Transcript

Good evening everyone. Welcome to the Children and Young People's Education Committee. I'll start by reading the webcast notice. This meeting will be webcast and a record retained on the council's website for up to two years. By participating in this meeting, you are consenting to your name, the content of what you say and your image to be broadcast and stored to the council's website. If any member, officer or member of the public addressing this committee has concerns with this, please contact the committee service officer immediately. For those at home viewing the webcast, I would like to inform you that if you look above the video, you will see a resources tab. Select this and a link to the agenda will appear in the right-hand side. This will allow you to open the agenda in PDF form and follow the discussion and the debate. Can I please remind members that they need to turn the microphone off when speaking, otherwise what they say will not be captured on the website. Please can I also ask that members turn the microphones off when not speaking to avoid microphone feedback. I will move on to item two on the agenda, apologies. I do not believe we have any. We are all here and present. Thank you for that. Item three on the agenda, members declaration of interest. I invite members to declare any disposable pecuniary interest in connection with any items on the agenda and to state the nature of the interest. Thank you, chair. I am a rural council, foster carer. Myself, thank you. Now move on to the minutes. Item four, pages one to eight. I invite members to approve the accuracy of the minutes of the Children, Young People Education Committee that we held on the 1st of February 2024. I will move them. Can I have a seconder? Thank you, Chris. Thank you. Can we agree by a cent? Thank you. Item five, public questions, statements and petitions. There are no questions, statements or petitions from the public at this point that we have received. Members questions, no members questions have been received either. So we are now moved on to item six, which is the early years funding entitlement agreement and that is pages nine to 42 in your agenda pack. I am inviting Sarah Harper and I believe James is also part of this report. Sarah, if you could present the report, thank you. Good evening. Thank you for giving me time to present my report today regarding the early years funding agreement for financial year 2024-25. I am asking for the committee to approve the funding agreement. The early years funding entitlement agreement is an annual agreement between rural council and early years providers to deliver funded places to eligible children under five years. The agreement has been updated for the coming financial year and now covers the new working families of funded entitlements. The draft agreement has been circulated with early years providers between November and February of this year for comments. At the time of publishing, we have not received any comments. However, since then we have received a couple that have warranted changes to the agreement. The first clarification that any errors with submissions would cause a delay in payments to all providers, not just child minders. Section 16.10 of the funding agreement has been changed to make it clear that it is all providers that will be affected. The second comment highlighted a change in the government guidance that removed the policy that providers must provide a free alternative to paying for consumables, for example, allowing parents to provide a packed lunch. Providers will now be responsible for setting their own policy on providing parents with options for alternatives to additional charges, including allowing parents to supply their own meals or nappies. Section 15.3 has been updated to reflect this. In light of the changes to the agreement, I will ensure an updated version is circulated. I would like the committee to approve the agreement for implementation for the new financial year. James and I are now happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah. Are there any questions from members? Chris and Steve. I will take you first, Chris. >> Thank you, Chair. I am interested in 3.5, which is Operation Encompass. It was previously used for abuse in the system with children and stuff. It has now been extended to witness of parental arguments. My interest is we have not done that yet. I am wondering how that is going to be encompassed in the process because the two wildly different things having abuse dealt on a child and a child witnessing an altercation or two different things. My concern is how is that going to be put into the system and what is the process to keep them apart, so that one child who has witnessed an argument between parents does not come under an umbrella of having been abused. Thank you, Chair. Operation Encompass works effectively already across schools. We do look at children who both have been subject to direct harm and indirect harm. The police when they come out to do a visit to an altercation make a decision as to whether or not that meets the threshold for referral into children's services to look to see whether the family need extra support. If it meets the referral threshold, then it would sit within Operation Encompass in the same way as direct abuse. I completely understand parents' concerns. Lots of families have arguments. That is a perfectly normal part of family behaviour and that is not domestic abuse, but there are altercations between parents that involve very significant domestic violence where the child might have witnessed a parent being seriously harmed and naturally, even though the child was not directly harmed in that, is important. We treat those incidents seriously and we take the welfare of the child seriously. Thank you, Chair. Who sets the threshold for that or the understanding of that? Each child is different, so if a one-child might meet a threshold that you consider that they need to go under the operation, other times they don't, are they more resilient? Thank you, Chair. It is the police that make the decision based on the incident. They would review all child protection referrals and decide whether it met that threshold. Steve? Yeah, my question, I mean, I did mention it at the last committee regarding it was capacity at last committee. I am still on that source of provision really. It is, have we been talking about the schools provision and if the schools have got any capacity to provide for that because that is one of the things we need to look at. And another one, the communication process, how are we communicating with parents and people that want to do this and how are you going to get to do it? Through you, Chair. I will take the first one Councillor Bennet. We have been working really closely with the school system, so we have been to primary heads consultation group. There has also been email communication to all head teachers, making it clear what the changes are around early years in entitlement and how that will impact on two-year-old funding and eventually on nine-month funding from September 2024. And we have got schools that are wanting to work with us. Myself and Sarah actually visited the school last week looking at where we can address capacity challenges. The real challenge we have our face is we don't know what we don't know and so we are having to stand ready to see how it will change in Easter. We know that a vast majority of parents will be going from fee-paying to non-fee-paying because they capture the free entitlement. But we do have that positive working relationship with our schools where they will be able to increase their capacity where they have got a two-year-old offer. There are schools that stand ready to develop two-year-old offer if required and will continue that close working relationship as the offer develops. Is that okay? Sorry, was there a second question? Yeah, there was a second question. Yeah. The second question was around marketing the promotion to families. So we have been working with the marketing team. There is also a national promotion as well from the government. Our local agreement is that we will we have promoted it across our social media networks and through the providers as well. Take up has been quite good for the two-year-old offer for this spring coming. But some are coming, sorry. Yeah, my concern is basically, is it a two-way thing? Are people coming to talk to us about what they expect as well? Because what I'm concerned about is that people will expect A and we are providing B which makes us not look like they expect us to do. We don't want to fall behind expectations. So I've been attending a lot of the family hope launches over the past few months and talking directly with parents around the entitlement and making sure that they understand that one, it's a 10-time-only offer. It's for 38 weeks of the year. It's 15 hours at the moment so they understand what the offer is and we've tried to make that very clear in our marketing and material. Thank you. I just have a question just to go on to that. I think it is very important and I'm glad you brought that up to you around our communications and how effective they are. You mentioned about engaging with the family hubs. What about our residents who don't attend the family hubs? My concern here is that we need to have that pro-activeness around our communications and let people know every step of the way and if you could assure the committee that that's happening, that would be great. Thank you. Yeah, we've been linking with our partners to promote the offer as well. So I've recently been to Kuala North West Lunch and Learn which sees a lot of services attend and I've promoted the offer to them and shared information that they can pass on to parents as well to try and make sure that we don't miss any parents through different avenues. Thank you sir. Any other questions from Councillors? Yes, Kathy, and then we'll have due to thank you. Thanks, Chair. Mine was just on section two, key responsibilities, local authority. It says rural council must with must being in italics secure a funded entitlement place for every child who is eligible in their area. What happens if we can't, that there aren't enough providers that demand outstrips the apply, that they cost element, you know, people who decide that they don't want to go into the market place because they're not going to get enough for it all, having read the rest of the report. There's an awful lot of administration, not just on the council but on the providers as well. And I wonder what are the ramifications if we're all council who must secure a funded entitlement, can't? I don't want to answer that sir or James. So we work quite hard with the providers to ensure that we have enough places. Any parents who can't find a place will work with them and providers to ensure that they do find a place. At the moment we've never been able to not place a child within a setting. We are constantly looking at sufficiency of places and this is something I'm working on at the moment. I'm looking at supply and demand mapping particularly for the nine months old to ensure that we have enough places. We have funded from the DFE to support us to do this work as well. Thank you, sir. Judith. Hi, thanks for the report. I don't know if this is a typo but I couldn't