Ofsted Report - Unannounced Inspection of Social Care

Last month the County Council had the pleasure of a two day unannounced inspection of Social Care.   These are genuinely unannounced, with the OFSTED team letting you know about the inspection from the Car Park outside.

I am quite a fan of this system - it makes sure that they see life as it is (not sure how social workers feel about it though!)  Anyway, the resulting report was published last week and can be found here.

I think it is a reasonably accurate reflection of where we are and shows the progress that has been made since the last unannounced inspection.  If they had found any significant problems, they would have been included on the report as "Priority Areas for Action"  - there are none and that says something about where we are.

The most important thing about the report is whether it uncovered anything we weren't aware of, and I am pleased to say it didn't.  It shows that we know our Social Care set up well.  The issues that are identified are all part of the reason we are moving towards a different model of Social Care and the difficult process of moving to that model will be helped by the high staff moral that is recognised in the report as a strength.

In the recent past Social Workers have not had a great press.   I have to say that I am always impressed by the dedication and attitude of our Social Workers in Cambridgeshire.

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment

The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment is, in my view, one of the most important documents in the Public Sector, it sets out key data about Cambridgeshire, increasingly it is broken down into local information, but most importantly it covers data related to all aspects of the public sector - but with a prime focus on health.

A website for the JSNA has just been launched.  The site includes this short video clip of me explaining my views about what it means to Children's Services:

Waterlees Play Area again

Some comments from our local constabulary have led to Waterlees play area being on the front page of the Daily Express today and have got a mention in the Daily Mail.

I am not going to comment on what the police have said, I think their communications team have a big enough problem to deal with as it is.  I just want (once again) to reinforce the point that these are not new incidents.  The vandalism to the barges and the stone throwing incidents happened months ago and (to the police's credit) I believe there has been an arrest related to the vandalism to the barges.

The Daily Mail have a nice photo up of the "building site", but fail to mention how long ago it was taken.

Safe Recruitment

It would be wrong of me not to mention the issue of safer recruitment given the coverage the issues in Cambridgeshire have received today.

The story is basically that an audit of safe recruitment practices in schools in Cambridgeshire found that practices in our schools have not improved over recent years and that as many as one in eight (based on a sample of sixteen schools) may not be doing even basic checks.  These include a check against List 99 - which takes about half an hour and confirms that a potential appointee has not been banned from working with children.

Today I did interviews with Anglia TV and Look East and the story has appeared in the local media and, over the last couple of days, in the National Press too, including some quotes from me.  Those quotes are taken from the interview I have done with the Cambs Times and I should thank them, their report of this issue, which is online here, gives exactly the message I wanted - a robust one that makes it clear that complacency in the area of safe recruitment is not an option.

Of course, as a County Council we are looking at what we can do to improve the situation - but actually it is up to schools to do these checks and we cannot hold their hands every time they recruit and appoint new staff.   I hope that the National coverage this report has received will help to hit the point home to schools that unsafe recruitment practices are not acceptable.

However, and this is not to divert attention away from Cambridgeshire, it must be said that the reason the issue has been identified here is because our Audit and Accounts Committee chose to do the work they have and, recognising a problem, chose to bring it to the attention of the Cabinet at the County Council.  I think I know our schools pretty well, and my instinct is that this situation is not unique to Cambridgeshire and is potentially worse elsewhere.  I have sent an email tonight to the Department for Education making exactly this point.

Interesting Days

Today was a really interesting one.

In between radio interviews this morning about the confirmation of our BSF funding for Meadowgate, Sir Harry Smith and Cromwell, which has seen possible cuts of 40% reduced down to 20% and then media interviews about the safer recruitment story which has appeared Nationally in a few papers I spoke at the beginning of the Opening Doors to Learning training event which is a National 3 day event being held in Girton College, Cambridge, supported by the County County Council's Environmental Education Service.  To summarise briefly (and therefore not entirely accurately) the aim is to promote the importance of the outdoors in education - something I am a big fan of.

One of the things I try not to do, is turn up for conferences, speak and then walk away.  Today, because I had media interviews to do after I had spoken, I went a bit early to have a chat to a few people, then left and went back for a while.   I am often impressed by the enthusiasm of teachers, but those present today were a step above (and not all of them were teachers) - with a genuine desire to get young people learning outside - including understanding the potential for elements of the pupil premium to be used to get children from deprived areas out of the classroom more.

I also sat  for a while learning about Cambridgeshire's recycling bus, which is a service schools can pay for which highlights issues about recycling - but in a way that links to every aspect of the curriculum.  I then sat with a group of enthusiasts of all ages making swords out of newspaper, wool and a bit of sellotape (and don't I look excited about it!!!).

Why is this important?  Well, education outside the classroom is very important - but I hope this summary of today also gives a bit of a taste of the life I lead and the things I get up to, I hope it also shows that in order to make the important, top down decisions that I have to as a Cabinet Member, I try to make sure I have an understanding of what we do from a bottom-up perspective.  I hope some find that of interest.

