Transcript

Well, it looks like we're ready now. So, good evening, everyone. Happy New Year. I would like to welcome everyone to the Children and Young People's Street Meet Commission this evening, the 1st and 25th. I want to remind everyone present that this is a formal meeting of Active Council and all the constitutional requirements for Council meetings apply. Please can I ask everyone to remember, whether you are in the Chamber or connecting virtually, that this meeting is being held in public and is being broadcast live via the Internet. The rights of the press and public to record and film this meeting apply, and everyone present should note that media representatives may be in attendance for viewing the live stream. Moving on to item one, apologies for absence. We have a number of apologies received from Councillor Billy Lubbock, Councillor Clinton, Councillor Martins, and Councillor Ross. We've also got members connecting virtually this evening, that's Chanel Paul, Councillor Sizer, and Councillor Gaudersfield. There are no urgent items. Moving on to item three, each of the decorations of interest. Do we have any, the members having a declaration of interest? No, sure. In which case, moving on to our first of stands of item this evening, item four, Cabinet Q&A. Under the agreed protocol, Cabinet members attend annually for Q&A with respective scrutiny commissions. The scrutiny commissions may select up to three areas for questioning within the Cabinet members' portfolio. This evening, I would like to welcome Deputy Mayor Bramble, who is a Cabinet Member for Education, Young People and Children Social Care for her Q&A. The three areas of questioning selected by the Commission for this evening are children in temporary accommodation, engagement with children and young people, and school inclusion. If you take one area at a time, if you take one area at a time, you get to Mayor Bramble responding to each area of questioning for five to ten minutes, then we can have a Q&A with members afterwards, followed by questions from members thereafter. Can we start with temporary accommodation, please? Thank you, Chair, and Happy New Year, everyone. I hope you can all hear me. It's that time in the chamber to use your outside voice inside, Chair, if it's the way that we, if at any time, can't hear me. So, in terms of children in temporary accommodation, you know, we are concerned with the amount of children that we have in temporary accommodation. You're talking on average about 3,900. I think when there was a check on the 31st of December, the exact figure then was 3,954 to be precise, including children in and out of borough. And as the housing crisis continues, those numbers may unfortunately increase over time. The new government has made a commitment to build social housing, and of course, we welcome that. But as you know, with building houses, there is a delay when announcements made and actually those properties come into realisation. It isn't a Hackney problem, it is a London-wide problem, and London Councils actually did a piece of work and saying approximately 90,000 children living in temporary accommodation, which on average is about 21 children, maybe in every class. So, yeah, in every classroom across London, maybe you see on average maybe at least one child that's homeless, unfortunately. And you wanted to know a bit about, hold on, the second part of the question was on average how long it takes, how long that happens, how long children are in accommodation. It isn't as straightforward to be able to monitor that information currently as it stands due to the ICT system that they are using. But because you can't track, and there's no easy way to track from accommodation to accommodation. What they can track is the last accommodation that they are at. And so on average when they've done that, when they've looked at 545 households with children in them, those households on average was about three and a half years a chair. And of those, 341 were placed in Hackney, and of that 331 were then placed in social housing, and 10 were offered support for private rented homes. So the second part of the question was around looking at the local strategy and identifying the targets of support. I mean, first of all, I'll go into some of the things that might face children that are in family accommodation. So things around their mental health and wellbeing, for example, they may feel more anxious. But there's opportunities for them to use our universal services. And we've got the Cavs Alliance CEO Transfer Team that looks about how they map and work with partners to make sure when children do have that medium. You know, education, education may be constructive because they may have to go to a new school out of that cycle of going from primary to secondary school, school or even transition from one key stage to the next. So there's that added layer as well. And technical education will support rules in anything that they need if they say that they need support with children that are in TA. Around spaces to play is, you know, you take that for granted. And what we did in the past that I knew that we did is that on a temporary accommodation on their bulletins, bulletin walls, there's information around our facility. As you know, our events playgrounds are still free and open. They have indoor and outdoor provision and children do receive. They're reviewing that at the moment. Let me go up a bit more on to some of the strategic work that we've got. So we've got the health team and they work across the council with different teams. And they also work with the moving on team. And as a result of that, they work with families. When they come in, they let those families know around all the benefits that are available. So whether it's around grants, whether it's around money for rent or the benefits that are available. All of those things are managed by that team. There is a working group and it looks at how as a council, we can work even more closely around what it looks like to support families that intend to accommodation. I know that officers are trying to work through this. I think that the health system and our system doesn't always talk to someone. I don't think that's anything new that I'm talking about in terms of the world of ICT. So they're thinking about how do we get to pull together all of the information that we have to be able to support those children and families to be supported in the ways that they need. The health team won't necessarily know if you like family lessons and free accommodation. But if that is identified, they will then focus on it and offer the support that might be needed. But equally, because of the nature of the work that they do, once families access them, that support is wrapped around them. Shall I go on to the next? Do you want me to go on with the strategies now, Chet? Do you want me just to move through it? Okay. So one of the things that we've talked about, do you want to know about the local strategies? Well, the partners across health, education, children, social care, early health, benefits, housing prevention, policy and strategic delivery all come together to work collaboratively. So there's lots of parts of the council thinking about how we support those families. So there aren't an extensive knowledge around the health needs of those families. Remember, I told you that the data doesn't necessarily link. So you've got to think about how we pull that information together. Also, the North East London Integrated Care Board, which is called NOW, is working with the Integrated Care Homeless Health Strategy team to think about a pool of support that they wrap around our families. And education teams exploring how they engage with the partners around working with schools. And I know that TA accommodation is now being added to the app that we've got. So we've got this app in education. And if you have temporary accommodation, that's on there as well now. Families are not automatically offered support because they become homeless, because different families come into homelessness for different reasons at different times and at different levels. And one doesn't want to make the assumption because you aren't having accommodation, you necessarily need a statutory intervention. I think it's just more important as a local authority that the support mechanisms that we have in place are well known to those families at any given time. So one of the things that is really, really beneficial is a newsletter that goes out to families and let them know, for example, where there is free food available, hot food, for example, benefits, programs to support you if you're thinking about going into the private sector, how you can gain support. Those are just some examples of the offer that is there and that is given to them. There is also there was a drawing that was run back in November, I think the 25th of December, and that was in the edge. And that was after consultation of speaking to families and practitioners. The council thought it would be good to have a drop in centre, I think over 35,000 families approximately attended that with different organisations there to signpost, discuss and to talk. And on the 22nd of January, they're going to be re-evaluating that and thinking about what needs to be different or what more needs to be added to that offer going forward. So there's some real proactive work. Practitioners and healthcare officers are working with the voluntary sector and thinking about how to support children and families there. And there is a warm and welcoming community space drop ins as well, and families can get vouchers, for example, support with fuel allowance and food for children. And our primary care partnerships are also involved in that work as well. I'll go on to the last point, Chair, which was around, it was about the size of accommodation and what that looks like. What I would say is that our teams are always working hard to make sure that we source the best possible accommodation we can for our children and families. And basically, the size of the properties that you have in the Ontario Accommodation, that is legislated by government in the Housing Act, and it was looked at in 1985, 96, and more recently in 2004, and it sets out the requirements. And then the council's procedure is to follow that in terms of placement. So with that being said, as a local authority, we're always looking to go beyond our statutory requirements. We don't just think, okay, that's a requirement legislator, always thinking, well, what more can we do? And what does that look like? We make sure that we follow the setting standards accredited scheme to make sure those properties are aligned with our values for our residents. And as I said before, we always, where we can always look beyond the minimum requirements, what is going on. The challenge with London, and particularly Hackney, is that the properties that we need and the size that families, some families are, there just isn't the availability of the office offering. And then the third part about the TA was talking about the offers to families and placements within the borough. So those families that are eligible for temporary accommodation in the borough will provide support around the engagement, engaged Hackney. And this is a housing related team that is a service that supports families. It's facing all the many other agencies that I've spoken about before. It's for 18 plus for those who live in the borough. And their offer is either that they visit someone in their home. It can be virtual or that person, if they eventually can come into Hackney and have that meeting. And again, they're always flagging the temporary accommodation newsletter, which is really, really important. And then previously, you'll know this chair. You also looked at this piece of work as well, and made some really helpful recommendations. I think the real challenge and what's really disappointing is that the private sector is shrinking. I know that Hackney has done a lot of campaigning to try and move that forward to make that improve. But it's becoming more and more expensive to get our tenants into private housing, temporary housing. So that is really really frustrating to continue to do that. There is a cost pressure of about 19,000 when you think about temporary accommodation. And that possibly by the end of this year could rise to 28 million. So it's something that we're always thinking about how to navigate. So the council is committed to reduce temporary accommodation, of course, to mitigate the increasing supply. So what can we do to encourage the private sector to work more closely with us? And to review the benefits and housing homeless prevention service and evaluate the effectiveness of preventing homeless. Because homelessness, we spoke a lot about what's in place. But it's always that one step back chair before people get into that race. To think about what we can do to support and to help them. I'll pause there, chair and take questions. Thank you very much, Dr. Rumble. Members of the Commission. Right, I've got Councillor Gordon and then Councillor Charlton, please. Thanks very much, Dr. Mayor Bramble. Can people hear me? Yeah, so around 3,900 children living in temporary accommodation for an average of three and a half years is, you know, it's a really sad situation. Behind all those stories is, you know, really difficult individual circumstances. And I'm sure we've all got that in the forefront of our minds. So thank you for your outline of the, you know, the services that we are providing to these families. In terms of focusing on the children, just wonder whether you could tell us anything more about how much we can do to ensure that these families move as little as possible when we're in temporary accommodation. I know there's a number of factors, but obviously, you know, changing schools and changing locations is just going to disrupt their lives even more. And, yeah, so, yeah, sorry, I did have a second question, but it's just totally, totally gone out of my, out of my mind. I hope you'll come back. Can we take that? Yes. Troughton, please. Thank you, Councillor Bramble, for that thorough briefing. I just wondered, in terms of accessing private sector housing, what are the principal barriers to accessing good quality private sector housing? And what sort of incentives does the council offer the private sector, you know, to encourage, you know, and increase the offer? Because I'm very conscious, you know, from residents in temporary accommodation that I see in my ward, they tend to