Agenda and minutes

The minutes of the meeting held on 3^rd November 2008, having been printed and circulated, were taken as read and signed as a correct record.

It was confirmed that no public questions had been received.

The minutes of the Executive Board and Executive Board Sub-Committee relating to the work of the Children and Young People Policy and Performance Board were submitted for information.

In respect of EXB70 – Building Schools for the Future (BSF) Strategy for Change (Part 2) and BSF Funding – Key Decision – it was confirmed that there was no manifesto commitment towards BSF capital spend from any future changed government. However, as the Council was in Wave 6, the outline business case had to be submitted by April, following which it would be difficult to withdraw funding as contractual processes would have commenced.

RESOLVED: That the minutes be noted.

Councillor McInerney – Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People, attended the meeting to respond to questions put forward by the Board. The following update was provided:

• the Council had received five grades relating to the Annual Performance Assessment (APA) and the Ofsted report, four of which had been “outstanding”, one “good” and one “adequate”;
• Safeguarding had received a finding of “outstanding”; however, in light of Haringey, the Authority was not being complacent and work was ongoing by officers and Members to ensure need was being met;
• the Strategic Director – Children and Young People was commended for his commitment to the safety of children and young people in the Borough;
• this year’s GCSE grade A to C results had been the best the Borough had achieved;
• despite the impact of job evaluation and the need to make efficiency savings across the Authority, including the Children and Young People Directorate, staff had demonstrated their professionalism in terms of work undertaken on the Joint Area Review (JAR); and
• work was ongoing in relation to children’s health issues.

In addition, Councillor McInerney made the following points in response to queries from Members of the Board:

• communication between officers and Members was important to ensure decisions were made in the best interests of the service;
• it was important that the Council had a good working relationship with the Local Strategic Partnership in order to ensure that all sources of funding were put to best use;
• as Chair of the Children’s Trust Board, Councillor McInerney was in a position to influence other agencies to the benefit of children and young people in the area;
• a successful 2009 would be where existing achievements were maintained and improved wherever possible at a steady pace; and
• officers and Members were currently being encouraged to look at the Primary Strategy.

The Chairman thanked Councillor McInerney for attending the meeting.

(NB Councillor Stockton declared a personal interest in the following item of business due to being a governor of the Grange school.)

The Board considered a report of the Strategic Director – Corporate and Policy regarding SEN (Special Educational Needs) developments. An informal meeting had been held prior to this meeting of the Board where an update had been provided in relation to secondary schools and Members had been given an opportunity to feed in to the consultation process. It was noted that SEN relating to primary schools had yet to go out to consultation.

The Board considered a report of the Strategic Director – Children and Young People outlining the findings of the scrutiny topic on oral health of children and young people in Halton, which had been carried out following a resolution of the Board on 27^th November 2007 that oral health should provide the focus for scrutiny during 2008. This topic was in line with the Council’s Annual Performance Assessment of Services for Children and Young People in Halton where it was recommended that the Local Authority should “accelerate plans to improve oral health”.

The Oral Health Scrutiny Group had been a joint scrutiny topic comprising Members from both the Healthy Halton, and the Children and Young People, Policy and Performance Boards. The aim of the group had been to:

• receive and consider evidence presented on the state of children’s oral health in the Borough;
• consider the information in relation to statistical neighbours and national and regional benchmarks; and
• consider future strategies for securing improvement.

The Group had met on a number of occasions and considered evidence presented by Dr. K. Milsom, Consultant in Dental Public Health, regarding the state of dental health experienced by children and young people in the Borough. Members interrogated the evidence presented and a summary of the Group’s findings was outlined within the report for the Board’s consideration.

It was noted that detailed dental health data on the adult population was not readily available; however, the Decennial Adult Dental Health surveys repeatedly confirmed that the North West had the worst dental health in England, and Halton and St. Helens PCT had developed its Dental Commissioning Strategy accordingly. This strategy had been accepted by the PCT Board in March 2008 and funding had been provided to ensure that key dental health objectives identified within the strategy were addressed. In 2008-9 the PCT had elected to focus on two priority issues:

• improving child dental health and reducing dental health inequality; and
• improving access to primary dental care

and further information was outlined within the report in relation to this.