quite work it out. On the PDF, it's page 31. It's 12.11, it's the three rates of funding and it's got about the most advantaged areas and then the least disadvantaged, that's the same thing isn't it? So does it mean the most disadvantaged to get 19 pence and the least disadvantaged to get four pence? Yeah, it's like a logic person who works out how that wasn't the same thing but then I thought maybe it's just a typo. That's fine. It's only draft anyway. If a family go on an extended holiday and see a family abroad or will the setting lose the funding because they're often quite on quite an ice edge with funding, aren't they? There's nothing to spare in that sort of scenario. I hope so. No funding is not removed if families take holidays, sure, in their tight entanglements. It's only if they decide to leave that provision for a longer period that we would remove funding, but that's in agreement with this item. Thank you, any more questions? Sorry, thank you. Okay, really, probably what I'm asking you may not be able to answer. All I'm concerned about is obviously you've got private nurseries and you've got schools and what have you. But what if somebody comes along with a child who's 12 months old, wants a place and they're a working parent, and they say, Oh, we can't offer you a place because we've got so many children from non-working parents taking up. You know, there's going to be any priority between working parents and non-working parents basically. So that would be down to each provider to set their own policy on our missions. We would always encourage that there is equity for all children, that it's not a first-confused service, but it is down to each local provider. That's why I said the thought of this question you could answer. I think James is going to expand on that before you've asked. I think the assurance I give to the committee is we've got a really good working relationship with our PVI sector, which Sarah chairs the early years school forum subgroup that's attended by key partners from the PVI sector and they do raise their concerns, their challenges that they face. We touched on it at the last committee, one of the biggest challenges to rolling out this new entitlement is in relation to having the staffing levels. And actually, that's the biggest challenge the system faces in having enough staff to be able to deliver the places we know of PVI settings that can take more but don't have the staff to deliver it. And so that's the biggest focus really is making sure we've got the quality staff to be able to deliver what's required from a rural perspective, but also that's a challenge on a national footprint. But we do have those strong working relationships that allow us to get forward to where those challenges may come. Thank you, James. I think that is a significant challenge, James, because I think nationally we've got 900,000 short for. And that's a big big big important to fill. Thank you. I could just actually send our congratulations to the team who have been working on this. We talked about raising awareness with parents. We've had 1060 contacts of parents. That's one of the highest in the country. And that's around the hard work of getting out there, speaking to parents, explaining what this is about. Now that sets us the challenge of meeting that expectation and making sure there's sufficient placements. But I know the team are working very hard to deliver that as well. So I think we need to recognise the hard work they've put in against tight times skills to deliver this for us. Thank you. Thank you. Any more questions? Okay, I'll move to invite members to approve the draft copy of the earliest funding entitlement agreement for financial year 24, 25. And I will move it. Can I have a seconder? Thanks, Chris. And can we agree by a cent? Thank you. And I move on to item nine, which is the 2023 budget monitoring for quarter three. And these are pages 43 to 52 in your agenda pack. And I'll invite a so-co to present the report. Thank you, Ahsoka. Thank you, Chair. Good evening. This report set out the financial monitoring information for the children and people in education committee as a quarter three, which is able to descend the 31st December 23, 24. The report provides an overview of budget performance including progress on the delivery of the 2324 and saving program and summary of reserves. At the end of quarter three, there is the forecast adverse position of 364,000 on the revenue budget of 88 million, 344,000. There are no significant overall forecasted position since quarter two. And a budget of 88 million has been adjusted since quarter two, and which including a two million increase budget for the pay hour, which is held by corporately and distributed for this quarter. And other budget changes are detailed in section 3.7 on page 45. And numbers of children looked after has slightly decreased since September 23, and it is expected to continue to be stable and showed reduction from the numbers when COVID, post COVID impact. However, the pressure from the placement cost continues to increase due to the cost of living increase and inflation. This pressure for quarter three forecasted to mitigate that by understanding elsewhere. The increase demand in special education need and disability area also add the pressure in school school area, namely education, psychological services, and assisted troubles, and also affect dedicated school grant high-need block. Dedicated school grant high-need block expenditure is the main cause of the ground 5.2 million deficit forecasted for 23, 24. This in year deficit will be added to the dedicated school grant reserve at the end of financial year, and the cumulative deficit is forecasted to be just less than 10 million. Currently, we are working on the dedicated district health management plan as a part of the delivery and better value-in send programme. And moving on to the saving programme, there is no student can sleep page for the saving at quarter three, and forecasted usage of earmark reserve at quarter three is 1.1 million living 2.53 million earmark reserve at quarter three forecasted. The capital programme remain on target except the school condition allocation, which has had 4.198 million lip profile into 24.25, and the detail of capital programme is shown on a table six on page 49. And the committee is recommended to note the forecast revenue position for quarter three, note the progress on delivery of 23, 24 saving programme at quarter three, and note the forecast level of reserve and balances at quarter three, and note the forecast capital position presented at quarter three, and that is the end of the report. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ahsoka. Are there any questions on the budget? Thank you, Sherry, Chris, and Judith. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know what the current number of looked after children is as of today. The last figures that's shown on here are 772. It mentions that these figures include unaccompanied asylum seekers. What proportion of this number are unaccompanied asylum seekers? They're not native where all children. Do we have those figures? I may do in a few moments, Sherry, if you just let them, I'm afraid my computer's got to catch up with me. Can you hold on for that, Sherry? Thanks, Judith, will we move on to you? Thanks. Thank you for the report. I'm not sure who this question is, but in the savings, the reduction, redesign and restructure of the assessment and intervention service. What difference will that make to schools and parents? Will they notice more capacity, less capacity? Thank you. I think that refers to some of the remodeling work that we've been doing across children's services to bring together assessment and intervention, which is in social care with early help and family help services. So we achieved our targets for last year, and we've got some further targets to achieve over the next year. On the agenda tonight, I've got a report on break in the cycle, which we'll talk about some of that remodeling and that reform work. Thank you. Chris? Yeah, my question's a bit weird. It's going to be about the children's IT data system, where it's down to 127,000. Isn't that incorporated in one of all of the systems that is bespoke system just for children's? So the IT system for education is liquid logic eyes, early years education system. So it will sit on the same platform, liquid logic, that social care sits on, but it brings together all of our education services, so admissions, attendance, the virtual schools, send all of those parts that fit in different places will all be on one system. So it will really revolutionize how we bring things together. It covers early years, the funding will go through there. So every aspect from an education perspective will go through liquid logic eyes, so it should make bringing things together much more straightforward. Sorry, I read it being another system. I was going to complain about another system. It is another system, but it's the same, it's liquid logic, which is the same as the social care system, but it's replacing capital, which we currently use, which is slightly fractured. So it's just going to be another module, if you like, so it's a liquid logic, thank you. Chair, thank you if you're happy for me to come back to that other question. As of today, we've got 764 children looked after. Of those, 17 are asylum-seeking children, and we have 27 young people who are curlevers who are also asylum-seekers. That number does go up and down. We know there are more children coming through. We get referrals from the scheme on a regular basis and pick up children, but that's the figures as of today. Are there any more questions? My question is on 3.7, senior management restructure. There's a cost of senior management restructure, 48,803 pounds. I'm just wondering what that entails, thanks. So, can you answer that? That is, and, corporately, I learned senior management, review, and that is, this structural one post is created for the commissioning post for health joint commissioning post. That is additional funding for that post. Any more questions for that report? No. Thank you. I'd like now to invite members to note the forecast revenue position presented at quarter three, to note the progress and the delivery of the 2324 savings programme at quarter three, to note the forecast levels of the reserves and the balances at quarter three, and to note the forecast capital position presented at quarter three. And I will move that. Can I have a seconder? Thank you, Lou, and can we agree by a cent? Thank you. Now move on to item eight, which is the Adult Learning Academic Year 2022/23 Performance Report, which are pages 53 to 60 in your report pack, and I believe Paul Smith is going to present that report to us this evening. