The use and provision of Extended Schools and Children’s Centres

Offering wider provision for education, participation and positive activities outside of the formal school day is a national agenda that is supported within Tameside; Extended Schools and Children’s Centres play a key part in this delivery.

The review may look at the current level of provision of Extended Schools programmes, what specifically each offer and whether there are any gaps in provision.

The panel may wish to map the level of provision across the borough and the wider effects on the children who are offered greater opportunities.

As the Children’s Centre programme becomes embedded, stronger links are being made with the Extended Schools programme, resulting in shared commissioning, providing of services and resources.

The Children and Young People Strategic Partnership identified that there is a range of good practice being undertaken in a number of centres; however, there are identified areas for further work including more effective targeted intervention with vulnerable groups. The review may also look at the successes and areas for improvement within the Children’s Centre programme.

The panel have also expressed an interest as to further investigation of parenting support and education, and as this is offered as part of the children’s centre programme, this may become one element of the review.

This Scrutiny review supports the Tameside Local Area Agreement target for engaging young people in positive activities, the percentage of schools providing access to extended schools (90% by Sept 2009), and the delivery of Sure Start Children’s Centres; the “Enjoy and Achieve” and “Learning Community” outcomes contained in “Every Child Matters;” and the Sustainable Community Strategy theme of “A Learning Community.”

Cllr A Gwynne / Cllr G Cooney

Scrutiny Panel

Opportunities for children and young people to engage in physical activity

Childhood obesity is a growing national issue, and with almost 1 in 5 of Tameside’s year 6 pupils being catagoried as ‘obese’, it is a major priority for the Children and Young Peoples Strategic Partnership.

Despite the intervention of healthy schools programmes, there are still barriers preventing children from making healthy choices both inside and outside the school environment.

The scrutiny panel are interested to look at the provision for physical opportunities for children in schools and during the evenings and weekends.

Parents’ views and attitudes regarding physical activity opportunities for their children, and the support available to help them make healthy choices for their families may also be included.

The review could also examine latest policies and funding from central government i.e. the emphasis on cycling and swimming and how these measures could be implemented in Tameside.

Childhood obesity is a SCYP priority for 2009/10. This review will help to promote the uptake of physical activity, and support the Children and Young People Strategic Partnership target to increase the number of children undertaking 2+ hours of physical activity per week to 95% by 2010. In line with ‘Every Child Matters’, the review will support the ‘Be healthy’ and ‘Enjoy and Achieve’ strands, and the community strategy theme of ‘A Healthy Population’. This Scrutiny review supports the Tameside Local Area Agreement target around obesity and positive activities (participation of young people).

Cllr A Gwynne

Cllr R Welsh

Attendance / Inclusion

Improving attendance and inclusion in Tameside Secondary schools, and reducing the number of exclusions, is a key priority for the Services for Children and Young People Strategic Partnership.

The Panel may focus on measures to promote the inclusion in school of specific groups identified as “vulnerable to poor outcomes,” such as looked after children, children with disabilities and children with learning difficulties.

Alternatively, the Panel may focus on measures for reducing exclusions from Tameside secondary schools.

The number of pupils excluded from Tameside secondary schools has increased in recent years. Young people excluded from school are a particularly vulnerable group. Local research shows that they have an increased risk of drug and alcohol use, youth offending, family breakdown and social exclusion. In addition they find it more difficult to secure employment and training and often experience homelessness and teenage pregnancy.

Focussing on exclusions would provide the Panel with an opportunity to evaluate the impact of the Partnership’s measures and consider how other areas have tackled this issue.

This Scrutiny review supports the Tameside Local Area Agreement target for reducing the number of permanent exclusions in secondary schools; the “Making a Positive Contribution” and “Learning Community” outcomes contained in “Every Child Matters;” and the Sustainable Community Strategy theme of “A Learning Community.”

Cllr G Cooney

Scrutiny Panel

Integrated services for safeguarding children

The members of the panel were aware of the benefits of integrated services and effective partnership working, and suggested that a review into where this has been most effective and where there are areas for improvement may be a useful scrutiny exercise.

They particularly identified the sharing of case information between SCYP departments as an area of high importance, where gaps in communication can result in serious consequences.

The review may look at examples of strong communication lines within Tameside and other local authorities as examples of good practice, and identify possible areas of risk where communication and information sharing could be improved.

Developing integrated services is at the heart of the Children and Young People Strategic Partnership and the Children and Young People Plan (2007-10) identifies a series of actions that support the successful attainment of a number of Local Area Agreement targets and Every Child Matters strands, which this review will also be able to support.

