What are the big issues of the day? Europe, for sure. The economy for another. The scourge of ISIS. What can local government scrutiny say to these? Very little, you would think – after all, the crucial levers that determine economic and foreign policy are not in the hands of any ordinary member in a Council. But, as the Foreword in Sunderland’s review on child poverty from July last year made clear there are some issues which, though clearly requiring national solutions, is “everybody’s business”, including local authorities'.Child poverty: small steps towards a big impactChild poverty is one of ...
As you will have read in my last blog, being a corporate parent is a really important role that all councillors have – ensuring that children in their care are looked after and achieve. With the Government’s recent announcement to support a further 3,000 ‘at risk' child refugees, Tom Redfearn at the Children’s Society explores this very issue and the role of scrutiny in our guest blog below.Interested in knowing more about how to be a better Corporate Parent, CfGS is running a Masterclass to provide participants with the skills to become effective corporate parent and how councillors can ...
CfGS can: Run support programmes helping authorities to better understand and align scrutiny and school improvement, delivering a positive impact on the local education system. Who: In response to a critical Ofsted inspection CfGS was asked to help the Borough of Poole scrutiny committee to better challenge leadership, evaluate needs and resources and ensure the authority was getting value for money. CfGS drew up a comprehensive support programme, tailored to the area and the needs of the committee, which would cover: Exploring the role of local authority in education, oversight of schools and school performance; Better understanding the stakeholders working to improve education in Poole and ...
Overview and scrutiny development Why is this important? Recent reports including Professor Jay’s 2014 Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham and Louise Casey’s follow-up report highlighted the crucial role of scrutiny and challenge and the consequences of its failures. Councils must have good governance and well informed staff and members, armed with the skills and confidence to robustly challenge local authorities’ safeguarding arrangements if it is to fulfill its role in protecting vulnerable children. All councils can benefit of the added security that comes with effective scrutiny of safeguarding protocols, procedures and structures. Our offer The Safeguarding overview ...
Member training to champion outcomes for looked-after children Why is this important?Councillors have a legal duty, as corporate parents, to ensure ‘looked-after’ children within their authority are healthy and thriving. Yet many elected members are unsure about how these responsibilities should work in practice or what an authority needs to do to achieve positive outcomes. Understanding the complexities of this important governance duty is essential training for all scrutiny members as well as councillors involved in areas of education, child protection/safeguarding and health and wellbeing.Our offerThis one day training course, based on the CfGS/LGA research report 10 Questions to ...
Children in the care of a local authority are one of the most vulnerable groups in society. And when services fail a child the results are far reaching and as we have often seen can be the subject of extensive media coverage. Did you know that at any one time around 68,000 children are looked-after in England, with over 90,000 passing through the care system each year? No child or young person is the same; they enter the care system for a variety of reasons and at different points in their lives. These can range from family breakdown and ...
On the release of the Education Committee's report on Regional Schools Commissioners, Su Turner, Director of Children and Young People at the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny said: "The drive for academies and free schools has not been accompanied by sufficient consideration of how schools should be scrutinised leading to an accountability deficit. At best this means schools are unclear about who they are ultimately answerable to at worst it is going to endanger school improvement plans and impact student outcomes. Parents are going to be confused about which bodies they need to approach should they want to complain about performance, ...
Schools are at the heart of our communities yet the distance between the head teacher’s office and the town hall seems further apart than ever. How well do ward councillors really know the schools in their patch? I have been asking this question over the last eighteen months and more often than not the answer is ‘not well enough’.The immediate response might well be, “why should they?” I would argue now is a crucial time for councillors to understand and get to know their local schools better. With the government’s ambition to turn all grant maintained schools in ...
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