SCRUTINY COMMITTEE (LIFELONG LEARNING)
MINUTES of a meeting held at St. Richard Gwyn
High School, Barry on 7th April, 2008.
Present: Councillor A.D. Hampton (Chairman);
Councillor E. Hacker (Vice-Chairman); Councillors P. Church, J.
Clifford, Miss J. Cole, A.D. Dobbinson, A.M. Ernest, F.T. Johnson,
G.C. Kemp, Mrs. S.I. Sharpe and E.T. Williams.
Non-Voting Observers: Mr. G. Beaudette and Mr.
T. Cox.
948 APOLOGIES FOR
ABSENCE -
These were received from Councillors N.J.
Gibbs, Mrs. V.M. Hartrey, A.G. Powell and B.I. Shaw.
949 MINUTES -
RECOMMENDED - T H A T the minutes of the
meeting held on 18th February, 2008 be approved as a
correct record.
950 DECLARATIONS OF
INTEREST -
The following Councillors declared the nature
of their interests, being governors of schools within the Vale of
Glamorgan, it being noted that the Standards Committee on
9th September and 21st October, 2004,
13th January, 2005 and 5th February, 2007 had
granted them a general dispensation to vote upon any matters to be
considered by the Scrutiny Committee (Lifelong Learning) in
relation to matters of a general education nature in terms of
policy, plans, policy frameworks and budgets etc:
Councillors A.D. Hampton, E. Hacker, P.
Church, J. Clifford, Miss J. Cole, A.D. Dobbinson, A.M. Ernest,
F.T. Johnson, G.C. Kemp and E.T. Williams.
951 WELCOME -
Mr. Clinch, Headteacher of St. Richard Gwyn
High School, welcomed all present to the school.
The school had been subject to severe flooding
in July 2008 and had since been completely refurbished. In
fact, the school was now in better condition than ever before and
the Headteacher expressed his gratitude to the Council for it’s
support during a very difficult period for the school.
The number of pupils on roll was 610, which
meant that the school was now at capacity.
The Chairman thanked Mr. Clinch for the
hospitality shown to the Committee and wished the school well in
the future.
952 CHILDREN AND YOUNG
PEOPLE’S PLAN (REF) -
Cabinet on 5th March, 2008, was
updated on the progress in developing the Children and Young
People’s Plan.
The Assembly Government had produced specific
guidance for the production of the plan which was required to
address seven core aims. These reflected a commitment that
all children and young people:
·
have a flying start in life
·
have a comprehensive range of education and learning
opportunities
·
enjoy the best possible health and are free from abuse,
victimisation and exploitation
·
have access to play, leisure, sporting and cultural activities
·
are listened to, are treated with respect and have their race and
cultural identity recognised
·
have a safe home and a community which supports physical and
emotional wellbeing
·
are not disadvantaged by poverty.
As part of the process of developing a draft
plan for consultation, working groups had been established to
address each of the core aims. These working groups included
a range of partnership and other representatives with specialist
knowledge and experience in the relevant area.
The plan would become one of the major
strategic documents of the local authority and was intended to
provide a high level and strategic framework within which multi
agency arrangements could be co-ordinated and improved, leading to
better outcomes for children and young people.
The guidance set out a range of requirements
for engagement and consultation with key partners. Within the
Vale of Glamorgan, the timetable for development was as
follows:
January –
February
Core aims sub-groups to review current needs analysis and
priorities within each of the core aims, to develop proposals.
February
29th
Partnership Consultation Conference. Review of priorities,
potential areas for duplication and overlap and proposed plan
priorities.
March
Draft plan refined for consultation.
April –
June
Formal consultation period.
June – September
Formal
plan submitted to partners for endorsement
September
2008
Plan published.
The plan would reflect needs assessment across
the range of service provision for children and young people,
informed by a number of recent initiative developments and current
plans. These included the Community Strategy, Health, Social
Care and Wellbeing Strategy, the National Service Framework Self
Assessment Audit, Better Outcomes for Children in Need, Communities
that Care Survey, the annual survey of childcare provision, the
Single Education Plan, Flying Start and inspection reports of the
local Youth Offending Service, youth service provision and the
Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service.
Throughout the development of the plan and at
key milestone dates, progress would be reported to Cabinet.
