Agenda item - Chair's Communications

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Agenda item

Chair's Communications

Minutes:

3.1       The Chair stated:

 

“Friday 26th October saw the 3 year anniversary since we introduced our model of practice in children’s social work. The model of practice is about supporting social workers to help families to effect change. It is based on the idea that if we provide support and containment for social workers they will be able to provide this to families.

 

People across the service have shown a real commitment to the model and it has demonstrated the potential to make a difference for families. This was reflected in our recent Ofsted ILACS inspection and the overall rating of ‘good’, as well as feedback from social workers in this year’s your voice: social work survey where, 99% of respondents said they felt trusted to make decisions in their role. We recognise that, as well as the good news, we also face a number of ongoing challenges, including improving access to equipment and trying to create consistency across the system.

 

I am very pleased to let everyone know that Brighton & Hove has joined an elite group of local authorities nationally where all children can attend a good secondary school.

 

All of our 10 secondary now hold ‘good’ Ofsted judgements. Well done to everyone who has made this happen and to our many schools in the city who are achieving so well.

 

I’m sure we are all looking forward to hearing today from Kate Williams, the head teacher at Longhill and 2 students on their journey from RI to good.

 

I’m pleased to say that Drove Road residential short breaks service in Portslade which provides a mixture of short breaks and full-time accommodation has received an outstanding rating from Ofsted.

 

I would just like to add my congratulations to this service team.

 

I would also like to mention that I have recent correspondence making me aware of a clinical disagreement over the causes of autism. Further meetings are due to be held over this issue with one due in a couple of weeks. Depending on the outcome a further response may come to a future meeting. We will also partly touch on this subject in a later agenda item.

 

I would finally like to briefly express my disappointment at the recent budget proposals from the chancellor and the lack of much needed extra funding for schools.

 

The small amount of additional money that was allocated to schools at the budget is obviously not enough/nowhere near enough and the Chancellor’s turn of phrase to describe it as for ‘little extras’ was extremely unfortunate and not well-received.

 

I have visited many schools across the city and they frequently tell me how they are struggling every day to make ends meet, I would ask the chancellor to do the same and go out and speak with head teachers, teachers and governors and see what is happening on the front line.”

 

 


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