Post Scrutiny - Executive Response

1. That wherever possible, Children’s Centres are given a central point of access and a permanent location for services sought.

Accepted

The Children’s Centres Development Programme is now complete

G Smith

Completed

2. That Services for Children and Young People engage with other local authorities to seek ways to share learning / best practice around Children’s Centres.

Accepted

As part of the Greater Manchester Total Place Pilot monthly LA network meetings are in place

G Smith

Ongoing

3. That wherever possible Children’s Centres continue to provide educational and volunteering opportunities to build the capacity of people accessing such centres.

Accepted

This will be a key function of the new Youth and Family Teams of which Children’s Centres will be a part of from April 2011.

Further buddying schemes are planned and specific activity in respect of forming constitutions to enable communities eligibility for funding

G Smith

Ongoing

4. That wherever possible Children’s Centres continue to develop opportunities for those accessing Centres to access employment.

Accepted

This will be a key function of the new Youth and Family Teams of which Children’s Centres will be a part of from April 2011

G Smith

Ongoing

5. That Children’s Centres should continue to develop links with partner organisations that support engagement.

Accepted

This will be addressed in the Action Plan for Youth and Family Support Teams from April 2011

G Smith

Ongoing

6. That the Service puts in place a system to allow customer profile analysis with the aim to increase understanding of the customer base and better target service users.

Accepted

Community Profiles are currently in development will be in place across children’s centres catchment areas

T Johnson

April 2011

7. That the service considers how volunteering can be developed to support provision and increase capacity.

Accepted

This will be considered within the new Youth and Family Teams to be established.

G Smith

Ongoing

8. That the Panel receive further information on the effectiveness of ‘Disadvantage Subsidy’ following the conclusion of the pilot programme.

Accepted

Report to panel September 2011

E Sayer

September 2011

9. That the Panel receives further information regarding the impact of potential funding changes following the implementation of the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Accepted

By next September it will be possible to report on early indications of impact.

G Smith

September 2011

10. That Services for Children and Young People carry out checks of Tameside’s Extended Services to ensure that all schools are providing access to the core services.

Accepted

There is no longer a requirement for schools to deliver the core offer for Extended Schools.

However schools will play a significant role in the delivery of the area services to be agreed by the Youth and Family Teams and their services will be monitored via the Performance Management strategy

G Smith

Ongoing

11. That Extended Schools Services work with schools to investigate sharing expertise to help increase such expertise and build sustainability.

Accepted

This will be developed within Youth and Family Support Teams from April 2011

G Smith

Ongoing

12. That schools seek out opportunities for working together to identify opportunities for pooling and sharing resources.

Accepted

This will be incorporated into the review of School Improvement services

G Ashford

September 2011

13. Services for Children and Young People should consider carrying out a review of existing partnership agreements and use the findings to help inform future partnership agreements.

Accepted

This will be incorporated into the service redesign options for SCYP

J Forrest

April 2011

14. Services for Children and Young People should support schools to develop a process that supports the communication of pertinent pupil information between the school, the care provider and the parent / guardian.

Accepted

As part of the Greater Manchester Challenge; resources for all schools have been developed to support the parental engagement policy and action planning. This has been shared in Governor Training and by the end of March 2011 all schools will be equipped with the resources and contacts to support them in their responsibility to sustain parental engagement.

G Ashford

March 2011