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[BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] You know you won't hear much yet because we've not quite started, but we are just. [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] [BLANKAUDIO] Generally, the public seating areas will not be filmed, however, by entering the meeting room and using the public seating area, you should be aware that you may be recorded and images and sound will be stored as above, children will not be filmed, although sound may be heard. Members are reminded that the cameras are activated by the sound system and that they must switch microphones on when speaking and off when finished speaking. Item one is the order of business. Version two of the papers were published on Thursday the 6th of June 2024 and are available to view on the Council's website. It is the convener's intention to take items 7.1 and 7.2 in relation to community learning and development together. This morning, motions and amendments have been circulated yesterday and can be viewed on the Council's website. There is an emergency motion by Council Davidson in relation to Delmeney Primary School. Convener, this would be required to be ruled urgent if it is to be considered at today's meeting. I don't agree that it's urgent. Thank you, convener. A reminder for members attending on teams that the hands up functions should be used to indicate to the convener that you wish to speak, whilst the chat box is not shown on the webcast, any new messages do pop up on the screens. So your comments may be visible to members of the public. There have been no deputation requests for today's meeting. If members are planning to substitute for other members for particular items, please make this clear to the convener by confirming who has joined and who has left. Understanding order 22.15 each item is subject to a 40 minute limit unless otherwise agreed by committee under order of business. The convener has got the discretion to allow proceedings to continue beyond that point. A reminder this morning that votes will be taken by show of hands online and in the meeting room. Item 2 is declarations of interest. The council's code of conduct requires members to publicly declare interest in any items being considered at today's meeting. These interests could be financial or non-financial. Do we have any declarations this morning? Thank you very much. Item 3 is deputations. As I said earlier, we have had no requests this morning which takes us to item 4.1, which is the minute of the previous meeting held on the 16th of April 2024 that is submitted for approval as an accurate record. Agreed. Thank you very much. Item 5 is the committee's work program. The committee is asked to note the work program. Any going to go in the work program? Agreed. Thank you, convener. Item 5.2 is the committee's ruling actions log. Items 5, 9, 15, 21, 23, 24, 27 and 29 are recommended for closure. And the committee is asked to otherwise note the outstanding actions. So everybody happy? Thanks, Kevin. I've got a question on item 25 around the whole family wellbeing fund. So it says that the update is coming in July. So just to get that clarity around the timeline on that, the applications closed in March. The recommendations are sent to the children's partnership in April. So why July? We'll get an update for you, counsel. We'll bring that back if that's okay. Yeah. Unless Amanda's got her hand up, I wonder. Thanks, folks. I'm sorry I can't be with you today. I'm not 100% so I'm working from home. I'm working from home. My understanding is that hasn't finally gone through the partnership. I think the partnership is meeting this afternoon and it's on the agenda for the partnership this afternoon to finally agree, and then we'll notify everybody. Thanks, Amanda. Can I come back, convener? Thanks. When it comes back, can we make sure that there's a bit of an understanding of where the funding has gone in the terms of geographical breakdown and things if that's helpful? I'm not sure who was first, so I'll go you and then Ed. It was about the briefing note on LGBT Scotland and Thai. I think it said it was due before this committee. I don't think we've seen that yet. I've not seen it. I just wonder if we could get an update when we're going to get that. I mean, it has been prepared so we'll get that. Eight. Thanks, convener. Just relating to item 23 on this, the briefing around East Coast Primary. It says that written briefing report will be circulated. Has that been circulated or was that a timing issue with the report? And could we get it circulated to ward members as well as members of the committee? June. Thanks, convener. Sorry. I know that the issues raised by parents around GDPR have not had the briefing around that in terms of preaches to GDPR. I'm just wondering if we can get a bit of an update at some point on the timeline for that briefing. It's been dealt with through our information governance colleagues and we are complying with the timelines that they've set. I think Amanda wants to come in as well. I was just going to say what you just said. There's been a briefing. I'm all waiting on information back from the information governance offices. I understand it. And as soon as we get that back, we'll both circulate it. Keep that, Margaret. And notice it, as you said, item 27 is recommended for closure. I mean, we have had the briefing note, but is there going to be any other follow-up on after school club provision across the city? Or is it just going to close as it is? It is recommended for closure, but if a committee members want more information, then we can do that. We can maybe do a briefing for the business bulletin on. If there's nothing else on the rural actions program, agree that. Thank you. Convener, that takes us to item 6.1, which is the committee's business bulletin. I'm not going to put my head down. OK, Finley, Joanne, Joe, Christopher, you. I'm just going to shoot a now. OK. Thank you, Convener. Just a question on justice services, but on domestic abuse service. If possible, that was a really, really interesting read. For me, but I just wondered if anyone can talk about if there's any explicit work going on to tackle intimate partner violence amongst LGBTQ+ people. As it can be at least one in three, according to data of LGBTQ+ people experiencing intimate partner violence, not just heterosexual couples. So I wonder if there's any good work going on in that area yet. If there's anyone that's able to answer that question. Yeah. Amanda. We could bring the report to a future committee with details of the work that's been done in justice and services around those issues. And in the wider, equally safe world, it might be worth being a joint report to a future committee. But I know Kathy's got a hand up as well. I was just going to add that and certainly can bring a report. I think it would also be helpful to bring a report through the protection lens as well. So we can capture the kind of initial issues and the direct work that we undertake in that particular area. That'd be very welcome. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. Yes, it's the same topic. I noticed that we're talking about the evidence-based programme of the Canidonian system. There's recently been some concerns raised about this and the data around this because that tracking and re-offending hasn't been monitored, which was raised recently in Hollywood. So given all the evidence in here is anecdotal, and we've tried a different intervention with the respect programme when we had a different user group, could we perhaps, when you're bringing that report back, look at some of the data around that? I think that might be helpful. I think given the nature of the previous question, if you're going to bring another report back, it might be helpful just to wrap it up rather than trying to answer that, you know, what data we have on, is this effective rather than the anecdotal work? Have we got hard data on that? Thanks for that. Could that be included in the report? Okay, thank you. Yes, Jim. Christopher? Several questions, but first one is on the same subject. The Ministry of Youth Service, I was just wondering, there are, for the Canidonian system programme, there are referrals from social work and self-referrals, but they're also court-mandated referrals. And I wondered, is there any difference in how those are funded, if it's court-mandated, or if it's referred through social work? Kathy, are you able to? I don't have the answer to that question, but I'll certainly get that and put a note out. Thank you very much, and if I may, another one is community sports hubs. I note funded by national lottery and activities delivered by sports clubs and community organisations. If you could just expand on what it is that the council does, is it the provision of the space? Is there anything else that they do for those? I can give you a real headline, but we could probably do better with a note circulated later, but community sports hubs are an approach that we are encouraged to take through sports Scotland. What we're looking to do is to boost the capacity in local areas to get more people more active more often, and particularly looking at improving the number of people who are able to coach. So people coming in, parents, for example, local volunteers that are able to deliver coaching models in community sports hubs, they are located in different places, they can be attached to schools, but they can be in different places, different parts of the city. But as I say, that's just a headline and I can get you more detail later. Yeah, thanks. So I got that and it's just really just trying to work out what it is the council does, because it does seem to be funded by the national lottery organised by the local groups. But maybe I'm saying it's very simply, it is actually we provide the space for them to use, or do we do marketing to try and get referrals there? We have an officer, so we also have a manager who's developing this whole stream of work. And I think that funding's from sports Scotland, yeah. And finally, I think finally, the last point, finance board, a budget reference group agreed schools to share £1 million for inclusion. And I wasn't quite clear if that was mandated for inclusion, or if it is part of the overall DMS budget. So is that guidance to head teachers to use a very inclusion, or is it part of DMS, and up to them, whether they do that or not? So when the council gave the additional £2 million, we reconvened the budget reference group. So that's the head teachers that are on the finance board, along with the head teachers from the head teacher executive. So they are elected by their peers, so to speak, and do most of the strategic work with us. We then looked at our needs analysis and decided, because obviously the head teachers have to track this money. They can't just spend it. They have to write a plan and a report because it's public money. And the needs analysis obviously suggests that inclusion, particularly in our secondary schools, is one of the most crucial items. So the head teachers at that group felt that the secondary school money should be used for inclusion. The primary school money, it was less consensus on that needed. But regardless, each school will still have to write a plan and a report to justify how they've spent the money. And hopefully we can take that back here at some point in the future. So separate from DMS? Well, it will go through DSM, it will go through the budget, but it will be a separate budget line. Sort of like PEP is, if I can describe it like that. So it still goes into the school budget, but it's not called, it's got its own, it'll have its own tag, it'll have its own course code, etc. You and I wanted to ask about the school placement appeals working group. It says there's going to be a lessons learned session. I wondered if we could get an update on that in the business building when after that's taken place. Yeah, we can do that. Following on from that last question, the working group was supposed to have parental involvement, but it didn't. Can we make sure that we have parental involvement, specifically people who have done the appeals on the parental side, on the lessons learned group, because I think that's really important. I've sat on a few appeals now, and it has improved as time has gone on. But I think we really do need to pick up those lessons learned so that we can do implement for next year. And also, just as an aside, we aren't through the process yet. We've got more appeals this month, and then we've got the out of stage appeals after that. So there's still a lot of work to do in this area. Yeah, it will certainly make sure that parents are included. And you're right, we've still got a number of appeals still to do, but we started earlier this time, and we're much further forward than we have been in previous years. Although it's something that we constantly look at to make sure that we get this right, because it's such an important time, the transitions for our children and young people. Kay. Kay. Kay Lee. Thank you, Fiona. I had a couple of questions around the justice service, but if you have been answered, one comment, however, if we are going to bring back a report, I'd really interested in seeing numbers on perhaps if there's been a shift between self-referral and statutory referral, you know, more men coming forward voluntarily and things like that. If that could be, I don't know if that could be quantified, but it might be interesting to figure it out. And my next -- sorry, if someone wants to come back on that and then I can ask my active travel. I'm happy to provide that update, Kay Lee, in the next meeting. Thank you, that'd be great. Yeah, my real question for active travel is, has there been any conversations with the Edinburgh's cargo bike movement about the possibility of working together? I know they were looking for some support from the transport side, and it looks like bike ability and what they do could match up nicely. And finally, out of interest, do we have the numbers yet of how many schools are going to be involved in 24/25, or is that data not available? Thank you. Thank you. [ Pause ] Is there any other questions on 7-1? No. Thank you, convener of that text is to item 7.1 on the agenda, which is the Edinburgh Community Learning and Development Partnership Plan. This is a continued report, and it's been taken alongside the Edinburgh Community Learning and Development Plan report at 7.2, and Linda Lee's is here to speak. There is an AC&P group, a Dendham, a Liberal Democrat group, a Dendham and a Conservative group, a Dendham on this item. Welcome, Linda. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. By way of introduction to the report, obviously the report that was deferred from April has been passed on today, and there's an updated report, so that's 7.2. In presenting this report, I would like to just outline the context of CLD, and some of you, this was already outlined in the briefing, but I'm aware that not all of you were able to attend that briefing. So Community Learning and Development is a professional practice within education, and its delivery does stretch across all stages of lifelong learning. The purpose of CLD is to provide early intervention and prevention to those experiencing the greatest disadvantage and equality of opportunity within the education system. So it's in that context, and the fact that CLD is delivered in schools, community settings, libraries, outdoor spaces, other venues which include arts and cultural spaces that we present this report. It's also the CLD partnership, which is developing the CLD report and that will be monitoring the CLD report, so that does not cover all of the work across all of the partners and all of the different services. There's a whole lot of other work that delivers the CLD community of practice, which is not highlighted in this report because I just want to stress that this is the CLD partnership report. So that means that the partners have come together and identified the collaborative actions that they will be taking forward based on their engagements and their knowledge and evaluation of services. So the statutory requirement is to have the CLD partnership developing a report and reporting on it regularly. So this report presents the CLD partnership plan. It's the high-level coordinated actions, and I'm very happy to take any questions that people have. Thanks, Linda. Just before I open up to questions, I just want to see a few words just to see. I recognise everybody's concerns around the HMI visit, and I know that we had the briefing last week that a number of users attended and were able to ask officers a lot of questions on that. But I just would like to note that the report is not just about community centres. The report is about all the work that is going on within the community learning development partnership. And the past, we obviously want and have comments on the community centres that sits within cultures and community achievement. So it was just to see that for open up to questions. Jo. Thank you, Kavina. I don't know if we should just let the taxi trade out and go past. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I shall just talk over, and luckily we're inside so we won't get wet from the water, water vistas. It's slightly unfortunate to do this against the background because there's actually a very serious failure at the heart of this, that the council has a zero tolerance under its risk appetite for legislative failure. There was a legislative failure because we didn't meet our legislative requirements. Now, reading through this, and I'm glad you've taken 7.1 and 7.2 together because it saves me being quite as critical as I was going to be on 7.1. How do we prevent that in the future? I mean, is what has been presented and the structure? How do we prevent that when we hide this out to partners to approve that? Because this is a plan we produce in partnership, and yet we have a very clear risk appetite that says we will not tolerate when we do not meet our legal requirements, which is what happened. So in the context of what is going forward and being produced, how does that, how will that be prevented? We agree and we do feel a lot of regret about this. We are sorry that we're in the position that we're in with a report like this, which is not what we would have wanted at all. Can I, I think we have our taxes going past. Do you think we could just have a five minute till it passes or we're competing with them? Meeting against the taxes was not a bit much, but it was lovely to see them all about it. OK, George, you... Do you want me to repeat my question? Yes, yes. OK, I'll repeat it and I'll try and condense it as well. OK, coming from the governance risk and best value committee, where I usually am sitting, our risk appetite, the council's risk appetite for not meeting a legislative requirement is nil. We have to do them. So we've ended up in a situation where we've got a partnership arrangement and from what looks like the HMI report and the second report, no golden thread through about how to do it. It's not true about how we may give ourselves assurance or have the levers to pull to stop, to put ourselves in a position in the future where we have failed to meet our legislative requirements. So how do we prevent that situation reoccurring going forward? I'll just start off again. So again, yes, we completely accept that and we have had discussions about it. And it's just to give the reassurance that the partnership work has been taking place, but it is the governance that was founded to be weak. The governance is the governance that we inherited through the Edinburgh Partnership down to the other partnerships. So we would assume that the Edinburgh Partnership will want to reconsider the governance and obviously we all fall in line with whatever the Edinburgh Partnership decides to tighten that up. Can I have a follow up? Given that you have an external report pointing out our failure, which is held by the partnership, but it sits on our books, what proactive actions will you take rather than just falling in line with the Edinburgh Partnership? Because I think this is a matter that we need to raise to say we can't put ourselves in this position because we do have a responsibility for good governance. Yeah, totally agree. So, as I said, we have had discussions and the interim governance has been strengthened and Linda's more involved and can take it from here. Thank you. And I would just like to repeat that absolutely we acknowledge that this is not a comfortable situation for anybody to be in and that it's not something that we can allow to happen again. We did inherit a governance structure and an unfortunate set of circumstances that led to this, including a lot of personnel changes. I think it's important to reiterate that there were strengths and that good work has been taking place, but you're absolutely right. It was that golden thread. So that's what we've been working on very closely with the partners. We've brought the whole new range of partners together. There's been quite a bit of engagement with the partners. We've been working closely with the HMI visit to get them thinking about the new partnership, what that would mean, how they had to really work together in order to identify the priorities and to pull together to work on them. So we've secured that commitment from a wide range of partners. We've invited recently one or two others on to the partnership and it will be absolutely necessary to go by the HMI report. We're in developing a one year action plan, which is specifically around the areas for development. So that's all about that governance and leadership. That's all about the golden thread, the evaluation, the consistency. So that one year action plan will guide the partnership work in a very staged way so that when HMI does return in a year's time and we're engaging with HMI as well throughout the course of this to make sure that the work is exactly as it should be. And the HMI is supporting us and the education officers within Education Scotland are also supporting us to ensure that in a year when HMI returns that we've got a year's plan under our belt that we've got reporting and that the governance and the leadership is much strengthened. So I'm confident that we can do that. Margaret then Finlay. Part of my question is the point I was going to make has been made by Councillor Mowitt, but I think I want to drill down on what the CLD partnership is and how it reports. It tells us here on paper, but I don't get a sense of how operate. Is the partnership as such a statutory body or it's carrying out a statutory function and it's a blur of bureaucracy that Edinburgh City Council have created to take forward the CLD plan? Is my first question. So in the what's called the community planning family, there are a range of partnerships of which the children's partnership is the one that people are probably more familiar with. So the CLD partnership was established and it was quite a number of years ago that it was established as one of the partnerships to deliver the CLD function across the city and to report into the Edinburgh partnership. It's an inherent inherent that governance structure and it's that lack of meeting, I suppose, through COVID and then post COVID thinking about the future of the CLD partnership and coming together that's led us to this place. But the partnership, it's made up of a range of statutory and community partners and essentially they come together to consider what aspects of CLD they can work together collaboratively on and report. So that's the CLD partnership and reports into the Edinburgh partnership but it's fair to say that it hadn't reported into the Edinburgh partnership throughout, I think, since the start of a three-year planning cycle. So the CLD partnership then, and as you said, these other partnerships that are in this diagram, they report to the Edinburgh partnership board. Now, how much correlation on membership is there between all these partnerships? Are they all completely different people or have we got a situation where we've got the same people reporting to each other and collaborating with each other at different stages? So there's a bit of a work in progress around this but there are some of the same people on several of the partnerships and the two that I'm most familiar with would be the children's partnership and the CLD partnership. So there are some of the same people, there are subgroups as you possibly know with the children's partnership around place and youth work, which is a key one. Now that subgroup for youth work was already established so what we are doing to make sure that there's no duplication is that the three big priorities have been identified for the CLD partnership are also to some extent and some way being taken forward by other partnerships. So we're making sure that the CLD partnership is represented on other subgroups and other partnerships but there are some of the same people and there are some different people but the absolute challenge for all of us here is to make sure that there isn't a duplication and the CLD partnership is very clear about its role and purpose and that it takes forward that and joins other partnerships around the things where there's an overlap. So we're trying to map all that out at the present. Okay, Finney. Thank you, Convener and thank you for the report. I'd like to preface my question just as I've said to Linda before actually that I think it's important to note the excellent innovative work that's happening in CLD. On the grassroots and to thank our staff for delivering that for the learning community. Like some of the stuff, the classes and things that go on are so, so excellent and exciting and wonderful and I think it's need said in the context of the wider discussion. So I guess in that vein, my first question before I move on to a slightly more logistical risk question. My first question is with regards to how the strategic direction of the CLD is going to be absolutely led by and informed by the expertise that we have in our grassroots staff and by the learning community themselves. Because I think it's important that the middleman is not important, it's about empowering those communities of people and the expertise of our staff who know what they're talking about and how to deliver high quality, brilliant value community learning. So how are we going to make sure that they are leading the strategic direction? And my second question is just with regards to the kind of upcoming risk. There's 90 odd classes based at the South Bridge Resource Center, some involving quite vulnerable learning communities. How are we going to be managing that risk of that of the move and ensuring that those classes are able to continue in a meaningful way coming up in the short future? Thank you. I think I remember your first question. That was essentially around how we're going to ensure that our learners and our communities are helping us lead the strategic thinking. So there are a number of ways in which we would do that and it's really important that all these different ways are captured and gathered together. And that's partly the role of the partnership to have those feelers right out into communities in different ways. So from my own service perspective, we've got staff, frontline staff who are working with every learning community and working with adult learners right across the city. And that ranges from the very large adult learning program, which is a paid for program, although a good number around 50%, I can double check the exact figures get. They're paid for a program on a concession, they qualify for concessions. There's also all the free community-based adult learning youth work, there's so much work going on. So that means that we've got a lot of staff who are talking on a weekly basis with learners and are doing evaluations and feeding that back and making sure that we really understand what's working well, what might need to be changed. So there's that dimension. There's also through connected communities, I mean, we've been working much more in partnership with the organization. So we are soon to invite the connected communities organizations to talk to us about what they've identified through their work on the ground as being matting to people, maybe being part of an unmet need or the met needs and how we're meeting it. And that is very much going to be going forward in absolute partnership. So that's a couple of ways. Then there's just the talking to various partners who are not necessarily part of, you know, a network who we also connect with quite regularly. So there's a lot of different ways in which we can gather that feedback from learners. And what we're doing is making sure that we are bringing that feedback together and I suppose drawing up into the high level priorities and again trying to address the need to where it is. And acknowledge if there is an unmet need and part of the really important bit of CLD is that if you acknowledge the unmet need, then you build into your future planning, how are you going to address that unmet need. So that's very much going to be part of the iterative three year planning. It won't be a three year plan that sits and is ignored, it'll try and address those unmet needs as well. So that helps with your first question. And so just regarding the move from this outreach for those 90 odd classes. Yeah, so since we last reported on South Bridge, there has been a huge amount of activity to engage with the learners, the classes. We've done a really probably one of the most powerful impact assessment, integrated impact assessments I've ever done. That's informed a lot of the thinking in terms of changing some of where the classes might be. There's activity planned over the summer where some of the classes and learners and some of the more vulnerable groups as well will have the opportunity to go and look at the potential options. Some of the classes have got two options so they can go and look at them. And for many of those, we've actually got workers who will go and translate and support those learners to talk through what the options are. So that's the kind of engagement side that has been a lot of engagement and it's been very effective. The other side is just the very practical side where we've had officers who've gone out and they've identified different spaces and so whole program of work around the move, the alternative locations, any repairs or building work that needs to be done to make them fit for purpose. So at the moment, we've got, well, we'll finalize all the classes where they're going to be once the groups have gone out and had to look at maybe if they've got a couple of options. So there's a lot of work still to do just to nail that down, but we've not taken any bookings for new classes into the August, they're all going to be into their new venues. So as I say, those visits during the summer will be the final bit in securing the venues for the classes. So just to be, thank you for the answer, just to be follow up. So can you confirm that there's going to be no break after the summer term if indeed that is when the fringe move into Southbridge and get the keys? There'll be no break and that any kind of works to the locations where those classes are moving to that are perhaps required in bathrooms or in the community center state, et cetera, will be done also prior to those classes moving in. Yeah, I mean, the planning obviously takes us right through the summer, so at the moment, the way the plans are set out and the way things are looking is that everything will be done according to those plans. I mean, there may well be things that are unexpected or unpredicted, in which case we'll have a backup plan. So we will have backup plans and we'll be looking for people and our colleagues have been very flexible in saying that if we need to accommodate a class temporarily somewhere because of something unforeseen that maybe happens over the summer, then we'll be able to do that. But our planning at the moment is absolutely those classes will restart in new venues. Thank you. My question will follow up on Finlay's first question there. I'm wondering, Linda, if you think feel that there's a risk that we're potentially excluding a lot of organizations, you said in your preamble that we have a large ecosystem of third sector organizations that contribute to the CLD community across Edinburgh. And obviously, those in receipt of the connected communities grants and those that engage directly with, for example, LAYC or Evoc are obviously quite a small part of that broader community. And a lot of the engagement processes so far to inform the new CLD plan, as has been outlined in 7.2 or around engaging with the recipients of those grants and the communities or the organizations that are very closely linked to the council through those two organizations. And so I'm just wondering, we've heard as Councillors from organizations across the city that they don't necessarily feel represented with throughout this process. So I'm just wondering if you feel like there's a risk that we are potentially excluding and if there's anything more that we can do to engage the broad, the voice of the broader community, rather than just through the mechanisms that we're using. Yeah, and you're absolutely right, in the