Dr Milsom attended the meeting to respond to Members’ queries and the following points were noted:

• dental decay was a disease of deprivation;
• the average child in Halton at age 5 had 2 decayed teeth;
• effective tooth brushing could reduce gum disease but had very little impact on tooth decay;
• this was the first time the PCT was actively addressing this issue;
• fluoride was a naturally occurring mineral which, providing it was consumed at an appropriate level, could reduce tooth decay – the PCT was looking at a number of strategies to use fluoride to reduce children’s tooth decay in the area;
• there was evidence that painting the biting surfaces of teeth with fluoride varnish twice/three times per year could result in a reduction of 30%-40% in prevalence of tooth decay;
• the PCT was purchasing the varnish and paying dentists to carry out the work in their surgeries and the impact of this would be measured over the next  ...  view the full minutes text for item 32.

The Board considered a report of the Strategic Director – Children and Young People regarding the development of a work programme of topics for the Board to examine in 2009/10. Whilst the Board ultimately determined its own topics, suggestions to be considered could also come from a variety of other sources including Members of the Council’s Executive, other non executive Members, officers, the public, partner and other organisations, performance data and inspections.

An example topic selection checklist was attached at Annex 1 to the report for the Board’s information, which led the user through a reasoning process to identify why a topic should be explored and whether it made sense to examine it through the Overview and Scrutiny process.

It was noted that there were two topics in the current year’s programme – oral health and access to services for homeless younger people. Action already taken to address the entry of young people into the Youth Justice, which had been intended as a Topic in the current year, had been a success and so it was suggested that no further work be undertaken in this area at the current time.

In terms of new topics, the Chairman proposed that the Board focus on health, in consultation with the Healthy Halton Policy and Performance Board, and further consideration be given to this at the next meeting of the Board.

RESOLVED: That

(1)               the “First time entrants to the criminal justice system” Topic be deleted from the current year’s work programme in the light of already improved figures; and

(2)               the Topic of “Health” be the focus of the Board’s 2009/10 work programme and this be given further consideration at the next meeting of the Board.

The Board considered a report of the Strategic Director – Health and Community outlining the summary of the findings of the first Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) Health, a copy of which was attached at appendix 1 to the report.

It was noted that the Directors of Adult Social Services, Public Health and Children and Young People (CYP) Services in every Local Authority and Primary Care Trust (PCT) had a statutory duty from April 2008 to work together to develop a JSNA for their area. The production of the first JSNA had focused on refining, improving and bringing together the information already available that highlighted overall population needs. This information was from national and local sources and included a wealth of information collected directly from services across Halton. The information had been used to take a longer term view of population trends and the likely impact on demand over the next years and decades.

In order to deliver the first stage of the JSNA, a number of different information sources had been used. The quality of sources varied and some population, condition and trends information was more robust and well researched than others. Needs assessments and, in particular, trend forecasting was not an exact science and so the aim had been to keep messages very strategic at this stage.

The JSNA was intended to identify “the big picture” in terms of the health and wellbeing needs and inequalities within the local population. It was not intended to describe how the needs would be addressed, demonstrate outcomes or showcase services. The aim was that the information contained in the JSNA would encourage partner agencies to use the findings to inform a number of Local Authority and PCT strategies, client group commissioning plans, local area agreements etc. It had already been used within Halton to feed into Ambition for Health and the Joint Commissioning Plan. The development of the JSNA was an ongoing piece of work which would add to the Authority’s commissioning “intelligence”.

Information relating to the approval process for the JSNA within the PCT and the associated consultation process to be undertaken was outlined within the report for the Board’s information. Members considered the content of the JSNA and noted that it was a statutory document intended to outline a picture of need in the area; however, it was agreed that more information should be provided in relation to how it was to be used and the “next steps”. In addition, it was noted that the work to produce the document had been thorough, which was required in order that funding could be focused, however it was considered that too much data information was provided under “Key Issues and Findings” on page 5 of the JSNA.

RESOLVED: That the contents of the report be noted and the comments made above be fed into the consultation process.

A Special Meeting of the Board has been arranged on Thursday 22^nd January 2009 at 5.15 pm in Runcorn Town Hall to consider the Service Plans and the Local Area Agreement Performance Report.

It was noted that a Special Meeting of the Board was to be held at 5.15 p.m. on Thursday 22^nd January 2009 at Runcorn Town Hall in order to consider the Service Plans and the Local Area Agreement Performance Report.