The plan had also been identified as a key priority for the
Scrutiny Committee (Lifelong Learning) action plan. Council
would be asked to approve the plan on 30th June, 2008
following consultation.
Cabinet had
“RESOLVED – T H A T the scope and requirements
of the Children and Young People’s Plan be noted and that the
report be referred to the Scrutiny Committee (Lifelong Learning)
and Scrutiny Committee (Community Wellbeing and Safety) for
consideration.”
Having considered the resolution of Cabinet,
Committee
RECOMMENDED - T H A T the decision of Cabinet
be noted.
953 SCHOOL INSPECTION
REPORTS (REF) -
Mrs. M. Evans, Headteacher of Cowbridge
Comprehensive School was present for this item.
Mrs. C. Hoffrock, Headteacher of Bute Cottage
Nursery School had submitted her apologies.
Cabinet on 12th March, 2008 was
provided with details of the outcomes of School Inspections that
had been undertaken in the Autumn term 2007.
The schools referred to were:
·
Bute Cottage Nursery
·
St. Helen’s Infants R/C School
·
Cowbridge Comprehensive School.
During the Autumn term 2007 the schools had
been inspected via three types of inspection. Bute Cottage
(Full), St. Helens R/C (Standard) and Cowbridge Comprehensive
(Short). The report highlighted that the assessments that had
been made provided a positive reflection of the good work being
undertaken within the schools concerned. Bute Cottage was
described as a good school with outstanding features, St. Helens
R/C Infant and Nursery was described as good features and no
important shortcomings and in the case of Cowbridge School the
assessment was good with outstanding features which had been
awarded across all seven key questions for all key stages in the
Grade 1 assessment.
Cabinet had
“RESOLVED –
(1) T H A
T the outcomes of the Schools Inspections be noted.
(2) T H A
T the reports be referred to the Scrutiny Committee (Lifelong
Learning) for consideration.
(3) T H A
T the three schools be congratulated on the many positive elements
of the reports.”
Mrs. Evans thanked the Committee for the
invitation to attend the meeting and stated that she was very
gratified that the Inspectors had recognised the progress made at
Cowbridge Comprehensive School, together with the high standards of
teaching. The school would not rest on its laurels, and
further progress was anticipated when the school moved to better
accommodation.
RECOMMENDED - T H A T the Headteachers and
staff on Bute Cottage Nursery School, St. Helens Infants School and
Cowbridge Comprehensive School be sent letters of commendation
thanking them for helping to achieve such outstanding inspection
reports.
Reason for recommendation
To recognise the achievements the schools had
made.
954 REVENUE AND
CAPITAL MONITORING FOR THE PERIOD 1ST APRIL 2007 -
29TH FEBRUARY 2008 (DLD) -
Committee’s attention was drawn to the
position in respect of revenue and capital expenditure for the
period 1st April 2007 - 29th February 2008
regarding those revenue and capital budgets which formed the
Committee’s remit.
The projected outturn for the 2007/09 Revenue
budget was shown in comparison with the amended budget at Appendix
1 to the report. The current forecast was for a balanced
budget for the Directorate.
Schools - the delegated budget relating to
schools was expected to balance as any under/overspend was carried
forward by schools.
Education Service - a projected underspend was
forecast on the Education budget which would be used to fund
overspends elsewhere in the Directorate. In addition, the
savings would be used to support the residential special schools
provision, where the combined deficit balance was projected to
total £378,000 at 31st March 2008 as a result of the
financial implications of Care Standards legislation.
Although there were a number of pressures on the service, the
expenditure on placements in independent schools included in the
Access and Inclusion budget was forecast to be £130,000 less than
was estimated. This was due to a number of pupils returning
to placements within the Authority. At present there was also
potential additional income of £350,000 as a result of more out of
county pupils. However, given the volatile nature of this
budget, the income was not considered secure at this time. In
addition, within the Strategic Planning Performance budget, as a
result of the combination of a recent re-tendering exercise on
certain Home to School transport routes and contract inflation for
all other routes being lower than expected, there was a projected
saving of £137,000 on Home to School transport. The Education
base budget currently included £450,000 to support the School
Investment Strategy. In 2007/08 the budget would be used to
help fund the costs of the External Design Team. From 2008/09
it would be available to support potential borrowing. Any
further savings that were realised by the end of the financial year
would also be available to further support the School Investment
Strategy.