be offered low standard accommodation, there is much better standard accommodation available. Is it a question of affordable, is it a question of affordability, you know, what, what are the principal barriers, perspective? So, so in terms of family mitigate and ensure families move as much as possible, I think it's that it's when a family first arrives in our, in our care that needs support, it's making sure that even in that temporary placement, it's able to meet the needs of the family, so that they don't have to move. Sometimes families have to move, sometimes families have to meet because their circumstances change, whether their family is growing, or if any, or anything around, you know, unfortunately, there's a DV case within the midst of a temporary accommodation, there are things that are out of our control. But I think it's that first time placement, ensuring it best meets the family's needs, to ensure they don't move as many times as possible. I think private sector barriers and housing, I think, I think, what it is, is that London is very sought out, we live in a fantastic city, I think Hackney's one of the best cities, places in London to live, and I can understand why people want to live here. I think what it is. I think what it is, Kathleen, that there is, you can, you can rise the rent to meet the demand. So, for example, in my humble opinion, you're not always paying for the best quality of provision, you're paying for the demand. And what you're finding is that owners can set a price, and people can meet that, and a lot of the time it's people that maybe don't have families that are coming into London for work, but, you know, at a different time in their life. And I think that's what we're competing against, people that have those disposable incomes, is what we're trying to come against. So, yeah, yeah, 4.3% of London's privately owned homes as well. So, you know, people can charge what they think they want to charge. And because that market is there, I think we need to think about how we meet with housing associations and also private landlords. I know that one of the things I remember Ricardo talking about when we first came in the post, which might seem quite a long time ago, is how do we meet and work with the private sector? How do we have that dialogue? What do we have that conversation with? But I think it's that ongoing lobbying that the council has been doing about private rented sector and thinking about the legislations that we need to put in place to combat that. Because obviously, you know, we're not against any individual person charging rents and having an income. But actually, just to be able to charge any price because you can meet the barn while we have families in these is a continuing challenge. I'll pause it. Sorry, Chair, would you mind if I just asked a follow-up question on that? Councilor Fenwell, is it the availability or the price that is the barrier? And if it's availability, how do we reach out to the private sector? You know, I mean, they're not all housing associations. They're not all sort of multi, you know, there are small landlords, you know, maybe owning one, two or three properties. How are we actually engaging, you know, the range of providers, potential? Thank you. I think the big thing is the availability and especially for larger families where you want maybe three, four beds, you know, that availability is quite limited in happening sometimes in the private sector. And also, again, the price as well, it's sometimes it's more because of the way the government set up, you know, if you're because of the change in the legislation of the housing benefit as well, that's been capped. So we can now place families outside of borough to be able to meet within that barrier in that affordability and we can't place them in Hackney. We're not able to subsidize that as well. So that would be that that is a challenge as well. So, you know, it's frustrating because you see people that have been in Hackney through the very challenging worst of times and not being able to stay in the borough when things are very difficult. We're not saying it's perfect that there are really huge transformations in this borough and those families are not able to always capitalize on that because they've had to move. And it's it's it's something that always saddens me. Thank you. Jack, if you want to come in and then I'll have a couple more questions. So just conscious that we've got, you know, 50 minutes of this item, so we've got about five minutes left and we've got two questions. So we might need to get to get to the questions quickly. So there are about 2.7 million family households living in private accommodation in London. And then the last couple of years has been a 5% reduction in private rented properties. So there's a lot of their properties. So that means the stock that's available to families to rent independently is shrinking. But also the council's looking for temporary accommodation stock. The balance has also shrunk. So I think that there's some research that said it's a 41% reduction in the number of London properties available for private rent since the COVID-19 pandemic. So what's the whole capital? That's a huge squeeze. And of course, the cost of larger and private rented larger properties for private rent is prohibited to many of our families. So it's a huge issue. Thank you, Jenny. Council Sizer and then Council filming, please. Thank you. And thank you, Deputy Mayor Bramble, for all your work on this. Quick question about what we're doing in terms of the emotional support. I know you've begun to touch on it, but if you think of the, was it one in every classroom will have a child experiencing this? There's huge potential for social stigma. So just thinking in terms of what the wraparound support that we can be providing emotionally. And is there any room for any form of peer support with these cohorts? Thank you. And look, if you can take a second question. Yeah, probably related to what Councilor Sizer's question is, is what's the role of family hubs in providing support and continuity for these families? Thank you. So those children will access support through WAM, so which is the wellbeing and mental health service within schools. And they are located within our schools and they are best placed to give that support to not just school, the child, but the family as well. And I've, I've actually gone in to see how it works and I spoke, had the opportunity to speak to a family who'd benefit from that support. It does make a difference. They are also supported, as you rightly referenced Councillor Gordon, through the family hubs. And that is exactly what the idea of that was. I know that we had it as a manifesto commitment even before the government looked at that, at that scheme. And it's really a positive thing that we've been able to realise that in Hackney. So they are able to support it in that way, Councillor Sizer. But I must say that there is a tier under that in terms of if, if that is known to a school, i.e. if the parent discloses that, that school will put in bespoke support for that child and work with the family. Any general work that Jason and his team will do will be general support. Because a school may not be informed that the child is in temporary accommodation. And, you know, that is okay. That child may not want anybody to know. Or the parent may not need to know. But when we do know, that's the kind of support that can be in place for that family. Thank you. And this is perhaps more of a comment than anything. But just around, I think, often, come back for us as a commission just around, things like data is king, right? And having the ability to share that data. I appreciate the complexities around, you know, you can't just be sharing personal information about families. You know, if everybody has the right to have the data to take something, not for that to have to be, you know, shared unless they want it to be. Also in the back of our minds would be the very simple stories that we've heard of, you know, children turning up really late for school every day. And because they've been moved out of borough or calling to sleep in class because they're, you know, travelling, it's taking a long time to travelling to school and then coming in to get detention or exclusions. If it's persistent challenges or not being able to use the only iPad in the house to do their homework because their sister is on it doing her homework and or not being able to sleep properly because sharing a bed. And how do we, how do we ensure that if these children are going on to be treated because the circumstances are always not to be known. How do we ensure that we're able to sort of to collect the data that we need to have and to use it effectively to make sure that we're able to see the real impact of the temporary accommodation. I know that it can be in combination with other factors and so on, and temporary accommodation might not always be the key challenge or complaint, but how do we ensure that we don't end up in a situation where we might have children who have been excluded, for example, for persistent law-breaking, when actually we track back and we find that many of the transgressions were connected to the fact that families fragmented, temporary accommodation, not enough space, travelling in too far. It's a bit of a comment really, more than a question, but I think it's something that I'd like to see us improving on. Or even looking at the children that we have, if we have teens around a child, children who come into children's social care, where they can look at where they are coming from and the connection between temporary accommodation and their circumstances. So, Chair, before I go on to that, the Woodley Down Wetlands Children Centre Hub, that's a really good example of what's happening there. So, just Google it on the website. I wouldn't necessarily say that those children are hidden. I think when it comes to attendance in schools, actually schools are quite laser-focused on attendance. You know, even I know of cases where, for example, schools will want to work with families around getting children to school. I think once the school is aware of the reasons for that child's lateness. So, for example, if a change of address is shown, it is evident to the school why that child is late. So, they will put mitigating circumstances in place. There's also been a change to our attendance and admissions school. And, Chair, I know that you will love this because I know admissions is a bugbear of yours in terms of what can we do better. But there is a change that if a child has moved from the school in terms of temporary accommodation, we'll make sure that the siblings can go to either that school or if they want to stay at the other school. Those mitigations are put in place to make sure that we're doing the best to support the families around that time. So, yes, in terms of the data, the schools may have those numbers of children in terms of knowing when they've had change of address. And it's looking, as you say, more closely around how we track that. And then we have got all of those teams that are working across the council. And it's how we pull all that data together to make sure we're doing the best to strengthen the information around those families. Thank you very much. On to the second question, please. Again, just conscious of time and hopefully we'll be able to get through the questions and some answers. I think it's just that we, you know, rightly so, there's lots we are doing and it's right that we'll ask us about it. So I first just want to thank the Chairs and Co-Chairs of Hackney Young Teachers. Commission, I will say, if you give young people a platform, they'll not only tell you what's wrong, they'll tell you how to make those solutions. And as you will know, we spoke to 2,500 young people or just over, and we are working through those recommendations. So what I would say is that there's been a summary report that's been outward facing for our young people. And that's on the, on the website, making sure that, I think one of the key things that young people wanted to ensure is that these were embedded throughout the council. So 35%, which is 26 of our recommendations are embedded and is what we say is business as usual. What does that mean? It means the council has found a way to make sure that when a young person's now made this recommendation, it's custom and practice with the organisation. It doesn't need a team leader. It doesn't need finances. It doesn't need me to be constantly speaking to that service or other members about what's going on. Councillor John Thomas, as a lot of this has crossed over their portfolio, has been very active in this piece of work as well. 50% of the recommendations are in progress. So that means that we've found a way to say, this is how we're going to get this to work across the council. And we're working through that as, as, as we, as we speak. So a couple of examples, you might want to hear is that the commission, a young people were saying, well, you're talking about housing with the young people's voice. So they worked with the T. R. R. A. Association or the T. M. O. management organisations. And now there is a young hack me legacy. And there's a forum for young people to talk about housing and how to get their point across. That's one organisation there. And they also talked about employment opportunities. Obviously, you wouldn't expect our young people not to challenge us about that. And as a result, the council has had an initiative where they provided 50 work experience placements. And over five weeks, 24 council teams were involved, which I think is absolutely amazing. And 85 work experience opportunities. And that's been really successful. 55% women. It's really important for your reputation. 34% were children on peaceful meals, which is important. 