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Chair, and good evening, everybody. Yeah, this is an overview of the last academic year, so of academic year 2022/23. It does come to you, also a little bit, after the close of that academic year, but it does reflect the data validation activity that goes on, which is out of the control of the Council and the self-assessment process, which was completed and submitted to the Department for Education at the end of December. So just to remind you, the Lifelong Learning Service actively engages and supports local residents who are furthest from the labour market. It really is an engagement, education provision. So it provides learners with the confidence to take the next steps back into education and employment, and it's a grant-funded service. It's funded by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. It has the capacity as well to work with the most disadvantaged and tackle difficult issues using innovative approaches, and some examples including supporting community cohesion, working around troubled families, supporting new family hubs, developing family learning approaches and primary education, and working with our refugee communities as well as improving mental health and wellbeing all through education. The report recommends the Committee to note the report and to endorse the service's planned improvements and to recognise the contribution to improving the lives of adults and families in rural's more deprived communities during the 22-23 academic year. The points within the report I'd just like to draw to your attention include that the service enrolled over 2,137 adults in the 22-23 academic year across a range of over 4,200 education provisions. So it's very, very significant in terms of its penetration into our local communities and engagement with residents. Of those adults that are enrolled on courses and workshops, over 60% of those residents were from the top 20% most deprived ward areas within the borough. In fact, it's over 50% came from the top 10% most deprived ward areas. The employment status of learners engaging through the services included 67.7%, so 1,480 learners being unemployed and seeking employment or unable to access work at that particular moment in time. Of all the adult community learning enrollments, 93.4% successfully completed their course or workshop with over 87% of those learners post course progressing to further learning at higher level undertaking volunteering locally or accessing employment. The overall number of, and this is a correction within paragraph 1.3, the overall number of qualification course enrollments during 22-23 has now reverted back to pre-national pandemic levels with an enrollment increase in 22-23 and 19%, so again, very significant in terms of where we are now in terms of 22-23. The areas of the service requiring improvement through our self-assessment process have been identified around recruiting to vacant posts, so ensuring capacity teaching and teaching support posts. We have struggled in our English and maths areas in terms of recruiting staff and the late recruitment of some of those staff has led to us having more challenges in terms of recruiting and enrollments in those areas. We have also had challenges around data collection due to up and coming changes, sorry, this is a future development, so challenges in terms of data collection due to up and coming challenges in terms of learning aims for community learning, so we have new codes for our individual learner record which will require changes to our enrollment processes and the processing of the data. And the final aspect is around ensuring that learner feedback provides constructive development guidance on how learners can improve their work and that links back to the pedagogy and teaching within the classroom and our tutors working with learners. Just moving through the reports, I've detailed in there some of the providers and third sector organisations that we've been working with, so from paragraph 3.4 down to 3.5 that details some of those providers that we have subtracted some provision with, particularly in the theme areas around pre-employment skills and volunteering, mental health and well-being, environment, horticulture and working outdoors. And then as we move through from paragraph 3.1, there's a commentary there around the various curricula that have been delivered, which I won't go through in particular. And then just to note, under paragraph 3.18, so there are a number of priorities there that the Liverpool City Region combined authority ask us to focus on, but it's also worth noting that there will be changes as we move to year 3 in terms of community learning. So year 6, year 6 for us, starts in September of this year and runs through to July 25. There's quite significant national change in terms of community learning, particularly in the way in which it's funded. So our funding now will move towards what they call tailored provision, which incorporates all community learning and non-regulated provision. So a very, very different approach and lack of recognition in a way nationally in relation to community learning, which has had its own discrete funding coding up until this year. So that concludes my reports. Do we have any questions? Thank you, Paul. I'll take questions. Chris. Chris? We've had a couple of questions. Fair enough, thanks. So the first, yeah, well, only question really is just around the figures that on page 55, 1.1, you mentioned that figure of 2,137 adults and a range of over 4,200 education provisions. So does that mean that typically on average, one adult will be on two courses, yeah, okay. And these, would they normally be completed with it within the year or do some of the run over or even just a few weeks some of them. What's typically the balance of, you know, duration of those courses, you? Yes, if I, okay, to answer. Yes, we produce pathways. So typical pathway may include some engagement in a community setting using workshop activity. We then take them through what could be an entry level qualification. It might be 12 weeks. So one term with a view then to further progressing either onto a skills based provision, which might be then an opportunity to move into employment or volunteering. So you will find that learners may jump in and they might do an accredited qualification based upon the initial assessment and prior learning or they may be at an entry point and they will be taken through various incremental steps in terms of their learning with a view to that end destination. Yeah, thanks for the answer. Thanks Paul. Thanks for the report Paul. Really interesting numbers and huge amounts of pickful and courses and goodness as well. But this being, that's just being children. I know you probably haven't got any evidence of this possibly but do we know whether it's beneficial for the children of these adults that go through the learning processes and going on to either work or whatever, enabling those children to get into education more and attend better? anecdotal evidence will be just as well. Yes, at this stage it is anecdotal. Our family learning approach, which I've detailed in the report, is proven to be very successful and in demand by our primary schools and is one of the activities that's part breaking the cycle as well. So that ability to engage with adults using their, engaging with adults through the medium of their child has been really, really successful. So we've been able to work with adults in the community, improving their reading skills, going back to basics in terms of maths, all with the view to then being able to read to their young people and to be able to engage and support them around their homework, all of which helps to upskill our adults, but also to improve outcomes for young people. But at this stage I could go back and we can have a look at some evaluation in terms of impact around young people. Thank you. I think someone's going to come in on that. Thank you Chair. I was just going to say we may get into employment one of the key strands of breaking the cycle because we know that taking families out of poverty is one of the really important ways that we can help them long term for the children in the family to have a successful upbringing without the requirement of statutory services involvement. We never bring a child into service just because of poverty, but we know that the pressure poverty puts on families causes difficulties in relationships. It causes stress that then relates how those parents have time and capacity to be with those children, so we know actually reducing poverty does have that impact and where we've been able to do that with families and work in that holistic way we've seen the best outcomes for children. It's interesting that the Troubled Families Project and the other national projects have looked at how you remove some of those children from being in those statutory services and give them the best start, have always had employment as a key feature and we know getting the qualifications is the first step to getting on that employment ladder. Thank you Tom. Thanks Chair. A couple of questions. The first one I'll ask is so I'm glad to see that the level of successful achievement. Do we have any work on how successful it's been though in terms of sort of it's people who are not currently on the labor market actually getting the skills who are now entering employment, how successful has that been or people just getting the skills and still remaining unemployed in which case great but it's not quite achieved the aim and of itself. The second question is can you just talk me through the sort of funding process this. Obviously the money has come from the city region but what is the process of going through to how we decide what courses we're funding and how that's being awarded and the sort of impact assessment of that along the way and who's making those decisions and what stake and what use of stake holders is that and that decision making if you go what I'm asking. Okay. In terms of successful achievements I think I've detailed in the report destination rates so we at the end of each term we calculate our positive destinations so that's done through data tracking in terms of looking at learners that might move from one course to another in terms of what I want to say from one course to another it's about incremental steps in terms of moving from one course to another not sideways movements. We also then follow up in terms of phone calls as well to check destinations in terms of those learners that might be moving into employment or those that might be looking at volunteering options. Any adult learners that are not engaged in those positive destinations we encourage them to come back and take next steps in terms of positive engagement and moving back into learning if we've not had that positive impact so I think our positive destinations are really positive they are really good at a very high level and have improved year on year. Just in terms of the funding so the funding does funding comes in from Liverpool city region we are allocated funding as with the other five local authorities within the city region we're also funded in the same way in the same grant funding approach that we have with further education colleges of which there are another seven or eight of those. The funding linked to curriculum for us we are obliged to write a strategic document every year which details how our curriculum planning links to the strategic priorities of the local authority so at the moment I'm going through the 24/27 rural partnership plan looking at health and well-being plan and other local plans that will help to inform our curriculum moving forward. The curriculum is planned on a terminally basis so we're not like a further education college that at this time of year would be setting