Agenda item

Report of the Director of Children and Adults Services

The Director of Children and Adults Services submitted a report (previously circulated) to provide an update on the progress to date against the delivery of the Children and Young People Plan 2017/22.

The Plan is one of the identified delivery plans within the Sustainable Community Strategy and identifies what key actions will be taken to deliver the agreed Sustainable Community Strategy priority of the best start in life for every child which was adopted by Council on 29 September 2017.

It was reported that a Multi-agency Steering Group, Chaired by the Assistant Director for Commissioning had been established to bring together key partners to ensure effective monitoring and delivery of the Plan and to encourage and strengthen links between the Plan and professional bodies.

It was also reported that a scorecard had been developed which contained a number of key performance indicators to measure delivery of the priority actions in the Plan and the summary of performance against each indicator within the scorecard, also previously circulated, showed that overall when comparing performance against the last available data 18 indictors had improved from the previous recorded data, three had remained the same and 20 had seen a reduction in performance.  For eight of the indicators 2017/18 data is the only data available therefore comparison with previous years is not possible and these will be monitored over the five year period of the plan.

Members discussed and agreed the year two priorities to reduce the number of children and young people living in poverty and to improve the mental health and emotional wellbeing of all children and young people.

Members questions related to the child poverty area ‘hotspots’ and suggested that  Ward Councillors be invited to attend the Community Groups; the increasing number of takeaways within their wards and how the authority can regulate these although it was confirmed by the Public Health Principal that the authority has very limited powers in the licensing of takeaways; and Members expressed their concern at the levels of educational attainment and the number of young people claiming unemployment benefits.

The Head of 16-19 Learning and Skills reassured Members that Key Stage results at 16-18 year were good with a high level of participation, however there had been a drop in numbers post 18 years remaining in education and that there was an issue around behaviour and attitude to work of young people which he assured Members was being closely monitored.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.