city of this size, there are many small and grassroots organizations that are not in receipt of funding and that are just working away locally. So we are aware of that and taking the best steps that we can to try and identify those organizations, I mean, any can contact me if we would like to. But an example would be, we mentioned our community sports hubs, now that's very local and they're engaging very locally with a range of small organizations. So not just through the very established mechanisms, such as our partnerships with, you know, likes of the LAIC or through connected communities. Those are, you know, partnerships that we've got and established and growing, but we've definitely got a lot of local, our own local officers are working on the ground and they're connecting. Quite closely with smaller organizations, so we're going to be trying as part of the one-year plan to draw them in. The other thing is that we've just recently reached out and invited, making sure that libraries is involved and also culture representative. I've also got ahead of creative learning forums, so we're going to make sure that those organizations are funded completely differently, but also deliver a lot of youth work and arts and culture and creative opportunities are drawn into. So part of what you've raised there is something that we do acknowledge and we are aware of, and we are looking for as many creative and innovative ways as we possibly can to make sure that through the first year of the CLD plan, we're making sure that we've, you know, we're reaching out, but also have open doors to organizations to contact us, should we wish to? Because the work is not predicated on funding, it's actually predicated on a good partnership and making sure that we know what our communities and our learners need in trying to deliver that. Okay, I do want to see. I do have another question, just about in terms of the failure to meet our legislative requirements, and we're the responsibility for that lies, and ultimately, if it's on us and we're not represented on the board, the CLD partnership, how you square that circle, ultimately, so if it's ultimately their failure to meet the legislative requirements that the council has, and it's us that are responsible for it, how we can bridge that gap moving forward and what plans are going to be in place. It ties into what the council amount was saying earlier in a question. How can we stop that from happening again? It's absolutely imperative that we stop that happening again, and I think part of the reason for that has been the whole churn of the last three years. We've gone through COVID, the plan was launched in COVID, a lot of the actions in the former CLD plan were very related to COVID, so the partners found it quite hard to engage, but there's also been a lot of change of personnel, so a lot of the same people who were around at the start of that plan have not been imposed, they've been into imposed, so there's been that change of leadership, and I think it's really important to say that the new partnership plus the new leadership has absolutely determined that this will not happen again, so it's not about making excuses, but it's about acknowledging that there's been a lot of change just in people and circumstances in COVID, and the way the plan was set out also that the CLD partnership had not been reporting to the Edinburgh partnership, so there are plans in place and I think quite robust plans in place to make sure that the leadership, the roles and responsibilities are well understood, and that it is the Council's responsibility to coordinate and report the actions, but the reactions were reported through the CLD partnership to the Edinburgh partnership, so we've got to get those lines of governance right. And I'll just add on to that, there is very clear guidance from Scottish Government that is then relieved through Education Scotland, and another thing that we've done is we've allocated one of our call to improvement officers to the team that works with Linda, so that that self-evaluation using how good is our community learning and development, that's much stronger because we'll take the same approach that we do with schools, and we'll also work the inspector that came out to do the visit, we'll be coming back, and Linda is in dialogue with that inspector on an ongoing basis. Similarly, we have a link meeting with HMI every couple of months, and this whole thing is kept on the agenda there. So, yeah, we've learned through this, we need to be much tighter in what we do to make sure that the structures that we're using are assumed to work, but I think we feel quite strongly that the CLD partnership needs to be strengthened, and we need a clearer, louder voice on it, as well as the voices of stakeholders coming up from the ground. The follow-up, thanks a lot for the response, so in terms of within the context of change and bringing forward new practices and making sure it doesn't happen again, I feel like a large part of that would also be reporting to this committee to make sure that we're kept informed about how that process is going. Is there a plan in place to make sure that's reported fairly regularly, just within the first period, at least to make sure that we've got an eye on how the change is being implemented to make sure it doesn't happen again? Yeah, I think that's important that we get reports back here so that we can actually see what is happening and see if there is anything that needs to be. I suppose it's about the scrutiny of it, and although it lies with the partnership, we have a role as well as a committee, so we can get reports back here. Okay, oh. Sorry, Kivina, right at the end. There's a pretty stark criticism of the use of data, or not using data sufficiently within the report from HMI, and then in the plan that's in 10.2, it talks about new data sharing agreement. Obviously, there's lots of concerns around data sharing, and we have to do that properly, but I want to ask, it says in the new plan that all organizations wishing to sign up to this. This might be my coming to this fresh, but that sounds rather voluntary, and the fact that we then have a need to improve the use of data, how are we strengthening the need to collect and share that data so that we can do that? I think I have two answers, I think there's two parts to that. So the use of data in the agreement was developed by the children's partnership, so we'll be talking to the children's partnership, and again, it's about making sure they were not duplicating efforts. So that's about where data needs to be shared between partners and organizations, which will be of importance to the CLD partnership, hence talking and learning from the children's partnership on that. But the other use of data, and this is the bit that is inconsistent within the service area that I manage, which is some of our teams and teams are using data very, very well. So that would be things like self-evaluation, evaluation feedback, how learners are doing, how they're progressing, what their pathways are, and these sorts of things. So there was an area of strength within the ESOL and adult learning work around that, so that's where we've got a pocket of strength, and what we need to do is make sure that pocket of strength is shared across the whole of the service and all of the teams. So we've taken steps to make sure that we do that, but as Lorna said, having a QIO supporting us to do this and having a much more consistent and measured approach, we've put training in place and we'll continue to put training in place. So there's a bit of data sharing, which is sort of bigger data, personal data, and that's partnership. And then there's the other bit about data, about how well learners are progressing, what their needs are, and how we're ensuring that. So that doesn't fall within the data sharing agreement, but that's something that we've absolutely got plans in place to do. And we know that we've got strengths within our team as well, and we've got the benefits of being able to work with the QIO. So we've got, I think, a good starting point for that, and that's about the HMI agreed with. And we acknowledge that we didn't have a consistent use of data, so we knew that. We reflected it. We have plans in place to do something about that. Thank you. Thank you for that. I don't see any other questions. So I will move both reports, 7.1 and 7.2, with the exception of 114 in 7.1, because it says agrees to receive a further report in June. So with that exception, I move the report. I can form a looking reader. We have an addendum from the S&P group. Thanks, Governor. Yeah, a lot of the concerns I've obviously that are shared across the committee have been raised throughout questioning. So I won't labour that point, but obviously, you know, it's been well voiced that we can't let this happen again, particularly if there's a discussion. If there's a disconnect between the board that's responsible for implement, that's ultimately has the job of implementing a CLD plan and keeping that updated and keep discussions on going to meet our legislative duties, but failing to do that, and ultimately we are the ones, the council that are responsible for that. So we have to make sure that we change the practices to make sure that we keep sight of the changes that we're bringing forward to make sure it doesn't happen again. So I think that Councillors across the committee are agreed that it's concerning. That said, obviously, it's welcome to see that the council are taking measures to make sure that they're on track for that becoming deadlines. The one point I would add, and as I say, in line with one of the questions that I asked is, you know, that the organisations, some organisations across the city have felt throughout the process that they've not been included in this. And that is a little bit disappointing, and I would urge officers to come out in the questions there, and I see that there are steps being taken to make sure that the broader third sector community are being engaged, and I would encourage any third sector organisation that's watching. I'm sure we have a large audience today that's watching, to get in contact with officers with Linda to make sure that their voices are heard throughout this process as we work towards a new plan. A new plan for the city, so I move our amendment. Thank you. A seconder. I'll say it informally. Can you be there? Thank you. Yes. So, I mean, our agenda is pretty simple. Just reflect into the level of concern that we had about the lack of legal compliance. In light of that, if committee's agreeable, we would like to add, and potentially referring this to GRBV as well, and just add that level of additional scrutiny. I don't know if the convener all allowed that, but that just came up with discussion just now. And I don't want this to be entirely negative, though. I want to reflect what Council Member Farron said. There is some incredible good work going on here, and I think we need to celebrate that as well. And I think part of the problem that we've arrived to here is that there's not been sufficient focus on youth work and community work over past years in the committee. And I think we're getting better at that, but I think more regular reporting would help that. The seconder. Formerly convener. Thank you. And we have a agenda from the Conservative group. Thank you. Thank you, convener. Yes, as I'm new to this committee, and I'm looking, this is not actually judging any of the work that's going on because I don't think you can judge any of the work from this episode and what's happened. This is a governance failure, and actually it doesn't matter how well and how good the work that's being done if we end up with a poor report because we failed in our governance. So, when Linda was talking, she was talking about this was a high-level plan. I'm not sure I would grace the document in front of us as a planner. She's more like a high-level vision statement, and the things that our plan is going to emerge out of if a plan is a series of practical actions. It tells us all the bits of documentation you have to refer to. That's good to set down in one place. I don't think it really is a plan you can measure outcomes against, and that is the criticism from HMI that we're poor at that. So, the addendum that we've put in is just to say if you could extract those measurable outcomes and then present those so that we can continue to track that, and mean that people who work really hard for the council, who will be knocking their pan out to deliver in sometimes difficult circumstances, don't end up with a poor report from no fault of their own because actually we've let them down because we haven't had our right eye on the right ball. Governance is an important part of that, but actually also measuring effectiveness because we, as you said, we are stewards of public money, and we've got to see that it's spent effectively, and because we want to deliver better outcomes for people, if we measure those, we can then do more of what works and we can maybe move away from things that we might have I done but don't actually really deliver. And that is part of planning and shaping a service and good governance, so that's why I've asked for something that's a bit more tangible to come back so that councillors can track that, because ultimately we are the ones that sit with the failure on our books even though we arrange it through a partnership. I think there are bigger questions about the effectiveness of the Edinburgh Partnership. They cannot be answered by this committee and they will be taken elsewhere, but from here I do think we need to ensure that there's sufficient grip and oversight in a very tangible way that comes back. And that's what my addendum seeks to be provided so that this committee can ensure that we're never in this position again. So I so move. Seconder. Formally. Thank you. I think what has been said to D is that we're all looking for the same thing. We all want to see the Community Learning Development Plan being implemented for clear involvement by the grassroots. With that in mind that I am happy to accept the addendum from the SMP Group and from the Liberal Democrats. Can I just clarify asking for it to be referred to BRV? Is that for additional scrutiny because I am going to accept the Conservatives addendum as well, which I think might cover what you were looking for? So it would be 7.1, we'd go to GRBV and we would still have the report coming back here as well. OK, then I'm happy to accept that and see I'm happy to accept the Conservative Group addendum. Just for clarity, what we're referring is the points at 7.1 only, Councillor Davidson, that's your intention. Yes, so it's specifically the inspection report so that GRBV can look back on that and scrutinise the governance further. That's fine. I think he's agreed we can just refer that part. Thank you just for clarity, thanks. Thank you. That takes us to item 7.3 on the agenda, which is piping and drumming tuition. And again, Linda Bees will speak to the report. Thank you, piping and drumming. There are important front of you and I think just outlines the approaches that have been made to us around increasing our instrument and music service to include piping and drumming and that there are external funds that we'd be using to do that. So we've outlined how that would be done and what the risks to that would be, should we decide to do that, what the HR process would be that we would have to take should the funding run out. So I'm happy to take any questions on that. Ed? Thanks, Kivina. Just a very, very brief one. The recommendation 1.1.2. No, it says 2, but it should be 3. It says a grant offer of around 120K. How around? It's around that because it's based on the salary and obviously the salary. If somebody was starting, it would be at the bottom of the salary. If somebody was already working, it might be slightly above. And also what the Scottish piping and drumming trust finding agrees would be. So it might be based on the salary, which comes to around that over the three years. It's a bit of a big answer, but it is. Thank you. Kivina, could I ask that when we do know what that number is, it comes back in the business bulletin. So just so we've got a final figure. We can do that. Is there any other? Christopher. Thank you, Kivina. Just a question I asked before, which is about the level of IMS funding that we get. Do we apply it project by project or are we allocated a lump sum from Scottish government? And how much do we get from them for the IMS? So the instrumental music service, that is a service within the council and the budget is all of staffing. So the whole of the instrumental music service budget is