out its store for the 24/25 academic year we're actually just confirming our store for the summer term so we're very responsive in terms of how we shift and move our curriculum to meet the needs within our local communities so one of the big shifts at the moment for us is continuing to meet the demands around ESOL provision and ensure we have the staff capacity to be able to do so but that's that's sort of very rough cancer through how our sort of curriculum planning works. Thank you for that so in terms of the the responsive adaptiveness how much does that take in account what residents say they want to what the people who were at targeting this towards say they need or want so how much is it us coming down on high saying we know this is what you need so here's the stuff or how much is it taken engagement with them to find out what they need and how we can best deliver that. It is very much driven by our community so you will also see within the report the number of third sector organisations that we engage with we're very much at a sort of grassroots and that's why our provision and our curriculum is terminally driven because it does give us that flexibility and enables us to do that and I think we have a very strong relationship with we're on that college as well for our curriculum planning so we're constantly looking at how we can align some of our provision as well so we've got next steps planned in there but in terms of engagement with local residents we are very much listening to them and their third sector organisations and representative organisations. What are you the hands of? Is that your question Tom? Yeah. So we've got Chris and Judith and Cherry taking that order yeah thanks. Yeah and the light of well partly Councillor Tom Lang's question is really about provision responding to it and you've just mentioned that you do respond to the adult communities demand as an extent. I remember working in adult education many years ago in lots of evening classes and what you find is there's two one two three advertised but then turn two would be subject to enrollment so do you have that experience whereby you know the course is actually being viable and running our subject to enrollment numbers so you might have somebody at an entry level hoping to do level two and it can't run because there's only six students and you need eight. Do you encounter that problem at all where courses can't run a disappoint potential customers as well? No that's not generally a position that we find ourselves in. We can run with smaller groups so again we're not we're not a further education college so we're not combined really to those sort of numbers. The bulk of our provision is non-accredited so it's not that we have classes that are required to deliver certain numbers of qualifications to generate an income. Our grant doesn't work in that way. We also have a really strong business support team as well so we have a lot of follow up with our learners ahead of programs and courses starting to try and ensure we get the maximum number. Obviously if we only have one or two enrollments pre-enrollment for a course then that course would not start on that basis but we that's not not generally the rule and we have a strong follow up to ensure that classes are maximised. Thanks Paul, thanks for answering again very reassuring. Thanks. Judith. Hi, I just wondered how reliable how not reliable yeah it's the funding kind of guaranteed for a few years or because obviously you're often something really good that's making a difference so do you know how long term you're likely to have the funding for? Is it year by year? Yeah the funding is year by year. To be fair the non-accredited funding grant hasn't changed for as long as I've known it too and I previously worked for the funding authority so it's a historic position. I think the annual conversations and ongoing conversations that I have with the combined authority partnership manager are always very very positive. They're very very keen to recognise and to ring fenced the grant funding for community learning so when we move to the 24/25 academic year we know that we're going to have some challenges around that change in the funding methodology, national funding methodology but the combined authority are very keen to ensure that community learning is still recognised and ring fenced as a priority. Cherry thanks. Thank you. There's a lot of money being invested in this programme. Do you have any statistics on positive outcomes i.e. how many jobs people go into as a result of it or is it just a perpetual learning circle? Is there any positive outcome from it? Yeah I think that's covered up in our destination performance so it's a key element of the off-step framework that we're able to demonstrate positive outcomes in terms of qualification and role in terms of qualifications taken as well as outcomes for non-accredited learning through our RAPA process so it's fundamental to our quality assurance processes. The destination tracking is very much that sort of final looking at destinations and real impact of the learning so it's very much not just about churning learners through and we're very aware that the combined authority also have a very similar audit approach so it's really about trying to maximise the impact of that resource to really positive impact on the learners. For as long as I've been at Council we've been on this trying to break the circle in the world getting people off the benefits and into work is that proving that you're doing actually achieving any of that through this extra learning? Definitely, definitely. I think we've got 87% positive destinations at the moment so with some of our learners they may be with us for 12 months and they may move from course to course but as I've illustrated it might be an engagement. We've got a significant proportion that are already unemployed so we are engaging them in a positive aspect in terms of learning and then moving them through developing their skills. I think the feedback from learners that we get as well as well as those destination tracking tracking aspects does reinforce that it is having a positive impact in terms of moving those adults that engage into employment opportunities. Okay, any more questions? Thank you very much for that comprehensive report Paul. I'd now like to invite members to note the report but also we're going to endorse the services planned improvements and recognise the contribution to improving the lives of adults and families in rural, more deprived communities during 22/23. So I will move that, can I have a seconder? Steve and can we agree by a cent? Thank you. We'll now move on to item 9 which is breaking the cycle and they are pages 61 to 74 in your agenda path and Elizabeth Hartley is going to present the report. Thank you Elizabeth. Thank you Chair. This is the third break in the cycle report to come to committee and it brings together what we've learned in the last two and a half years about what's been working well for children and families in rural and how we intend to use that learning to remodel our children services over the next 18 months. As noted in the report the time of this was is quite fortuitous for us because in December the Department for Education released the new statutory framework for children's social care which outlines their expectations on delivery children services which are very much aligned with our direction of travel. So quite nice neat for us that fits on the back of the break in the cycle, programming and learning that we're now able to move ahead with a plan and four priority areas which are really well aligned to the reforms that Department for Education expect. So I just want to give a little account briefly for me about each of those four priority areas. The first is to create a system that proactively supports child's development and welfare for all children and young people in the borough. In your pack in Appendix A there is a little model called the childhood offer that looks extremely simple but is incredibly important. This is a ten-part offer that we co-produced with parents and families in rural before we started the break in the cycle program and we've had the opportunity to test it, to try it out and to get feedback and see what impact it has. Now it does look really simple but it's quite smart because what it is is that this is where parents worked with us to say if these things happens for our child in their life then we'd be quite confident that they'd get the supports and the development and the opportunities to help them grow up really well. So you'll see in the little model it's got things like having opportunities to play and develop, to socialize, to have hobbies, to access education, to learn about future employment and education and what's really good about it is this is the universal offer for children, isn't it? It builds on that universal offer that we provide across our borough for children but what it wants to do and what we want to do with it with children services by making it really the bedrock of what we do is to make sure that we optimize that universal offer for children, that where we can we are nudging and supporting, encouraging them to access all of those universal offers so that they stand the best chance of achieving their outcomes. What else really helps is if we know that children are engaged in the universal offer and that might be a little one taken up their earlier years in time, which we've spoken about tonight, if the family does face any additional needs or something arises, if they're already engaged with a service and an offer that's more likely to be picked up quickly and gives us the opportunity to intervene early before needs escalate. So this childhood offer we're really going to put that at the bedrock and at the basis and it will underpin what we do. You'll recognize for it that this is very much a kind of then whole community effort, it needs networks, it needs relationships with our other years, providers, with schools, with youth provision and with community organizations and because of that we're going to adopt a geographical approach. So we'll be looking at the constituency localities and divide it up into those four areas so that we can really build good relationships with the right networks and partners and that leads us into the next priority which is delivering the family help through the local multi-disciplinary teams. What we tested with Cradle to Career brought the childhood offer to life. So we put together a multi-disciplinary team that put professionals, practitioners, organizations that touched all those different points into the same team. So included school readiness and early years, youth and play workers, social workers, etc. So all the people we needed for the childhood offer came together in one team. They were then based out in a local area in the community alongside families, residents, community organizations and we've seen how big an impact that can then have. So what we will do over the coming weeks and months is to roll out and scale up this approach so that we'll have six multi-disciplinary teams working across the borough delivering family help from those family help hub sites. There's a bit more information in your report about the family hub settings and an appendix to that details what their