(a)

as well as working with the Plymouth Association of Governors the panel should work closer with schools to try and obtain increased levels of parent governor representation;

(b)

further work should be undertaken on sourcing faith representation onto the panel, using organisations and bodies like SACRE to promote a more multi-cultured faith representation;

(c)

the appointed co-opted representatives of the Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Panel should be approached to become co-opted representatives on the Ambitious Plymouth panel;

(1)

the Democratic Support Officer contact the relevant organisations in an attempt to obtain nominations to fill the vacant statutory co-opted representative positions for faith representatives and parent governors to be co-opted onto the Ambitious Plymouth panel;

(2)

the Democratic Support Officer approach the Lead Officer of the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE) to ask for nominations from SACRE members to become co-opted representatives onto the Ambitious Plymouth panel;

(3)

Mrs Edith Bayley, Parent Governor co-opted representative on the Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Panel, is approached to take up a position as a Parent Governor co-opted representative on the Ambitious Plymouth Panel for the next 12 months;

(4)

Alderman Pauline Purnell is approached to take up a position as a co-opted representative onto the Ambitious Plymouth Panel for the next 12 months;

(5)

the UK Youth Parliament are approached to take up two separate positions as co-opted representatives onto the Ambitious Plymouth panel for the next 12 months.

(a)

the Youth Services restructure review had resulted in on-going activities in an effort to continue to improve the quantity and quality of opportunities for young people within the city. On-going activities included –

·         improving volunteer provision across the service,

·         enabling a consistent key-worker system in all city schools,

·         establishing better links with family support services;

·         re-instating a missing persons’ service within the department;

(b)

the culture of the Youth Service was changing with more of an emphasis placed on key working with young people as well as dealing with increased targeted referrals;

(c)

the number of referrals over the past 12 months had significantly increased, with increased referrals being received from schools, the Police and Children’s Social Care;

(d)

increased referrals have been largely due to the increasing challenges and issues facing young people in today’s society including unemployment and the impacts of welfare reforms on young people and their families;

(e)

schools identified in the review that the Youth Service needed to provide better support and information sharing to schools, which had been addressed by developing an improved and consistent key-worker system available to all schools. This would improve support and assist schools in dealing with the increased issues and the subsequent increase in referrals from schools, which equated to 44 per cent of all referrals to the Youth Service;

(f)

city-wide safeguarding issues including missing people and child sexual exploitation had resulted in the Youth Service establishing a Missing Persons’ Team, this was identified as a priority following the review and the service had worked closely with Children’s Social Care and the Police in establishing this new team;

(g)

the Youth Service was committed to continuing to maintain and improve the services offered, whilst also facing difficult financial challenges through a reduced budget; this would be achieved through improving community levels of support by recruiting and training committed volunteers and by continuing to review the service through providing a greater voice for young people to comment on the services provided;

(h)

first time entrants into the Youth Justice system had reduced by 20 per cent in the past year, which was very encouraging, although it was acknowledged that the service could still improve to ensure that vulnerable young people, such as young offenders, were provided with the opportunities to improve their life chances;

(i)

in general, and despite the increased challenges facing the service, the Youth Service was delivering an excellent service, had become an integrated service which provided further benefits for young people, particularly in the transfer of young people between services, and was far exceeding benchmarking targets and the required levels of youth participation.

(j)

the Youth Service was assessing its practice of dealing with missing young people when they were  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

(1)

a further Youth Services Review; to review the Youth Services in early 2014 following the implementation of services and new work initiatives after the completion of the Youth Service Restructure and results of the Youth Service’s Review Survey;

(2)

skills and apprenticeships review, with a particular focus on children with special educational needs; this review could develop into a co-operative review;

(3)

library and museum provision; to review the provision of and use of the city’s libraries and museums, particularly with a focus on future City of Culture bids;

(4)

Early Years Development review; to review the issues involved in nursery places and the allocation of school places;

(5)

Adult Education Service Review; to review the Plymouth Adult and Community Learning Service (PACLS);

(6)

City of Culture bids; to review the reasons why Plymouth was not selected as one of the final four cities in the City of Culture bid and learn for future bid submissions;

(7)

a review of service provision and support for children and young people with dyslexia;

(8)

a review of school transport provision; to review the school transport offer provided by Plymouth City Council  with a focus on ensuring that there is a promotion of safer journeys to school;

(9)

Children’s Social Care review; to undertake a thorough review of the Children’s Social Care Service to establish the adequacy of service arrangements;

(10)

Missing Person’s Team; to receive a presentation from this new service to understand the remit and work of the team and to establish whether any further scrutiny work is required, with a particular focus on the partnership arrangements between the Youth Service, Police and Social Care Services.

(11)

a review of the Children and Young People’s Plan, prior to the Plan being updated in 2014; this review would see an holistic approach taken to reviewing the plan but the panel’s main focus would be on early intervention and prevention and adoption and fostering;

(12)

Narrowing the Gap in schools; this review would encompass issues such as free school meals, the effects of welfare reforms on school children, child poverty and the ever increasing financial burden placed on parents for school proms.