48% were from black and young majority backgrounds. And 8% of those were from children's special educational needs. I have to say, though, within the data that we collected, 60% of, no, about 40% of young people just didn't want to say what their background was, which is fine. So there's going some examples. I think there has been a real appetite to help to support this piece of work. But I think there had to be a shift in the organisation. We all think that we want to hear from young people and working young people. So when they suggest something that is out of the norm and out of the veratic way that councils work, there has to be an adjustment period. We all think about that. But I think the council has responded well to that. And as I said to you, I listed some examples of how we've been working differently. One of the bigger pieces of work that I think that came out of this as well is that we had Rhys, which was our young person, that was a temporary manager that worked within the organisation as well. And that, I think, was a turning point in the council to say that actually we can have no leaders, we can have their management, we have to work differently. And I think that he did really, really well in that role and that piece of work which he championed. I think that the reason why his role wasn't full time is that he was made to embed and make sure that work is across the council. So in effect, I'm not really the lead member anymore. Every lead member across the council now champions that within their portfolio. Every group director is now tasked with ensuring that within their area of the council that this work is met. So plans for the future. I think one of the key things you want to know is how outside of young happening, how do we speak to young people? And there's a marriade of things that we do. There are focus groups that we meet with young people. I talked about the reps that speak on housing issues and that forum as well. There's lots of engagement in the voluntary sector in terms of doing, we've got a young governance program. So that was something that was tasked. Young people were saying that, look, governance, where's the young boys? Everybody is not young. So when we did our young governance program, overnight, when we got young governors, not only did we change the age, but we also changed the ethnic makeup of our governing bodies because, you know, governing bodies were predominantly white. There's nothing against that. But actually, it's really important that there's a healthy mix. And actually, one of our governors is the first young governor who is the chair of St. Newington now. And that's Shakila. She led this piece of work as a co-chair. So I just think that when you listen to young people, you can make such a dynamic difference. So one of the things that we're looking at is how the Hackney Youth Parliament can champion this work and also challenge us as a council. So it's an added responsibility in their work going forward. Another way that we engage young people is Hackney of tomorrow. So our young council, their boys and having them. What does that mean to them? They took over our current board, Jackie, do you remember? And they were just brilliant. They're very funny. I mean, I think I'm funny. My family doesn't think I'm funny, but I think I'm funny and that's enough for me. I mean, they were just hilarious, but they were just able to articulate, command the meeting. But I think, Chair, this is not really related, but the most profound thing that a young person said is when officers took them on holiday, it really opened their eyes. And they were parents and they said that helped them set the aspiration for their child. That actually meant so much to them. They were going to do everything within their power to make sure their child had that experience. There is paid work as well for our young people to advise us across the council as well. And Healthwatch are making a commitment to work with young people. They have done some work in developing our youth hubs and the mental health work that we're doing across the system as well. So I'm going to pause there. Oh, I think the last bit was around engagement with the community. So Interlink is one of our 11 providers and they work as a framework to then interface and get a variety of input from the community. Because as you know, anyone who knows anything about the community, there are different sets of organisation, people's favourites, relief. And it's really important that if you think, if you look at it as one of our 11 groups, we fail because it's very, it's very different. So we use Interlink for that and we work with the ecology sector around other ethnic community groups to make sure that our voices are amplified and heard. But we're always looking for different ways to engage. I'm going to pause the chair. I think I was asked for them before. I did the time myself, so I won't say that for definite. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Any questions? Any questions? It comes to the system. Am I right? Not to put my... Yeah. People can hear what I'm saying. Thank you very much, Dr. McBride. It was very interesting. I wanted to ask about how we can do it in a much more formal way and get established infrastructures like our youth clubs to engage and involve with service delight, design and delivery, because we don't just want young people's participation and representation. We want their involvement and their influence. So working from externally, how can we do that? And also in respect of school forums, how could we access school forums to, again, engage, influence and become involved, not just the participants? I wonder if you could just talk a bit more about the factors? Thank you very much. Thank you. So I think the co-design has been evident throughout. So when we talk... When I talked about the youth forum where our own people were talking around housing, that was co-designed with them, because they were saying this is an area. It was brilliant. We've got to read the report. They're telling you what to do. I mean, it's so... It was really empowering. So there was lots of co-design in that. So lots of the new... Lots of the newness that I referenced were working with young people. All of that was co-designed with young people, because it wasn't in existence before. So that was a really good opportunity to have a co-design. And actually, I think it's a really good format going forward. I don't know about you, but you know sometimes when you're filled with ideas, you get so carried away that actually, you can easily forget the people that you want to work with actually that this works for you. Is this the right way to go? But because of the work that we're doing with Young Future, because it was so new, and the council hadn't done it before, we had no choice but to co-design. And what we're going to do is we're going to set up an integrated commission service to make sure that everything that we do is around co-design and how we work with young people, going forward and making sure that people's voice is present throughout. One of the things that's new as well, when you talk about co-design, they sit on Instagram and employ young people. Don't have no TRC questions, so be prepared. I mean, so when you talk about co-design, even when you're talking about staffing across the council, they have an input in those senior staff as well. Schools forums, and we haven't thought about how to make that in a more formal setting, but many of us within our roles go into schools and speak to school councils. And when we go into schools, and myself and the mayor and others, council sider in her new role as Senate champions, we talk to school councils and we plead that back. But I would encourage you, who are elected members, when you go to school and speak to school councils, just plead that back, because that is just a really simple way to formalise that intel and bring that process closer back to the councils. Thank you very much. That's important. I mean, I think we'll have to move on to the next. Thank you very much, Secretary Mayor Bramble. I can remember when Germaine and Shrekila were presenting to us, and they, I think the phrase was that they said there's no such thing as hard to reach younger people, there's just, we're not going to be where the, where the other people are. And you've really helped me describe quite a few sort of structures for engaging with diverse young people with different perspectives. But with all due respect, those do sound like sort of forums for young people who are, who do want to engage with things. And that's not necessarily all young people and their, you know, their views are also such as really valuable and, you know, they have different perspectives. Is there any ongoing work really on, you know, engaging with perspectives of young people who don't necessarily want to come forward and shape, and shape the services, as, you know, as an aspiration, if that's an aspiration. Councillor Goulden, you're, you're absolutely right when we use that phrase. And I can't even think of my mother when you said that, because she doesn't like hear that phrase at all. It's just like, no one is hard to reach, and it's reaching in the wrong way. So when we initially started the commission, one of the things that I, that I wanted to include was children that were excluded. And also, as part of this piece of work, I wanted us to speak to children that are young people that have been in the criminal justice system or in, or as part of that process, because actually, no young voice should be off limits. But also, it's how do we get children that just wouldn't naturally go to those places, not because of any of the other reasons that I mentioned, but actually, it's just not where they feel comfortable and shy. And we're constantly reimagining those, those ways. And we're asking young people, what does it, what does it look like? Is it, is it an event? Is it, is it something on Snapchat? Is it? So we're constantly, constantly thinking about how to do that. And it's, it's constant. And there's, there's, it's more like a suite of tools that you'll use rather than any given strategy, because it changes every now and again. I'm not on Snapchat, but I know that's a big way to get information to young people. But just come in, thank you to Mayor Bramble, there's such a lot for you to cover tonight. So it's amazing. It's in terms of those, the comments that Shaquille and Jermaine have made about no young person is hard to reach. The young hackney restructure is taking into account the need for better coordination of activities across hackney for young people. Because we recognise that we're not always a provider of choice for every young person. So in their, in their restructure, there are particular posts, and they have a coordinated, coordination, responsibility for youth groups and youth activities on our kind of locality footprint. So, you know, much to say footprint, as do the Child and Family Hub. So you've got four people who are responsible for that. And we think that will improve their reach. And the other opportunity we've taken through, is Deputy Mayor Bramble, and we've referenced, is our inspirational commissioning service. The head of service started last week. And it will be fully staffed by the end of spring. And one of the things that we built into the design of the service is engaging children and young people in the commission activities. So not just the commission activities, but the quality assurance of the commission activities and also the contract management. So that's very much part of the service design. So, yeah, their voices will be there. And they will be part of the episodes. Thank you so much. And that's a terrific remark. And then I think we're going to move on to the last question. Thank you, Che. Thank you, Dr. Rambo. Really glad to hear about the update and the input of young people. I'm really pleased to hear about the young government. It sounds incredible. So really well done on that. What a great way to get young people to know about the democratic rights since young age, especially when impacting across the country, voting and electoral engagement is quite well at times, or more often than not. Can you tell us a little bit more about the democracy week, which has been, I think, quite a successful initiative. Personally, a few in Open College that we haven't managed to get into that week. We wanted to go to schools. But it seems really important that this is not just a week, and maybe a permanent sort of initiative that happens across this school. Thank you. Thank you. So you're right. Democracy doesn't skip in a week. And if it did, my goodness, I doubt it we could do the business of the council. We already did some of our 12-hour days, and there still isn't enough time to do everything. So you're absolutely right. What does that look like? So within Democracy Week, there's an opportunity for you as elected members to go into schools, talk to young people, whether it's assembly, and or meet their new council. For example, which many of you have done, we're very grateful for, talk about your role as a councillor, and take questions. So there is that program in place. And then at the end of Democracy Week, what is normally hosted by our current speaker, so the last councillor Siser did one, and councillor Siser Adorno did one just recently in the town hall, and I'm holding you with one of our local MPs. And what we always do is invite lots of children and young people into the chamber so they sit in our seats, and hopefully the seats that some of them may want to occupy in the future. And there's normally a Q&A, I've sat on it before in the class, where there's a panelist speaker just talking about what does democracy mean to you, and having that program. Many schools now teach about democracy and Democracy Week, alongside the teaching of British values, but it does talk on democracy. I think it'd be hard-pressed not to find a school now that don't have a school council, they have corporate elections, I've been invited to them, I know that Councillor Rathloman who goes to, I think, New Yorkville School, when they do their geography week. It's part of the curriculum, and schools really embrace that rich diversity within the curriculum, about this is your mandate. I sometimes, when I go into school, say, you know, do write to me, and encourage them to write in to me when we're having a discussion. So, you know, there's lots of opportunities, I suppose, that I'm saying within the curriculum that schools are doing. And, you know, I'm reflecting on that, mainly, while we have democracy, we think about democracy months are happening, so there's a broader period of time where councillors can get in and work out in schools. Those opportunities go, as Jane said, not too much work on our generation tonight, just how we have democracy months, so we just give opportunities for councillors to get in, because it is one narrow and many councillors do work, and if you're not able to do that, which won't be initial at all. I'll pause there, thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. I'm happy to move on. I am. I've got a bit excited to talk about democracy. It's the reason why I still... No, it's all