Agenda item

The Committee considered the report of the Corporate Director of Resources, which provided progress towards achieving the key outcomes of the Council’s corporate performance framework and highlighted key messages to inform strategic priorities and work programmes. The report covered performance in and to the end of quarter four, January to March 2022 (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Strategy Team Leader was in attendance to present the report. She advised Members that more detailed information around children with Special Education Needs (SEN) would be brought to the committee going forward.

In response to a question from Ms Evans regarding the presentation of the report, the Officer indicated that the structure and presentation of the report followed the Council Plan. There was a new Council Plan so this would be the last report in this format and going forward would be structured around the new Council Plan and key themes.

Councillor Gunn referred to more and better jobs and access to training, education and apprenticeships and asked if Durham County Council were involved in the National Graduate Programme. The Officer would take this away and feed back to the Committee.

Mrs Gunn commented on Elective Home Education that was 1% and that this was a vulnerable group of children and suggested that their needs were not met and were forced into home education. That group may not be accessing services that they should be able to access but if they were brought into local services, they would be very high-cost individuals and there was little information in this area.

The Officer referred to the multi-agency panel who looked at this cohort of children that was monitored very closely. This cohort often had other vulnerabilities so that cohort was looked at alongside early help or social care services. The Officer indicated that the team within education over the last year had integrated over100 children back into school and were very closely monitored.

Mrs Gunn asked how many children had multiple care and education moves. She then referred to the number of EHCPs completed and that it was good to hear that this was going to be looked at and they wanted to understand the process of the reviews that were going on and look at the timings and if they were any quick wins and the approval process. She asked about the culture in the team and how parental preference had been incorporated.

The Officer responded that this information could be provided to supplement the information provided in the report.

Mrs Gunn then refereed to the residential care transformation and asked if they looked at past projects and the process to ensure that lessons were learned.

The Officer responded that there was a County Durham Sufficiency Strategy that contained a lot of the detail that was a statutory annual report.

Mrs Gunn then asked about breastfeeding which was on the workplan but asked if this could be linked to children who were overweight which the Officer noted.

Councillor Hunt asked for more information on the health care assessments for looked after children.

The Officer indicated that they saw as drop off during COVID but were now seeing that increase, the last figure was 93%.

Resolved: That the overall position and direction of travel in relation to quarter four performance, the impact of COVID-19 on performance, and the actions being taken to address areas of underperformance including the significant economic and well-being challenges because of the pandemic be noted.