essentially paying for our permanent staff. There's about 5455TE, so that's the budget for instrumental music service. We don't charge fees, we never have, and we're not allowed to do so. So the whole budget, as I say, is staffing. There is additional money that came from Scottish government when Scottish government decided that all of instrumental music instruction fees should be removed and councils who had never charged and therefore had never gained from that money were compensated. So then a formula was essentially set out to make sure that every local authority got some additional money from Scottish government. That money is to ensure that the service can be run free, that we can make sure that there are no barriers to participation. So we have, because the budget for IMS has always been staffing only, what we've done is we've used that additional Scottish government money to buy instruments because one of the things that we knew was impacting young people's ability to learn was sharing an instrument because they couldn't take it home in practice. So we've spent Scottish government money on instruments. We can, and we could potentially use it to employ an instructor. And then the Scottish Pipes and Drums Trust would match that with another instructor which would give us two additional instructors. They would be part of the IMS staffing, but the difference about those two instructors would be that their salaries were dependent on external funding. The Scottish Piping Trust money would be for three years. The Scottish government money is applied for annually or allocated annually, so that's the situation that I've tried to set out. So they become part of our IMS staff but funded differently from all of the rest of the staff. Follow-up, if I may. Just trying to establish how big is the IMS funding? How much do the Council pay in total for the salaries and how much are we getting from Scottish government? I would have to get the exact figures but the salaries are in the region of two and a half three million that covers the salaries. And the Scottish government funding this year is around 800,000, but I can get the exact figures and share them with you. I was just a little confused when this report came up and in the minute of this report from the last meeting, because it seemed to contradict itself factually in that whether I think this report does explain it, but I don't quite understand how you had a factory contradictory report in which in one point it said an offer was made and then another point in the same motion that was adopted said an offer wasn't made. What happened at that decision Councillor was that Councillor CUMAR accepted Councillor GRIFFITHS addendum to that and it was the decision I've e with you was contradictory but it was accepted by Councillor CUMAR. That's an addendum. I'm feeling it for Councillor GRIFFITHS that Councillor CUMAR is not here. That's clarified now I say. Finley. Thank you. I think this report is really welcome and it's great to see. My question is more broadly about the IMS service and how plugged in we are with Tinder boxes, free instrument loan in libraries. The project that's going on and how we're joining the dots between our IMS and also the work that's going on in our libraries. Thank you. Yeah, our IMS staff are governed by the SNCT so they do the same job across the whole of Scotland. So there's not a lot of flexibility in terms of their contact time. They're there to support the teaching of instrumental music and small groups in one-to-one. So that's from about P45 right through. We do sometimes have opportunities to link up with other organisations, but in the majority it's about contact time and it's about delivering teaching of instrumental music. That said, we are and have worked with the manager of the music service, has worked with Tinder box about the free instrument loan. We've worked with libraries about that so our young people are aware of that, but that being a loan actually fed into a lot of the discussion around the government funding and our decision to purchase more instruments right across the whole of the school's estate, because while they could access the loaned instrument, which was very, very welcome and some of them still do, it wasn't actually addressing some of the problems around teaching instrumental music on a weekly basis year after year. Our YMI team does link also with Tinder box. So we do have links with other organisations like Tinder box and depending on what's happening they will really influxuate throughout the academic year. So just a wee follow-up, then I was more thinking if we're purchasing instruments that may eventually need to refurbish, et cetera, Tinder box do, and frequently they have the funds to refurb and then bring them into their free loans service so it would be good just to have that kind of future future look. That's great, thank you. My question is 4.1.4, we talk about allocating small resource to schools for the cost of bagpipes, is that going to be for full blown sets of bagpipes? Or are we looking to potentially have some chanter instruments as an introduction to piping? It would be both, I mean they would need to, young people would need to start on chanters but some people might have already been learning through other opportunities and maybe already more quickly or already able to move on to a full set of pipes. So until we've identified the skills of the instrument and the learners then we would then identify what resources were needed but we do know that there will be probably a substantial number of pipes required. I don't know exactly how many yet. It. Thanks for letting me come back, Kavina, I forgot to ask this before. On 7.2, talk about the finite resource to FTE and we're just deployed to learning communities where the impact can be maximised. How are we deciding where it can be maximised? So for quite a number of years we have funded free piping lessons in some schools where young people are on SQA music courses because no young person should be paying for a lesson towards an SQA course. So we do know where those young people are, every year we go out to all schools and ask them to identify any young piper so that we can make sure that we are giving them the lessons they do so this would be in addition to that but it means that we know where young pipers are. We also know that there have been some schools where it should have had out of school pipe bands or there have been projects which in fact we've helped support in the past so we've got a fairly good sense but I mean before we wouldn't just deploy them anywhere we would actually make sure that we engage with schools and make sure that we understood where the need was greatest and where the interest was greatest to maximise that. Okay, I don't see any other hands up so can we agree the report? Thank you. Thank you, Convener, that takes us to item 7.4, community access to schools, transfer management of non-sporting leads to Edinburgh Leisure. There is an S&P group, Addendum, and Linda Lees will present the report. Graham Croucher is also here and David McLean from Edinburgh Leisure. Linda. Thank you. So in presenting this report we thought it was important to invite Graham and David from Edinburgh Leisure along because there's some information in there that you might have questions about and we've been working very closely over the pilot phase since January with Edinburgh Leisure managing non-sport lights so we're really just happy to take any questions that you've got about the report or any of the details within that. You. Thanks Convener, thanks for the report folks. See within the, we've got five months of data, there's a significant golf and performance I suppose we call it between different schools, different communities, facilities with some of them having zero areas booked. And some of them having up to 60. I'm just wondering if you've been in analysis into that and why there's such a difference in performance. Thank you, thanks for your question, Councillor. I mean, I suppose, I mean, in short, sort of the key reason for that golf and difference in performance is the degree of community access that those schools have had, you know, and prior to this transfer across state and the leisure, the skills that are performing well are historically the former community high schools where they had all sorts of big sort of programs, community programs to take place also where they were strongly used for courses such as foreign language schools and projects like that. And other schools just simply haven't had community access or a degree of community access in the past. And this is one of the key reasons of progressing with the Ed and Bledger project, the transfer to Ed and Bledger, so we can simplify the breaking process, make it more universal, make it more transparent and increase activity across the whole state, not just a selection of skills. So obviously we're only, the data you've got in front of you is four months, obviously we're five months, we're five months now towards the end of May. So it still is very early days, but that is one of the big drivers is to try and improve performance in those schools where they haven't really had much community access or any degree of community access in the past. I'll be follow up convener if that's okay, the obvious kind of question to follow up with is, is there been any strategy employed or any thoughts or discussion about strategy to try and encourage uptake, because obviously across the four months within those schools that there's not been any uptake, there hasn't been any uptake even four months after the let's with Ed and Bledger comments. So I'm wondering if there will be a strategy moving forward or if there has been discussion about that. Hi there, thanks for your question. The, I suppose there's two approaches which were, which were intended to take. The first one is to certainly utilize a market plan to be able to more widely communicate with local communities to make it known that these facilities are available for community use. And the second approach is to take some learnings from our annual customer survey, which we'll be able to include the non-sportlets customers this year to inform our learning of the customers that are using the, using high schools for non-sportlets purposes at this moment of time. To give an indication of more and more background as to the type of groups, what other types of facilities they use, which were in terms same post us to the more effective market approach. So that's the kind of plans. If I can maybe just quickly add to that, we do meet regularly, we meet weekly to go through the plans. And as Graham said, a couple of schools have never had community lights before and some have it a lot more. So there is that marketing strategy that we're very much planning, but your part of your question was about why in the first phase have they not taken up more lights. I think it's very much the time of year. January is generally quite time for lights. We've had the February holiday and then Easter holiday. So it's actually not the best period to be driving new business into a school that's never had it before, but the consistency of approach and that clear message about lights is a very important part of what we're doing and that marketing strategy will be very much shared. Hi, Alec. Thank you, Kevina. You've got indicated sums of money that you've managed to make during this period. That's really good that you've been able to make that money. The question I have in the back of my head is, what does that look like against what you expected to be making either during that four or five month period or over the 12 months to make sure that we're you're on target. So that when we do go and open it up to all schools, we have some degree of confidence that we will actually be worthwhile and worthwhile to do. So I'll just start and then maybe hand over to you David as well. The very start of this project, we did some modelling. Now, this has not been done before on this scale because the discrepancy between the number of lights and some schools in the past and others has been really, really huge. So there wasn't a clear base and then a lot of lights obviously dropped off during COVID. So it meant we were starting a time when we didn't have really up to date information about lights and about income. Also, we had to do some work with schools about what spaces could be available for lights. So the modelling was actually based on probably less than is actually likely to be available, but it's very much about making sure that the schools have the trust in us and that we can deliver and do this. Yeah, but do you want to talk a little bit about some of their money side and the modelling? So I would firstly echo Linda's point there that at the point of Edinburgh leisure and commencing non-sportant lights, we were taking on what lights were already operating in schools and we identified the schools which had the greatest number of lights. So that's why you see a couple of those in the reports there. In addition to that, I think that when we compare the actual performance of this quarter versus the comparable data from the previous year were slightly ahead, which is as well as a positive step to be in. And when looking back to the proposal that was presented, what we have been able to take an evidence over the course of the first five months is really kind of tight control of costs. So we've not managed, we've not burdened ourselves with a huge amount of staffing costs which haven't been able to be covered by income. We've been able to utilise our existing efficient operation to be able to incrementally grow the service in a profitable manner and that's approachable to continue to take. And as we hopefully going forward can grow income more substantially the level that's at the moment, we'll be able to just add the necessary costs in a way so that we will continue to grow on a profitable basis. Thanks, Convener. My question segues on in terms of the finances. I guess, do you have an idea of the capacity that you need to hit in terms of let's to be achieving the annual income target? And if so, kind of broadly, I appreciate it will grow over time and that's an evolving picture, but do we have an idea in terms of capacity, in terms of bookings? Like a percentage or? I think we would probably need to go and just do a little bit of work and we can come back to you without information. We'll need to go into looking at the modelling and what we've done, we don't have it to hand in the report but we can come back with that. Okay, that'd be quite useful and interesting to know in terms of where the baseline is and roughly where it's feasible to hit because we'll never be 100% obviously. Thank you. Margaret. You started this in January and I'm quite surprised that you see that that's a low turnout, potentially a low income potential considering the number of youth football clubs that we have within the city who always go indoors over these months to train. You know, the train outdoors in the summer, maybe spring autumn, but during the winter, the train indoors is one of my questions and my other is that the number of schools in phase one are all well geographically spread apart from for some reason. You've got foresters in St. Augustine, St. Augustine's who sit next to each other and it just curious as to why that was picked and there's been absolutely no one uptake in one school and very little in the other. So on the football, it's obviously this is non-sports, so sports is a separate, self-facilitated thread in Malaysia but this project is purely non-sports, so football wouldn't be reported against this usage figures in terms of the... So the sporting lights are already managed by Edinburgh Leisure, this is completely separate, this is all non-sporting lights, so it's everything that's not sports, it's not football. Finlay. Thank you, just another question, in terms of non-sports lights and advertising, are you linked in with e-pad in terms of people needing rehearsal space? As I imagine, quite a lot of these rooms or spaces might be applicable for that kind of hire at an affordable rate. Thank you for suggesting that. I know of e-pad, but in terms of this particular project, we've not linked with e-pad, but I think as we develop the marketing strategy and think about the wider opportunities and absolutely we will do, because, you know, rehearsal spaces and studios and whatnot is very much part of what we're wanting to drive business through, so thank you. Okay, I don't see... Oh, Alex. With these non-sports lights, are parent councils protected in some way from these charges so that we parent councils can continue to meet in schools, et cetera? Yes, so all skill, usage, all skill related usage is protected, yes, and the practice that was happened before the transfer continues through post transfer also. Okay, I don't see any other hands up, in that case, I will move the report as is second. Formerly convenient. Thank you. We have an addendum from the SMP group. Thanks, Convener. Yeah, so I wrote this briefly quickly last night just because I felt like within the report, well, there's a real heavy financial focus and that's important. Obviously it's our responsibility to make sure we're making financial, sorry, financially-sounds decisions. There's also, it seems to me like that maybe what was missing was the voices of the communities that will have potentially been affected throughout the pilot. I don't know if they have been, but there's nothing in the report there to say whether or not the groups that were using these facilities prior to the change in management have been, you know, happy or otherwise with the change and whether moving forward, that's going to be something that as Councillors we get lots of contact from our constituents around because potential impediments to or changes to the way that they engage with these facilities. So all I'm really asking for is within the report that's coming forward already in January, just for there to be some element of discussion and consultation with the service users to make sure that their voices are heard. And we have a clear idea about their views on the pilot and on the change of management before we make a final decision. So, I'll move.

