Children and Families Scrutiny Committee
The Children and Families Committee deals with the scrutiny of
Education, Children’s Social Care, Early Years Provision, Looked
After Children and Youth Services.
Committee Membership
Meetings
Details of
meetings for Children and Familites Scrutiny Committee
Current Task and Finish Reviews
- Home to School Transport
- Health of Cared for Children (joint review with Health and
Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee)
Chairman's Blog
As Chairman of the Children and Families Scrutiny Committee I
would firstly like to thank you in taking an interest in the work
of the Committee. The Children and Families Scrutiny Committee is
responsible for scrutinising a wide range of issues. This includes
matters such as; early years and childcare; education; children’s
social care and wellbeing; family support services; cared for
children and care leavers; children’s safeguarding; and services
for children and young people with disabilities. Like all
Councillors we also take our role as Corporate Parents very
seriously: Corporate
Parenting Guide (PDF, 169KB)
What I hope to do with this blog is to
highlight the work of the Committee in a way that whilst being
informative is perhaps easier to read than the formal minutes. If
you’d ever like more detail on an issue discussed on this blog you
can
find Agendas, minutes and reports here. I hope that what
you read here might spark an interest in the Committee and you
might feel compelled to get involved and contribute to our work in
making Cheshire East a better place for our children, young adults
and their families.
It’s not unusual for the Children and Families
Scrutiny Committee to have full and varied agendas and the meeting
held on 14 February 2012 was no exception. The Committee was
delighted to receive a response to a task and finish
review on fostering (PDF, 1.4MB) which had been completed in
April 2011.
Task and finish reviews are an excellent way for
Councillors to delve into a complex issue and come up with
recommendations on how to improve current policy. It was very
pleasing therefore that all of the task group’s 32 recommendations
were agreed in principle. The importance of task and finish work
was also demonstrated by an item on family support which
highlighted the response that the Council had made following a
number of recommendations made by Councillors. This included a move
towards an early intervention agenda which has already proven to be
a success.
The Committee also considered the future of
careers advice, targeted youth support and Connexions. This item
was requested for scrutiny because a number of Committee Members
had been concerned that careers advice historically had not been as
effective as it could be and also about the potential loss of
impartial careers advice following the decision to cease a contract
with Connexions. It was reassuring therefore that the new model
described to Members would maintain a universal and impartial
careers service and a more targeted approach for those most
vulnerable.
An overview of the new school admissions and
appeals code was provided to the Committee. It is likely that this
will have an impact on how the Council works with schools over
admission criteria and therefore the Committee will be exploring
this further in our next meeting scheduled for 13 March 2012.
If you are keen to attend our next meeting we
are due to be looking at an update on an Ofsted inspection paper
(safeguarding) and items on school admission arrangements and the
Youth Offending service. This will be taking place in Oakenclough
Children’s Centre in Wilmslow.
