Agenda item

Briefing Note of the Director of Children’s and Education Services.

The Board considered a briefing note of the Director of Children and Education outlining the progress against the Local Government Association Children’s Services Resources and Efficiency Peer Challenge Recommendations of October 2024.

Officers explained how corporate and political leaders in Coventry were passionate and committed to achieving the best for children. Over the past decade, Children’s Services had been focused on improvement and there had been a political and corporate commitment to making the necessary resources and funding available to support the Children’s Services journey.

In August 2022, Children’s Services were rated as a ‘Good’ service by Ofsted. The service was anticipating a further inspection imminently. The Youth Justice Service were graded ‘Outstanding’ after an Inspection by HMI Probation in February 2023. Followed by a Joint Targeted Area Inspection focusing on Serious Youth Violence receiving a positive report in May 2024. The service had seven Children’s Homes, six homes had been inspected during 2025, of which five are rated as ’Good’ by Ofsted and one rated ‘requires improvement’. The ambitious residential homes expansion programme to increase the number of Children’s Homes included a further two to open in 2026.

Building on the significant improvements within Children’s Services, the integration of Children and Education on 1st April 2024 provided an opportunity and capacity to explore new ways of working. The integration had resulted in changes to the roles and responsibilities of the senior leadership team and the external appointment of a new Director of Children’s and Education Services appointed in August 2024.

The financial position remained a challenge for all local authorities; the One Coventry Transformation Plan set out how the Council will respond to the challenges and embrace new approaches and technology.

In October 2024, a Local Government Association Peer Challenge team were invited by the Council to review how Children’s Services provide services to children and young people to identify potential opportunities to control and reduce costs and ensure efficiencies. Peer Challenges are improvement focused and are not an inspection.

The challenge was similar to one that the Council underwent in January 2024 and does not result in any grade. The Council was given positive feedback about the Corporate Peer Challenge and many great comments about the Councils work, highlighting some areas for improvement on how the council can work in the future. The Children’s Services Resources and Efficiency Peer challenge provided a further opportunity to build on the excellent work and identify areas for improvement.

The report outlined the councils progress against their recommendations and what steps the council was taking to rectify any issues.

In considering the Briefing Note, the Scrutiny Board asked questions, received responses and discussed a number of matters as summarised below:

• That the council had undertaken wider work around improving the kinship support offered locally, assessing connecting and supporting foster carers including private fostering arrangements.
• That despite the small number of privately fostered children the council still had a duty to ensure they were getting the support and oversight they needed including six-weekly visits at minimum.
• That there is 24/7 phone call support for care leavers provided by Ask Jan a charity supported by the council that was staffed by trained councillors and also offering face to face counselling.
• That improvements in children’s services were in some part due to a change in culture with a strong focus on continual improvement and the council would continue to focus on providing better and better services.

Members requested that in relation to 6.0 Progress against the Recommendations, Recommendation 3, officers were to check that the transformation plan has been Member endorsed.

The Education and Children’s Services Scrutiny Board (2) Resolved to note the contents of the briefing note and had no further recommendations for the Cabinet Member.