core offer is. You'll note from the report that we have schools and community organizations as well as local authority services who are delivering our family hubs and I think that's a real testament to the strength of our early help partnership offer in world because that is not common across the rest of the country that we have schools leading on family hubs and community organizations doing that. So that's really positive. Sticking then to know what we work, what works and what we've learned from break and cycle, the third action is to introduce multi-disciplinary teams into sharp protection so that we can deliver effective intervention that leads to positive behavior change. With the break in the cycle program we had the opportunity to really upskill and develop the capacity of some of our staff in terms of being able to work with not just with survivors and victims of domestic abuse but to work really intensively with perpetrators of domestic abuse, to work with people experiencing substance misuse, parental mental health etc and we've got some really well skilled staff and small teams that we've been developed and we're going to pool them together to then wrap around social workers that deliver child protection so that social workers can quickly and easily access support from a multi-disciplinary team to deliver interventions that are all focused around behavior change and as noted in 3.21 of the report delivering that effective impactful child protection is going to be critical to us managing our numbers of children coming into care and our care budgets. The last point on there is about the connection between our children and families and residents with our services. We've learned huge amounts of the last few years through co-production, through listening and engaging with the family toolbox, with the family hubs about what makes a difference, what makes it easier for families to engage and takes away some of the fear. We're going to be continuing that over the next year. There's a few key tasks that we've outlined there including developing and rewriting some of the guidance around child protection processes for families so that they can easily understand what happens, what to expect, what they can do and we're going to be working closely with some of the with advocates which we learned from some of our domestic abuse services about how we make sure the voice and experiences those families inform service development and delivery and with the family hubs we've tried to make it and community ownership feel real so at the moment we've got some groups that are working with us to develop offers and these offers are parent slides and lots of peer support as well. These four areas are our starting point, there's a lot the way we're going to do over the next year which will embed that learning and respond to the reforms and the expectations of the Department for Education. With endorsement from the committee we want to fully detail our 18 month plan and I'm happy to take any questions. Do you have any questions? Kathy and then Chris and Tom. Thanks Chair. On section 3.21 to develop delivering effective and impactful time protection. Since 2020 we've reduced the number of children looked after per 10,000 population from 122 to 117 and a half which is four and a half in sort of three years and our statistical neighbors are 111 and if all things remain the same in another three years we'd like to come down to 111 but our statistical neighbors may be even further reduced from that but the English average or the England average is 71 so we we have got a long way to go, haven't we to get down to the English average and I was wondering we're so far away from that at the moment. Do you see or is there a particular time frame at which we want to achieve that? Is it achievable or not achievable and what steps do we have to take it to to get down to that level and is the world just very peculiar because all areas of the country have pockets of deprivation and different statistical averages for you know children looked after abuse not in education or you know all the different facts that would impact demographically but I just wonder why we're so far away and obviously it's going to be a very challenging role for you going forward as the new director but it's a hike isn't it and I and I wonder from where we are now to where if we want to be aligned with an English average have we got everything in place to be able to to meet that or is it too much of an uphill struggle and not achievable and if it's not achievable you know if if if the parts of the country can be 71 why are we 117 and a half? Okay good questions probably got a good couple hours worth the conversation in their councilhoods and I think first of all our name would be to focus on getting in line with our statistical neighbours that would be first priority I think and I know someone will want to come and speak about this but this is a journey that's tracking back from several years now I think you know we understand a lot from 2016 when we were judged inadequate with offsets and we had an increased number of children coming in secure then we have been able to plot quite accurately in the last few years about the reduced numbers as children are leaving care I think for us to get to that statistical neighbours as our first ambition is supporting those young people to leave care but also to really focus on reducing the numbers of children who are needing to come into care and this really that focus on the child protection work being our edge of care approach being our strategy being the way of helping children stay with their families is going to be really key before I pass on to you Swan because I know you want to speak in the new guidance there's a real focus on something called family networks and it is really encouraging us to look differently about options for children to remain within their family networks and being much more creative and innovative about the kind of things that would help that to occur and it might be I don't know I don't want to pull examples out of there but there could be small simple things that we can do to allow those networks to work together better and the way we've been able to do previously but there is a real focus on looking at all the opportunities and kinship care as well thank you chair I think first of all we need to recognise that the statistical neighbor group is set on all those factors that you talked about it's set on rates of employment poverty all those things that we know influence the number of children in care and it's very easy and clear to make correlations between local authorities that have similar demographics when we first started this journey we were significantly above our statistical neighbor group in fact when we became inadequate in 2016 we already had far more children in our care system than other similar authorities with similar demographics the reason at that point way back in 2016 we had so many children is that we fought and fought not to bring them into care but once we brought them into care they stayed in care until they were 18 and didn't go anywhere and that isn't the best outcome for most of our children if we can find an alternative if we can find a relative if we can find you know a special guardian if we can find an adoptive parent we're appropriate we should be doing that we should only keep the children in our care that really don't have that other option for permanence so we know that a lot of children came into the system at that time in 2016 we also know that we weren't taking children into care when they needed to come into care in a rapid way so a lot of children in some community that we hadn't given the help we needed to in an early enough way so our looked after children numbers went up and up and became set into highest in the region only next to Blackpool which actually has national status in having some of the highest numbers of looked after children for its population since then we have been on a journey of trying to work with our families first of all we needed to make sure our children were safe and those children coming into care with the right ones and that happened by 2019 from 2019 onwards as we started to develop this prevented work the numbers of children coming into care between 10 000 has stayed low and mostly below that of our statistical neighbors and those have been appropriate children coming in and where they do come in we look to seek permanence as soon as possible we know exactly who those children are that are in our system that are keeping our number above our statistical average and we know and I'm looking at Kerry if we get those children discharged and there are some ready and those who are going out to 18 we will fall to our statistical neighbor group I think also it's important to point out to the committee that the rest of the authorities nationally have not stayed stable in this the rate of children looked after nationally has been growing year on year so as our number is going down everybody else is coming up and I think that's really important to note that we have managed to actually book that national trend and take those numbers lower can we get to the the England average well it would be very easy if we could change all those demographic issues that affect our families out there overnight and make everybody able to have that same experience we probably can't do that overnight but we can work with that ambition I'm often asked what the right number of children to having care is and that's the number of children that need to be in care so it's not about being high or being low but if we can keep children with their families safely and appropriately in the community we know that long-term they'll have the best outcomes so it's right to do that and we've been doing that very much over the last few years thank you chair yes thank you chair when we look at the statistical neighbors we're looking at the ones in the Liverpool City region or statistical neighbors or statistical areas across the country because for looking at our statistical neighbors that are just in the Liverpool City region you could say well you know that's that's okay because it's similar demographic but there must be similar demographics around the country and if the national average is in England is 71 percent obviously or 71 there will be other areas that are far less and there may be others that are far less who are statistically similar in demographics do we look at those local authorities and see and i'm sure we do what we can learn from them they're in other parts of the country but they are far less children in care but they are very similar to us and what do we do that is not as good as them or we don't do at all that they do or you know what is it that is making us so so different in that respect absolutely we look at that the statistical neighbors are set nationally there are a couple of local authorities within the local region that are in our group but again i can share that with councillors outside the meeting it is a group of authorities to measure i would say the thing to note that our number is coming down statistical neighbors numbers are all going up so even if they started below us we appear to be on a different trajectory than they are i don't think i can i point to but we will