet will answer that in terms of the work that the youth service does with families but also the development of family hubs so yes I I'm similarly curious about the affluence the academic achievement the the rich services that are that are here and available and yet these risky behaviours and Ian's captured it perfectly as to that dilemma that we're often facing which then also feeds into the dilemma of how we engage with parents because if in the main the children are doing okay with their education and they're doing okay with their day-to-day what would they access a family hub or any other service and if what they can provide is a safe space for their children to have their friends and to be monitored in that space what well why would they not clear that that's the best place rather than being out in the community where it's not safe so that's some of the dilemmas that we're faced with however what we have seen is that through the success of the children's centers and being a universal space in which any parent can get support and that any parent would benefit from support and I think most parents would agree that if it's not a non-judgmental and it's just a universal offer of being a parent through different transitions is difficult and so getting some support and guidance around that would be quite helpful is the way that we want to approach it with the family hubs as much as possible there will be targeted elements to it as well but the offer is around where you might be struggling with some developmental needs or special education needs autism ADHD big things that come up for a lot of our children and parents and then also how do you parent a teenager how do you support a teenager through safely exploring risky behavior and making decisions and so there's ways in which it's not about telling off the parents it's not about punishing through some kind of course that they have to go on in order to access a service it's just saying we could all benefit from this and I think through that approach through the children's centers we've seen parents of all needs coming through the doors and we hope that's the same with the family hubs it's a slow it's going to be a slow process it will take time to build up those relationships in that trust but that's the approach we want to take for the more targeted we're maintaining a tier two health and well-being role as part of a project x health and well-being joint work they're in the same service recognizing that there needs to be still an offer around when schools in particular here of a party where people have overdosed or there's been high levels of alcohol consumption that we could then have a work that can support with a response to that because that won't yet be at a tier three treatment level but there needs to be a response so project x provides projects and one of those we're going to be maintaining as part of our future offer is a health and well-being response around that can I just ask you because obviously these figures show you the level of usage so the level of usage of cannabis level of usage of alcohol I mean obviously there's no such thing as any good self-harm and mental health but you talk about you know permissive parenting and safe spaces I mean is there an element to the cannabis and alcohol use that would actually be seen as it's going to happen at least it's happening in a good way is there an element of that I mean some of that's hypotheses but yes I think that's some of the responses that we've had from families I'd rather have my child in my home where I know they're safe then out in a park where they could get hurt yeah yeah I broke my question down earlier and I think you might have covered it but I was wondering if there's I mean we're talking about education here and how Richmond is you know number one in this number two in that which is great and and the other end with all these risky behaviors and self-harming so I mean from my experience of having teenage and I have to hear like oh in this you know high achieving school you know the girls are anorexic they're under a lot of pressure and you know what sort of work has been done because I think there is a real big correlation I mean we talked about parenting and etc but I think I hear this more often from my children about the amount of pressures that there are to gain more and more every year you know there's so much competition for university-based spaces because they've cut costs and they know you know there's just so much pressure and I think a lot more work needs to be done there and also I think with social media you know in it that's not unique to Richmond but there is a lot of copycat behavior and perhaps those children that are very bright or absorbing social media in a different way you know in then other areas and they're very obsessive perhaps I don't know bright children can be very you know taking that information in very on a very deep level so I just think those things haven't been mentioned there's social anxiety as they emerge as teenagers and they're embarrassed to go to youth places and you know I don't know what can be done but all of these things I feel has been mentioned there but maybe they just come under the you know heading of something and you know at deep level. I think the challenge for us is that we can only go on the data that is collected and a lot of that information was you know helpful is often anecdotal and so you know the work that I hope the Youth Council are currently doing in analyzing the feedback from children and young people will give us more data on some of those issues in order to target our responses better to them that the priorities around mental health in the youth strategy which includes the the anxiety caused to young people by you know peer pressure and also parental pressure are very much part of the work that the youth service is doing in partnership with the Emotional Health Service. And just to add to that that the youth service do work with schools and they have a very clear school offer and they will respond to emerging themes and needs and they're quite responsive and flexible and have a really good relationship with schools so there is an in-school offer as well as an out-of-school offer and actually some of those risky behaviours we do work in partnership with public health