Minutes
Children’s Trust Board
Notes of meeting on 22nd June 2007
Attendees:
Dave Hill (DH - Chair), Paul Ballatt (PB), Susanne Baccini (SB for Chris Frost),
Graeme Thomson (GT), Andy Redfearn (AR), Ray Hautot (RH), Chris Parsloe
(CP), Cllr Debbie Shears (DS), Ian Newman (IN), Dave Marris (DM), Angela
Gibson (AG), Sally McEnhill (SM), Ayub Khan (AK for Linda Taylor), Abbi Scott
(AS) Keith Shipman (KS - for item 5), Barry Scales (BS - for item 6), Denise
Hobbs (DHo - notetaker)
Apologies: -
Helen Lincoln (HL), Janet Martin (JM), Chris Frost (CF), Cllr Oonagh Moulton
(OM), Don King (DK), Mark Clenaghan (MC), Linda Taylor (LT),
CC
Clare Gummett, Jonathan Lloyd, Morag Plank, Angela McGinlay, Ben Harris,
Samantha Ghulam, Joanna Richards, Gillian Dickinson, Peta Campbell, Dee
Jupp, Sandra Garvey, Lorraine Burke, Christian Browning,
Action
1. Apologies for absence
The above apologies were noted.
2. Minutes / matters arising from previous meeting
The minutes were agreed
3. Learning from Joint Area Review
The report from the JAR is expected to be published by 3 July and will then be a
document of public record. It had been agreed with the JAR inspectors that there
would not be a stand-alone JAR action plan but that recommendations from the
report would be incorporated into the revised Children and Young People’s Plan.
.
PB gave presentation of the highlights and areas to develop for each of the 5
outcomes and also for service management. JAR inspectors had commented that
they had been impressed by staff commitment and enthusiasm. The report would
appear on the Ofsted website when published and a final version would be sent to the
authority.
When the draft report had originally been received DH had asked for the contribution
of the CVS to be noted in the report. DH to write to all concerned to thank them for
their contribution to the JAR.
4. Merton Children’s Fund (MCF) Progress Report
SB gave a presentation on the future of the MCF Early intervention and prevention
programme for children aged 5-13 and their families. SB advised that the end of the
government’s funding stream for MCF was coming in March 2008 and there would be
no money available for redundancy of staff. Members of the Board needed to
consider what would happen to organisations receiving MCF funding after March
2008 and whether the support could be provided in a different way. MCF was led by
the voluntary sector and SB gave details of the positive outcomes made in Merton.
Handouts of the presentation and a leaflet showing the 2006-2008 programme were
circulated.
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DH
SB advised were currently lobbying the DfES but would be no ring fencing of moneys.
SB advised that would be attending the extended schools conference next week to
look at linking with the extended schools agenda.
It was agreed that PB meet with SB and colleagues to explore future options for
Children’s Fund projects pending any announcement from the government regarding
the future of the Children’s Fund.
PB/SB
5. Integrated Youth Support Services
Paper describing the progress to date and the future direction of the Integrated Youth
Support Service was circulated with the agenda. All Local Authorities are now
required to work with partners to transform the life chances of young people through
developing Integrated Youth Support systems. KS gave a brief description of the
current position as outlined in the report. Integrated youth support covers all services
integrating and working together around the needs of the young person. The Training
and Development Agency has been supporting local authorities to develop the model
in each authority and it is planned to replicate this training to other officers and
partners in the borough. A participation strategy has been produced and is being
consulted on. A pledge/promise to young people detailed at the back of the report
had been drafted and young people were being consulted on the wording of the
pledge. The Children’s Council had met earlier that day and put forward suggested
amendments to the pledge. Merton would develop its own model for integrated youth
support. The Child Concern Model and the Common Assessment Framework are
elements that have already been successfully developed, and that form the basis of
the development of integrated working in Merton. The Integrated Youth Support
service would need to consider how the model was used to support adolescents
effectively. The Child Concern Model had already been used to audit activity for the
Youth Crime Strategy and a diagram to show this was detailed at the back of the
report.
It was stressed that the voluntary sector would have an important role to play in
services and driving the agenda. It was agreed that KS should attend a future
meeting to give members an update. KS to also circulate the final version of the
pledge for Board members comments before being finalised.