Cllr A Gwynne

Cllr C Patrick / Susan Marsh

Funding for SEN children in mainstream education

The panel were approached by a Parent Governor who highlighted that each local authority has an individual policy on funding for Special Education Needs (SEN) children in mainstream education. They requested that the panel consider this review as an opportunity for examining how Tameside’s policy compares with those of other local authorities.

The review could examine the effectiveness of current funding provision, whether there are examples of good practice that the panel could recommend for consideration by Tameside SCYP Service.

This review will support the performance indicators relating to SEN children as outlined in the Children and Young People Strategic Partnership Action Plan (including NI 104 AND 105). It will contribute towards the ‘Learning Community’ objective of the Sustainable Community Strategy and ‘Enjoy and Achieve’ strand of Every Child Matters.

Cllr A Gwynne / Cllr G Cooney

Parent Governor

Youth Offending Team

Members of the scrutiny panel recognise the importance of early intervention in terms of tackling a range of issues for children and young people. A service that undertakes this in relation to the reduction of re-offending rates is the Youth Offending Team. This review will examine the effectiveness of the service and the projects they undertake in order to support young offenders.

Panel members may wish to examine recommendations made in their latest inspection, and whether the scrutiny review could further support the service in the achievement of their intervention targets.

This review will support each strand of Every Child Matters and ‘Supportive Communities’ theme of Tameside’s Sustainable Community Strategy. It will also be able to contribute towards the awareness of NI 111 and NI19 relating to young offenders, and support SCYP with their target of reducing the number of young people entering the justice system, and reoffending.

Cllr A Gwynne

Scrutiny Panel

Educational attainment

Improving educational attainment is a key national and local priority.

The Scrutiny Panel has been involved in on-going performance monitoring of educational attainment for a number of years.

Performance monitoring of educational attainment is an important role for the Scrutiny Panel, as it provides the Panel with an opportunity to help ensure that progress in relation to this key priority is developed and sustained.

This review supports the Tameside Children and Young People Strategic Partnership Trust and Corporate Plan priority to improve educational attainment. The review will support a number of Local Area Agreement targets around educational attainment.

Furthermore, this review also contributes towards Tameside’s performance against more general Council priorities, including the “Enjoying and Achieving” outcome identified in “Every Child Matters” and the Tameside Sustainable Community Strategy’s themes of a “Prosperous Society” and a “Learning Community.”

Cllr G Cooney

This is carried out annually

Building Schools for the Future

Through the Building Schools for the Future programme every secondary school in England will be rebuilt, remodelled or refurbished over a 10-15 year period. Tameside has been allocated around £200m to transform secondary school provision in the borough.

In previous years the role of the Scrutiny Panel has been to carry out ‘reality checks’ on consultation and planning and to act as critical friend throughout decision-making in order to help ensure transparency.

During 2008/9 the Panel will be involved in monitoring progress against key milestones as the construction phase of the project begins. In addition the Panel will consider the ways in which new schools are designed to promote physical activity.

‘Building Schools for the Future’ is a Corporate Plan Key Project. The review supports the Council’s Corporate Priority of ‘Children and Young People’ and the Community Strategy theme of ‘A Learning Community: raising educational achievement and learning opportunities’.

Cllr G Cooney

Regular monitoring

Tameside Local Area Agreement Targets

The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 placed a duty on responsible local authorities to prepare a Local Area Agreement (LAA) in consultation with partner organisations.

The Tameside LAA 2008-11 was endorsed by the LAA Executive on 29th May 2008 and launched at the Tameside Strategic Partnership (TSP) Annual Conference on 12th June 2008. The LAA was reviewed and refreshed in April 2009.

The 2007 Act gives Scrutiny Panels powers to hold the local authority and partnership agencies to account in achieving LAA targets.

In particular the Act gives Scrutiny Panels the power to:

1. scrutinise progress towards achieving LAA targets;
2. request information from partner organisations signed up to particular LAA targets;
3. expect partner organisations to consider and respond to scrutiny recommendations concerning the targets they are signed up to.

The Scrutiny Panel will receive performance monitoring information on LAA targets relating to this Scrutiny Panel on a quarterly basis.

This performance monitoring exercise supports the Council and Sustainable Community Strategy priorities relating to ‘Supportive Communities’, ‘A Safe Environment’ ‘An Attractive Borough’ and ‘A Healthy Population’

Tameside Strategic Partnership