very encouraging to be a councillor. So let's talk about the race and inclusion, Chancellor, which is very, very important. I know councillors for this office, particularly in this area, will be extremely something that you'll be keen to hear about. So at the moment we've got ten schools that have signed up to the pledge, that's nine primary and one secondary. And there hasn't been equal sign up to primary and secondary, and we're looking at that and having a conversation with the secondary schools. What we found, a conversation that myself and the mayor had, with some heads in secondary and Jason and his team, obviously, was they felt like they would want to separate out send and race. And not because they didn't want to do the same, but they felt to tackle that head on and do right by race and send. They wanted just to separate it out and focus on principles on anti-racism. And those teachers are working through that on the secondary head steering room, and they're going to feedback and think about what that looks like going forward. And the reception that we had when we launched the charter, we got lots of positive feedback. I think the energy in the room was about, there were now principles and practical ways forward of how we could implement these standards when you're thinking about education around red and equality, which is really important. And I talked about the chairs, the secondary heads chairs, and they're going to discuss those principles in a bit more, in a more detail. What I would say is there's a real willingness within the schools to participate in this. And I don't think that I'm being unfair if I say, actually, that readiness wasn't there in a way that it is now. And that's a really positive thing to say about our schools. And equally, there'll be principles around STEM and making sure that we implement that in the same way. The other part that you wanted to talk about was promoting inclusion in science with public sector and quality of duty. So the schools, this was around behaviour policy, wasn't it? And schools participating in the Behaviour and Wellbeing Partnership of the deputy heads and the deputy heads lead on that piece of work. They meet regularly and they share best practice across the organisation and looking at those principles about what that has. It also includes the emotional-based school non-attendance team as well, which we talked about. We touched on attendance at different reasons. So it's looking at that, you know, if a child doesn't want to go to school. I mean, let's be honest, some of the people don't always want to go to school. I remember when I saw a child in reception, and they loved them when they realised this was it now until they were 11. They weren't so keen anymore. They act like normal. But when there are real reasons why children don't want to go to school, it may be... It could be a simple thing where you go back to temporary accommodation. You're in a friendship group of five. It's your turn to host a sleepover. You're not going to go to school in that week if you have to have a sleepover. So it's understanding the reasons why children don't want to come to school and making sure we can combat that. And there's the principles within that about understanding the reasons for what's going on in the school. So if a child is persistently being structured in class, if they're not respecting authority and understanding barriers, is it because that child just doesn't want to come? Or is it because they know they've got English and English that you are going to read, you have to read aloud? Well, I'm dyslexic. So if I'm reading, it takes a lot for me to focus and read something. And that I do it now. It's something that I've learned to do. So it's understanding that. And actually, because in schools when we're talking about our children approach, you know, our leaders and our schools, they should be aware of them looking for those reasons around that. The governing bodies receive information around this work as well. Our school improvement team, where they go into schools, working on class schools and talk about this. And our re-engagement unit has done some phenomenal work with schools as well. And 97% approximately of our children and young people have remained in school after that interface. The re-engagement, though, I think, I wouldn't say extra million, Jason, but I'm not sure that's the right thing. But basically, that is now free for our school. So before we used to charge schools for it, we've been reinvesting money. I think it's at least one, 500,000. Jason and Jackie are not falling under the desk. I don't think it's that far. I would say a million, million pounds we've reinvested so we could offer that service group to school. As a result, now 34, there's been an increase of 34% of schools that now use that service. So, because we've moved that financial barrier, we've got now the intersection. But because we want to be thinking, we want to be forward leading, so that's great once there's been an issue, we still want to think about how do we prevent children being suited in the first place as well. Thinking about our mental health needs, we think about training for staff and support around that as well. And there's an exclusion team that works around this continuously, thinking about how you support schools and raise the importance of that. So the last one, let me just quickly go on to Ofsted and how we prepare that and take questions. So they're always trying to bring things from Jason and in Boston. I think sometimes I go to type an email and there's an email information for me. Oh, if I ever do send it in, it's not very long after I get that information. So there are offices within the education team that go through that information. And I don't know if you've ever read an announcement from government. Sometimes you are reading it, maybe 50, 60, sometimes 100 pages before you can get into the windows of what you've got to do. But I don't know. Sorry, Chair, that's a bug-bear trying not to maybe the necessity of this meeting. So when that's been gone through, what we make sure is that in the head internally, quarterly meetings, that information is shared. Our school improvement officers that go into schools, that information is shared with them. And it's passed through the school. Our governors are highlighting this piece of information. So basically, every time we interface with our school, that information is shared. And as soon as there's more information on what that framework would look like, that information will be disseminated. Jason has a bulletin that goes back to headteachers, I write to headteachers, occasionally. All that information is also within that bulletin. So there are lots of opportunities. And if there's anything that we feel that we need people to know immediately, we can arrange a one-off meeting. But there are so many places that we interface that actually those meetings seem to be able to inform our school leaders accordingly. We don't actually know, and then all of that information will come out. So we're provisionally prepared for when that information comes and able to respond accordingly. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's good things have lots to update on. I'm just wondering, I've got an initial question if others put their hands up if they want to come in. I will go first. I'm just wondering about if most of our primary schools in the borough are maintained, and we've got nine that have signed up to the charter. Why isn't it all of our maintained schools? And then, and the one secondary school, am I right in thinking that that's our maintained secondary school? Yeah, in which case, you know, again, there's a question mark around, why have the other schools not signed up to this? And what I know that we've explained, but for some, it's around perhaps they're wanting to focus a bit more on race. Not so much then, but what feedback we have so far about the reduced uptake. I can take one more question. I think we've got councillor Sizer, and then I will come to do another round after this, please. Yeah, thank you. I really welcome the splitting of SEND and race, because I think they're two massive topics, and I think it's right to give them that focus. You may well have been very involved in this, but I came across the London Schools report on SEND and inclusion, and I don't know if Hackney was involved with it, but one of the recommendations is about sharing best practice and really supporting each other across London with SEND and inclusion. Just wondering what we've been doing in terms of reaching out to other boroughs around SEND and inclusion. Thank you. So, in terms of mentoring schools signing up, you're right, we've got quite a lot of schools, and we need to encourage more schools to sign up. And I think, you know, we're back now after the Christmas break, we'll go back out to our primary school sector, and we're challenging them to sign it up. And I don't think that's going to be an issue. You know, I'm very proud to say that there's only been, you know, it's disappointing. We've only had one permanent exclusion in primary school over the last five years, and I think that's a testament to the work that the primary school sector are doing to think about how they support our children and young people around meeting their needs and giving them and holding them within the school system to support them in the way that they need. And it's how we make sure we take that learning from them and our schools that haven't had any exclusions for, I think, six years, and how we feed that into our global secondary sector. So it isn't a criticism of our secondary school, but it is definitely highlighting our secondary sector. There are lessons to learn, even if you take into consideration that children are older and have different needs. So patent notification is in close contact with other local authorities and in terms of our network and constantly thinking about how we share best practice and have those dialogues and they continue. And I also do that as lead member as well when we meet with our counterparts in Leeds. I think we had a, I think, I don't know, actually, we did have a meeting just before Christmas in December. Again, that was Leeds coming together thinking about best practice and the challenges that we are facing, whether it will fall in the role now or something about who's done what and what works well and how. I think, is that okay, Cheryl, do you want a bit more detail on that? Yeah, I would like to know if you have a sense of, for our secondary school, is it our maintained secondary school that is signed up and the others have? It is, it is. What I would say is that, I reference before the secondary head, I'm going to call it wrong, but the purpose of the meeting, so I don't be allowed that we call it the skin, if that's not what it's called, which isn't. So, please correct me to the right name. But our secondary heads, when they identified, wanted to step around at SEND and RAISE to make sure they focus on both equally, give both parity and equality, it's very much on the forefront of their thinking. And, I imagine after that, there's an opportunity for us to go back and say, okay, you've decided these principles that you want to apply. Now, let's look at how we sign up before the Charger. And was the Charger developing, was it co-produced with that, Katie? Because, I mean, it feels a bit disappointing that they've, I actually don't agree with the idea that they would be split. In fact, I've been kind to say that we don't even mention race consent, and that it's inclusion because racism has to be central to that. And because of intersectionality, we can't look at one without actually the other, because they're overlaid with both race and SEND and lots of other things that make up inclusion. Because we don't want people to just think that it's just those two things, when it includes a play of a range of different things. So, you know, the inclusion of children in temporary accommodation, which might not have anything to do with race or special education needs, but their socioeconomic circumstances. So, you know, it is disappointing that that feels like a really poor sort of pushback, because it's not focusing on say, well, if race is in there, why might you still sign up for it and be a part of, you know, developing it going forward? So, I don't often disagree with each chair, I do, I do, I do welcome the split of saying race here, centre here, because I don't want it to be, I think if you put them together, you could miss elements in both. I don't know if I've done those sentences as a service. I think now they've done more work on it. They, I think there'll be more willingness to come and sign, sign up. It was co-designed, but I think once they went through it again, they wanted more work done on it. And it was in a gap that was identified and addressed. So, I mean, you know, you've heard me sit in this chamber. I never hold back on challenging head teachers about exclusions. And I've always said the disproportionality is not acceptable. It is exactly the reason why we should have exclusions higher than our counterparts were in London. So, I absolutely say that, but I think on this particular piece of work, I'm hearing heads saying, okay, we want to work with you. We've identified a gap. These are some principles that we want to put in place. I think now they've done the work and they don't sign up and I come back to you. I think you're absolutely right to say this is special disappointment. But I'm going to give them the opportunity now to come on board with this, getting that they have identified that gap and made those changes. Just to add to that, there's been a period of engagement, particularly with the secondary and teachers group in terms of getting them more engaged and involved in what we're doing. So, I think, you know, I would agree with what you're saying that now that we've taken the feedback on board, okay, came a little bit later than we would have liked it. But now that it has come on board, we're right to engage with it. I think you also mentioned this as well as that one of the helpful elements of this is that we can actually work to identify where there is good practice on the board as well. So, work's being done on that too, because I think words exemplified is clear for people in terms of their engagement and sign up. So, we've gone this way so that we can encourage those signups, okay. There, do we have that. Also, just in terms of the exclusion space, I think it's very much right and appropriate