or the police and a number of partners to address it collaboratively as opposed to it just sitting with us so we're all working to minimize those risky behaviours where we can. And how do schools access the youth service offer? So they contact directly the youth service managers every term we will put out what the offer is and it varies. We'd like to take the bus out there for kind of introducing the youth service to all young people and then we will respond for example we had some concerns around relationships healthy relationships sometimes that's like peer group relationships where it's become quite catty or quite unhelpful and unhealthy and we can go in and do some targeted work with small groups or big assemblies they're quite flexible but they're very knowledgeable around trying to increase the self-esteem because ultimately it may come down to self-esteem which is related to mental health so giving them safe spaces is one thing but being able to in-reach into schools is really helpful to just be able to nip that in the bud where possible and build those relationships early on before it gets to hopefully a higher level we can prevent that. If I could just add because I think some of this is about it is very much around the partnership working that we're able to do so for instance a more recent issue that's come up is around vaping and so we're working with the schools some select schools and with our health and well-being service and our youth service to think about dispractice guidance and how that can influence then the whole assembly sessions or the PSHE curriculum and then think about a more targeted approach for the children that need it and then a more specialist approach and so again with mental health I think that's probably something that is it's a big issue which is identified in the Children Young Persons Plan it's identified by public health as a big issue and so we're trying to work together and collectively around where do we fit within that TED response because some of it's about a whole school response some of it's about our public health offer from GP school nurses across the board and some of it's about what the youth service can provide in their sessions within the youth service and all of that supports mental well-being and positive relationships and positive choices and then we have our targeted work which is where Project X comes in so I think some of these big issues are ones that we need to work on collectively. Right, Councillor COOK, thank you. I've got a few questions here I'll just quickly run through them. In terms of the risky behaviours given that you're saying they're related to affluence I just wondered if you could say a bit about what you're doing with the private schools in the borough because obviously they're about 50% slightly more of our secondary school children attend private schools. At the other end of the spectrum the 2,700 disadvantaged children given that the activities are free and they're probably the only options for that cohort then just a little bit about what you're doing specifically to target them. In terms of mental health strategy are you going to review the eligibility criteria for the emotional health service and the thresholds because I know there's a number of children that I would like to see that I've come across in my case work and they cannot get any support from the emotional health service which is a great shame. Geographically on page 105 you talk about how you talk about Hampton which is fantastic. I sort of did some work on where some social rent, private rent families are and I sort of distributed it. Interestingly for all the five key areas there's representatives here from every single ward on this committee so we're all within the committee very familiar with our areas but it would be really great to hear about what you're doing in Heathfield and Witten and I know they're not my areas but they pop out as being areas that really need focus. The budget you've only put in one year but obviously this strategy is going for many years so we need to know what is happening to the budget over the course of that period and then the last thing is just on the parent champion network just say a bit about how your work ties in with that because obviously that's all about helping parents. A lot of questions there and it may be hard for them to respond to hold all of those questions and respond to them. I was going to do the first two shall I about private schools and deprivation and then move on to the emotional health so private schools we do reach out to them we offer them the same as we would offer any school take off families and there's only so much we can do and we do continue they go out in our news letters and they're part of our network but I'll be honest take up does vary and it's often not where we would want it to be but we keep trying we can't force them and in terms of deprivation and engaging those young people as said quite you know a significant amount of young people are vulnerable but we would consider vulnerable in one way or another so I think we've got some representation there but our outreach activities so into Edgar Road which is on the border or into in Kingston for example Cambridge Road estate those areas of deprivation are very clear where we don't have a physical building we'll have a detached offer where we can to try and engage those and again working with those key schools that have high numbers of free school meal pupils where we can engage and try to get them to join in with our college activity offers so I think we've got some mechanisms we can always improve that but we've got some mechanisms going into areas of deprivation but also working with schools where we know those high and high numbers are with people premium or free school meals I wasn't going to read that so in terms of the thresholds for the emotional health service I think you're aware that there's currently an independent review of emotional health services or child and adolescent mental health services in Kingston Richmond part of that is looking at the pathway for services and thresholds and one of the recommendations will be around speeding up the implementation of the Thrive framework which removes thresholds between services that will I think resolve the issue that you're talking about we