go through the data with you um a statistical neighbor that is having exactly the same journey as we are and actually what we are finding is we are being contacted by the northwest authority and statistical neighbors to kind of ask why our numbers are going in the other direction because it isn't what's happening normally out there just just one other question to end on that one if the english average is 71 is that average going up as well so we sort of last year or the year before was it 65 so are we seeing a trajectory across the board of increase can i just interject i think it would be really useful for us as a committee as well to have that information um so if you did say that you were going to provide that so it's like okay Kathy if that goes in with every i think we'll have that and have a look at that i can provide it but again yes the very simple answer is yes uh the average for england in 2018 1965 1927 67 70 71 it is going up and we already know that it's continued to rise this year from the pressure so again it's that trajectory of travel that's really important to watch because you know that that is where we are making the difference and that's what will make the difference for our children long term thank you so i'm just answering the question kathia it does because it does show that even if we're coming down only slightly against the statistical or average we're going in the right direction that's correct and you've noted that that we're going to have a report on that coming forward as well thank you i think it will take chris next and then tom thanks to you i think samona and alisabeth has to mention most of the things i was going to say actually about it i was fortunate or unfortunate enough to be involved with this point the very beginning when you pitch this is a program of works i believe alisabeth and i was in favor of it then i'm really in favor of it now because i call this program um it's like our children's Henry the Hoover we seem to have started off on one foot and we seem to have adopted loads of other things have been sucked into this program and really successfully at that um so the word you're looking for is comparative neighbors on statistics and you're right the numbers are going up and hours are going down and the only reason i think one of the reasons ours are going down is from all the effort that's been put in over the last six or seven years on this early years program and this fruition is starting to show hopefully we'll carry on showing it at the same speed in the next few years so i'd just like to um congratulate everybody involved especially the officers who've done an enormous amount of work and carry um on this program i have to mention you carry samona tenor next day just to clarify carry is an officer not too many she isn't tom thanks chair um it's a question on the the family uh help forum and um in terms of i mean anyone knows me knows that my uh my eyes always pick up at the uh the use of the word community ownership good word but uh it's it's how are you delivering that community ownership and how are you ensuring that the the voice is there for parents to be apart because one thing to say we want to have parents co-design and co-be apart of this but how what mechanisms are in place to allow that how's that looking what's the structure of that thank you so we've got a couple of really good examples to build on so we have a well established parent care forum for a sense which does a great job of reaching out across that parent care community and engaging with us we've got learning from that model um we've had the advisory boards in our children's centers for a number of years so that's another model that we've learned from and are building from across the partnership as well and this is the beauty of having that real broad group of third sector organizations and community partners who are all stepping forward and saying um if we bring along what we've got we can put it together and build on it so it does feel very organic how these have been developed what we would like to see is in each of the family hub and family help areas we've got an organic development that brings together people that are already engaged that can reach out bringing new parent carers and that they lead to their own forums in each of those areas so it's very local it's very relevant to what they experience what their circumstances are and what their priorities are and our role in the local authority will just be as facilitators to enable that to happen give them the space welcome them in support them in any way we need to okay thanks for that um and and that's really good to hear and that and that is the words that I like to hear so in terms of the individual the family hubs um what say we'll what say are we having ensuring that parents have a direct say in the running of that family hub that it's being running their interests so how so we say we're facilitating them to come together and talk are we facilitating them to have a have an oversight of decisions that are being taken regarding those family hubs regarding data data decisions that have been taken and ensuring that they work for families and that the families are the ones who are designing this for them so yeah really on the same page with this so um in the lead up in the development of the family hubs we had lots of engagement sessions with families lots of co-production listening to what they wanted we had some great feedback that we've already responded to but what was important to them I think one of the best examples to show this in action is around special education needs and disabilities where we've got a group that is parents and carers are involved in that they're shaping what is the send offer the family hubs are going to deliver and they're making the decisions about what that looks like and what will be delivered and what's important in terms of training for families and then peer support and opportunities to meet afterwards so very much lights by those groups okay are there any more questions? okay I'd just like to um reiterate the comments that councilor carubia mentioned around this significant work that's been done around breaking the cycle and we should really applaud the officers and the director the outgoing director and the incoming director for the work that's been undertaken and pivotal to that is obviously going to be these multi-disciplined teams and how they integrate and work well with the families and at the end of the day the less children that we take into care the better it is for everyone concerned so thank you officers for that and thank you for that report Elizabeth i'd now like to invite members to note the learning that we've gained from the breaking the cycle program and endorse the approach to the remodeling of the children's services based on the learning and the best practice and i will move it can i have an agreement thank you vida a seconder and can we agree by a send thank you we'll now move on to item 10 which is the all-aged disability strategy and that's pages 75 to 154 in your agenda pack and i believe jean stevenson is going to present this report thank you jean thank you good evening members um the purpose of this report is to present the draft all age disability strategy 2024 to 29 and it's for noting but it does affect all words this is detailed in appendix one of your pack and the easy read version is in appendix five of your pack the strategy was formed part formed part of a work program as an outcome of the all age disability review which we've reported to this committee last june of 23 the strategy itself was also approved at last night's adult social care and public health committee the points that i'd like to highlight from this report with regards to the strategy the all-aged disability strategy is that the co-production journey has been comprehensive this is involved working together all stages of co-production from thinking about the underpinning values to what matters most to people with disabilities and to looking at good practice across all the parts of the country this is illustrated in appendix two which is the co-production journey and appendix three which was the best practice research report the strategy has also achieved co-produced status under the both under both the sand and the adult's co-production strategy at the charter sorry which is really pleasing the process has involved listening and recognize that language and inclusive approaches are important the term used throughout the strategy is people with disabilities and it was stressed by the people we lived experience to keep the writing of the strategy easy to understand no jargon um let's make it very easy to understand the strategy is for anyone any age who has a one or more disability and their family networks their parent cares the strategy has a clear purpose vision mission and core values which is defined in the report at 3.8 to 3.11 which is also underpinned by four focused outcomes that the people who lived experience and their families told us that was important to them these were improving the health and well-being living in rich lives having independent lives and gaining employment and economic well-being these are what throughout the co-production journey the people that told us what was important to them these four outcomes are also interlinked and we recognized it's hard for people to achieve their goals in one area if all the other areas are not in place it's also important to recognize the importance of multi-agency partnerships and those approaches to those outcomes to be successful this is visualized in appendix four where this strategy overlaps with several other strategies and plans these are not exclusive these are just selected ones to give an example in appendix four under each of the four outcomes which is in the park this section also covers what people with disabilities have told us they need what else we know about that particular outcome in terms of local statistics research and insights and where we need to focus on so what next we ask ourselves the strategy will be cope the strategy will have a measurable implementation plan and we'll carry the journey of co-production right the way through this will be monitored by the all age disability partnership board who will make the necessary annual impact reports to this committee the adult social care committee and the place-based partnership has appropriate so in summary chair and members why is this strategy important with 71 000 people live in whirl who are disabled under the equality act 2010 this means 22 just over 22 percent of the people in whirl will have some form of disability or impairment that limits their day-to-day activities this is compared with 19.4 percent of people in the north west and 17.3 percent across england so we really do need to think carefully about our services that we offer to ensure that we're making the best use of our resources so people are supported and enabled to live a full and active life so it's we great pleasure members that to ask this committee to know the co-production of the the all age disability strategy that was in appendix one of your pack and to receive annual progress impact reports on the implementation of this strategy so thank you for listening and I do hope that you like the strategy and happy to