Annual Performance Assessment – 2006 Final Judgements
Executive Member for Education & Skills: Paul Thompson
Executive Member for Children’s Services: Jan Brunton
Executive Director, Children, Families & Learning: Terry Redmayne
21st November 2006
PURPOSE OF THE REPORT
1. To inform the Executive of the final judgements from the joint Ofsted and
Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) Annual Performance Assessment of
the council’s children’s services. The 2006 judgements were published on 1 st
November 2006.
BACKGROUND AND EXTERNAL CONSULTATION
2. 2006 was the second year in which local authority children’s services were subject to
an Annual Performance Assessment (APA). The APA takes the form of a review of
the performance of the council’s education and children’s social care services. The
review is conducted jointly by Ofsted and CSCI and is structured around the five
Every Child Matters outcomes, looking at a range of key performance indicators and
the authority’s service management arrangements.
3. The assessment is based on a detailed review of the nationally specified data set,
recent inspection reports and service specific briefings by government departments
and agencies. The inspection team then spends a day in the local authority area
testing their initial hypotheses through a series of interviews with service managers
and users before making their final judgements on the local authority’s performance
in improving outcomes for children and young people.
4. Services are graded from 1 to 4, where 1 signifies that a service is not meeting the
minimum requirements and 4 indicates that it is delivering well above the minimum
requirements. A summary of Middlesbrough’s 2006 grades is set out below.
Areas for judgement
Final judgements
Grade
Descriptor
The contribution of the local authority’s children’s services in
maintaining and improving outcomes for children and young people
3
Good
The council’s overall capacity to improve its services for children and
young people
3
Good
The contribution of the local authority’s social care services in
maintaining and improving outcomes for children and young people
3
Good
5. For 2006, there is no separate grade for the local authority’s education services.
6. In the 2005 APA, the council was also graded 3 for all elements. A significant
difference between the two years is the number of “areas for improvement” identified
in the letter. In 2005, 15 areas for improvement were identified across the five Every
Child Matters outcomes and this has reduced to 7 in 2006.
7. Some notable progress has been made in addressing the areas for improvement
identified in 2005, with a number of these issues now being identified as key
strengths in 2006:
 work with black and minority ethnic communities to promote children’s
health and their safety,
 improved use of data to inform planning and activities,
 the impact of targeted programmes on raising the achievement of groups of
pupils, including boys,
 improved pupil attendance levels in the 2004/05 academic year,
 reduced rates of offending amongst looked-after children.
8. Whilst the focus of the assessment is the council’s performance in providing
children’s services, it also looks at the impact of the council’s partnership working
with other key local agencies including the health service, colleges, Connexions, the
LSC, etc.
OPTION APPRAISAL/ RISK ASSESSMENT
9. It is the children’s services grade that contributes to the council’s Comprehensive
Performance Assessment (CPA), so for this element the score remains at 3 or
“good”.
10. Areas for improvement identified in the APA letter are fed into the Children, Families
& Learning Department’s planning process. In addition, the department’s outline
priorities are shared annually with DfES and CSCI at a priorities discussion early in
the annual planning cycle.
11. Looking forward to 2007 APA, there is a significant risk identified with the fall in pupil
attendance levels during the 2005/06 academic year, which effectively lost the
progress made during the 2004/05 academic year. Further resources have been
targeted at this issue to:
 increase the number of Education Welfare Officers working with schools and
families to improve individual pupils’ attendance, and
 improve the coverage and timeliness of the data on individual pupils’ attendance
that is available to Education Welfare Officers to enable them to focus on
intervention work with pupils and their families.
FINANCIAL, LEGAL AND WARD IMPLICATIONS
12. Not applicable.
SCRUTINY CONSULTATION
13. The Children & Learning Scrutiny Panel considers detailed reports on significant,
specific elements of the APA data set, e.g. outcomes for children looked after, Ofsted
inspection reports, the Annual Standards report. Overview and Scrutiny Board
considers outcomes from Corporate Performance Assessment process, which is in
part informed by the APA process as indicated in paragraph 9 above.
RECOMMENDATIONS
14. That Members note the content of the attached letter.
REASONS
15. To develop a shared understanding of the key service improvement issues identified
for the department.
BACKGROUND PAPERS
16. Ofsted/CSCI APA findings letter (attached).
AUTHOR: D A David – Performance & Planning Manager
TEL NO: 01642 728103