Seconder. Thank you. And just to add, obviously, there's some existing let-ings identified long-term and they're still in their agreement, so it'd be great to hear directly from them about what that might mean for them in the future as part of that report. So, I'll second. Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy to accept the agenda. So, agree. Thank you. Thank you, Convener. It takes us to item 7.5 on the agenda, which is the early years partner provider rate for early learning and childcare. There's an administration, a dendom and a conservative group of dendom on this item, and Donna Murray is here to speak to the report. And Douglas is here too. Good morning. This report presented in front of you is a follow-up to the April Committee and outlines the recommendation to increase the early rate paid to private providers to deliver funded early learning and childcare. And the increase rate to 7.6%. Happy to take questions. Thank you. Any questions? Sure. Yeah. Forgive me, I suspect the rest of the committee already understand this, but I wasn't here for the last report, and this is new to me. So, where it says at paragraph 2.7, 6.32 per hour equates to 6.84 and 6.79 equates to 7.31. Can you explain how that equates to a different -- what's equating to what, please? That's in relation to when you add the 3.10 per meal across the 190 days that that's offered. So, for example, if you were to look at private providers, how they advertise their rates for parents who wish to purchase non-funded hours, they will provide an overall rate which will include the cost of lunch and snacks. And very often nappies and other things. So, this is to give elected members a comparator for the information that's held within private providers' own information. Okay. Any other questions? You. Thanks, Convener. I always ask this question when these reports come forward. I'm not going to apologise. I'll ask again. Within the executive summary, it highlights how there's only four registered child minders that receive funding. And I feel like we're missing a massive opportunity with the barriers that are in place for child minders to be registered to access the 1120 hour funds. And so, sorry, 1140. So, I'm just wondering if there's a plan in place to encourage more child minders to come forward and what more we can do to make sure that we get more? I'm glad you asked that because I have to apologise. That's a typo. It should be 424. Sorry about that. I knew the number was low, but 4 was particularly low. And we do work with economic development colleagues as well, who are working with the sporting people back into work through the child minding route. Margaret. I don't think I asked this the last time the report came, but I wondered if you could expand a bit on this seven local authority forest kindergartens we've gotten. How that expands since working and if there's plans to create more over the coming years? Yes, our flagship provision, flagship forest kindergartens. We did actually have more than that. However, one of our forest kindergartens had to close due to ash dye back so that we lost that provision, but we hope that trees grow so we will get that back at some point. The forest kindergarten provision across the city has been very popular and it is also an area that's growing and expanding and I'm very proud of the fact that Edinburgh is the only local authority to have forest kindergarten provision registered with the Karen spectra. And very recently one of our settings was inspected a finale and it was a very successful inspection. So we are keen to grow that provision and to develop that across the city. Finding the right site can be a bit of a challenge, but also as well ensuring that all of our children have access to forest kindergarten provision. We know that outdoor learning is key and we do hope in the future to bring a report to this committee in terms of our admissions policy so that we can develop a separate criteria for forest kindergarten access to ensure that some of our most vulnerable children are not disadvantaged through transport but can access that provision as well. Yeah, again, this might be a dark question. I'm a bit confused. We have this report came to committee before they awarded 4.8 because that was all we could afford. It's come back with lots of documents to show what the cost is. But at 6.2 it just says following a review of the overall population numbers and available inflation resources. It's considered that we are in a position to offer the full 7.6. So where has the £500,000 gap been found from? Are there fewer children that we need to fund or I mean, I know I've hoisted in the bit that if we don't make the change from the part, you know, the children from out with going into council nurses rather than partner provider nurses. I understand that. So where has this £500,000 been found from? So yes, two things, the reduction in the number of private providers with regard to the movement towards local authority be considered to be about £200,000 of the original £700,000 gap. And the other half a million was a review of the inflationary uplift that was available across the council. And then there was a slightly improved out-term position at the end of last year, which meant there was less pressure on our inflationary budget, which meant we were able to redirect some of that available budget towards this, which meant that we didn't have to make specific savings within the service. So essentially it's what I might call a rounding error because of the out-term position of last year. We haven't had to cut anything to afford. I wouldn't call it an error. I don't mean that in the mistake. It's just that things as they crystallise out when you do your end of year. Can I just follow up on that? Because you know, the councilor makes a good point. I think when this item did come, officers were saying that there was a big deal made about this and that different parts of the education budget were going to have to be cut to fund this. And so highlighting the fact that this has not, now that this has been uplifted, is not going to lead to cuts in other areas of service provision. I think it's a very important point that councilor Mounds made. Thank you for that. Is there any other? I don't see any other hands up. There is an addendum by the administration and I will move to that. What we're asking for, we know that we cannot direct employers to pay the real living wage. But we certainly should be encouraging all of our year partners and nurseries to pay the real living wage. And we will be funding them for 1140 hours per child. And so really it's important that money goes on to ensure that that child gets a good quality experience when they're at their nursery. So that's how we would be really wanting to encourage that all our year providers pay the real living wage. And it'd be good to get an update in the business bulletin in the future to how that is going. Thank you, Canvina. And second thing, I would like to highlight, as somebody who worked within child care, the absolute importance of valuing your staff and paying the real living wage. And I believe one of the things that we have to do in all our partnership nurseries is not just have the people who are working with partnership children, but all the staff within a partnership nursery should be on the same kind of pay scales so that they're all benefiting. Child care like social care shouldn't be done with a workforce that is not being valued and is being underpaid in some points. And it really shouldn't be acceptable and I hope that private nursery providers take this on board that being the real living wage should be something they should be aspiring to without a doubt. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We have an addendum from the Conservative group. Thanks, Canvina. So really, I was leading on slightly from that, our addendum is really just to acknowledge the important work that PVIs do and how it is essential that they help us to provide a good offer of the service. There have been from time to time in some of these reports sort of pointed criticism of PVIs and particularly also on elements of pay. So I wanted to, in this report, it was suggesting that this hourly rate increase would somehow give them more than the market rate, but PVIs have been in touch with us to say that this rate will go some way to help. Pay for the increase in wages. But there is still huge inflationary pressures on the non-salary elements of their service. So this is really just to acknowledge that inflation does play a part and that this rate is still not going to give them fully fund their provision. Thank you. Seconder? Almost seconder. Thank you. Okay, I was just getting clarity on, say I move in the report without a dendum. I acknowledge what the conservative addendum and it's not asking for anything. It's actually just highlighting which is something that is not just to private nurseries, the cost of living and the rate of inflation affects right across the board. But what we are trying to do with the rate increase is to bring it in line with Kozla in what is expected of us from a local authority. So because it's not asking for anything, I'm quite happy to accept that. Agreed. Thank you, convener. It takes us to item 7.6 on the agenda, which is the statutory consultations proposing new primary skills at Grant and Waterfront and Gilmerton Station Road. Robbie Crockett is here and I believe Crawford McGee is online. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you. I'm joined here today by my colleague, Guy Martin, who's leading or will be leading on the consultation, or if there is a consultation on the Grant and Waterfront Primary School. There's just a couple of things that I would add to the report if I may. The first thing is that the reports in the summary says that a report, an outcomes report would come to council in January 2025. But as I understand, there is no council meeting in January 2025. So we would, we'll aim for December 24, council meeting for any outcomes reports arising from any consultations. Should they be approved? Thank you. Is there any questions for real? No, no question. Oh, sorry. Keely. That's all right. I have a question on the relationship with transport, just as a word, Councillor. I'd expect, obviously, a new school would go on a lot more. Demand, I think, for public transport. Is that something that would be addressed in the consultation? Or is that slightly separate because it's transport? Thank you. I would expect transport to be an issue that is raised through consultation in terms of people's ability to access any new schools. But as part of the process of developing any new school that rises from this project, we'll be working very closely with transport colleagues and also colleagues within the 20-minute neighbourhood team. And in fact, Keely, who sits within my team and is leaving the consultation, also sits within the 20-minute neighbourhood team. So there's a strong link between us and active travel as well. Thank you very much. Is there any other mic? Hi. So the Hamilton Station Road Development, you're saying here in the report, the site is west of Carter Drive. Could you maybe be just a little bit more specific, please? Carter Drive's quite long, and I'm not sure which end of it will be. So you're testing my geography now here, but Carter Drive, as I understand it, runs from where the co-op is, just off-drum tree, along to basically what is, it comes to a large open expanse surrounded by the housing. And it's at large open expanse, which is the site for the new school. It's quite obvious when you go along Carter Drive, there's a big open empty space as you turn the corner. Yeah, I know the space then. It's only really a few hundred metres from the co-op, along into the disbellment. Okay. Now I was just concerned with the question that Kaylee came to know brought up about transport and walking distance, because it is marginally isolated along the main road that goes along, but that's fine. Thanks. Any other questions? No, if there's not, can we agree the report? Great. Thank you. Thank you. Convener, that takes us to item 7.7 Children's Services Improvement Plan and Edinburgh Residential Services Improvement Plan update. Kathy Henry and Steve Hart are online to speak to the report this morning. Steve. Oh, it's. Okay. Welcome. Should I begin, should I begin my bit first? Sorry, Steve. So just to say, this is an update report. We report regularly to commit it. So there's not that much move in the kind of general content of the report other than to say that we are continuing to align and meet the target set within the improvement plan. And we are driving forward the children services review to ensure that we can have a children service that is fit for future demand and need is very much future proved and comes in on budget whilst maintaining our integral value base that children and young people should be supported at the earliest point to remain within their families whenever possible to do so. And to live within their communities rather than default for the need for out of area placements and that's where the residential improvement plan comes in, which Steve will talk about later. But if anybody's got any questions on the report, the first part of the report, I'd be happy to take those. And I think you want to do any questions with Kat and the first partner will be Steve first. Now we can take it all together. Steve. Hi, committee apologies for not being near the person, but the work is definitely going around. So, do they move it on from 16 4.6. I'd just like to highlight some of the recent inspections that have taken place into last committee. We've had five inspections across our five of our houses that have all come back is good. And indeed, one of the feedback around some of the planning that took place on one of our houses was sick that we didn't, it was, it was based a practice. So what we're doing is we are accentuating the fact that we have such good practice grown and the manager of that house is the remainder to the other managers for any improvement around a children's plans and how we actually write those enough to be there. That's a specific measurable to the board, you'll listen to time and etc. And then please come in back to the actual improvement plan. We've seen significant movement to continue to take place around the improvement plan. The children are every time they speak to the kids speak to the feedback that the children report that they are safe loved and respected to which is going to become a standalone national major for children. So I think it's important to highlight that to the committee that to that very simple sounding but deeply powerful statement will actually become a national major for children, and every single one of our two houses, regardless of the outcome, good evening that they can speak to have provided for us has always maintained that all of the children see that the field see if loved and respected. I think that's worth noting. There's detail within the report about the improvement plan there's also an addendum that I have added that was a request of the last committee which