Venue: Civic Suite
Contact: Benjamin Awkal (Scrutiny Manager) Email: benjamin.awkal@lewisham.gov.uk
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Election of a Chair and Vice-Chair Decision: RESOLVED That Cllr Sorba be elected Chair and Cllr Johnson-Franklin be elected Vice-Chair for the municipal year. Minutes: RESOLVED That Cllr Sorba be elected Chair and Cllr Johnson-Franklin be elected Vice-Chair for the municipal year. |
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Minutes of previous meeting Decision: RESOLVED That the minutes of the meeting held on 12 March 2024 be agreed as an accurate record. Minutes: RESOLVED That the minutes of the meeting held on 12 March 2024 be agreed as an accurate record. |
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Declarations of interest Decision: There were none. Minutes: There were none. |
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Children and Family Centre and Family Hub Integration Additional documents:
Decision: RESOLVED To recommend that decisions regarding the long-term locations of Family Hubs be taken promptly and the Committee be provided with an update report at an appropriate time.
Minutes: Witnesses Cllr Chris Barnham, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People Pinaki Ghoshal, Executive
Director of Children and Young People’s Services
Key points from discussion The Director of Families, Quality and Commissioning, Head of Joint Commissioning for Children and Young People and Family Hubs Project Manager introduced the report. Key points raised: 4.1. In August 2021, the Council received funding from the Department for Education to create family hubs by March 2025. 4.2. In the preceding week, the Mayor and Cabinet had agreed to integrate the Council’s Children and Family Centre and Family Hub offers in order to ensure equitable geographic distribution, address duplication and simplify and clarify pathways. 4.3. The offer was being promoted, and some outreach services being delivered, in places such as GP (general practice) surgeries, supermarkets and libraries. 4.4. A Common Moral Purpose and various pledges had been developed and were included in the meeting papers. 4.5. The Department for Education funding would enable the creation of a digital directory to enable families to access information about the offer and access the services that would meet their needs. 4.6. Children and Young People’s Services had worked with stakeholders to ensure the offer was co-produced. The Committee put questions to the witnesses. Key points from the discussion were: 4.7. The offer was area-based: it went beyond hubs with the intent of serving areas’ whole populations, regardless of families’ proximity to hubs, through spoke delivery from the Council and its partners’ other buildings. For example, in Bellingham, services would be available from locations including TNG Youth Centre and Eliot Bank Primary School. 4.8. There would be a minimum offer for all areas and the sites from which services were offered were to be continually increased. 4.9. The digital directory of services and Navigator support would enable families to access the right services. Outreach would help services to reach families who might not otherwise access services. 4.10. Whether a relatively uniform geographic distribution of services, versus a needs-based distribution, was equitable was queried. A needs assessment had been undertaken. There was a foundational offer in each area which could be further developed on the basis of local needs. 4.11. Community buildings suitable for use as spoke delivery sites were still being identified. 4.12. Co-production had been undertaken with the Family Hub Leadership Alliance, an oversight/steering group comprising stakeholders including families, health partners, carers and schools to ensure services were aligned with young people and their families’ needs. For example, following families’ input, hubs were to be open on weekends and whether hubs could be used to support immunisation programmes to support health partners was being considered. The Common Moral Purpose was developed in consultation with parent advisor groups. 4.13. Analysis of service users’ postcodes would enable outreach services to be targeted at areas of need. 4.14. Children and Young People’s Services were working with ... view the full minutes text for item 4. |
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Decision: RESOLVED That the report be noted. Minutes: Witnesses Pinaki Ghoshal, Executive
Director of Children and Young People
Key points from discussion The Executive Director introduced the report. Key points included: 5.1. Following three reviews of children’s social care issues which reported in 2022, the Department for Education published the report Stable Homes, Built on Love in 2023. The Pathfinder programme had been introduced to test the reforms proposed in the report. 5.2. Lewisham was one of seven areas to receive funding under the second wave of Pathfinder. 5.3. The Council had been informed that it would receive the funding in March 2023 and began activity in June. The bulk of the activity was to begin in September. Five schools were to receive support. 5.4. Children’s services were also evolving their practice to prevent more children entering care in the first place. The Committee then put questions to the witnesses. Key points raised included: 5.5. The numbers of children entering care and on statutory plans were reducing. However, it would be challenging to demonstrate the impact of the Pathfinder funding by March 2025. 5.6. Pathfinder support was to be provided to newly referred families; existing ones would not have their support disrupted. 5.7. Significant training was being delivered to children’s services, Police, Health and Education staff. Training was to include hosting family network meetings, where a young person’s wider family network would be involved in discussions regarding how a child could be best supported; this was an expansion of existing practice. Cllr Jacq Paschoud left the meeting at 8.30 pm. 5.8. The £3.3 million of funding was to be used in accordance with the four pillars of reform detailed in the report. Most delivery was to be achieved using existing staff resources. The aim was to deliver a consistent family decision-making process under which funding was used to support families with solutions that worked for them: for example, additional carer support, purchasing furniture or offsetting lost earnings resulting from participating in support. Officers were confident that the agreed funding plan would result in full use of the funding. 5.9. The Council’s improved Ofsted grading would enable it to more effectively market itself as an attractive place to work. 5.10. There were some Department for Education requirements under the programme which were inconsistent with children’s services’ approach, against which officers had successfully pushed back. 5.11. The Integrated Adolescent Service’s school-based support enabled the provision of multi-agency wraparound support involving agencies who did not normally work with children’s services, for example youth workers and substance misuse workers. The recruitment of further specialist mentors was being explored. RESOLVED That the report be noted. |
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Select Committee work programme Additional documents:
Decision: RESOLVED That the draft work programme be agreed. Minutes: 6.1. It was suggested the September ‘for information’ item on school admissions numbers provided opportunity for the consideration of the impact of the introduction of VAT on independent school fees. That impact was likely to be insignificant and there was capacity to absorb several hundred students from the independent sector in Lewisham’s state secondary schools. RESOLVED That the draft work programme be agreed. |