are still waiting for the draft report is currently with the Integrated Care Board we are expecting it in early May but then they did say that in early April and they also said it in early March but I am expecting it immediately and then in terms of budget yes I accept that it will be useful to tell you what the budget for the next five years would be but as you're aware budgets are set annually so I can't and I can pick up the parent champion network so I had the pleasure of visiting the parent champion network cafes in both power station and academy in Kingston and I think it's a brilliant initiative it's providing a drop in space for parents non-judgmental and it's through the use of joining up with the food bank so that is certainly linking in with our more deprived families and actually I think from speaking to the parents I got to speak with them individually some of them would never have access to service previously and were able to then through coming along on a regular basis start to trust the space and start to open up about their needs so it's been a really powerful way in which to be an extension of the universal offer to a more vulnerable group and they are then supporting how we think about that in the future family hub model so both the family hubs and the plan is to have one in each so we've only just moved into the White House and we are still just sorting out our programs and everything else so parent champion cafe would be part of that as well as across we want to have a a way in which we can have food as a way to support families to come but also for example that special education needs seems to be one of the biggest priorities that came out of the family survey it's one that comes up at time and again ADHD support and autism support so they'll be part of of that and that will provide those opportunities for those little conversations that can lead to really meaningful sign posting or support or encouragement to engage in services that might address the bigger problems the more sort of consciousness awareness raising that we can do across families as we've seen with children's centers around milestones around drinking just as an acceptable so why would you those sorts of things can come out in the consciousness through those sorts of spaces so you want to promote that and just to pick up on your Heathfield and Whitten query there is an offer there's a full offer of program at the Heathfield Children's Center at Heathfield School and the Whitten Youth Zone has an active engaged young people population but also offers community use during the day there's various groups happening there so there's there's fairly good coverage in that end of the bar of both for children's centers and for the youth service that will become a family hub spoke site linked together with project X as well project X users at space a lot thank you um now Michael know you what to come in but um Councillor Cambridge has also indicated thank you um my initial questions were around mental health but they've really been answered but I just want to comment that I'm pleased to see about the training of youth workers particularly supporting children once they get into the cam system which I know is difficult enough my next point is slightly frivolous but on page 106 I was really pleased to see that you are going to be working with young people to create interactive social media because communication is key it's no good having these wonderful youth offers if people don't see what you've got on offer in language that they understand we're probably I don't know some of us are over middle aged in this room but I wouldn't have a clue how to stop looking at me gets the Wilson some of us are very much younger younger I'm talking about myself some of us are very much younger than middle aged but I remember being told I couldn't even look at TikTok because I was you know over 14 so I'm it's a frivolous point but I am glad that you are working with young people so you can communicate in which ways they understand and my final point which is a question is about developing the current electronic case recording system now the kind of KPIs are October 24 how is the progress of that because I should think that that's quite key in improving that system to actually track the work you're doing sorry I've got there's a cough that wants to come so the the data transformation is one work stream of the family hub program but that links in with the youth service as well and as being led by early help and data transformation strategic lead so we've got as far as I know as far as progress goes we have commissioned the module from the same provider as our social care and early help provider and we're on track to have it in place for September we we're reliant on their timetable of work because they're a big provider of a lot of local authorities social care systems and there are a lot of local authorities implementing family hubs at the moment so we're a bit beholden to their timetable but that's our plan is to have it implemented by October we're doing a drive right now for registrations with family hubs so we've got a customer platform already set up and that customer platform will then speak to this case management system but the plan is October the caveat is that we're beholden to the to the software provider but we're determined to get it we've got all our ducks lined up and then once we do we will then be able to have a much better joined up recording system because at the moment the children center is separate to the early help service which is separate to the youth service which is separate to social care and special education needs and many others youth justice as well so we won't get all of them joined up but there's another project that is working to work on a single view as well where we can get a really good view of the family's needs so together that's also led by the same person together we should be able to have a much better understanding of the needs of families that are registered and also the needs of young people but we probably won't start seeing the outcomes of that as far as our understanding of those attending the numbers never for two years but then we'll be on a good roll I know that Councillor Butlin is desperate to get in here and we've got to see farewell to Michael