Children's Trust Board

Minutes - 2 September 2010

Commenced: 10:00am

Terminated: 11:40am

Present:
Jim Taylor Tameside MBC (In the Chair)
Steven Pleasant Tameside MBC
Claire Bibby Tameside MBC
Ameena Ahmed Tameside MBC
Jane Forrest Tameside MBC
Tony Griffin Tameside MBC
Huw Davies Tameside MBC
Bob Shaw Tameside MBC
David Berry Tameside MBC
Pat McKelvey NHS Tameside & Glossop
Lynne Jones Tameside Safeguarding Children Board
Jenny Stanton Job Centre Plus
Tina Greenough Primary Care Trust
David Hobbs Better Choices
Vee Hyde T3SC
Sheila Piazza Tameside Connexions
Tina Lavender Voluntary Representative
Susan Marsh Governors’ Forum
Janet Nevin 16-19 Representative
Catherine McKay Greater Manchester Police

Apologies for absence:
Councillor Gwynne, Peter Jenkinson, Hilary Garratt, Tony Okotie, Sarah Petts and Judith Grigg

15. Chair’s Announcement

The Chair welcomed Lynne Jones, Chair of Tameside’s Safeguarding Children’s Board and Jenny Stanton, Job Centre Plus to their first meeting of the Children’s Trust Board as members.

16. Minutes

The Minutes of the meeting of the Children’s Trust Board held on 15 July 2010 were approved as a correct record, subject to the inclusion of Catherine McKay to the list of attendees.

17. Matters Arising

Minute 8 – Child Poverty Strategy
With reference to the recent Child Poverty Strategy, V Hyde of Tameside Third Sector Coalition requested assistance with publicising the Strategy as many families would be affected by it. The Chair confirmed that this was an item for discussion at the management team meeting and asked H Davies, Assistant Executive Director to prepare a briefing paper which could be used by Tameside Third Sector Coalition in the communities.

18. Recent Announcement on Children’s Trust

Consideration was given to a news article by the DfE on its website which proposed changes to the Children’s Trusts with reference to membership. It was the Governments intention to remove the bureaucracy surrounding children’s trusts and allow schools to choose how best they engage. The Secretary of State had indicated that he proposed to:

• Remove the duty on schools to co-operate through Children’s Trust via the forthcoming Education Bill;
• Remove the requirement on local authorities to set up Children’s Trust Boards and the requirement on those Boards to prepare and publish a joint Children and Young People’s Plan, at the first available legislative opportunity; and
• Revoke the regulation underpinning the Children and Young People’s Plan and withdraw the statutory guidance on Children’s Trusts, in the autumn.

The Chair commented that membership was the only way to meet the needs of families and communities and requested the commitment of all partners. He informed the partners that the Development Day had been changed to 25 November 2010 following the Comprehensive Spending Review. The partners commented that partnership in Tameside had always been strong and it was noted that this group had existed before any statutory or legislative requirement. Concerns were expressed about how the new changes would affect the partnership. There was further discussion on the proposed Development Day and what it would focus on and suggestions were made by some partners.

Resolved
That the DfE news article be noted.

19. Reporting From CYPP Strategy Groups

Consideration was given to a report of Claire Bibby, Assistant Executive Director which set out the form of a proposed agreement between Strategy Groups and the Children’s Trust. It described the form and function of Strategy Groups and how they would report performance to the Children’s Trust on an annual cycle. The aim of the agreement was to set out clear lines of accountability from Strategy Groups to the Children’s Trust. As a result of these proposals there would be a more proactive and systematic approach to performance management within the Trust. The Children’s Trust would be able to review performance and agree joint action for area where an integrated approach to improvement was needed. The report detailed the following:

• The remit of Strategy Groups;
• Membership and reporting;
• Responsibilities;
• Performance, monitoring and scrutiny;
• Commissioning; and
• Review.

Partners commented on the strategies and considered whether there was a need to rationalise these and whether some work was required to be done prior to the Development Day in November 2010, so that suggestions could be submitted on the day. The Chair stated that this was being done at the Executive Group meeting but agreed to circulate the 32 current strategies in a matrix form to the partners and this would also indicate those which were mandatory and those which were not.