was specific to what additional team has been provided to south house and all kinds which were two of our houses that had a week came expansion and an adequate suspension and I'm happy to take any questions about any elements of either the improvement plan or the specific assistance and any practice put in place that in the two houses named. Thank you. Thank you for that is any questions for either. I was just wondering if I could have a bit of an update on the change from the secure service. I noticed it says that we're still waiting for the registration to change to we know how long that's going to take and update on how the educate pilot was going to be really helpful. Yeah, so they just keep pilot does a short summary within the report about the educate pilot which is started in October 23. It has been working with the last time I looked at the figures that was had worked with attending people to a system from an event and anybody down in the family home. So the additional support element of the project is already in place. The second part of that project is about the emergency the section in a care process and that is one of the most impactful things that happens on. An existing care homes in a young person be taken another basic crisis and essentially go to another space has a deep impact on the young person being taken in the care both as a deep impact on the young people who already live in that house and also to the staff. We're working very closely trying to determine whether we need to use how to hold for that that in kind of facility. I think that that is going to be a challenge for us to use it. And it's come guys the kinspets are very clear that the makeup and the layout or a hidden hole is a significant challenge to us towards exploring other options about either using an internal resource that we already have or outsourcing something much smaller in the first instance. We're working through the process of trying to determine how much of a space we need. And one of the concerns that we have is that generally speaking the more places you have the more you fill them. So it's trying to get a really unique balance between having the capacity to deal with emergencies but not having such a huge capacity. They'll be suddenly have a massive influx of children come into gear simply because there's a place for them to be. And not necessarily always haven't required to be in care. But actually the compliance would make the kinspets on a number of occasions including their, I can't remember the formal title but I'm going to call them the architect service. And these are the people that actually come out and they essentially go over every kind of ceiling fitting plug a window outlook that the whole architecture around what our care home should look like. And they are continuing to advise us and we'll continue what the report or options are. To date we've not needed the emergency placement as much as we would like although we have still had emergency placements into care. But we have managed to facilitate those children as tunneling back out of care really quickly. And one of the reasons that we wanted to establish an independent or separate emergency exemption house was that again going back to another in January 2023. When we look to all the children that are care 75% had comment on an emergency basis and none of them had to come home because we're saying so they didn't have the facility to manufacture that. Age of case doing a very good job at prohibit non-carbonate care in the first place. And if they do come to care we're able to wrap it in those young people and assist them to get back home really quickly. Thank you. Is there any other Christopher? Sorry, I've now got my microphone on. Sorry for the improvement plan just first of all it would be handy to have column headings and some row numbers. So because I'm going to refer to row number 13 although it's not numbered but that's where it comes on the improvement plan. And also I want to thank the great experience of Councillor Mowatt who had said that if there is no referendum, no addendums or amendments. I should concoct a question because I have a contribution to make so I'm going to concoct a question out of this. But essentially one of the issues I wanted to raise is that there have been a lot of criticisms discussed in this committee about the department's self assessment and self evaluations in various issues. We've had these discussions here about primary schools and about inspections and I note here in appendix one with the South House of Ox Gangs there is an issue about self assessment guidance and row 13 of the improvement plan. There's been a chief social work officer has called a pause on the self assessment because they didn't think she didn't think it was being done correctly. And I just wanted to commend her and say well done on the chief social work officer for doing that. I'm very glad that it has been reported here because I think when we see that and we read it as reported to committee, it certainly gives me a lot of confidence that we are on top of this and we are doing the job. When it's written there, I've looked at this, I've scrutinized it, we've decided it's not quite going to plan, so we've stopped it and we're going to review it. So I just wanted to say well done to the chief social work officer for that. My question is how do we then take that and roll it out across the entire department, that kind of ethos. Who's going to respond to that one. I suppose I can respond to that. Oh, sorry, Amanda, did you want to come in there? I'm happy to start the response to that. So certainly Rose's chief social work officer has the responsibility for quality assurance across the piece. And one of the things that she's been leading on is setting up a quality assurance framework that we can work that doesn't rely on just annual audits and annual inspections. It actually makes quality assurance and integrity part of the day to day business of services. And I think that when we've done self assessment in the past, there's been some areas that we, when you're doing it from within the service, you may be looking at things a bit more kindly because you're within the system. And so you're aware of all the challenges and tensions and your lens into quality assurance is different from somebody's outside. So the criticality and the interface between the quality assurance team and services is key. And I think this is what we saw come to fruition here where we were able to say this is what our perceived thinking is our self assessment to the service. And somebody else was able to bring into that say, well, where's your edge of the space. So it's about aligning these two things and each has a role. And it's a really good critical friend to have as we go forward. So self assessment is very much part of the fabric of all our services now. It's just not reliant on an annual inspection. We have quality improvement and assurance across the services and the quality assurance team. Allow us opportunity to really have the dialogue about what we think we're seeing and then the critical friends to sense check some of that. And I think building that up allows us to be as robust as we can be going forward on that openness to a learning culture and changing practice and provision when needed. So we would expect to see more of that as we go forward as that critical dialogue and challenge. Thank you. I don't see any other question, sir. Would you direct the question more education or would you like me to respond to that from an education perspective? Yes, please now that you've offered. Yes, it sounds like a totally good idea. I assume that that's what you were you were saying. So you'll be aware that obviously we take a scrutiny report to every committee and we have done briefings. But I appreciate perhaps the quantity of information that we give is overwhelming possibly at times. We did a reference there later on. We had a meeting yesterday with our HMI link inspector and she was extremely complimentary about the quality improvement processes that we have in our schools. And they are seeing an uptick in the preparedness of our schools for inspection and the amount of impact that we are having. So that was really good to get from the link inspector as well as what we see in our school reports. The whole of Scottish education is based on a culture of self-evaluation. There's a manual that's produced for schools called how good is our school. It's in its fourth edition. And that's what head teachers use with their staff and their stakeholders and their parents, which Alex should hopefully be able to confirm together the information that they then use to agree their different grades. Now obviously our role as local authority is to moderate some of that we can't moderate all of it because we we're not just a scrutiny body. We have an improvement function as well as a scrutiny function. So a lot of the work that Jackie Reed's team have been taking forward has been really intense post COVID because we recognised that the self-evaluation had essentially not paused completely because in some schools it hadn't. But the whole response to the pandemic did completely shift the dial and how schools were delivered in service. So we had to get back up to speed and we have been doing that. But you'll know yourselves and we've taken reports here we've spoken about schools as communities of learners, people that are committed and passionate and dedicated and invested. And it's really difficult to tell those people that the work that they're doing isn't sometimes getting the impact that we need them to be delivering. That is a process where we work and we take people with us rather than being punitive or restrictive. And that's the line we're trying to or that's the ship we're trying to steer down that middle path rather than being too punitive and it's actually working. So in terms of if committee feel that you're not getting the information about individual schools, we're disappointed in that because the amount of information that Jackie presents in that report. Possibly it's the style of it, I'm not completely sure, but we certainly want to give you the information that you need about the schools in your own wards and as part of this overall committee. So we'll absolutely hear if you want something very specific, we can make changes to that. But the briefing that we gave in December where we did focus in on the schools that were on our priority list, the schools that we felt were underperforming. And we have prepared an additional report which had the schools as I think it was maybe about three or four weeks ago, we then took a register of the schools that were on the priority list at that point. It changes significantly depending on where they are in the course of an academic year based on essentially the attainment output. So that list will change again by the time September comes round, the list will have changed, the number of schools should be reduced, but we can give you that information and are very happy to give you that information. As long as we protect the identities of staff that are then subject to more stringent processes, that's our only sensitivity around this. Thank you for that, Lorna. Is there any other questions? I don't see any. So I will move the report as is, but in doing that, I would just like to thank for all the amount of work that's gone into this report. And it really is good to see children's services getting discussed at committee and seeing the work that is taken forward. So I moved the report. Second form, Lorna. There are no other. Can we agree? The recommendations? Thank you. I'm very conscious. I know we had a week in prompt to break earlier on, but if we have a 10 minute break, so come back at quarter past 12. Thank you. Mod it open and overdue internal audit actions. This performance dashboard was at the 29th of April, 2024. This has been referred from the governance risk and best value committee. And Laura Calder is here to speak to the report. All right, so just to let members know, on appendix two on road 10 and 11, those actions are closed to that section 3.2 and 3.2 for the transitions audit because that's the ones that are relevant to this committee. And there are two outstanding audit actions for that transitions audit, which is 3.1 and 1.1 for 1.1. The procedure that believes been developed, but it's with the health and social care partnership for final approval. And for 3.2, we just have some queries on the operation of the tracker, but we're hoping to have that one closed soon. I'm happy to take any questions on that. Thank you. Any questions for questions? No questions? No questions. Can I thank you for your report and ask the committee to approve the recommendations? Thank you. You convener that takes us to item 7.9 internal audit update report at June 24. Again, this is a referral from the governance risk and best value committee and Laura Calder is here. So I don't actually have very much to add on this report. The report was presented to GRBB last week, and it was presented this committee just given the nature of it. So the report is there for members to read and I guess questions would be directed towards Amanda and to Lorna and Kathy and other colleagues are here. My only credit is whether some of this has to be a be a gender conversation because it was a be a gender when it went to GRBB, given then serious nature absorbent. My understanding, Laura was that it was just one appendix that was be a gender so apologies if there's been a lack of clarity on that was the whole item taken. So it's only the cyber audit that's been referred to this committee not the full paper, so just the cyber audit which is the be a gender paper. Okay, thank you. So if there's any questions, but if there's any questions that has got on the part that is covered by the be a gender, we would. Sorry, I'm being guided that we should go private for the whole item. If I can ask officers that aren't needed for this item to leave the call as well, please online. We're just going to move on to your report. Item 8.1 is the teams around the learning community. There is a liberal Democrat group addendum to this item and Stephen Kelly is here to speak. Good afternoon. I'm pleased to present you this report and ask you to note the progress in developing teams around the learning community. By learning community, what I mean is small geographical area, which is associated with the secondary catchment area. So it has a secondary school, a number of primary schools and some of the learning communities have special schools as well. We are aiming to develop collaborative practice where schools work across the learning communities with council colleagues, their sector partners in order to improve outcomes for learners impacted by poverty. We're looking to join upper work, reduce fragmentation, focus on early intervention and prevention in order to keep young people in their communities educated and living in their communities. Our schools already work together across the learning communities. However, in this work, they have begun to pool together resources to employ staff that work across schools within the small geographical area, manage locally to get more impact from a spend. To support this work, the commission and team have produced a procurement framework that allows teachers to engage in small-scale commissioning with the third sector that focus on outcomes in best value. So we've got a mechanism here for developing collaborative practice with the third sector as well. So that's the big picture across all 23 learning communities. We are also working on two pilot programs. One in Craig Royston and one in Liberty and we're developing models of integrated practice. So these models need to have the voice of the community at the heart of their work. So we have developed a local consultation model in partnership with this third sector, particularly LAYC and other local youth work groups to capture the voices of those impacted by poverty, often the voices that are seldom held, heard, sorry. So next steps is to use this community voice and some detailed asset mapping to implement a model of integrated service delivery in line with the principles of holistic whole family support. And this work is being supported by our colleagues in the Change and Delivery Team under the Governance of the Poverty Prevention Board. I'm happy to take some questions. Pete, any questions for you? Sure. Thank you. I suppose I've been wandering around the council for quite a long time. So I think we've been similar things where we've brought teams together before in Total Craig Miller many years ago. One of the most important things from that learning was actually