to get people to sign up to that as a concept. But also, it comes to challenge as well. So, we still visit all of our schools regularly. There's ongoing dialogues with schools. There is a challenge getting to them where we feel that, you know, working with each other is working differently. We are showcasing elements of good practice, which is why identifying that is key. But also, to be fair, and I've said this quite openly since I started in my post, I think we need to do a better job as a local authority in terms of providing stronger offer to some of our schools in terms of things that they could do. It's an outreach, so early intervention to try and help them address needs in schools so that we don't have to get to the point of suspension and exclusion. And that is a piece of work we're actively engaged in and we'll be developing over the next six to 12 months. So, for swiftness, I'll send the data in terms of exclusion, but you did ask about the data. Basically, in Hackney, for primary schools, our suspension rates are well below the national average, which is fantastic. We still want it to be zero, there's only one in five years, whereas it's a total opposite in our secondary schools, where our rates are well above the national average. So there's a real disconnect in what's happening in our primary schools and when our children become 11 and go into the secondary sector and that experience is looking very different for them. And that's where we begin the challenge. But equally, as Jason might have said, we've now got those headteachers coming around the table and wanting to be very solution focused. I always say there's no data, there's no scientific research that says black children can't behave any differently to white children and black parents can't be any different to white parents on parents. So there's no reason why there should be this disproportionate exceeding rate for a black majority of children. And there's no scientific evidence to say why in Hackney our rate should be so much higher than than anyone else. But I think the key thing to say and go back to where I started, that teachers are coming round the table and wanting to lead this and wanting to see how do we address this. And I think we haven't had that enthusiasm. What's that enthusiasm? Not the right word. I think the level of engagement is a lot more higher than we've had before because they're saying actually we need to be able to address this. Yeah, I can't talk about the figures and the reasons for exclusion if you want, but I can send that in writing chair for the purpose of the time. I think that might be useful. I think we do have to move on. I'm going to very briefly bring in. Mel Woodley and and then we're bringing this item to places. Mel Woodley. Thank you chair. I just wanted to comment on whether it's a chart, a charter or an inclusion kite mark or whatever it is, that these are all essentially tools to kind of retain a sense of dialogue so that we can confront the issues. And you're right. You know, there is an intersectional reason why some of our children don't perform as well in schools or aren't supported as well as they should be in schools. And the the important thing is that that dialogue began with that work around the Charter, that it's continuing as Deputy Mayor Bramble described. But there's also like great advances. It's like it's not a fixed situation. Things are kind of progressing all the time. So whilst we're in the council kind of making quite a lot of progress with the anti-racist work and looking at how to embed that across directorates and can kind of share that learning with schools and their senior leadership teams as we go. Equally work is progressing around inclusion. I think I spoke when I was with you before from that sense perspective, there was a big report that came to London Council, the MIME report, which we in Hackney did feed into to a great degree. And it's looking at that inclusive piece across mainstream settings and how that's supported with additional resource provision and also specialist provision as a whole and ensuring that people sign up to that as well. And with the opportunity we've had with the increased funding from central government, we can go out towards the schools and bring the recommendations from that MIME report to them and really kind of focus in on what we can do around CEN. So I don't think it's neither or. I think it's how you build and build and build and retain that dialogue and bring everyone along with you. So I just wanted to kind of offer that little bit of reassurance. Thank you very much. Thank you, Che. Thank you, Councillor Abram, for the gainful explanation. So members might remember that back in July we brought the invitation for which we have for which we have a follow up meeting if you would be very much looking forward to meeting you all. I just want to check because just actually on the point that the venue has just made about this being a tool. Back in November, back in 2015, the Hackney Council launched a very, very good guidance on no more, no need to exclude guidance. Which is brilliant and easy to really, and we will discuss in our meeting. But just for the purpose of this meeting, is it possible to know the difference between that guidance, which seems to be really thorough and a good sense that you raised to this charter? Because it can be quite proficient to also the schools to sign up to many things and actually not like them all. Thank you. Thank you. So that piece of work was launched, no need to exclude, was around how we, as a school community of the system for parents or family service or black system, how the school community needs to hold and support our children. And when we're saying no need to exclude, we're not necessarily just saying you never get to say to a child, irrespective to what you do, you can always be in this school with this teacher in this circumstance. What we're saying is that if something for some reason isn't going well for a child, what does that look like? And what does that process look like for that child? So you're right. How does this piece work lead to that? And this is just to add on, really, the work we're doing. We want every child to have a positive school experience and we don't want an exclusion to be part of that. And the charter is signing up to or being part of having those principles about how you embed that more within your school community, having a focus, having it across the borough, sharing good practice, coming together and to re-emphasize the importance of it. Because actually, we talk a lot about it, but what we want is for our data to evidence that inclusion. So in our primary schools, when I get to say one child has been suspended in the primary sector, I want to be able to say that about our secondary schools. We are forward leaning towards thinking we have some of the best schools in the country and talk about attainment attainments for our children, young people. That is fantastic. I want the inclusion agenda to reflect that. And part of that is making sure that inclusion, exclusions reduce significantly in the borough. So it's an added tool, hopefully that helps councillors do not, an added tool to ensure that we're bringing the challenge, support, dialogue and engagement in schools. Hopefully help them to improve the data and reflect more in terms of what the primary school they'll be doing. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. I think we're now bringing a slice of time to close. So thank you so much for your contributions this evening. It's always great to do a Q&A because I know that you cover so much ground with us throughout the year and it's a good opportunity for us to pick up the various areas that themes that have emerged during the year and sort of be able to really delve into some detail on them. So thank you very much for your answers this evening. We're now going to move on to item five, which is unregistered educational settings. At its meeting on the 11th of December, 2024, the Commission received an update on unregistered educational settings. From that meeting, the Commission agrees to write to the Secretary of State for Education setting out its ongoing concerns around the lack of regulation for unregistered educational settings and whether provisions in the new Children's Welfare and Education Bill will be sufficient to bring unregistered settings into regulatory scope. This letter was approved today and sent to the Secretary of State as stated before this meeting for members to note. Thank you, Chair. I just read the letter. It's very good. I think we've copied in the right people, but I think going to follow up, we should send it to, if not a selection, if not all, maybe a selection of members in the House of Lords. You know, they're particularly good at spotting gaps in legislation and so on and, you know, lobbying and campaigning around them. That's a good point, thank you, Councillor Charter. Councillor Gordon? Yes. So, sort of a quick point for me. I was just wondering, really, Dr. Mayor Bramble and Jacqueline Jason, whether you've had any sort of meetings, whether we have the officials or are there is sort of, if it is representing Hackney or is part of any professional or local government organisations you're members of in relation to these, these relationships build, you know, and making sure this legislation, you know, gives us the correct powers so that we are in a position to safeguard our children. And also whether, on a collective level, whether any, you know, it may be something that we should do by itself, but any, as part of any organisation, whether there has any sort of thought about instructing lawyers as well to sort of, you know, examine the legislation and sort of stress test it against these particular types of aspirations. I think this is, you know, this is the time to, to influence the legislation while it's going through the House of Parliament. It's our one chance, really, to get this. Yeah. Yeah. And also, as Cass has tried a very powerful, powerful said as well, to, to lobby parliamentarians as well as well as well as we've obviously, we've obviously, copied the letters to be for, perhaps, the MPs as well, I mean, whether, I mean, you know, you know, one of which is, you know, very, very senior minister, you know, as well as trying to get them into the application behalf of our communities. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Just to reassure you, I'm not going to be dealing with the DMP, you know, one of your guests, it's been a standing item on our agenda. But I think now is the moment. So it's being able to really kind of stress the point of why we need it. We also have an annual engagement meeting with all students, because we had that recently. And often this comes up, and the subject comes up about statutory attendance orders, which is really, I think we've discussed it in scrutiny several times. It's the wrong tool to be using here. So it is legislation that needs to change to class the schools differently, which will then kind of open the dialogue with it. It is just important to note, although this is a separate matter, just want to keep this on the agenda as well, that we've got the BAT changes coming in with independent schools. There are a number of a very orthodox tuition dependent schools in the borough, and this could have an immediate knock-on effect in terms of closing those down, which may raise elective home education in different worlds. And we've also, through Jack, if you've requested an independent plan, as well as you will have that bill. And I'm in constant dialogue with directors of education across the country that have correlated communities in it to see it as something that we can do. So both of those items are featuring very heavily on the agenda right now. And in fact, I may need the DfE again tomorrow. So we really just try to get assurance if at all possible. So the layer is well-timed in scrutiny. And Jason has recently met with the leaders in the community to talk about that impact of the DAT. And I've got a meeting shortly with leaders as well. And then I'll meet with Jason after that, just to think about that now we've got that information, can we best share that with government? I think we're all in agreement about sort of maintaining this momentum and the opportunity that we have to essentially, you know, lobby for the changes that, you know, we've got such proximity to this challenge and we understand the potential proposals in a way that perhaps other local authorities might not. And it feels as though we need these conversations. I'm inclined to say, we don't usually do this with reviews when we continually bring them back. And I think the only example of where we need to is where they'll speak in our resolution. And I don't think that we, as a local authority or as a commission, could ever stick here and say that there is a significant cohort of young people in our borough, that we have state-level concerns about people because of their attendance at unregistered settings. we can ever sit here and say, okay, let's take this off the agenda. So I'm inclined to say that we, I'm proposing that we keep this on the agenda and that we also act on what's just been suggested today, which is to try and lobby a sort of range of, you know, MPs as well as mental health supports. And also your point around community groups and, yeah. Yeah. And also, yeah, so that's my proposal for bringing it back. It's a final point. Yeah. It's just another suggestion came to mind that we could ask the mayor or deputy mayor, both of them, to write a letter to the Times, you know, just to raise the profile. You know, I know that would have to go through cons. It's quite unusual, but I think it is so important, you know, and this is an opportunity we, we have to just maximize, you know, it's not unheard of for elected politicians to do that. Just to reiterate my point, I also think it would be well worthwhile for the, you know, either the LGA or the local authorities, if you have a particular interest in this subject, you know, with large sort of parents of children who are in this position, to consider instructing council to examine the bill and whether it feels that the, you know, the legislation, you know, to get an independent union with the legislation is adequate for our needs. Thank you. I think as a part of the concerns raised that could be part of the process. Just to reassure you, I know we have had a recent big meeting about it. We're having this video meeting, but the council has had several meetings on