Youth Services Cuts

I have been contacted by a number of residents about the proposed cuts to Youth Services budget in Whittlesey and the impact this will have on the open access clubs in the Town.

These proposed changes come about directly as a result of the cuts the County Council face, which are forecast to be between 25% and 40%.  Cuts like that, especially in a County like Cambridgeshire which is recognised for managing money well and for being efficient, cannot be made without impacting on some services.   When the Coalition Government came to power, they inherited a record budget deficit - and these changes can be directly attributed to the measures needed to bring our country back onto an even financial keel.

Wiithin Children's Services, which is my portfolio as a Cabinet Member at the County Council, we have had to go back to basics and recognise that our primary role is to make sure we protect and support vulnerable children and families and to do preventative work which reduces more expensive interventions.   Unfortunately, Open Access Youth Clubs don't fit in to that category.  That is not to say they don't have a function and they aren't useful, just that with the funding situation we face, they are not affordable.   This is not something anyone wants to do, it is forced on us by circumstances.

I have been approached by a number of people asking what can be done to keep the Youth Centre in Whittlesey open.  As a result I have asked for some support to investigate the possibility of creating a Trust of some sort that can be used as a basis for fund raising and making bids to try and replace the money that is being lost and minimise the impact of those cuts on Whittlesey - I don't know the detail of this, it is very much a work in progress, but if this is something you are interested in, please get in touch.

Please also get in touch if you have any other ideas and thoughts.

Meeting with Tim Loughton MP - Minister for Children

I had a meeting with Tim Loughton MP, the Minister for Children today.  I have met him a few times before when he was Shadow Minister, he was also one of the people who was kind enough to drop me a good luck note when I stood for Parliament in Nottingham North earlier in the year.   It was a pleasure being able to chat now that he is in power and has Governmental responsibility for children's services.

Much of our conversation was about future direction.   Whilst everyone is awaiting the spending announcements in October with anticipation and not a little concern, (and we all know tough times are ahead financially), it is reassuring to know that the Government's view is very hands off, preferring to look at what Councils produce and stepping in where necessary rather than managing in micro-detail from Westminster - which is what we had from the Labour Government.   It means we can take a much more Cambridgeshire focussed view of what we do instead of continually reacting to diktats.

This is exactly what the Conservatives promised in the election campaign; it is good to see it happening in reality.

Youth Games Plus 2010

Some days are a real pleasure and today was definitely one of them.

I fell off a climbing wall (but was harnessed), threw a ball around, chaired a meeting about the olympics but, most of all I watched and gave prizes at the Cambridgeshire Youth Games Plus, an event that allows disabled youngsters from across the County compete and try new sports.  What a great time - and it was great to see kids from over 20 schools across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough competing.

The event was opened by Danny Crates a past paralympian who also gave his time to attend our olympics meeting to talk about his experience and to offer some advice.

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

I do attend a huge number of meetings.  Some are more interesting than others and some are harder work than others.  But mostly they are how we move issues forwards, but also where us Councillors get to carry out our monitoring and challenge role.

Today, I had an informal meeting with the Prince's Trust and the Director of Children's Services, just to discuss if there were ways Cambridgeshire and the Children's Trust could work better together.  It follows on from an invite I had earlier this year to St James' Palace to look at the work of the Trust.   How the other half live!!   Actually - it does show that benefit can come from attending events like this - they aren't all just jollies!!

Local Safeguarding Children's Board

One of my meetings today was Cambridgeshire's Local Safeguarding Children's Board.  This is an organisation, that oversees children's safeguarding across the public sector in the County, so it has a crucial role in the work I do as Cabinet Member for Children and Young People.  

One of the activities today was the launch of their new and updated website, so I thought I would provide a link:

http://www.cambslscb.org.uk/

I suspect there are many people that don't even know of its existence, but it has an important role to play.  One of the debates following the death of Baby Peter was the role of the LSCB which resulted in the recommendation that they have an independent chairman.  Cambridgeshire's LSCB has always had this.

Ofsted unannounced inspection - Hunts and Fenland

The Ofsted report on the unannounced inspection of Children's Services in Hunts and Fenland was published today. A link to the report is here.

I have had concerns about Ofsted in the past - especially the outrageous report on Fenland Junction. But actually I think they got this right. The report is fair, recognises both strengths and weaknesses, but contained some areas for priority, largely based around recruitment and retention and capacity. We have focused a great deal on this area recently and have made in-roads - and the additional resources we have put in is mentioned in the strengths.

So we have reduced the number of vacancies - its just that not all are in post yet and, to be fair, recruitment and retention is an issue Nationally.

The most important phrase in the document, IMHO, is:

"The response to referrals of children at risk of significant harm is timely and appropriate, which helps children to remain safe. "