Ms Deborah Gornik, the Interim Director of Children’s Services introduced her report that provided the 2017/18 Quarter 2 (July – September 2017) performance report for the Wirral Plan pledges under the remit of the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee.  The report provided a description of the progress in Quarter 2 as well as providing available data in relation to a range of outcome indicators and supporting measures.

The Interim Director’s report informed of a range of key indicators and performance targets, namely:

• Foundation stage - percentage of children achieving a good level of development year end forecast 2017/18 was 69.4% with a slight drop in performance compared to the 2016/17 figure of 69.6% - Wirral still leading in national / regional comparisons, which is encouraging.
• Take up of the 2 year old offer by eligible families as identified by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) offer is 92.6% (Q1) – Data collected on a termly basis, next update in Q3).

• Percentage of children who received a 12 month Health Visitor review by the time they turned 12 months, was 64.4%, now 86% (performance improvement from Red to Green).

• Percentage of infants who receive a 6-8 week development check by the time they reach 8 weeks 84.9% – GP data better return (note: now flagged as Amber, was Red).

• Officers would continue to focus on the best way to gather data on the use of medication for Attention Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – the CCG is currently unable to provide updated data and are reviewing alternative methods to report in future quarters.

• Permanent exclusions – Discussions have taken place with the Regional Schools Commissioner regarding the increased numbers, and the Local Authority is challenging schools appropriately in order to address the higher than average number of exclusions.

The Interim Director informed that a more detailed report on educational attainment in Wirral schools would be presented to the next meeting of the Committee by the Lead commissioner Schools.

The report informed that there had been an overall decline in the Child Protection Plan rate over the last 12 months and work was underway to ensure effective review of these cases.

Members noted that the percentage of repeat referrals to children’s social care had shown a continuing decrease and was similar to the most recently available statistical neighbour values.

The Interim Director reported that quarter two continued to illustrate the complex picture of Domestic Abuse in Wirral. The launch of the Safer Wirral Hub was enabling an improved multi-agency approach to embed the Council’s zero tolerance approach across Wirral.

The Chair thanked the Interim Director of Children’s Services for her report.

Resolved – That the report be noted.