this area of work. And I think it's one of those areas that has a lot of my time that I've seen the least amount of traction and that's frustrating for me. Yeah. Because my expectation is that when I spend time on something, there's some movement. And with this one, it has been something that, you know, we've met a few things, but in Ofsted we've had meetings. And I think you're right. This is the moment where they're looking at legislation and making sure we as a authority give all of that relevant information. So, but also, we've had five and five again, part of those meetings in terms of safety of buildings. I mean, it's been, it's been really, really broad. So even before we go to Cancel, I think in terms of all of the partnership bodies that we work with, there's a degree of information when we talk about the barriers and the challenges that, that we know that exist. But yeah, it is taking it to our legal team and government government, just making sure that we're recommending the right legislation and absolutely willing to explore every avenue. Yeah, I was just going to add, I think our internal legal team would take it from there. I think that's a fair point. Let's make sure that we're not only lobbying but having careful lies on the legislation as well. That is a good point. And governments, and they are very much part of this because we're always, we are always going to then saying who has the statutory or legal powers to intervene at any legal setting at any time once something's been identified? Because it could be fire brigade, it could be school. So yeah, but I think you're right in this point of what does it look like in this moment. Thank you, Councillor Gordon. Thank you very much. We're all on the same page with this one, which is saying that we're moving on now to item six, which is School of State's strategy response. At its meeting on the 26th November, the Commission reviewed the School of State's and Education's sufficiency strategy, together with the proposals to close two schools and learn to further fall over two sites. The Commission agreed to write to City Mayor Bramble accepting our findings and recommendations from this discreeting session. It is hoped that these recommendations will help provide and inform the updating of the School of State's education sufficiency strategy, which is taking place based on what they've been identified. Whilst the report has been completed, the full sign-off of the report has not been possible for publication this evening. The report will be sent later this week and will be published in the February agenda. Moving on now to item seven, which is School Behaviour Policies. Overview and the scrutiny plan supports the policy-making and independent function of the Council's group undertaking in-depth reviews. These reviews allow the Commission to explore complex and challenging issues and generally take place over a period of time to allow members to engage stakeholders with new evidence in detail and make independent recommendations. The Commission agreed to undertaking in-depth reviews for behaviour policies and this draft scoping report sets out the context to its decision, the aims and objectives of the investigation together with its methods of investigation. This will allow the Commission to discuss and prioritise key areas for the review to take forward. The Commission has agreed to undertake an in-depth review of School Behaviour Policies as part of this work programme which makes strength auto-implied. In the next the review, the Commission has developed draft scoping report providing the work of the Commission which is informed and led to this review sets the illegal approach for School Behaviour Policies objective of key national data, objectives for the review and methodologies employed. The draft scoping report is being attended for members to discuss this evening and the sweeping episode will take us through the elements of this report. following the meeting of the Commission will then discuss the key aims and objectives and work plan with cabinet members and senior officers for agreement and finalisation. The final scoping report will be presented at the next meeting on February 26th and 25th. So over to Martin, please. Martin, please. Just to say, so I'm just going to get a bit of a stick on the screen. So we'll take a bit of a thought. So we're just about to discuss this evening. I think there's two key things to start off with about the kind of perspective of the review, which probably just highlighted at the beginning. It was obviously that in terms of behaviour and behaviour in schools there's two kinds of different changes which we need to come back to in in terms of research. And that's still partly evolving. And that's around the impact of the pandemic and how that's that research and how that is impacting on schools. That's still filtering through, but that's still fairly recent. So we need to factor this into our kind of work. The second thing, obviously, is that the changing of government policy, the changing of government policy and obviously the legislation we've got coming through. That will also begin to impact on the nature, say, of how to sort behavioural in the larger school. There's already information about how that might change and be influenced as we go through. So these were two big things right at the beginning, how we need to come back to those things through. Just going through the Stokeman report, what we really wanted to do is just to highlight one of the key things really of our from the study from our piece of work here is about how the work of the Commission has influenced the decision to do this piece of work around school behavior policies. And what we've done here in section two is just to highlight the key areas of the work which the Commission has undertaken in this past few years, to which it led us to visit some things here. And we've got through here our main piece of work, obviously, our piece of news around school exclusions, and specifically what impact that had on the influence of school behavior policies in determining our level of school exclusion, and the impact that that has on children who are excluded. Highlighting the key point there around the role of persistent disruptive behavior in our exclusions policies and how that was used to kind of to the cumulative impact of minor expressions, how that's used to kind of relatively minor expressions, how it's used to exclude or suspend superior. Another piece of work we did earlier on was around potterolle and the connection with the school behavior policies there. And our challenge there is around in terms of children exhibiting some challenging behavior in schools and how they were kind of moved to other schools, or have parents go, but they would have to be taking into collective home education rather than be excluded from school. So, again, it's about how that's managed in schools and what we hope the result from that was much time to monitoring around the higher rates of children moving schools, particularly between years of 10 and 11, where the particular challenges are. So, that's going to have a part of the kind of policy about the education if they do that for a little bit. Also, from the outcome of the exclusions review was that now we monitor all schools all school moves together regularly. So, we look at, we look at not just exclusions and suspensions, but we look at the whole range of how children might be moving in and out of school to understand that better. How children move in alternative division, the numbers children going into collective home education, the number of managed moves that happens, as well as exclusions and suspensions. So, we need to look at that in the round, and that's very important. And we've been looking at that systematically for a number of years through the Commission as well to make sure we have that complete oversight on how children are moving. Obviously, it's self-intended taking safe garden practice review. The specific kind of issues here around which picked up, you know, lots of difficult decisions, the situation, and obviously, it exerts a child here. And just the kind of interface there between the safe garden kind of concerns and the kind of concerns of the child as opposed to the kind of criminal kind of decision-making of how that was overridden by criminal kind of perspectives around that decision-making. So, again, how that's been reflected in the school behaviour policies is what the city and the safe garden practice should be kind of reflecting on. And perhaps that leads to kind of how we look at those school behaviour policies and that kind of view as well in terms of recognising that it's important to have the relevant safety and security that they provide, but making sure the safe garden and the safe and children sit within that as well. We have looked at children's mental health and emotional wellbeing. The kind of need to face between that and school behaviour. I think the kind of critical thing here in terms of what we've had and experienced from those practitioners was that the need to prioritize early intervention, early health and support because that's the kind of less effective way. And obviously not all the interventions around clinical interventions would be supportive, would be effective in helping children who are struggling with mental health and other concerns within the school. And to highlight what we're going to say is about the work of WAMS to make sure that's linked into healthfully behaviour policies. and they're getting other informed practitioners involved in that development as well. Again, that's by influence rather than they can't be asked to be involved in the current processes. One of the pieces here is obviously we've been doing quite recently with around people absent and emotional based on attendance. parents is around perhaps sometimes the rigidity of some of the school behaviour policies and not being flexible enough to meet the needs of children who have quite difficult emotional and mental health issues and flexibility that might need to respond to those children with those specific needs and make those adjustments for those children to encourage and support them back into school. And that's all the kind of you take your apps in there. So let's quickly go on here too. It's really kind of our critical thing which we've probably got to focus on this evening a little bit really is about a range of objectives of the review to make sure this is balanced that also reflects the range of information that we want to focus on the review. So we want to fix this separately to primary and secondary to look at the data in the next section you'll see that there is a substantive change between you know the suspension between our children in primary school and of us in our secondary schools and where we rank within the primary setting as opposed to the secondary setting. So that would suggest there is some sort of change within locally about what that difference is between behaviour policies in primary and secondary and what that transition and that transition support will be. So going through the kind of main kind of objectives here we obviously want to kind of touch on this in the report but we want to understand the legal and the kind of framework for our behaviour of these frameworks to make sure that's clearly kind of set out and understood. We want to understand really about the different models which schools are taking to manage behaviour in school and how that's reflected in the school behaviour policies and understand what that impact that has on our pertains and has on children's education and their personal and social development and what the different impacts of the different models and approaches are taking. Because different schools are using different values and just understanding a little bit more about what those different approaches are and for us to kind of look across and see what that connections are and move across that in terms of how those are driving through schools and what that impact might be. And C really I think what's important is just to look at that kind of evidence and I think it's what is important to see what the impacts of these behavioural qualities are but that has to be done you know in a kind of pandemic I think this is where the research is still evolving in terms of what's happening but this is where the changes have really happened and you know how children are in school and the kind of impact that has in the school obviously there's kind of competing things around increasing kind of poor behaviour but there's obviously a consequence of that there's obviously children at the school who are kind of more definitely included with that because of the additional kind of needs that they might have as a result of the pandemic so it's trying to look across both of those kind of competing priorities there. D and E and there's the few to start reflecting to look at our P stakeholders here is working with schools and school leaders and our school government bodies. School government bodies are going to be key here because they assess the overall parameters and the principles to those school behaviour policies that's what conditions are going to work with so the kids involve those and obviously key points here around our parents and the children as well to make sure they need our people to make sure we engage those fully within the kind of view that they kind of have the perspectives on how well they will engage involve those types of baby policies and some impact that they feel has with them and their children and also the children themselves. So G is one of the key outcomes from our school exclusions is about understanding the impact that positive behaviour management strategies are having with the whole school approach compared to behaviour management seeing what that impact that has assessed the ease of people as well and H really is about the kind of partnership that we have locally in terms of being able to share and support schools in managing their kind of behaviour in schools how we work together with schools to manage that behaviour and how what influence and it's obviously a great deal of knowledge and understanding within the community outside schools and how we could share the influence that for schools as well an idea from this where we want to be able to develop and share the models of your practice within that fundamental that we want to do. I won't go too much into detail here because this is something we're going to do more detail from the review itself but