take any questions thank you for that gene I just need to ask your question about the coming to committee to this report you said it was signed off last night by adults my understanding if i'm correct it should be coming here for initial consultation and information first before it gets signed off is that correct not my understanding of the adult social care and public health committee commission and task the piece of work back in june of last year and it was one of the work streams out of the review and the review was came here to note and the production of the strategy was one of those work streams which went to the adult social care committee last night right okay I understand that it's that all involvement is about the transition from young people into adults and that transition when they move from children's services to adults so at what can you just clarify at what point do we see it after the event we don't have any involvement in the consultation then other in that the health and well-being board is that correct Simone thank you chat officers from children's services and children young people have been involved just I think our committee was invited in the to the initial workshop not had an opportunity to comment on this final draft until now okay well if it's been signed off then we can't do anything about it now can we so I think I'll probably have a conversation with Elizabeth and maybe with our talk so we're going forward thank you jean yeah thank you for the report okay thank you are there any questions anyone has via uh Sherry just to comment really um the reasons for the recommendation high proportion of people in world 22.2% live with some kind of disability and the comment is that um it's 2.8% higher than the northwest and 4.9% higher than the rest of England have we got any idea why that should be and not directly um I think for me when we've done the analysis and looked at the data and information it is showing that we've got a high proportion of people with disabilities but particularly those in the high support needs as well so the high functioning disabilities as well and this is why this strategy is really important to have a framework so we can um enable those outcomes for people with disabilities thank you jean I think that's something that we can raise it to look at please and respond happy to take that um sorry in some of the high cost residential where independence is there's also where initial raw high costs as well for disabilities as well living with disabilities um Sherry did you want to carry on a little bit? I feel it's quite I don't know quite jocking really that we are double the amount of disabled people on whirl to to the rest of the country why is it our rare high atmosphere or or something that's caused isn't it it just seems shocking figuring that song it is about five percent higher isn't it than the national average for 17 I think historically it's always house been high I mean to be honest I'm sorry you're on I mean 17% is high as a national average it would mean that five people in this room are disabled or maybe they are I'm really happy to I'm really happy to take that away and have a look at it and provide a brief email for you I think that would be really useful thank you it may well be that going into the next civic year we may want to workshop on this and see how we link in with the adults because there is some crossover in significantly around a lot of areas around dentistry pregnancy domestic abuse so there's a lot of areas where we need to be crossing over with adults here as well sorry a quick one I was just going to say that yeah I'm a bit non-plusters to why this has been passed by adults and not come through was first so I really would like to be interested I'm interested to know about the transition between children and adults which is one of the things I would want to but I'm aware that the chair said she's going to have that conversation so yeah it's a clarification and if I can wait I can confirm what's happened with the next report which is linked into the transition side of the work and Tom and then I'll take Judith thank you. Just coming back on what Councillor CRIBIA said and this whole point about this the sign off and where this has been I don't want this to send this into a conversation about you know terms of references of committees again but evidently this is something that as the constitution standards committee is going to have to have a look at some of these terms of references again I don't know the Oxford field is this a place that is causing confusion or officers minds quite clear what word this currently sits even if certain members aren't I think we do have clear constitution for which committee signs off what but what I would say to you I think as all elected members recognize families and people's lives are complicated children become adults children living families with adults it's a very difficult boundary to put in place to say children's and adults and separate that I think what we did at the beginning of looking at this strategy and coming together for those who are around us two committees looking at what we wanted to do and what we wanted to learn was probably one of the most powerful workshops that I've been in for a while I think there's some real learning from that that we need to do in going forward and what we can look at were aware that there's lots of health matters because it's adults and health committee that report the you know around health for children so again I think it's something going forward as a constitution we can look at how we work outside committee to get to get the link up right so as children's members can comment on things that relate to children prior to them being signed off in the same way that ideally adult members committee can comment on things that we bring here around domestic abuse and other things that fundamentally affect adults but actually and the lifelong learning that this committee signs off so I think there is a little bit of thinking we can do about what that process is and I'm looking at Vicki in our democratic friends in democratic services to help us with that I think members if I've understood correctly what Jean said a report came last year to both adults and and to this committee which identified that this piece of work was going to be undertaken so this committee was made aware that this piece of work was going to be done last year officers have gone away they've done the work I think there was a joint workshop as has been said but again some time ago so so maybe our memories have faded a little on that and and it might have perhaps been helpful if maybe there was a further workshop perhaps before before the report came back finally to adults committee but it did come back to adults last night they were happy with the the strategy but clearly wanted this committee to see the final version of it so I think maybe because of the time span we've kind of lost a little bit of input but but hopefully maybe going forward in future we can we can remember the the lesson and maybe make sure that we have regular briefings of both committees just sorry yeah just to come back just to confirm that I think that's a really good learning point and I think it's a definite way forward because sometimes the work does fall between and it's important that they're joined up so I really do advocate for that but just to confirm the officers of all levels within children's have been involved in the co-production in particular and the parent carers and the send use voice as well so just to I don't want to lose the emphasis of the co-production journey of this strategy because that for me has been the most powerful and important aspect of this strategy that journey thank you for that gene um as there are no more questions oh sorry Judith thank you no I think it's a real strength of this strategy that it is so individual-focused because there is no one-size-fits-all you know work as a send and there is no one-size-fits-all so I think it's really good that it does look at that person and what do they need in that setting and I just wonder with the statistics the number of people with disabilities are they calculated the same way in every area because do they take it from doctor's records or do they take it from do you consider yourself to have a disability someone with autism ADHD made you think well I'm managing it they wouldn't state they have a disability but if it's off a doctor's record it would just be a number wouldn't it so I don't know I've no idea but that could be they might not be calculated the same way everywhere um fighter uh just go back very to Kathy's point of bearing in mind that this was signed off which adults last night I was just wondering whether or not the questions that we have raised here this evening may have been raised as adults meeting last night is anyone aware of anything I can answer that if that's okay um the committee last night were thrilled by the strategy um a couple of the queries that asked the clarification on was around um the target audience of the strategy um it was around all age and all disability um and there were some questions around um there's a statement in the strategy that makes a statement that says that autistic people some autistic people through our co-production journey don't see themselves as having a disability but some do so whilst that's the strategy is targeted for example for people with learning disabilities and or autism we also recognize that some people don't see as a disability and so they were points of clarification last night and the importance of um the interlinks with this committee the work programs of um children's young people children's young people and education and the health and well-being and making sure that um it's all interlinked because at the end of the day um it's about the person and what matters for them the most and enable them to live their best life whatever that looks like in their journey and so those were the types of questions that were raised last night they also appreciated the the um the co-production journey and the um the easy read of the strategy as well as the easy read summary um and welcomed other documents and other reports to have a similar style moving forward okay thank you absolute provisional question i was going to ask what you answered it thank you oh okay thank you are there any more questions for gene on the strategy no okay um i'd now like to invite the committee to note the all age disability strategy 24 29 included as appendix one to this report and to receive annual progress and impact reports on the implementation strategy i'll move it can i have a seconder thank you cherry and can we agree by ascent thank you oh now move on to item 11 which is the all age disability review implementation pages 155 to 220 and i believe gene you're also presenting that um before you present that i was i did ask the question as to why this wasn't part of the when we were having a conversation around it with the spokes around um why this was not a part of the strategy the implementation if i can yeah i'm happy to explain throughout the reports if that's okay okay um ideally members this report probably should have gone first before the strategy for our time make it easy for us to get our head round so the purpose of this