Grant related expenditure - in addition to
grants previously reported, a further £14,540 from the Welsh
Assembly for Foundation Phase Resource and Training had been
received. All primary, nursery and infants schools could
utilise these funds where appropriate.
Lifelong Learning - costs had been reallocated
to Education and Schools which resulted in a reduced predicted
adverse variance of £46,000 when compared to earlier reports.
The variance was primarily due to a delay in starting the new
learning programmes to the economically inactive and low enrolments
over the summer period (£36,000) and premises costs at the Heritage
Skills Centre (£10,000).
Catering - an adverse variance of £30,000 was
predicted for this service. This was a reduction of £60,000
from that previously reported and was due to more active promotion
/ marketing of school meals to improve uptake, an increase in meal
prices from September 2007, realignment of school kitchen staff
with output of meals and a review of administrative arrangements
between Education and the Catering Service.
In relation to the Capital Programme, Appendix
2 to the report detailed the financial progress on the Programme as
at 29th February 2008. Appendix 3 to the report
provided non-financial information on capital schemes with a budget
of over £100,000.
RECOMMENDED - T H A T the position with regard
to the 2007/08 Revenue and Capital Monitoring be noted.
Reason for decision
That Members are aware of the position with
regard to the 2007/08 Revenue and Capital Monitoring relevant to
the Scrutiny Committee.
955 SCHOOL INVESTMENT
STRATEGY - UPDATE (DLD) -
Members were updated with regard to the
progress of the School Investment Strategy.
The necessary work to submit the full planning
application for Cowbridge Comprehensive School was being progressed
by Davis Langdon. All the necessary details topographical and
site surveys had now been undertaken.
Initial design work and survey work had also
commenced at St. Cyres Secondary School. The intention was to
have a fully designated scheme for the second part of 2009 at the
latest. This would enable the Council to bid for any Welsh
Assembly Government capital funds that may be available from April
2010. With respect to Llantwit Major, initial design work was
planned for later this year. The intention was to link the
redevelopment of Llantwit Major School with the roll-out of the
ministry of Defence Training Academy at St. Athan.
RECOMMENDED - T H A T the contents of the
report be noted.
Reason for decision
That Members are aware of progress on the
School Investment Strategy.
956 SERVICE PLANS
-
Details relating to each of the Directorate’s
four service areas were presented. The standard format of the
Service Plan comprised:
·
Financial Management
·
People Management
·
Sustainability and Equalities
·
Service Objectives
·
Where we excel
·
Improvement Plan Actions - completed and not completed
·
Service Plan Actions - completed and not completed
·
Consultation - What have we done and What will we do?
Having considered the Service Plans, it
was
RECOMMENDED - T H A T the Service Plans be
endorsed, subject to the following:
Strategic Planning and
Performance
Remove Improvement Action LL11 (Develop a
strategy for co-education secondary education in Barry) until such
time as the Council is able to finance the proposal.
School Improvement
Remove the Improvement Action Not Completed
“Deliver training and development requirements as part of the PDR
process”.
Lifelong Learning
-
That the following uncompleted Action Plans be carried forward into
the current year’s Improvement Plan:
-
introduce a system of national standards for the Youth Service
-
collaborative procurement of a Library Management system
-
undertake a feasibility study of a Library Service for people who
are housebound.
-
That the Service Action Plan not completed “Develop a Service
Agreement for Libraries with Corporate IT including emergency
support and out of hours services” be deleted.
Access and Inclusion
-
The deletion of the Improvement Plan Action Not completed entitled
“Develop joint commissioning arrangements with the Local Health
Board or Occupational Therapy Services.
-
That the reference to the “Consultant” in the Action “Develop a
strategy for medium and long term financial planning for SEN” be
replaced with “Education Management Team”.
957 SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
FORWARD WORK PROGRAMME 2008/09 (DLPPHS) -
Members were advised of the outcome of the
Scrutiny Topics Suggestion exercise relating to potential topics
for possible consideration for inclusion within the Committee’s
work programme.
The Scrutiny Committee Chairmen and
Vice-Chairmen Group had been presented with a report on the issues
relating to Scrutiny Committees’ Work Programmes for 2008/09.