just setting out the legal outlines of the obligations of the school behavior policies and what is in place that is required of the school behavior policies. The school behavior guidance has recently changed this year so schools will still be adapting to that guidance and that's from that but it's not statutory guidance as well as I should point out but these are the kind of information of what schools should be leading to in terms of approach to behavior management in schools. quickly just going on to our data okay just we've kind of covered this but just to make us be sure we updated this data for us so we can quickly see and do that imperative pieces so our own exclusion rates locally in terms of permanent exclusion rates the pattern here is across the board from all areas here it fell during the pandemic and now those all those exclusion rates are picking up again and while we have been exactly open to but it has been higher than both national regional averages now we are still above our regional averages but we are now falling below so the national averages is now higher than us there are particularly high rates of exclusion exclusion and suspension in the north east of England so that's what driving those kind of pieces through if you look at our exclusion rates the permanent exclusion rates amongst other in London boroughs so we this is for all schools this is primary and secondary our exclusion rate is 0.1% so we are just behind Kensington Chelsea which is a specific issue back up here in terms of its highest amongst all the number of viruses but you can see there is quite a wide range of different rates there Canada is 0.01% Canada is 0.01% Canada is 0.01% ours is 0.01% so that is higher and if you look at this in terms of secondary schools and primary schools schools so the number there is very few permanent exclusions across the whole of inner London I think there is only nine permanent exclusions in primary schools across the whole of London in 2020-23 and just a few of those were not handled with others so this when we look at the kind of exclusions rate for our secondary school that can be much higher and again we are typically across here to the higher end and that is still second highest within our 12th comparison so again it is the same as well as well are significantly lower school suspensions have similar pattern of data again it is exactly in terms of we were traditionally higher the impact of our regional and national averages we are still higher than our regional averages but we in other areas of England have now escalated that national average so we are now just below those national averages obviously still higher than our kind of inner London pronounce London comparators the suspension rate for all schools and hackney this is going to primary and secondary we are there to we have 8.2% in Chelsea is still higher so 10.5% as you can see the range there is quite broad there from to across if we go down to our suspensions rate is these rates are much much lower there are much fewer less exclusions in the primary school sector but again you can see there is quite a range there in terms of the rates again in Chelsea much higher 2.3% down to 0.3% interesting our primary schools suspension rate is in the middle to lower range of that I would guess so there is some change that we have between primary and secondary schools in terms of one of the impacts in terms of the school and if you look at our secondary schools here you can see how our rates of suspensions Kenton Chelsea is the highest but we are happening again we have moved rightwards across this kind of average here so we are at the higher end of that range in the London average now just finally this here I just want to outline some of the key processes we will use to reflect in terms of meeting we will use a desktop research and data analysis a hack and white book for evidence dedicated meetings in the commission especially convening meetings focus groups and site visits obviously this case research that's obviously in terms of gathering the evidence that we have through our literature review which will support this and obviously different kinds of experts involved within the review itself what we want to do what we want to do is an important year that's good practice to do at the start of the year is a call for evidence to support and review so that's a good way to reach a range of stakeholders earlier on so that can be young people that can be parents that can be schools that can be teachers that can be gathering bodies that can be gathering to other parties so we can understand what their views and perspectives are on school behaviour in schools it's impacting the table of inclusion and identifying your practice that will help us and inform the commission to really focus on some of those questions and issues as they emerge so that will kind of really provide more background data but also help us to focus in and obviously maximise opportunities for different kind of stakeholders to contribute as well we have two dedicated meetings to this as well so it's our coming up meeting in the 26th of February and the 1st of February is at March and we'll be able to convene additional meetings when necessary but I think what we're specifically thinking here is how we engage people around this and doing a dedicated meeting for that which won't fit with the needs for some top meeting in the evening here so you need more kind of going out to different venues and maybe involving young people in that process will maybe facilitate support them to direct the meeting around those companies as well to maybe hand it more over to them Additionally we're looking to conduct some focus groups for particular cohorts of young people or to run a pair of groups to kind of just to really kind of explore that the data in greater detail and where possible we're looking to do some site visits as well just to see in terms of the practical context of where these things are in school and that could be locally or locally or locally or locally So that's where the summary here to today is just a class we're going to talk about we're going to talk about following this we will as a commission we will lead Council Brandel and Jason to kind of refine and to finalise lots of the our scoping report and then the finalised report will be presented at our first meeting at our first meeting at our first meeting at our first meeting at our first meeting Thank you so much Martin So I have a couple of trousers do you want to come in? Yeah, I just got a suggestion paragraph 33 point F um I think could could could we consider using the word engaged rather than consulted because I I think when children are you know um I think consulted implies something that has you know more or less been decided we're asking what you think of it I think if children can be actually involved in the production of school behaviour policies they're much more likely to sign up to them so just to set the tone of you know that expectation I would like the Commission to support that in principle Okay do you have some so so what we just run into at the moment is if we're you know you know put together quite a comprehensive sort of proposal for our spoken so it's a case of how do we see this about what's in put forward do you have any suggestions of I've got I've got tons up from and then I can bring in others from another yeah thanks very much thanks very much Martin for all the really stated work that you've done on this I think we're in a really good position because we actually do have you know quite extensive evidence-based really to draw on already with with other work that we've done on sort of related topics which have all you know I think it's pointed you know for a considerable period of time to this being one of our priorities I suppose just sort of a few reflections on this but I think it's I think one thing I would like to have in the Stoke really is some consideration really of the sort of underlying values of behaviour management and how they equip our young people not only while they're growing up and you know going through their education but also with you know the sort of skills and resilience to navigate the sort of adult world and that's one thing that I certainly personally do have concerns about whether they give them resilience and flexibilities to you know to be able to make their own sort of decisions really in relation to you know to life and you know navigating different environments that we all have to experience as we go through life so I think I think that's one thing I would like to sort of to include in this I suppose another reflection really is that I think we've you know there are you know and that's really diversity of views among stakeholders relating to behaviour management and some of them you know people have different experiences and different levels of sort of information and I think really one of my aspirations for this is that we don't end up having this as a very polarised discussion I think we've I think we really need to sort of go to each other with respect and it's you know it's something I think we've all got you know both from the Commission and within the sort of local authority and our broader community we've all got the best interests of our of our children at heart so I think it's just really I think I mean I've got generally open mind really about some of the you know some of the aspects of this of this subject and I think we also all need to you know recognise that this you know rules for behaviour within the school community is just like you know rules for behaviour in society and different things they have to sort of balance generally genuinely complex topic with you know lots of different aspects to it and it's not and it's not a simple and straightforward thing I think we need to approach this really with sort of generally an open spirit of genuine enquiry and also an open spirit of respect for the different perspectives that people are coming from here I'm very much agreeing and on the point that you've mentioned around this review exploring the extent in which behaviour policies are setting our children up for their futures approaches I think as part of this apologies Martin I think you've already covered this but I think that when we had an expression as I hope to speak to young people who are older who are maybe 20 and they've been true and so they're now in work or they're now at university because often you know I know anecdotally anyway that I know this is a clear cut it's not as clear cut as this but whilst our academic attainment of our children in the borough has skyrocketed in recent years child poverty is still incredibly high in the borough so I don't know if that means that our kids do really well and then they just leave happy or they're still here and they're struggling to get by I don't know and I you know are they then all sort of succeeding in a housing crisis and you know you've got a great degree but you're working in retail and you're struggling to get onto a housing register I don't know and I think it's really important for us to figure out whether our schools are preparing our children for the future that they can have within the borough or is you know and to the extent to which behavior policies sort of factor into that so I think it's really important for us to speak to young people who have been through our education system and are now 20 and you know in employment or educational training to hear those perspectives would be good for us but yeah I echo the sentiments with Councillor Gordon that we we we've experienced as a commissioner on this topic and I think we need to trust this because it's been something that's been on our agenda for a long time and this is why we're here because we keep coming we keep coming back to this and I think that in the same way in which we've heard we've had some question marks around our policies at various points there's been other pieces of work that we've been involved with where we've spoken to children and young people and their parents that's fantastic work that schools and teachers have done to support a well-being and education and you know attainment and aspirations of children and young people in the borough and I really do want us to have an opportunity to call that out as part of this piece to really get the opportunity to celebrate you know examples of great practices in this area and to see if we can as a borough if we can really get a sense of what what we would like to see happening for not just some of our children that might be expecting experience in this now but but all of our children and young people in the borough and sorry I'm just trying to bring in the classes and then I will come to you if you can support Jason Thank you Chair I just wanted to quickly say obviously I agree there's going to be a young person's and pupil perspective on all of this that thread be strong and also we need school behaviour policies that are realistic and proven to be realistic and I think we also need to look up look at the makeup of school governing bodies so I actually really welcome the Young Governors Program I think that will make a fabulous difference so that's the thing that I would be looking for work as part of the way forward thank you thank you this is all thanks thank you Chair just on the Young Government the Young Governors Program I agree it's been a great success it's about 28 I think posts right now great 100% if we can I think it would be a really wonderful ambition for a second it really does I think have an impact on not only on the Young People but also on the other Governors on that governing body just a few points for me because I have no chance to see this in advance I think just on Section 4 this we've really helpfully quoted some of the legislation around policy I do think it's just important for us to note that behaviour policies behaviour policies are determined by governing bodies of the local conversations influence training and all that but it's really important to make that clear I feel on the second point and Chair I really welcome what we've just said about previous discussions about this and I think maybe the language can be tightened on that if you're going to do this it's really important to capture that good practice and I think often you know people do learn by looking at good exemplars as well so I think that's a really important element and Marne I really welcome what you just said about the impact of the pandemic and I just wanted to point out I think that's still being studied and