Agenda item

That the Committee notes the Year-End Council Plan Monitoring Report 2017/18 to monitor under performance.

The Interim Chief Officer presented the 2017/18 year-end progress report on the Council Plan for 2017-23 providing analysis on the ‘Learning Council’ priority which was relevant to the Committee.

The Facilitator gave a reminder of the forthcoming Member workshop to help understanding of performance reporting.

Councillor Mackie agreed to discuss separately with officers a number of items in the previous report that were missing from this update.  He questioned the end date for action 3.1.1.2 on enhancing skills which was recorded as 50% complete and asked if the risk rating on leadership capacity not meeting school needs should be Red to reflect the difficulty in recruiting teachers in certain subjects.

On the latter point, Councillor Roberts was aware of issues of teacher supply and he cited various options to address this including the benefits of Key Stage 2 teachers providing cover at Key Stage 3.  He spoke about the need for schools to work in partnership with trainers, and welcomed the new teacher training partnership between Chester and Bangor Universities.

The Interim Chief Officer explained that some measures had been adapted to become more specific across all portfolios.  She advised that whilst there were no major problems recruiting Head Teachers in Flintshire, issues had been identified at some schools recruiting at senior to middle tiers of leadership.  As a way forward, she suggested engaging with schools through the Secondary Heads’ Federation to identify pressure points.  An overview of anonymised results could then be reported back to the Committee.

This was welcomed by Councillor Mackie who suggested repeating the practice to identify trends over time.  The Interim Chief Officer said that ongoing issues with individuals schools were addressed through advisory roles and school monitoring procedures.

The Facilitator advised that at a recent meeting, the Corporate Resources Overview & Scrutiny Committee had agreed to await the action plan to address areas of under-performance with a Red and Amber risk rating with a downturn performance trend.

In response to a question from Councillor Kevin Hughes, the Interim Chief Officer said that uncertainty on grant funding was a continuing concern.  She welcomed key Ministerial decisions on the reinstatement of the School Uniform Grant to cover Year 1 as well as and Year 7 pupils, and Flintshire’s allocation of the Minority Achievement Grant following successful lobbying.  There was no clarification on grant funding for small schools and rural schools, and officers continued to make the case to WG on the importance of sharing information at an earlier stage to enable forward planning.

Councillor Kevin Hughes suggested that Members engage with schools to encourage parents to recycle pupil uniforms.

Councillor Roberts expressed his gratitude to the Senior Manager, School Planning and Provision, and his team for the volume of work undertaken to produce the recent report to Cabinet on school modernisation.

Following comments by David Hÿtch on the increased percentage of attendance across the portfolio of Pupil Referral Units, Councillor Roberts referred to the report on School Exclusions scheduled in the Forward Work Programme.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee notes the Year-End Council Plan Monitoring Report 2017/18 to monitor under performance.