Wilson cheers thank you for coming right so it occurred to me that you've got this youth bus and my brother we've got Turgen Green and during the summer months we had groups of children around Turgen Green in the evening it seemed to me that he rolled along and you customers are there we have tried that and we will continue to use the bus in that way it does require it's not a huge bus but it's bigger than your average bus so it requires a space for us and I know that I think it was Ben Skelton our youth work lead was leading on the green kind of detach response so it's certainly something we can consider and plan out over the summer well the green has got in the evening you'll find it on the south side which is the these into Hampton Roads you find that there's usually parking there the other thing that occurs to me is that there's also a gate so you could actually drive the bus onto the Turgen Green itself they have a circus going out of the green and I don't suppose you would be as heavy as a circus so what I'm so saying is that with a bit of planning the organization you could just roll on the green and you'd be part they're safely amongst them so we would I think that's on our plan always there's certain areas that we will plan for in advance like heading to lock would be another one that we know every summer we need to prepare for a plan around that we're also reliant on our community safety partners to give us a heads up of when understanding when there's a popular area for young people to congregate because it can change so we're often checking social media even our adolescent safeguarding team and youth justice workers will be checking social media for the big the big parties or the sort of the pop-up parties and then we'll try and respond and I've even had Sarah's colleague from the youth from the youth justice service going out herself with with the youth service to try and engage when it's a particularly volatile youth group because we can't be everywhere at every time so we'll work with our safe and neighborhood police community safety partners and then any counselors that have got ears on what's coming up and where there's more more concerning behaviors that's where we'll prioritize especially in the summer and I think our response has been quite good in in pre-empting but also responding when that's needed. My colleague Reid Lee on Twig and Green are part of the factually practically lives on which it's untriguing me in itself. She's much closer to those young people than I am. I'm sure they wouldn't want to see an old grandfather turning up. A big sister beat more her style so yes we'd love to have you on board come by. Lovely well we don't want to get into too much detail about you know your summer program but first of all a Councillor Humphries and then Councillor Clerk Deke and I think we're probably at the point where we might be wrapping this up. Lovely and so actually before I get onto my main question just going from what Michael has been saying I actually met with some of your team and the bus at Murray Park in Whitten and it was parked in the completely wrong place. It was down by the derelict building as opposed to near the Mooga and the table tennis tables and the skate park bit. So it kind of I think that would I think from that potentially it might this summer actually start driving to where the young people are. My only other feedback was it's the most corporate looking bus I've ever seen the branding and you know I am middle aged but even I think I felt that the branding I thought they were going to sell me I don't know leave it for the DWP rather than you know kind of fun activities so you might just want to look at the branding of the bus. Sorry I know I'm costing you more money but it really didn't look very used so that would be my only feedback on that but that was not my main question. My main question is about what partnerships you have with private providers for activities particularly in school holidays because again we were talking about risky behaviours the biggest thing that leads to risky behaviours is boredom or unsupervised time or large amounts of screen time at home because there's nothing else to do. Now my kids are 11 that twins just in case you were confused about why they're the same age and up until now we've had this plethora of amazing things I can sign them up for in school holidays and talking to friends who've got kids who are just on starting to be on that next stage 12, 13, 14 and it totally I'm hearing that it gets more and more difficult to find something constructive for young people to do in the school holidays partly potentially the offer that's out there but also partly because obviously teenagers apparently they're going to stop listening to what I tell them to do which I'm really quite nervous about but anyway I wanted to ask about that kind of school offer it's a kind of a little bit about what's on page 100 here in the report but just a little bit about how you work with I don't know football clubs rugby clubs what you know tens young marina whatever it might be. Yeah so school holidays alongside the youth service delivering the fuel which is the holiday activity fund just to confuse you we call it something different but that's what it is the four hours a day with food of activities and enrichment around nutrition alongside that they offer a standard full holiday program for all children and young people you don't have to be receiving free school meals to engage with that it's around roughly 40 hours a week of activities across our sites across the center and it varies as to what that might include so it could be trips it could be music it could be dance performance sports creativities or it could just be a space where they go and they kind of hang out safely so there is a really clear offer there that's for any young person in Richmond that I would highly recommend that you look at if your children are becoming in that transition period just because actually if there's something at a particular site then they are able to access wherever they want they're not determined by postcodes they can go wherever you know whatever appeals to them so I appreciate that isn't for all young people they may not want that but there is a clear offer that the youth service deliver of around 40 hours a week