in fact it's still being played out and we're seeing we're seeing as we mentioned as students before yes they're far too high at me and they've gone up in recent years but they're going up nationally as well so we're seeing how that plays out but I think a lot of that is about need potentially unmet need and I don't know how we encompass that within this but we've just got to be really mindful of that and that's back to what I was saying before about the work I would have commenced is looking at how you support schools to meet you so that children can get support to remain in school or if they're not in the right setting to get them into the right setting in the right way in the appropriate way so I just wanted to feed those comments through Chair it's important to say that it's not that we're not working with primary schools around inclusion inclusion I think it's really important just to emphasize that and it fits the data and we look at secondary school and the primary schools is only one and I think it's just important it's not to kind of separate or the point between what secondary but equally I think it's an opportunity if we don't chat in and highlight the good work of the primary schools I think that's phenomenal that all of our schools are actually we can notice there's only been one it's suspension in five years I think that's I think that's well recommended thank you Chair I think that reflects our commitment to you know services for young children and families you know children's centres you know all our facilities for young families you know that's hopefully hopefully you know we'll sort of go but unfortunately as children get older then you know influences that are around them have more impact and and just final two points please and I think thank you thank you very much thank you very much and oh no mic sorry no mic sorry sorry no thank you I just wanted to say a couple of words really because I think most of you know most of you know that I've been involved in working with parents and former students and some current students and elite teachers to highlight some potential problems with behaviour policies and I just wanted to share a few observations which might be useful for the scoping for the finalising the scoping document and one of the things I wanted to say was that it's great to see that you're thinking of being out and talking with young people and being led a little bit by young people and focus groups and site visits and what have you because I think it's really important that this isn't just a paper exercise because to my mind part of the problem with the way the Austed looks at behaviour policies at the moment and I hope it will change is that it is very much a paper exercise and it needs to be taken off paper that said I would also like to just add a note of caution because it's very difficult to get people to come forward to talk frankly about this kind of thing and I wonder how you're going to find them and if people are going to be expected to speak in public and on the record and be named or not because those sorts of things could make quite a big difference I also just wondered when Martin was talking about the exclusion rates compared to other neighbouring boroughs and also the growing number of exclusion rates across the country one of the words that I didn't hear mentioned here was academies and I just wondered if there would be any kind of analysis around the numbers of academies in those neighbouring boroughs with different sorts of exclusion rates and indeed analysis around the growing number of exclusions in the country nationally alongside the increasing academisation in secondary schools as well just to see if there's any correlation there I think it would be interesting to see that because yeah because of the governments around the academies and I guess a couple of things that it might be worth considering that you haven't mentioned one is complaints procedures for parents parents who are having trouble who have got problems with behaviour policies looking at how they are able to raise their concerns with schools or not as the case may be it seems to me quite a significant issue and similarly how teachers feel about implementing some behaviour policies is another significant issue which I've come across finally I just you haven't mentioned the child safeguarding review which is also looking at behaviour policies and I wonder how you're going to work alongside that or if you're just going to work which is fine it's just a question worth asking and also you've mentioned the 26th of February I think is the next meeting which I think is down as being a full council meeting so is that the correct date or not and also since I know that there is a real appetite to see the scoping work for this inquiry from lots of people in the borough at the moment if there's any possibility of publishing it a little earlier than the 26th of February because people are anxious to see it and I think some people may well be actually get in touch to try and be part of it sorry sorry sorry sorry well on a couple of your points I've got this note for everything that you've changed I think that what we have to be careful with is exclusive which is we can finally do this before before everything else has happened more recently is happening and I think that we need to be careful that we don't start to do a review that is in response to what's come out to what's come out and to stay true to the fact that we are doing this because of the ground work that we've been doing over the years has led us to this point and I think that many of the things that you've mentioned about comparisons and looking at academies and looking at neighbouring boroughs I think that that is central to the work that we do as part of the exclusion review and I think that where this is different is because we're looking at behaviour policies so I think that whilst I'm sure there is an opportunity inherent in that to look at if there are distinctions we feel because that didn't come out from the previous review we did to look at school it seems the different approaches taken by taking by special schools versus you know and mentations insofar as you know positive behaviour approach was taken by special schools which it seemed to be a really inclusive approach to looking at behavioural or behavioural communication and it meant in that instance that we really did have to look at the distinction between well why are these students doing this but other schools aren't taking that on board so I think that I'm sure that if we do see some distinctions although I imagine we probably won't because we've only got one main thing secondary school in the borough in relation to secondary schools in the borough is going to tell a story in academies as opposed to the story of secondary education more generally so I think complaints procedures I think that that's a really fair point it's really important to get sense when we speak to parents and parents how they've learned through some negotiation that allows safety to find children of trouble at school or so yeah really good points focus is that we historically there are some instances where we had more public focus groups not really we tend to see most of them behind closed doors to be fair I think that a lot of the topics that we're discussing like emotional based school avoidance like and semence education for sixth form students it's people are talking about private and sensitive topics and I don't think it's reasonable to expect that they could do that in a public forum and equally I think the same can be safe and engaging with teachers I've recognised that that's a challenging ask of people to come and contribute in public so I think that we will be exploring and trying to find ways in which we're able to connect with a range of different groups of children and young people and other stakeholders to ensure that people feel comfortable enough to share with us and help to furnish our understanding of the you know we did manage to do that very effectively with the previous exclusions both in talking to children and other people at schools but if so outside of the schools and that is often where our youth hubs come into a range of different areas as you said we don't have to have a limited range of young people that we're involving in this but we're really centric Thank you. Two things Chair I think anytime when you're talking about to parents and any challenges that they've had in the school environment which is so so so difficult always reminding to try and speak to the school initially and making sure they explore that process and then the governing then the governing body and then then it's off because what you don't want is that delay in any parent having something really important to raise and not going to the school I was just thinking on the process of scrutiny one of the things that I remember doing I feel like a dinosaur now chair when I used to be a chair of scrutiny one of the things is that we did it was a whole day now that might not be appropriate because I know a lot of people on the student commission work but what we did is we had one focus day and we had Lisa's nodding she knows these things very very well and we just had a day of going to different settings different visits collated a lot of information and in the evening meeting then was in public as we are now having people give evidence so you might want to take different times throughout a day a week or a month to go to those different places to collect that information and anonymise and bring it back to scrutiny because I found that worked really well I think we did that for childcare we did that for childcare didn't we we did that for childcare we did that for childcare and I think we did we've done various different foster carers yeah we have done and I think because we want people to be as involved as possible I think we have to see different ways we can do this so that we don't have to take too much time with work that they need for you so that we don't actually make the time that we all need to explore this in the depth that I think everybody will want to and Councillor Clever De Roche and then I think I'll bring this to close thank you chair I'll be very very brief I just wanted to as a former youth worker mentor mental health therapy for children and young people that work in other schools that have seen children and young people experience over you know during a suspension at school I really want to commend your work all of your work because I know that you've been consistent on this and before I was elected I actually printed and shared the report you created in 2021 I knew about it because of my youth work at the time and I really hope I really hope as you said earlier that we are so close to creating this change because we now have a different government and now have children and you know a well-being built and I wanted just to say that there are other organizations that would be brilliant to come and give this expertise input I think what my concern is that we still although the numbers have improved improved we still talk you know as an interpreter for suspensions for exclusions and sadly and I know that this is not data it's always good to hear but we have heard reports of juvenile inmates you know having reportedly what 60, 70, 60, 65% of juvenile jails you know people haven't been excluded from schools so there is a direct correlation and just as a last point one recommendation I wanted to make I personally from a migrant point of view when I work with migrant communities that have experienced these suspensions and these horrible with the school behavior policies that many parents are encouraged to have these managed moves but also another parents just want to be and then they go and take care of this and which is their educational strategy so I think there is a correlation in how harsh these school behavior policies are and how also parents feel that they don't want to see the children's appropriate conditions so I think I would recommend that some of that inspire what you look at in this review thank you thank you I think that's that's the intention so I think we can chat back to work that we've done about five six years ago that we're referencing here around off-rolling around emotional-based school avoidance very carefully tracked where paper policies have come up for us as a commission and we're wanting to touch on each of those points as part of this because we know that this has come up you know most recently for us when we did the emotional emotional-based school avoidance hearing children not going to school because they want to do the cat lunch because they're autistic having some real anxiety around eating lunch in the school and being told that we have no cat lunch policy everything gets the same thing it's that sort of stuff that we're really wanting to do drill down on you know to what extent we have this degree of rigidity with our behaviour policies and you know we're not targeting those those stories that we've heard along the way and wanting to ensure and because it's that it's worth mentioning that what I personally see as our role as a recruiting commission if you go out and speak to anybody on the streets in Hackney and you ask them what they think our priorities should be most people talk about the things that they come into contact with the most and most people don't come into contact with school exclusions children care temporary accommodation it's our duty to ensure that you know we're only as strong as our weakest link we have to be aware of where things just really aren't working and I think that that is perhaps not a great deal of assurance to officers who are doing a great job to secure the life chances of the majority but I think it's incumbent on us to be focusing on those children for whom that security is actually something that isn't afforded to them and this is why we are I think immediately to look at this so yeah any other contributions if not we can bring out item to oppose item 8 which is the work programme the work programme with the commission is contained within the report plan the members know it is going to agree with the work programme for the remainder of the municipal year item 9 minutes on the 11th of December 24th within the report pack the members having a matter arriving from the minutes 10th of December specifically there's no other business and the next meeting is on the 25th of December 25th thank you everybody thank you thank you

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