6. ContactPoint
BS gave a presentation on ContactPoint which is a system used to find out who else
is working with the same child or young person. The idea for the system came out of
the Victoria Climbié enquiry. Handouts of the presentation were circulated. The
system will be available to authorised staff who need it to do their job. It will at the
present time be a national system to cover all of England and will store basic
information ie name, gender, date of birth, address, parent/carer contact details, GP
details and education school details of all children but no case data. Only information
requested can be put on the system. ContactPoint will also record the additional
involvement of other services eg youth worker, social worker, SENCO, CAF indicator
and details of the lead professional. Permissions will be set up in the system for
access to the information so staff accessing the system will only see what they need
to see. Every person using ContactPoint will need to have an enhanced CRB check
and they must have undertaken child protection training. ContactPoint would be a
key part of Every Child Matters and would be part of the mainstream process. By the
end of 2008 key priority users would be using the system but not every system would
be joined up until 6 months later.
At the moment types of workers and training systems were being mapped. As the
project develops the scope of the work would be expanding and BS would update the
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KS
KS
Board on a regular basis. BS offered to attend headteacher meetings to give further
details and also agreed to attend a group for South London Connexions to give
guidance. BS advised that it was the responsibility of the practitioner to decide how
long the information regarding their involvement with a child needed to be on record
and could only keep it on as long as was needed. The information is kept on for a
maximum of 6 years and is then archived and then only accessed through the DfES.
BS asked if Board members had any further questions they contact him. It was
agreed that BS should come back to a future meeting in late autumn to give further
update.
7. LAA Update
The delivery plans for stage 1 of LAA have now been established and most delivery
plans are progressing. However, have now been asked to prepare for the second
part of LAA. A guidance note on the new style LAA was circulated with the agenda.
There will be 35 targets in the second stage with 18 out of the 35 being targets
regarding children and young people and these will be drawn from 200 national
targets. Merton Partnership will be leading on this and the Children’s Trust Board
would lead on the children and young people block. It had been hoped to use the
awayday to work on this, but work on this would need to begin over the summer. PB
would e-mail to Board members asking them to think about additional targets.
Officers would then meet with GoL and begin negotiations and the expectation was
that the targets would be in place in the financial year 08/09. PB to circulate
information as it was received.
PB
PB
8. Brief Items
 Joint Commissioning
The local authority and the PCT have agreed to appoint a joint commissioning
manager who will be employed by the Trust but managed by the local authority.
 Participation Strategy
As advised by KS a Participation Strategy has been produced and a pledge/promise
to young people has been drafted. The local authority are adopting model universally
for children and young people to increase the involvement of young people in
decision-making and planning. The Council has committed to adopt the ‘Hear by
Right’ national standards and now need to ask other organisations and partners to
also agree to adopt this strategy.
 Workforce Development
A draft workforce development strategy was circulated. PB advised that were now
trying to progress this and a working group needed to be set up and asked if Trust
Board members could nominate anyone from their respective organisations who
would like to be involved in the group.
ALL
 Awayday
The previously agreed date of 4 July for the awayday had now been cancelled. It
was suggested that the next meeting scheduled for 14 September be extended to a
whole day. DHo to e-mail members to ascertain members’ availability for that day. If
that date was not possible, DHo would circulate further possible dates for the
awayday. It was suggested that some work be done on workforce development, the
next CYPP and the architecture of group at the awayday.
DHo
9. Any other business
Guidance to thematic partnerships on compact principles
Papers circulated with the agenda giving guidance to thematic partnerships on
compact principles agreed by the Compact Board on 11th May and detailing the
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recommendations to thematic partnerships. RH advised that he was CEN
representative and sat on compact partnership, he was deemed to act as a compact
champion and was charged with responsibility that the compact principles detailed in
the circulated document were adhered to. This was being done in every thematic
partnership between now and September.
Care Matters Time for Change White Paper
The Care Matters ‘Time for Change’ White Paper was published on 21 June. It was
agreed that a reference to the website link be put in the minutes of the meeting to
assist Board members to download a copy. A presentation on the White Paper would
be given at the next meeting.
Website link for Care Matters ‘Time for Change’ White Paper:http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/publications/timeforchange/docs/timeforchange.pdf
Website link for Care Matters ‘Time for Change’ White Paper:-summary:http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/publications/timeforchange/docs/timeforchange_summary.pdf
Virtual School
Merton was one of the local authorities nationally to be included in the pilot to
establish a virtual headteacher who will champion the education for children in care.
Merton was one of only 2 boroughs in London to have been included in the pilot.
The next meeting of the Children’s Trust Board would be the awayday on Friday 14
September 2007 from 9.00 am if that date was convenient for Board members and
the next normal business meeting would take place on Friday 12 October.
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