They had been advised of the resource implications of both Members
and officers within Scrutiny and Committee Services and the
Improvement and Development Team of supporting the delivery of the
Social Services Change Plan and of a more recent development
whereby the Improvement and Development Team had also been directed
towards issues which had arisen within the Youth Offending
Team.
In the light of the above, the ability of
officers to conduct formal reviews during 2008/09 was considered to
be limited. To this end, it was felt that the Improvement and
Development Team could only realistically sustain the undertaking
of one review in respect of each of the Corporate Resources,
Economy and Environment and Lifelong Learning Scrutiny
Committees.
As a result of the request for submission of
topics, the Scrutiny and Committee Services Section had received
one topic for consideration as a formal review and that this would
be undertaken by the Scrutiny Committee (Economy and
Environment).
Notwithstanding the above, Scrutiny Committee
(Lifelong Learning) would continue consideration of the following
as part of its overall Work Programme for 2008/09:
·
Quarterly Service Performance Monitoring
·
Revenue and Capital Expenditure Monitoring
·
School Investment Strategy
·
Budget Proposals
·
Service Planning
·
Other reports required by the Committee as and when appropriate
·
Emerging strategies from the Corporate Plan and Community
Strategy
·
Decision tracking its recommendations in order to evaluate and
monitor scrutiny performance
·
Cabinet Forward Work Programme.
A Member expressed disappointment at the level
of resources available to assist the scrutiny process.
RECOMMENDED -
(1) T H A
T the contents of the report be accepted.
(2) T H A
T the Committee’s Work Programme for 2008/09 be agreed as
follows:
·
Quarterly Service Performance Monitoring
·
Revenue and Capital Expenditure Monitoring
·
School Investment Strategy
·
Budget Proposals
·
Service Planning
·
Other reports required by the Committee as and when appropriate
·
Emerging strategies from the Corporate Plan and Community
Strategy
·
Decision tracking its recommendations in order to evaluate and
monitor scrutiny performance
·
Cabinet Forward Work Programme.
Reasons for recommendations
(1) For
Members’ information.
(2) To
confirm the Committee’s Work Programme for the forthcoming
municipal year.
958 SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
- DRAFT ANNUAL REPORT MAY 2007 - APRIL 2008 (DLPPHS) -
The report had been produced in accordance
with Section 6.03(d) of Article 6 of the Vale of Glamorgan
Council’s Constitution.
Having considered the draft Annual Report May
2007 - April 2008, it was
RECOMMENDED - T H A T the draft Annual Report
for the period May 2007 - April 2008 be approved, subject to
further minor amendments relating to the work of the Committee in
addressing the Children and Young People’s Plan,School Investment
Strategy and Education Budgets being agreed in consultation with
the Chairman, and that it be submitted to Full Council.
Reason for decision
To approve the Annual Report.
959 MATTER WHICH THE
CHAIRMAN HAD DECIDED WAS URGENT -
RECOMMENDED - T H A T the following matter
which the Chairman had decided was urgent for the reason specified
be considered.
960 NATIONAL UNION OF
TEACHERS - INDUSTRIAL ACTION (DLD) -
Urgent by reason of the need to advise
Committee of the threat of industrial action in Vale
schools
On 28th March, the National Union
of Teachers ballot for strike action concluded with a majority of
those participating voting in favour of strike action on
24th April, 2008.
It was not possible at this point to predict
the response to the NUT call for strike action, as any decision
about whether or not to participate remained a matter for
individuals. In this regard, NUT members who did not
participate in the ballot had the same choice as those who did.
The National Employers Organisation had
confirmed that it would be issuing advice on the Industrial
Action. There was also a need for local advice on issues for
schools such as
·
contingency plans
·
communications
·
implications for other agencies
·
contractual conditions / pay
·
administrative arrangements.
The Cabinet had authorised the Director of
Learning and Development to issue the necessary advice to schools
following discussions with the National Employers Organisation and
consultation with the Cabinet Member for Education and Lifelong
Learning.
RECOMMENDED -
(1) T H A
T the contents of the report be noted.
(2) T H A
T Members of the Committee receive a copy of any correspondence
circulated by the Director of Learning and Development to schools
on this matter.
Reasons for decisions
(1) To
note the arrangements being put into place to respond to the threat
of Industrial Action.
(2) To
advise Members of the Committee.