across the summer and do you work with private providers to sort of communicate I think the biggest feedback I've got from parents of these sort of as I suppose 12, 13, 14 is that often they've sent their kids often sometimes to run those offers and the problem is is because the age isn't broken down between you know there's a big difference between a 12 year old and a 15, 16 year old and often they find that their child agrees to go and then refuses to go ever again because they were out of kilter with the ages of the other young people that were there and I don't know what the answer is but it's that's a big old age group you know 12 to 16 and it's just kind of how you manage that. Yep private provider wise we have really good partnerships across both boroughs and again there's lots of people delivering the fuel so private providers richman rugby I could list a whole heap of organizations that work with us on that element and also have some subsidized places and work in their own way kind of giving back to society in their own kind of agenda but so they have an offer as well in terms of appealing to a mass age range it's not easy but we have different activities on the same site so actually there'll be some quiet spaces there might be some kind of sporting activities that a young person will be into and our wonderful facilities such as Heathom House or Ham have the kind of space to be able to we wouldn't separate them out but they'll give the opportunity for young people who may want something a bit quieter or may want to go off in a gaming lounge as opposed to in the main hall there should be a good offer there we used to work in with that age range and we appreciate that actually what a 16 year old wants to do it might be very different to what a 10 or 9 year old wants to do but also to say that I think developmentally and also socially these are children who have been in a primary school and they may not yet have got their head around or all the just everything around building a secondary school which is a massive transition so we do we do think about transition probably at the moment it's more focused on those wispy education needs and disability and how we support that transition because the world is completely different and and I think it sometimes takes a couple of years in high school before young people are willing to go into the big spaces of youth services and be comfortable in that so I think that's about then we've got it available it's it's there but sometimes we just need to work with the with that developmental process of of getting ready and and getting used to being in big school world and therefore youth service world it's um it's not something we can force children into we do have junior groups actually as well and junior citizens which I think introduces a lot of children to the youth service but um yeah it's those that it's it's a time of transition that sometimes it's just tricky thank you um right I think well we've got the last words are coming up and it's going to be Councillor crook bacon counsellor how um but keep keep it fairly tight because we you know we do have the guillotine and we've got the forward plan to do yeah sorry yeah I just ask um I'd like to hear what's happening in terms of the apprenticeships for youth workers because I know recruitment and retention can sometimes be an issue and what if anything any plans you've got in terms of zero hours contracts because generally I don't I don't like that as a concept and I think it is good to be able to provide contracts so that people can sustain a living on them and so that's the first one the second one rather selfishly I would like to know when any plans for Mort Lake and the power station are going to be finalised apprenticeships wise it's something we always consider I'll be honest our budget doesn't allow for that so if we have an opportunity to maybe work with partners or look at any other funding streams so for example the VRU or other grants that may come in we can consider that but as we stand we do not have capacity in our budget we have fully contracted staff but basically is the budget and that covers all of the staff zero hour contracts are necessary for the flexibility for the fuel program and for some of our high peak not season all but high peak activities so and there are people who who choose that who don't want to contract who want the flexibility so we we also need that so as much as we agree and would like people to be on a permanent contract for some situations and times of the year it suits all parties to have the option for zero hour and we do have some long-standing workers who have become contracted workers because they're done regular hours so we do honour that and I feel quite confident we do need a good mix and the majority of our staff are permanent so it's not like the bank staff are the majority and I think you will be quite quite excited to hear some of the plans coming up for power station and barns and we're looking at having an assigned person in the power station for the majority of the time and that's something that the youth service manager for Richmond is working on at the moment and I'm sure will be in touch with local partners to notify them all that. Councillor HOWL. Thank you Madam Chair, I'll be very brief. Just wondering please on page 88 when will the youth buses become fully electric please? So the current youth buses relatively new it's just three years old if we take the life of our old youth bus which was 15 years we've probably got another 12 years of youth out of our current diesel bus unless of course the committee wanted to prioritise funding a new bus earlier in which case it could be beautifully emblazoned with whatever council act is once on it. I think probably that isn't imminent what I would say is that the youth bus actually doesn't travel a huge amount of distance so in the three years it's down 3,000 miles so it's probably just a thousand miles a year. It doesn't use its diesel generator when it can plug in and often when we're looking for spaces for it to stop we do look for those spaces where it can plug into the power source rather than use the generator. So we are mindful of electrifying athlete whether that's the SE&D transport fleet or indeed the youth bus but I suppose we have to be realistic that we