Agenda and minutes

No declarations of interest.

Apologies from: Mark Lee; Andrew Webb; Jane Maxey; Cath Larkin and Dr Stephen Watkins.

The Board agreed the notes of the previous meeting.

Sarah Leah (SL) – updated that she had not received Andrew Webb’s (AW) letter of enquiry about the CAMHS appointments process; CO to resend the letter.

AW response to item 5 is included in the agenda and was read out at the meeting. The timescale has been clarified. Jim Taylor and colleagues are meeting with DfE, Thursday 30^th June, 2016. There is a paper going to GM Wider Leadership Team this week that outlines the Memorandum of Understanding between GM and DfE.  CML will update CO to include in the minutes.

Actions: CML, CO as above.

Comment in respect of Item 5 of the last notes:

The GM workstreams cover both conurbation-wide structures, and focused areas such as Youth Justice and Looked After Children. A combined bid is to be made to the DfE Innovation Fund to support the future development each workstream. Once the outcome of this bid in known, the scale and pace of development will be agreed. At this point arrange of statutory and voluntary sector partners will be brought in to contribute both to the  development and then implementation of the proposals. AW

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Summary of Sarah Jackson’s Ctzen presentation to the board:  please see bullet points of the discussion.

·         Ctzen is a live and running social media platform with a host of providers running activities with young people. 

·         Ctzen’s ambition is to be an online CV for young people that demonstrates the voluntary activities that they have engaged in.

·         It is currently free for young people and providers.

Is there a concern that this could just be another form of advertising?

This is a consideration, but sponsored private advertisements would not be accepted. The Ctzen team closely monitors what is being put onto the site. The Terms and Conditions of use include safeguarding/DBS protocols.  Ctzen holds the data as an entity, which will be asset locked

The targeted age group is 13 – 18. There are 3,000 members through the schools cohort at the moment. This is the soft launch and gives the team the opportunity to iron out any bugs. 

How will you monitor the young people that really need this? 

How do you engage the hard to reach? Are local activities covered?

Funding has been secured until the end of the year.  The team are in the process of considering other potential funding opportunities i.e. the National Citizen Service may wish to purchase the system. 

Next steps: to grow the user base amongst both young people and organisations; forge closer links with schools and colleges; strengthen links with local groups. 

The board thanked Sarah Jackson for her presentation.

Education and skills: free school meals group performance has improved from 23% to 33% in terms of key stage 4 this year.  There is still work to do but this demonstrates a considerable improvement. Child Protection pupils are a group who require further consideration and focus. Approximately 15 members of staff across Stockport Schools have been trained to analyse pupils’ performance and identify what could improve outcomes further.

Attendance: increased complex needs young people require a different approach which is in the process of being developed by Stockport Family.  Early intervention and transition will be a key focus of the Education Partnership Board.

Stockport Family:  CAF completion is increasing; improved links with college and schools as Stockport Family workers are embedding in their roles.  The Looked After Children figure has increased, but the board is asked to note that this can be a very volatile population, and it is monitored at weekly meetings by the service. 

There is also volatility in terms of reported cases where domestic abuse is a feature. The service will consider these cases carefully in an effort to better understand the reasons behind the referrals.

Attendance and exclusions are a key area for the wider Stockport family team and Education colleagues to focus on.

P13 – Child Protection plans and children with disability – low numbers in comparison to previous years.  DW believes that we were over- represented in previous years.  DW does not believe there is a problem but this will continue to be closely monitored.

Missing children figures: is it a large number of children going missing once, or a small number that go missing frequently? 

GW and JR believe this is based on the number of episodes rather than children. GW to check: to be confirmed for next meeting.

3.28 Health:

There has again been a reduction of women smoking in pregnancy, however real challenges continue to exist in Brinnington. A session took place last week with all key workers in the area to discuss issues and complexity.  Breastfeeding is not improving in this area either. FNP and HVs are not achieving despite intensive work being carried out.  I

Do we have any projects in Brinnington engaging young women? 

Eave Ribbons, Reclaim: Reclaim will be holding summer school in Brinnington

From 15^th – 18^th August, 2016.  The Stockport project will be starting in

October 2016 including mentors from the community; single sexed projects,

amongst other initiatives.

The Health Partnership Board (HPB): tomorrow’s agenda will discuss asthma.  Future HPBs will concentrate on self-harm issues.  Would the board wish to have a future discussion about this?  The self-harm pathway for schools has been developed but needs a more focussed plan. 

CO to link Eave Ribbons with other colleagues emails.  CO to agenda self-harm discussion for future board.

Greater Manchester Area Review

The Area Based Reviews began in September 2015 and are an undertaking by DfE and BIS to review the post 16 landscape in education with the following stated aims:

•           Fewer institutions

•           Financially viable, sustainable, resilient and efficient colleges

•           Value for public money

Greater Manchester Combined Authority volunteered to be in the first wave and set out to achieve the following:

•           An offer that meets local learner and employer need and provide access to high quality and relevant education and training for all 

•           The right balance of provision, including greater specialisation and higher level technical skills

•           Supporting economic development

•           Creating sustainable institutions

The review should have been completed within 6 months but with 21 colleges and 10 Local Authorities to consult it has taken longer than expected.  Colleges’ provision and operating positions have been analysed via a variety of information gathering processes and provision has been mapped against local priorities and New Economy reports.  Colleges have undertaken a large amount of work, report writing, financial planning, hosting site visits and meeting with local stakeholders and other colleges to discuss potential options.

The report made 20 recommendations.  The first 17 of which outlined the preferred options of each of the colleges.  These options had been assessed by the steering group against a set of agreed criteria for financial viability and to see if they me the combined authorities priorities.  These recommendations have been presented to the corporation of each college and endorsed as their preferred option.  The options within Stockport were:

•           Oldham, Stockport and Tameside to merge – Type A Merger with a single new corporation

•           Aquinas College – Standalone/ Review and reserve the right to pursue becoming an Academy when it becomes legal for Catholic Colleges

•           Cheadle & Marple – Academisation and becoming more schools facing via their Trust

We now enter the implementation phase.  Colleges are tasked with making progress and implementing their plans within the next six months.  The final 3 recommendations outlined the Combined Authorities continued investment in the process and recommended the following for the 21 colleges and Combined Authority to form:

•           A strategic planning group to be formed

•           A proposal for an Institute of Technology (STEM areas)

•           An Apprenticeships delivery group

Cathy Lyall presented the SEND inspection update as attached.  CTB will be informed once the inspection is announced and updated on receipt of result of the inspection.

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