about empowering officers to solve some of the small low level problems that families were experiencing and acted as a blocker to children attending school or being able to get out and take on work. And they were quite often things that you wouldn't identify, but it was that close work with the families that did and it was very successful and transformational. So it always seems to work when we bring families together, we're just not wearing good at sustaining that. So as part of this, is that sort of officer empowerment embedded in the project that they can, they have the powers to get in and fix some of those smaller, you know, what might not look like a... traditional problem, but he's acting as a blocker. I suppose the example that's often quoted as someone who's to endure has come off. And if the council had to pay for that, they would commission that, they would get a joiner, they would do a risk assessment, it would take quite a long time, it'd be very, very expensive. Well, local charities, the example in Kregroyson is NACI, or Squared, I think, have small pots of money, you can just hand out directly to families to sort these problems. I believe Amanda is looking at small pots of money for local teams to do just that, so yes, absolutely. Christopher. Thank you, convenient. Next steps, going to develop a model, I'm really wondering when, how that would be reported back to us. You see, the last sentence says that it would be pulled together under the transformation program. Could you maybe just clarify how you'll report back to us? Thanks. So that consultation, because this report is delayed, that consultation is happening now. The Kregroyson consultation is complete, we have YouthLink Scotland pulling together a synthesis of that information. The transformation team are pulling together partners from family household support, social work, customer services across localities, education and third sector to look at how we can use that data to build a model for collaboration in Kregroyston and in Liberty. It can't be the same one. The Councillor mentioned total Kregroyston, total Kregroyston was very bespoke to that area. And actually, the issue in Kregroyston is the number of third sector organisations that are actually working in that area. The issue in Liberty and Gracemount, there are relatively few. So the model is going to look different based on the community need. So we are going to use the data from the consultation, a bit of asset mapping, and we're going to work with our colleagues. And other areas of the Council and these individual schools to test what does integration look like. Because it's really difficult because asking people who are already flat out to change how they do their job and to work on that preventative piece. But while we're working on that preventative piece, there's still the immediate needs emerging that people then have to attend to. But I imagine in terms of your question about reposting, there'll be an update report I'm sure in the next session. Okay. It's a migrant and then Kaylee. Thank you, Convener. I think you've actually just touched quite a bit on what the question was. I was going to ask because I had them there from the two pilot projects that Kregroyston, there are a large number of partners. And then in Liberty, there are only two partners. And one of them's kind of gate youth, which is not particularly in Liberty's catchment area. And one of the things that was picked up when we were doing community grants in the heat mapping was that there was a significant lack of organizations within the whole Southeast sort of wedge to be able to support the work like this. So how are you finding the comparisons between both pilot projects because clearly that's been picked up there? So it's definitely tricky. The accredited pathways framework that's detailed in the report allows us to identify who we can work with, who can we pay to work with in each area. And what's clear from that is that there are many, many more in Kregroyston than Liberty. So we are currently working with LAYC to engage partners in that wedge across Liberty and Gracemount and invite them to the table. We believe the partners are there. We are actively going out to actually get around the table with them to get them on a framework so that we can work with them in a way that's compliant, frankly. Thank you. Thank you. My question comes from the climate section. It's quite short as a scope in the model or world of opportunity is to discuss climate issues or considerations, for example, the use of buildings and transport and. Yeah, that part of. So I think you're right to say that's an area of work that's not been well developed, but there are definitely opportunities, particularly around travel. If we keep young people in their communities, learning in their communities, then that's going to cut down in travel. There's a workshop this week with other council partners and one of those partners to do with assets in council buildings and looking perhaps to make more efficient use of those council buildings. So as this project matures, I'm sure we'll be able to add more detail around around net zero and things like that. Thank you. Is there any other? You. Thanks very much convener. Thanks for the report. With regard to the point about pooling and resourcing of resources. So pooling and sharing of resources between schools within the learning community is that largely around saving costs on materials or we're talking about impact potentially on staff, etc. If that's going to be included, not only. Obviously, third sector organizations within anti-poverty focus, but staffing of these particular schools that are in the community. So to give you an example, the way schools are funded through PEP, for example, they're given an allocation. And you might have a relatively big school, a secondary school in a learning community, a number of primary schools. Some primary schools might be relatively more or less advantaged than others. So they've all got different parts of money. And let's just say their focus is improving attendance and improving attendance from young people impacted by poverty. It doesn't make sense for them to keep that budget and employ a small piece of a member of staff. And what we're suggesting is that they pool the resource. They buy a couple of members of staff. They work with existing council staff who are focused on raising attendance. And by doing this, we have a bigger impact. So it's about pooling. So you've got a lot of members of staff within geographical areas that are working on similar things. And some of them are not full-time, but would like to be. So it's about pooling that resource altogether, so that we have more effective and collaborative practice. So equity funding, so people have gone and applied for their equity funding. Is that PEPF or other sources of equity funding? So there's lots of different streams. So what you have, you get people equity funding that's paid to schools, pay a child who is in a seat of free-school meals. There's the strategic equity funding. There's key experience part that goes on and on. There's a number of small parts. So for me, it's about empowering people locally to look at all those different parts, to pull them together, to plan to close whatever gaps that there are in that area in a way that gives a bigger bang for the money we spend. So it's a more coherent set of services, and less betty. So that's the first stage. I mean, the second stage is perhaps moving towards ideally what we saw and totally engrossed in other areas of the city. So just on that, you say 747,000 a year of funding for staff was awarded. So people equity funding, for example, isn't awarded for staff. I mean, it is given to the schools based on the pupils there. So there are other sources where they would have to apply, say, specifically for staff, and this is specifically what we want to do. And do they have to go and explain that it's a collaborative work and things like that? So the schools get money for a path, and it's up to the school to decide how they best close the gap with that money. And if we do that through self-evaluation, ideally across the learning community, they would look at patterns that were emerging, and they would decide how they were going to spend that money. They could spend that money on staffing, or they could spend that money on resources, or they could spend that money on services from a third party, normally a third sector. We have another lots of money, the strategic equity fund that came to us centrally, which is about a wider strategy. We did release some of that money to schools, schools bid for that, and that bid was seen alongside their PEPF plan, and that money was then awarded. We did speak to schools and ask them to take a learning community-wide approach to their recruitment and their attempts to address the barriers related to poverty, and that's where that has come from. You. Thanks, Computer. Yeah, no, this is really interesting, and I think that there's an opportunity here. To give you a bit of context, I was hired by a school with PEPF funding in 2016, I think, specifically in a school, primary school in North Edinburgh as a people support assistance, specifically to increase attainment, and then close the attainment gap and increase attendance. I'm just curious, obviously, there's, from what I'm kind of gathering, there will be an impact on staff, if what you're saying is that there's certain members of staff that have been hired with a specific role in a specific school, that's the community that they're involved in or now maybe going to be given extra hours, if that's what they want, and given a remit that's broader than just that one school community, but the broader catchment community. And so I'm just wondering if staff and unions have been included in the discussion around how this might impact on them. Well, there isn't a model that we've developed. We have given schools the money, and they have decided how they were going to spend it, and the staff that exist, the PSAs or the support staff in schools that exist still exist and still do their work. What they're pulling together is various equity-funded staff, and these new members of staff are working around the learning community with other equity-funding staff to coordinate what the actual need is and how they're going to respond to it. To answer your question, we haven't involved the unions in this, but they are aware of that's what we're doing, but as far as I'm aware, no member of staff has been impacted. There's no impact on people's regular work and what they're doing or were not asking to do anything extra, and no one's been cut as a result of this work. It's just to also highlight to committing, hopefully we'll be able to bring you a report and due course. Stephen's referring to two streams of work, so learning community work, and then the teams around the learning community. And they're obviously one is the child of the other, if you like. The learning community is what we're very conscious of the fact that local decisions are best taken by head teachers in their learning communities, and we have a short life working group of head teachers currently are just about to launch how they manage that across the learning community. So, for example, let's take Craig Mount, where we've got good practice already established, and every year one of the Craig Mount, learning community head teachers, takes on the responsibility of looking after all of the decisions for the learning community, the ones that are mutual, they all obviously run their own schools. So we're looking to see how do they do that, and that could then link back into the work that Stephen's mentioning there, where if they decide to pull all of their resources or some of their resources, it could raise issues like, well, who would line manage that member of staff, for example. So we're at the early stages of that, and we've asked the head teachers to work together to come up with models that they think would help them with their decision making, and then any operational issues that would arise from that. But we think this is the right direction of travel to give that power of essentially out to the learning communities and then the teams that are in the learning communities, but we'll bring you back the results of the short life working group. Thank you. Is there any other questions? Okay. Thank you. I'm moving the report, and it could have gone brain dead. I moved the report, then I moved the report, and then we've got the agenda. So I can do the formal, I can read it. I think this is a really exciting piece of work, if we can get it right. It's one of the most important things we can do to meet the tackling poverty aims in the business plan, and we really welcome the depth involvement of the third sector so far. We just want to ensure that there's trust department collaboration and developing the new model as well. There's really important strategic work taking place in adults protection, mental health, in particular in the front door, and the declaration of housing emergency as well. So we just wanted to put this amendment to ensure that that collaboration was feeding into the new model. Seconder? Formerly, come on up. Thank you. I'm happy to accept the agenda with the report. Is that agreed? We've just got a few more. If we stop for lunch now or... Yeah, people work. Okay. Yeah. It's a good point to keep going. Okay. Item 8.2 is a referral report from the Policy and Sustainability Committee. The City of Edinburgh Council British Sign Language Plan for 2024 to 30. There is a Liberal Democrat group, Addendum on this, and Chris Adams is here to speak to the report. Welcome, Chris. Hi there, thanks. Just a brief word of introduction. I'm Chris Adams. I'm a Strategy Manager in the Policy and Insight team. My team is responsible for development of this plan from a corporate perspective. So I have to take any questions on the report and particularly that side of it in terms of the referral and the issues that raise that PNS Committee. There have been some follow-on actions to that which I can update on and perhaps other colleagues can support on those elements too. I hope to take any questions. Any questions? Kylie. Oh, Kylie. Thank you, Computer. Apologies if this has already been ripped apart at PNS, but just for our information. The referral, does this mean that we haven't met the Scottish Government deadline? And how does this play out? Is that a problem or what are the next steps there? Thank you. So, yes, so the Scottish Government set a deadline for us to publish a British Sign Language Plan within six months of the publication of the Scottish Government's British Sign Language Action Plan. So that was published in November, which means our deadline was for the end of May, which is why we had the report going to PNS Committee in May this year. For that does mean I can talk to more about the process, what was involved in that, but what that does mean is that we haven't met that deadline. We have had a communication from the Scottish Government asking us for an update on that, but that's as far as that conversation is gone. There are no particular sanctions that I expect on the back of this. It's an expectation, but I think we have a pretty good relationship with Government. We've been very clear about what our work that we've done has been, what our intentions are to carry on that engagement piece. And they do know that we took that paper to the committee, so happy to feedback when there's more information, but that's the situation as it stands. Thank you, that's really helpful. Good evening. Thank you, convener. So just in relation to the obligation to promote and raise awareness of BSL, a number of months ago, I don't know if you're aware at the Culture and Community Committee we passed a unanimous, unanimous, a past emotion regarding the Deaf Festival, which has taken place again this year. I'm not aware that any outreach has happened between the Council and the Deaf Festival, which I think is a shame considering it's now approaching quite rapidly. And it strikes me as a brilliant resource. I know we do a lot of work with Deaf Action anyway, but this festival is internationally fast becoming a bit of an outlier. If you could update on any work that's doing to help facilitate, promote and amplify the work that the festival does in the city. So that's not, I'm not involved in that festival in particular, so I don't have a great deal to say on that. Absolutely see what your suggestion is. So that does sound like a good opportunity for promotion and happy to take that offline and see what we can do there. Thanks. I just wanted to pick up the reason why the report was