don't have the budget allocated for that as yet so probably 12 years time is the answer to your question Councillor Hahn. Right thank you all that's been such an interesting item and we've brought all sorts of ideas and discussionists to us this evening which I think we sorely needed so thank you for that. What we are asked to do now is to approve the youth service strategy for 2024 to 2028 are we all happy to do so thank you very much. All right well you can tickle off as they say. Now is we have to have a very quick look and I'm just aware that we we need to be wrapped up by 10 that we've got the forward plan on pages 1 1 7 2 4 could we just look at that very quickly in was was there anything that you wanted to comment on that? I don't think so so in the next meeting we're bringing forward the evaluation of the family hub at the White House so early in early evaluation of the work to establish the family hub and then a kind of forward view in terms of where we're likely to go in terms of the role of the family hubs which will partly answer Councillor Kate's question around when we're getting to Morelake. I think that'd be useful it'd be an opportunity for you to meet Sarah and Reverter again or to leave on the item. Our same futures plan is coming back so you will be aware we've got a revised same futures plan now so it'll be an opportunity to see the revised plan and the progress that's been made and then a quarter four performance is also coming to the next meeting that's probably sufficient for one meeting. Thank you now you know that I was interested in hearing what work is being done on AI for at primary schools. Sorry? Yes. Right thank you because there is a project done standing carried out at the moment research and at primary school level as to how AI is being used to enhance the educational experience of primary schools and I think since this work is being done I'd very much like to you know to hear that I wonder when that might be available to come to the committee. So I just need to be clear that that's work being done by schools and not by achieving for children so we would need to coordinate that work with schools we're not leading in AI projects in schools leading themselves. Right so would schools be prepared to um to come along and do a presentation when when it emerges? I can ask a question. Yes. Who is leading on it? I don't know the answer to that so I'll have to find out. Okay. Thank you. Right, Councillor Fermi. Just on that point so I wondered whether we need to look or whether it is our job to look at the risks of AI to education and if that's something we should start exploring and also with digitalisation, what cost savings we might bring in if that's something we need to consider. I know we're I'm on the finance committee and we've been we had the digital transformation strategy last month was it the month before so I don't know if that's the thing we need to think about too. So are you referring to digitising services or what is it? Well I was just wondering if we do need a report to look at our part of it and how we might be using AI to bring in efficiencies. I don't know if that's something that just remains within finance committee or if it's we should we should look into it and think about it and the risks of AI also because I think if people are doing exams and they're using chat GBT to cover some of their coursework I don't know. I don't think that falls within our purview. Ian, what about digitalisation? Yeah so we can certainly bring a report on the digitisation work in the use of AI in children services generally so that we do use it in a not we've got a bop for example that sits in our front door which processes all of our contact so we can bring a report on how we're using digital transformation to improve children services we can do that that's probably easier to do than the school element of it. For the school element of it I'll have to liaise with individual schools to understand what they're doing and then to see whether we can bring a report. The challenges you always appreciate is we're not a local education authority anymore and therefore we don't have that kind of information about schools but I can see what's possible. So when might that be Ian? Well it won't be in June so if I look at the autumn, we might look at the autumn. Thank you. Councillor COOK. We're just listening to talk about risks of things like social media just remind me where is that covered? Is that part of the evaluation of the mental health, the impact on mental health the children's is that a public health question or is that covered through schools or how do we look at it here? So I think public health have done some work on that which would go to adult social care housing and public health committee. I think the same good and children partnership have also done some work on it. When are we getting the so starting children partnership report because it's not done here. I think we've just had it anyway so it usually comes in the autumn. It was late last year because I think we had it in January or February. It needs to be put into the forward plan so that's another action. Sorry. Sorry. No I was just going to say it might be good to try and bring all those bits together but I'm not sure what report is the most appropriate for this committee but just because there's been so much talk about the impact on children and children's mental health. I think it probably would sit within the remit of the Health and Wellbeing Board if it went anywhere but we've got an agenda planning meeting on health and well-being so I can ask then. Thank you. Councillor Carroll. Jess wanted to reiterate wanting to talk to the Health and Health Council do a presentation to us at some point. Yeah we've got that already done as an action. Good. Thank you first for the reminder on that one. Any other points that anybody wants to see mirrored in the forward plan? Righty ho. Okay so last question for you all. Is there anything that members would like to consider for referral to the policy and performance review board? Better make it quick. I'll take that as a no. Are you content to note the forward plan? Okay excellent and you've managed just within five minutes of the 10 o'clock in the team. Thank you all very much for your attendance. Thank you officers and thank you.