The Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting on 17 December 2024 will receive reports on Children Missing Education (CME), the implementation of the Valuing Care Approach, and the Panel’s work programme for 2024/25.

Children Missing Education

The most significant item on the agenda for this meeting is likely to be the report on Children Missing Education.

The report pack contains a report that will provide Councillors with an update on Children Missing Education. The report defines CME as:

‘Children missing education are children of compulsory school age who are not registered pupils at a school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school.’

The report pack goes on to list the responsibilities of the Council in relation to children missing education, and notes that the council has a:

statutory duty to identify and support all Children deemed as Missing Education.

The report pack then presents a number of statistics about the number of children who have been identified as missing education over the last three years, broken down by a number of characteristics.

The report pack then reproduces a number of questions from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman's report Out of School, Out of Sight, and then answers those questions. The answers provided cover topics such as how the council identifies children missing education, the links that the council has with other organisations and the process for referring children for support. The report pack claims that:

WCC has strong links with all maintained schools and academies.

The report goes on to say that the council is working to improve its links with independent schools.

The report pack also notes that the council has a statutory duty to arrange alternative education. The report pack explains that the Council uses a:

quality assured preferred provider framework

to find alternative provision for children who need it.

Finally, the report pack lists some lessons learned by the council in recent years, and some information about improvements that have been made to the service.

Valuing Care and Foster Carer Remuneration

The report pack contains a report about the implementation of the Valuing Care Approach. The report notes the challenges faced by the council in finding placements for looked after children:

Like many other local authorities across the country, Worcestershire has been facing significant challenges in relation to placement sufficiency within our fostering service.

The report pack then sets out some data about the number of fostering enquiries that the council has received in recent years, and the number of those enquiries that have resulted in an approval. The report pack also contains some information about why fostering applications did not proceed to approval.

The report pack then describes the council's use of IMPOWER:

Between June – September 2024, WCC and WCF commissioned IMPOWER to support Worcestershire Fostering to implement and embed two work streams

The report pack describes some of the savings that have been made as a result of the work with IMPOWER.

Work Programme

The report pack contains a copy of the draft work programme for the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Panel for 2024/25. The draft work programme lists all of the topics that have been scheduled for discussion in future meetings, as well as a number of other topics that may be added to the work programme at a later date. The draft work programme includes items about the scrutiny of the 2025/26 budget, an update on the SEND Local Area Partnership Priority Action and Improvement Plan, and a report on the performance of Home to School Transport.

The draft work programme also lists a number of possible future items. Among these items are reviews of the sufficiency of SEND school places, the impact of screen time on mental health, and the council’s approach to the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub, often known as a MASH¹.