referred here. There was some really, really concerned allegations made by the reputation of PNS around the withdrawal of the only BSL class in the city. Our amendments asking for a briefing, a more in depth briefing, but it would be really good to get some clarity around the situation that was mentioned there. So apologies. The briefing was prepared and then a follow up meeting took place, but I see Amanda's online to discuss. Yeah, so there was a briefing circulated yesterday that updated on the details of what's happened after the PNS and also the subsequent meeting with the parents. I'm hopeful people have seen that. Yeah, it went out yesterday. I think it only went to PNS, not us. Yeah. It went out because the council leader myself together with Amanda and Lynn, we met with the parents on Friday morning and we had an extremely good conversation discussion and we have got a resolution to the issues that they were raising. It was kind of split into two bits. We had a resolution to what their individual concerns and what was happening with their children. And then there was the bit about the wider planning for BSL within the school, within the city. And so they were really pleased with how, you know, what we were proposing. There was also a representative there from BSL Scotland, who was also in terms of the wider how we take BSL forward was, you know, pleased with the direction we're going. But can a ratio we met the parents and we have got resolution for them for their individual children. Can I just confirm that the briefing that was circulated to members of this committee as well. So if anybody for some reason hasn't got it, we'll recirculate it again. Okay, Ed, you want to talk. Thanks for being here at councilam at fallen pinch my first question, but I will always have a backup. So this is something that was first raised by council heaping the same meeting of culture and communities in that we're talking in this plan about under point eight on democratic participation, saying that BSL users will be fully involved in our democratic and public life. And I understand at PNS, there was a BSL interpreter, but for the majority of council meetings and committee meetings, that isn't something that we have available. I appreciate that would require funding and that would be a budget decision for groups to make. Have we, however, the question is, have we explored that and considered that something we could look into. So what we have with this, the way we sent this particular plan out was that this is a high level action plan sets the areas that we wanted to work on. The way that we tackled the fairly short period of engagement that the Scottish government gave us to work within was to say that we would use that period to set high level principles of working, and that we would carry on our engagement and our consultation work to develop the how part of the plan. Very much the fight and what part of the plan, the how part of the plan, the implementation detail of it is something that we always intended to do second half of this year once we did that. And that is absolutely what we are carrying on to do. So first part of the question, I guess, is we have not detailed what the specifics that we want to do to reach that is, but certainly BSL interpretation is one of those places, not just in council committees, but in all sorts of settings where we can make better use of BSL interpreters is one of the ways that things we want to explore a bit further. There are practical challenges to that. First of all, funding, obviously, that's an additional resource. If you saw at committee last week, there is a technical challenge to that as well in terms of how that works within a room and in a virtual space as well. How do you make that work practically? I think we did a reasonable job last week, but it was very much our trying and get it out for the first time, so more learning to do. And the final thing is about capacity of BSL interpreters in the city with the skills to do this kind of work, who also want to do this kind of work. And there's a bit of work to be done to build up that capacity and see what we can do to see what is practical to do here. I guess in all of this, I don't think we're going to jump to something very good straight away. It's going to take time to build up, but I think it's an important thing that we've tried to do here is set out that this is part of our plan. It's explicit, and that's a step forward, and we want to build on that next. Ian. Thanks for giving me a couple of questions. I'm sorry if this has already been covered, but obviously the deadline has been missed, the statutory deadline of May and I'm curious to know if there's now a new deadline and how we will work around that. But also a bit more clarity in terms of the current provision. So if classes are stopping, how people are grouped together with BSL needs, and just a bit of clarity on whether a point that has been raised, I think, around teachers working with children and young people with BSL, are they all fully trained? I think the best thing would be to get your specific questions and give you specific answers. I can give you my general understanding, but that we can give you more specifics if that would be helpful. But I do know that we are actively trying to recruit more people with that particular qualification. And I do know that the provision that was described at Bradburn School was revised and had been, the intention was to meet children's needs at their chronological age, as opposed to grouping them accordingly. Just a group in them according to a sensory issue that they had. But I can certainly get a note of these specific questions and give you a note round about that. And is there a new deadline? So yeah, on the first part of the question, we haven't been set a new deadline by governments. So this is going to be a point of negotiation between us and them, but when we expect to get the full plan to them. But what we took from committee last week and the discussion here is just emphasizing the importance of real, thorough, deep engagement in this work and continuing that. So we are not going to rush it. That's going to be our push back to the government on this. Is there any other questions that there's no other questions, and I will move the report as is. So I can do it can be done. We have an addendum from the liberal Democrats. And I think in light of the briefing, we'll probably withdraw this amendment. Thank you. Thank you. We agreed the report. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, convener. That takes us to section 9 of the agenda, which is motions at item 9.1. We have the motion by Councillor Young regarding food waste in schools. Councillor Young is here online. Welcome, Louise. Do you want to talk to your motion? Yes, thank you very much. And I understand that I'm now stepping in and Councillor Davidson is stepping out to allow me to participate in this. So thank you very much. And thank you, convener, for allowing us to bring this item back after we ran out of time at what was my last education and children families committee meeting last time around. Members will remember last year that we had a couple of really interesting and insightful presentations on the challenges of food waste. Yes, I was a very proud mother when my daughter came to speak on the challenges that she had uncovered through a piece of work she was doing. But it was also fantastic to hear from another school that was already making really good progress in this space. So it gave us a chance to see the art of the possible. Very much, I think, put food waste in schools under the spotlight. It highlighted the vast amount of food waste that's going to landfill on a daily basis, and indeed provided some really insightful feedback from people who are kind of living and experiencing school lunches every day. Not just in terms of the choices available, but also the methods of cooking and the dining experience itself and how important an influence that was. Since then, I'm delighted that engagement has already started and we're already seeing some some changes happening. Like, for example, the inclusion of the need to engage with key kind of stakeholders on food selection in one of the new council suppliers towards school and school food items and that's fantastic. And I do hear it now mentioned more and more on people's agenda when we talk about school meals and it's really great that that's kind of getting that level of attention. The motion is intended now to move us along in a very kind of tangible and practical way. It's very specific, very focused on ensuring that we have some clear action and a plan and what the next steps are. And for me, that is about establishing more formally what we have perhaps discussed in an informal basis of creating that group where the people that know and experience the school lunches, both pupils and catering staff have an opportunity to feedback directly to those that are making those decisions and those menu planning and to make sure that that's a kind of collaborative partnership working to try and improve the situation. I do want to thank my conservative colleagues for what they proposed in their amendment. And hopefully when my colleagues in the room is in a chance to kind of catch up with you. On this occasion, I would like to refuse that amendment purely for the on the basis that I would like this motion to stay quite kind of sharp and laser focused. And my concern is that if it gets much broader, it may kind of delay us from having that clear plan about getting the phone up and running and getting that reporting back. But I would love to see something like that around the sense of food production perhaps being part of what we look as the next steps once that report comes back in September. So hopefully members are supportive of this. Thank you very much for getting this on the agenda. I know there are certain things that have to wait until after the election time and I am absolutely delighted to be formally proposing this motion. Thank you. Thank you. The sector. Thanks, Kavina. I'm really glad to be seconding this motion on what I understand has been very much a family affair in the young household. But that some ways makes it all the more important because it shows how this is an issue that stretches across generations. It's not just councillors in here who are sitting and worrying about waste. It's also children at home and who worry about just throwing stuff away because that's important, but also the environmental impacts as well. I was just chatting with the doctors before we started about how, you know, when I was a scout leader, we had young children who had come to us at the end of the day for about, you know, we'd start half past seven and they'd come and the only square meal they'd had that day was at school. And obviously it's important that we make sure that children who need to eat at school because they're not getting it elsewhere have as much as they need, but it is also a case that, you know, we should be limiting waste wherever we find wherever we can. So I'm very happy to second this motion. I do so. Thank you. We have an addendum from the Conservative Group. Thank you, Convener. I think, honestly, the both of them councillors have very well articulated the position and we withdraw our amendment. Thank you. Do you agree the motion? It's just something that Council Young said that I wanted to pick up on that she said that all food waste goes into landfill. And why are we not as a council making sure that all food waste goes through the way my food waste goes into the recycling system. I was quite concerned by that. I'm not sure how much of it goes is able to be repurposed and how much maybe isn't. And that would be great to actually get that information back into the report, but sorry if I was kind of. I do believe that some of it does probably quite a big chunk of it does get recycled. It was what I'm intended was it was going into waste, not into landfill. My apologies. I'm not sure how much of it goes is able to be repurposed and how much maybe isn't. And that would be great to actually get that information back into the report, but sorry if I was kind of caused, I can say. I do believe that some of it does probably quite a big chunk of it does get recycled. But I'm intended was it was going into waste, not into landfill. My apologies, councillor Graham. Okay, is there anybody else got any other questions? No, Louise, do you want to just sum up your. No, just to say thank you very much. And thank you to everybody that came and spoke after last year's presentations and over the course of the last few months to see how much that how keenly are to see us make some progress in this. So thank you very much for the kind of unanimous support in the committee for this. Thank you. Is it a greedy motion? Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Convener that takes us to item 9.2 in the agenda, the motion by councillor Burgess in relation to 1.5 max global schools climate summit and the green group have also put in an addendum to this. Welcome. Talk to your motion. Yes. Thank you very much. Convener. So this motion highlights the groundbreaking 1.5 max initiative on the climate emergency that's coming out of Edinburgh schools. At the end of the global schools, climate summit was coordinated by and was teacher sustainability champions. This involved 30 schools across Scotland, as well as schools in Paul Bangladesh and Malawi with as many as 500 children taking part. The young people shared their experiences of climate change impacts where they live and the projects they're doing to contribute to tackling climate change. The event was reported via TV and I would encourage members to watch the clip and that can be found following the link provided in motion. The addendum to the motion simply seeks to emphasize the fact that despite the ongoing climate emergency, the fact that the councils declared a climate emergency. That the work of teacher sustainability champions in Edinburgh schools is only being made possible because of year to year budget decision making to fund that work and it's not through any core funding. So next year, if funding isn't found, this work won't be happening. So I'd just like to urge all political groups to be aware of that as they develop their budget proposals for next year. And hopefully the committee will very much support this work and agree the motion and addendum. Thanks very much, Convener. Thank you. Seconder. Happy to formally. Thank you. Is there Joe? Well, I have a question. I don't like asking question at this, but I've got a process question about the competency of the addendum, which makes requests to party groups. I have never seen that in 17 years of the council and I'm not. Whilst I appreciate that it is a request and it's not an instruction. I don't know how this would be monitored or tracked and whether indeed it is a competent way to continue our business. I would have thought maybe asking officers to include a funding line in if you want, if your concern was about budget continuing budget funding or awareness raising. But I'm not sure that it's competent for us to request different party groups to do things by the form of a motion at committee. I'm going to take some advice, Councillor, give me a moment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Steve, do you want to come in here? I see you've got your hand up. Yes, thanks very much convener. If I can be helpful here. So the addendum only requests the party groups consider the question of funding. It doesn't request that they do anything in terms of the funding. So I think, you know, if Councillor Mallet doesn't want to request her group considers it, then she could oppose the addendum. But yeah, it's not. It's asking for consideration, not for anything else. Thank you. I will just be a minute. We're having a debate. The advice that we've been given is that in terms of competency, you could change requests to suggest on the final paragraph of the addendum if you wish to push that point. OK, thanks very much for that. I suppose the question goes back to Councillor Mallet as to whether she would be happy with that. You can suggest all you like. I think that I'm taking from that that Councillor Mallet is happy with that. There are two requests. So I would suggest that both requests become suggest. OK. Councillor Barge, would you be in an agreement with that? Yes, sorry. I am in agreement with that. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. Are we agreed on that one? Agreed on the motion. Thank you, Councillor Barge. Thank you, and that is the end of Committee Business at 25 to 2. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]