To receive the quarter 3 performance monitoring report for the Children’s Services directorate.

The Executive Member for Social Care and Housing introduced the Q3 Performance Report and advised that she would be working with officers to provide a new corporate template with revised indicators and scorecards.

The Executive Member for Education and Skills wished to extend his congratulations to Sandy Upper School and the Leadership Team for becoming the most improved school in Central Bedfordshire and in the country  for the achievement of 5 or more A*-C grades at GCSE or equivalent in English and Maths in 2014. 

The timely submission of performance data to the Committee was discussed and the Director of Children’s Services advised that performance results had a number of rigorous challenges before they could be published and to rush this process would have a detrimental effect.  Members of the Committee raised the following concerns:-

·         Whether national and statistical neighbour information to show where Central Bedfordshire was ranked.  The Director of Children’s Services advised that where this information was available it could be presented as was the case with the GCSE results data

·         Why there had been little change in the performance of children that achieved 5 or more A*-C grades at GCSE including English and Maths.  In response the Executive Member for Education and Skills advised that changes made by the Department for Education had affected results and showed other authorities had moved down the ranking. CBC was now performing in the second quartile and has made progress from a low starting point of 4^th quartile in 2009.

·         Concern that 40% of children had not achieved and a concerted effort to help in the performance of these children was paramount.  The Executive Member for Education and Skills acknowledged this was a good focus for the Council.

·         That consideration be given to children whose abilities peak at a later stage and required skills based options to help them achieve their potential.  The Executive Member for Education and Skills advised the Education Partnership Vision would include milestones to measure children’s progress.

·         Whether data was available on pass rates following exam resits.  The Director of Children’s Services advised this data had not been collected from schools to date.

The Director of Children’s Services advised the Committee that the target to reduce the average time in days between a child entering care and moving in with its adoptive family continued to improve.  This target would see a drastic upturn, however, following the successful adoption of a 17 year old by a family she had been fostered by for a number of years.  A Member raised concerns that this good news story would count against the Council in performance terms.  In response the Director of Children’s Services advised it was unusual for a foster child to be adopted.

NOTED the update.