Agenda item

To consider the latest trends, priorities and pressures in terms of departmental performance as reported in the Quarterly Service Report for the fourth, and final, quarter of 2012/13 (January to March 2013) relating to Children, Young People and Learning, giving particular attention to outcomes of Ofsted school inspections and an update on school placements.

Please bring the previously circulated Performance monitoring Report to the meeting.  Copies are available on request and attached to this agenda if viewed online.

Panel members are asked to give advance notice to the Overview and Scrutiny Team of any questions relating to the Quarterly Service Report where possible.

Lesley Adams, Senior Admissions Officer, gave a presentation in respect of school places provision for the 2013/14 academic year.  The Panel was informed that at the current time there were 227 places available in the Borough’s Secondary Schools with places at The Brakenhale, Easthampstead Park and Sandhurst Schools. Following the allocation process for Reception year places at the Borough’s primary schools there were 72 spare places. Of those asking for a primary school place 96% of children were allocated a place at one of their three preference schools and 87% of children were offered a place at their first preference school.

The School Admissions Team had carried out a significant amount of work to raise awareness of the allocation process amongst parents and the need for parents to have realistic expectations when naming their preferences with regard to school options at both primary entry and secondary transfer stages and this allied to the work that had taken place to increase capacity at primary schools across the Borough had contributed to this positive performance.

Whilst it was acknowledged that the Jennets Park development was nearing completion there were no plans to increase the number of classrooms at Jennets Park Primary School for September 2013 and only 6 designated area children were currently on the waiting list for a Reception place at the School.

It was agreed that the presentation would be circulated to the Panel.

The Chief Advisor: Learning and Achievement gave an update in respect of Ofsted inspections that had taken place in the Borough since January 2013.  It was reported that the new more rigorous inspection regime and the school’s inability to evidence ‘significant progress over a period of many years’ had been a significant factor in the outcomes of Crown Wood Primary School’s recent inspection.  Both The Pines and St Michael’s Primary Schools had been under going inspections during the week commencing 1 July and updates would be given at future meetings.

Arising from Members’ questions and comments the following points were noted:

·         L140 it was clarified that this indicator related to those children placed in foster care or who had been placed for adoption but were not yet adopted

·         N1062 related to children in care who made three or more moves in one year

·         N1063 this indicator related to those children who had been in care for longer than two and a half years but who had remained in a single placement for at least two years.  Bracknell Forest’s performance in this area compared well to national data

·         L141 included repeat visits to youth centres.  The recently introduced new recording systems for youth service data would give more detailed information in the future

·         L141 It was agreed that the number of young people visiting youth centres would be included in future reports

·         Efforts were made to resolve complaints at an early stage whenever possible

·         It was clarified that complaints were often deferred when a child was subject to legal proceedings

·         The Annual Complaints Report would be brought to the Panel’s next meeting

·         Under Medium Term Objective 10 it was confirmed that the reference made to the European Social Fund Project was the project taking place with the Nepali community to improve their English skills and general health

Officers noted the Panel’s concerns that a number of the trend arrows did not match the performance data.  The Panel were informed that this was an anomaly of the performance management system used by the Council and was subject to debate at officer level in an effort to indentify an appropriate way forward, particularly for a number of Children’s Social care indicators which were needs based and could not be performance measured.

The Panel noted the report.