report is to present progress to date on an implementation program from the all age disability review that was presented to this committee back back in June of last year and if you recall those that were attended the workshop we identified some high level themes that came out of the review and this is particularly focusing on that preparing for adulthood from children's into adults and the high level themes that came out of the review just as a reminder was our ambition to start earlier from age 14 have better joined up in planning and collaboration between services to improve housing options and choices to improve better training and volunteering and supported employment options and choices and improved access and relevant information for people with disabilities parents and carers so this report is to give a progress update on the work streams from that review the workstream program update is in appendix one of this report and it also shows the specific projects the key actions timelines and progress stated of each one of those each of the work streams within this work program are interlinked and as part of a continuing improvement journey that enables improved outcomes for people with disabilities that are underpinned by the council's co-production charter where appropriate again this report is to note in and it went it also went to the adult social care committee last night for noting as well and its effects all wars key points i'd like to highlight from the report and link to the work streams itself is that each of the work streams in the implementation program has made significant progress and has been completed or is on target to be completed in line with its work program the summary of the work streams is detailed on 3.5 to 3.13 of this this report with an appropriate set of appendices but i'd like to highlight the following the co-production strategy was one of the work streams of the all age disability strategy you've just heard a report on that and that's already completed and the next phase of that strategy is to have its co-produced implementation plan so this report is is identifying the need for the strategy as one of its work streams another one of its work streams was to co-produce a prepare for adulthood transitions protocol this is a set of this is a framework for preparing for adulthood that needs to be considered against the set of principles the principles are detailed in appendix three and the framework of this protocol has been based on desktop research about best practice across the country and this is detailed on appendix four this work is scheduled to be completed by march 2024 but unfortunately was unavailable for the time of writing of the committee report just to stress the working party the working group that's involved in those preparing for adulthood transition protocols is a multi-agency approach from children's adults and the wider care and health system across all the spectrum of a young person to into adulthood in terms of those transition pathways from children's into adults as they prepare for adulthood one of the other work streams as part of this program was to capture a storyboard and we captured a Thomas's storyboard and I do hope that you like Thomas's storyboard it's a real-time a real-time storyboard of the benefits of personalization and systematic transition from one service to another and although Thomas isn't a younger person he's 24 and his story and his top tips is a lot of learning and important for us as services as we deliver we appreciate that not everybody's circumstances are the same however Thomas's top tips highlight the early planning care and support around individuals can lead to greater outcomes one of the one another work stream of the this program was to do a snapshot data analysis of 25 education health and care plans it was a desktop review this is in appendix two of the reports and it's a comprehensive report this looked at 25 and harmonized plans across the age profile of 14 to 18 year olds this has been completed the purpose of this report was a snapshot to establish baseline of the current practice and identify tangible opportunities for age appropriateness improvement in preparing for adulthood this also included an analysis of cost to care and support packages for improved outcomes and forecasted the potential opportunities for cost avoidance the review itself took place in October 23 to January 24 and the review looked at as I said 25 cases of young people between 14 and 80 the review looked at 94 documents within those 25 cases we appreciate that the 25 cases represent 1.9 percent so this is a snapshot it's a sample and we know that we've got and the cases that we're looking at in terms of the evidence we were looking at does that do they include housing options employment and independence and were those outcomes referenced in those documents and the information was provided in the report we know that the cohort was not representative but the outcome of the review along with other evidence suggests that early involvement needed from adult social care to prevent reduce and delay any need for long-term care can I just at this point just note that again and emphasize it is a desktop review exercise it's not it doesn't um the way that that may well have been conversations around employment housing and independence but it was a desktop research so the research the information is pulled from the information that was in the plans so I just want to just make that note there please for everybody um in terms of uh one of the projections within the plan uh in the report sorry is that we do believe with the evidence that's shown and the um conversation through the co-production uh and consultation is that if we have good preparing for adulthood planning we could support 15 of those 25 individuals into supported employment and 17 into housing options with more independence and improve their independence the report itself is comprehensive and there is recommendations in the report itself which we will take forward working with in collaboration with Elizabeth and the team to ensure that all stakeholders are involved and we we take abreast of those recommendations there's a lot in this report chair sorry I'm going as quick as Lea can um the other work stream in this uh implementation plan um was to contribute to the development of a Cheshire and Merseyside learning disabilities and or autism housing strategy the nine law authorities across Cheshire and Merseyside uh came together with the NHS uh into Cheshire and Merseyside integrated care system to work together to commission and deliver the right mix of housing care and health services required for people with disabilities learning disabilities and autistic people the strategy has been jointly produced by the housing learning and improvement network and will support the framework for commissioners um who are accessing local housing for this cohort of individuals the old age disability strategy is aligned to the housing strategy and again the housing strategy was also approved at the adult social care committee last night um for members future work that's involved in this implementation plan program the co-production of a supported employment volunteering strategy the strategy is working parallel and being developed at the moment and is on target to be completed around July of this year we're also looking at uh demand analysis and management report to look at what are our current models of practice within adults and how we can support that smooth transition from children into adults and then working with Elizabeth and the team again around co-producing those pathways from education health and children's into adults and having that information that's appropriate to those pathways all those are ambition target for the summer of this year but we are working together to map that out more effectively so it's a great pleasure to ask this committee to just note the significant progress and the implementation program of this review and I'm happy to take any questions which I'm sure members have got quite a few but just to stress that the all age disability strategy which the report I've just presented is a work stream of this review thank you thank you Jean are there any questions Kathy thank you chair thanks Jean for the report um just I wanted to ask about the um the 25 anonymized ech ehcps which represented 1.9% as a sample is that is that normal to only take 1.9% um you know for sampling purposes because one of the outcomes that you're looking at is to identify time to opportunities analyze the cost of care and support packages and also opportunities for cost avoidance but I would have thought and I don't know whether this is the norm I would have thought that 1.9% as a sample base was very low too low to actually be meaningful in in giving you the outcomes that you're looking for I could be wrong it could be that that's what you always do 1.9% but I would have thought someone like 10% minimum would have been a more relevant number to use as a sample base thank you for that I think the emphasis wasn't necessarily on the sample base it was on trying to see evidence of where there was conversations and documenting around housing employment and independence what it does run parallel to and similar outcomes is the analysis from the delivering better value um analysis of the plans and forgive me if I've got the number we looked at about 60 plans I think in Elizabeth that's correct um so it draws synergies between the exercise that was done as part of the delivering better value and this snapshot as well so combined they're coming out of the same themes Are there any other questions for Jane on this? No? Okay thank you very much for that Jane for those two reports and I'd like now to invite the committee to note the significant progress to date of the implementation program following the all-age disability disability review as in appendix one I will move it can have a seconder thank you Judith and can we agree by a cent? Thank you I will now move on to the last item on the agenda which is the work program I don't propose to go through it in any detail and we've been through this and we've thrashed it through quite a number of times and it's quite comprehensive unless any members have got anything to add to it or they wish to note on it um I'll move straight from that and ask that we note and comment we don't need any on that just to review the items for future consideration on the work program allow move it and can I have a seconder Chris thank you and can we agree by a cent? And before we close the meeting I would just like to say this is goodbye to our outgoing DCS Simone White and to thank her for her long service in particularly in a very demanding role as the director of children's services and to wish her wealth in her retirement and I'd personally like to say thank you very much Simone for all the support that you've given me as chair and wish you well in the future and welcome to Elizabeth Hartley our new DCS who will be taking up the gauntlet in April and I'd just like to finish by saying thank you very much to all the officers for tonight and thank you very much for to the committee and if I'm chair next year we'll see you all then if i'm not I'll try and be on children's sir anyway but thank you very much [BLANK_AUDIO]