Resolved
(i) That the Children’s Trust approves the arrangements set out in the report and implements these; and
(ii)That a matrix of the 32 strategies be circulated as a matrix format to partners for consideration before the Development Day.

20. Teenage Pregnancy Update

Consideration was given to a report of Claire Bibby, Assistant Executive Director, which showed progress on constructing a dataset which would enable more contemporaneous evaluation of progress in reducing under-18 conceptions. The dataset was jointly produced by NHS Tameside and Glossop and Tameside MBC.

The data included activity measures relating to the provision and uptake of contraception, termination and sexual health services for young people, and information on the activity of the YouThink prevention team, targeting young people vulnerable to the risk of teenage pregnancy.

The data showed a fall in the use of long-term contraceptive methods over the course of the last year.

NHS Tameside and Glossop, in liaison with colleagues from the Council, was currently re-commissioning provision of a Young Person’s Contraception and Sexual Health Service, which formed a key part of Tameside’s prevention strategy for young people.

Significant progress had been made in collating intelligence from local data sources from which to assess the impact of local strategies for reducing the level of teenaged pregnancies. However, this process remained challenging, not least in the difficulties of coordinating data management across the council and NHS Tameside and Glossop at a time of challenge and change for both agencies.

Concerns were expressed that teen pregnancy rates had risen in the second quarter of 2009 and it was stated that the Council was currently re commissioning sexual health services but this was taking some time.

Partners further enquired whether there were any qualitative data studies available for consideration. It was confirmed that there were two pieces of qualitative data available based on consumer feedback, which could be made available to partners.

It was further commented that the launch of “Your Choice” should be featured on the Tameside website. Concerns were also expressed about the responsibilities of fathers and the message given to fathers about these responsibilities.

Concerns were expressed that despite the strategies in place, these had fundamentally not made an impact on teenage pregnancy rate figures, whilst other authorities have made inroads into cutting their teenage pregnancy rates. This could be the result of gaps in provisions or ineffective provisions.

Resolved
That the report be noted.

21. Domestic Violence Update

Consideration was given to a verbal report by Tony Griffin, Service Unit Manager which updated partners on the recent Domestic Violence report commissioned by Services for Children and Young People in response to the recognition that domestic violence was a major risk to the achievement of the five Children and Young People Partnership objectives - be healthy; stay safe; learn and enjoy, make a positive contribution and achieve economic well-being.

He reported that 28 recommendations had been made under 4 headings. It was now for the Council to decide whether to accept the recommendations and the way forward with them. The report further contained a description of processes and actions.

The report identified the need for better access to information. The next step was to draw up an action plan based on a review of current strategies.

The partners commented on the need to respond to all the recommendations contained in the report and bring this issue back to a future meeting of the Trust.

Resolved
(i) That the report be noted; and
(ii) That the Domestic Violence report be circulated to Partners.

22. Think Family

Consideration was given to a report of Claire Bibby, Assistant Executive Director which described the changes which would need to be made at Children’s Trust, strategic management and operational levels to ensure that a Think Family approach was adopted across the Children’s Trust.

It explained the improvements which would be made if this were undertaken and outlined some of the challenges.

The report detailed the following:-

• Background to Think Family;
• Why Think Family;
• Where are the edges;
• What it means;
• Challenges and
• Recommendations for action.

The report concluded that the Tameside Children’s Trust had achieved a level of maturity, focussing on the needs and development of children and young people within the local authority boundary. It recommended that the Trust should take a step forward by developing a Think Family strategy and implementing associated actions at all levels to put this into practice.

A Think Family strategy would enable the Trust to develop a more holistic approach to the needs of children and young people in their family context. This would provide the opportunity for more effective an coherent support to be offered to families who need it. Such an approach would be more important in times of financial stricture, when not only would agencies be looking for ways of using their resources more effectively, but also when it can be anticipated that there may be more families who were facing challenges.

