Venue: Mandela Room, Town Hall
Contact: Chris Lunn
No. | Item |
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Declarations of Interest Minutes: There were no Declarations of Interest at this point in the meeting. |
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Minutes - Children and Young People's Scrutiny Panel - 4 December 2023 PDF 319 KB Minutes: The minutes of the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 4 December 2023 were submitted and approved as a correct record. |
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Council Budget 2024/25 and MTFP Refresh - Children's Services PDF 575 KB The Executive Director of Children’s Services and the Executive Member for Children’s Services will be in attendance to present Children’s Services budget to the Panel. Minutes: The Mayor and Deputy Mayor were in attendance at the meeting and gave a presentation
which covered the following issues in relation to Children’s Services: • Remaining
Budget Gap. • Post
Settlement Update/ Exceptional Financial Support. • Children’s
Services – context. • Questions : Children’s Services – Budget savings proposals. • Next Steps. The budget gap was £6.3 million,
having taken into account all the current savings
proposals. The Local Government Finance
Settlement announced in December 2023 had provided a small improvement. A report would be submitted to Executive
later this week recommending an application to the Government for Exceptional
Financial Support (EFS). EFS could
provide a temporary funding solution that would enable the Council to achieve
financial sustainability and avoid having to issue a Section 114 Notice. The Mayor provided some context for
the current position in Children’s Services – Social Care - as follows: • Lack of
availability of in-house placements for children had resulted in high cost
spend on external placements. A
placement review and efforts to increase the in-house provision were currently
underway. • Children’s
Social Care had experienced significant recruitment and retention pressures
which had impacted on the quality of practice and agency staffing costs. • Governance
was in place to provide increased budgetary controls in relation to the
approval of spending within Children’s Social Care, including the S17 spend. • Children’s
Social Care had seen an increase in demand over recent years. This was impacting on caseload numbers and
was contributing to Middlesbrough’s recruitment and retention challenges. • Children’s
Social Care had been graded as ‘Requires Improvement’ in March 2023; a
monitoring visit was likely to take place in Spring 2024. Children’s Social Care was the
largest area of net expenditure for the Council at £54.6m (43% of the Council’s
opening total net revenue budget) for 2023/24. Middlesbrough had a high young
population, with 23% of the population aged between 0 to 17 compared to North-East
neighbours of 19.8% and 20.8% for England (as per Office
for National Statistics). The number of
Children aged 0-15 in absolute low-income families was 31.8%, compared to the
England average of 15.3% (as per DWP data).
The number of young people, and those living in poverty directly impacts
on the number of children requiring support from Children’s Services. There were 140.2 Child Protection
plans per 10,000 children in Middlesbrough, whilst the England average was 43.2
in 2022/23. The direction of travel for
Children’s Social Care was for improvements to efficiencies of current systems
to transform the delivery model through enhancement of early help and
prevention, the development of new models of placement provision for looked
after children, and development of more in-house fostering capacity. These initiatives would be overseen by the
Childrens Improvement Board. With regard to Education: • A recent Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection had resulted in Middlesbrough’s special needs service for young people being given the highest possible rating. The inspectors described children and young people with SEND in Middlesbrough as ‘valued, visible ... view the full minutes text for item 23/27 |
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Overview and Scrutiny Board Update The Chair will provide a verbal update on matters considered at the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Board held on 20 December 2023. Minutes: The Chair provided a verbal update on the matters that were considered at the Overview and Scrutiny Board meeting held on 20 December 2023. |
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Date of Next Meeting - 12 February 2024 Minutes: The next meeting of the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Panel was scheduled for 4.30 pm on Monday 12 February 2024. |
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Any other urgent items which in the opinion of the Chair, may be considered. Minutes: None. |