Partners commented that the work that was being done with Total Place was not included in this report and some partners requested more information on the two Total Place pilots. It was also pointed out that some consultation work was required to be done with families to gauge families’ experiences of the services that they access. Furthermore the issue of a workforce strategy was being addressed but there was a requirement for partners to contribute some capacity to this piece of work.

Resolved
That the Children’s Trust should:

• Review its membership to ensure that the partners round the table cover the whole Think Family agenda between them;
  
• Develop with local families an agreed understanding of desirable outcomes for them;
  
• Develop a Think Family Strategy and associated action plan in a way that would embed Think Family approaches without increasing the number of strategy documents. This could involve looking at how some of the existing strategies could be aligned or collapsed into the wider Think Family approach.

Strategic managers of partners of the Trust should:

• Ensure that their agency/service policies and practices reflect a Think Family approach;
  
• Champion Think Family practice through joint staff training and recruitment, and information provided to service users and the public;
  
• Consider changes to delivery systems and workforce culture to ensure consideration of the family context in order to identify and intervene early with all families at risk.

Operational managers should:

•  Consider the family situation in all areas of their work;
  
• Use assessments to establish how the needs of other family members affect their client and whether meeting those needs might benefit their client;
  
• Work with other local agencies to identify, refer and plan how the needs of wider family members can be met alongside their client;
  
• Prioritise the safety and welfare of children within the family;
  
• Consider the involvement, potential contribution and (when appropriate) the risks associated with all of the adults who have a significant influence on a family, even if they are not living in the same house, or are not formally a family ‘member’
  

23. COMPASS Team Update

Consideration was given to report of Claire Bibby, Assistant Executive Director which detailed the activities of the COMPASS team leaders since the last Children’s Trust meeting. It showed the current staffing situation and progress on developing systems for receiving requests for service and evaluating impact. The report mentioned in brief, the teams’ involvement with the Local Authority Research Consortium’s latest round of research, which focussed on the cost effectiveness of the Common Assessment Framework.

The report detailed the following:-

• Progress update;
• Setting up of a database and electronic recording system;
• Developing a single point of access;
• Local Authority Research Consortium (LARC; and
• Next steps.

She stated that work was still continuing on some aspects of COMPASS team and took the opportunity to thank partners for seconding staff to the team but required more staff to be seconded.

Resolved
(i)That the report be noted; and
(ii)That the Partners consider how they might further engage with the COMPASS teams.

24a. Common Processes Updated

Consideration was given to a report of Ameena Ahmed, Head of Partnership Development which updated partners on the Common Processes dashboard, which was created to provide feedback about use of the Common Processes for Chief Officers and senior managers of the organisations of Tameside Children’s Trust.

Jim Taylor stated that organisations were not completing enough CAFs compared to neighbouring authorities and concerns were expressed about the correlation to quality. A clear commitment and action from the Children’s Trust Board partners was needed to support the effective operation of the CAF process, including a strategic focus on the collection and use of monitoring data and evaluation of impact.

Some partners commented that it would help to look at statistical neighbours and further consider looking at pathways and criteria to identify any gaps. It was also felt that the authority was not intervening early enough.

There was some discussion about the requirement for CAFs and it was felt that there was some confusion amongst the staff about the levels of need. An event to address this confusion would be appropriate and partners requested that this event be held before the launch of the COMPASS team.

RESOLVED
That the report be noted.

24b. Decommissioning ContactPoint

The partners noted a letter from DfE which provided a further update on ContactPoint, which:

• Set out the Government’s proposal to develop an alternative, signposting approach, targeted at vulnerable children; and
• Confirmed the closure of ContactPoint, setting out the timetable for its shut down and decommissioning. The letter provided guidance to local authorities, National Partners and other partners about the activities that needed to be undertaken over the next few weeks, and funding and other support available during this period.

Ameena Ahmed confirmed that ContactPoint had been switched of locally and the Authority was now awaiting the Government’s decision as to what it would be replaced with.

Resolved
That the letter from the DfE be noted.

25. Date of Next Meeting

The Partnership was advised of the date of the next meeting.