Committee
Education and Culture Committee 01 November 2011
01 Nov 2011 · S4 · Education and Culture Committee
Item of business
Educational Attainment of Looked-after Children
Claire Burns
Watch on SPTV
The looked-after children strategic implementation group came out of the reports from the national residential child care initiative. It was recognised that a number of the issues that were prevalent in residential childcare were actually prevalent across looked-after children.LACSIG brings together key people in organisations—people who can influence what happens in organisations, such as chief executives and the head of HMIE. We are working on the themes of learning outcomes, health outcomes, commissioning, and workforce and care planning. We need to work on specific matters within those areas. LACSIG meets quarterly to consider the cross-cutting themes from that work and the meaning of what we are finding out for each individual’s organisation.One of our big bits of work has been on permanence. We are looking at each organisation’s responsibility for taking that forward. We know that social work needs to do better care planning, in which better decisions need to be made more quickly. That feeds into the children’s hearings system. The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration’s chief executive is a member of the group and we are looking at what permanence means for training for children’s panel members and whether they understand the most recent lessons about child development and have a greater appreciation that better decisions need to be made faster. In the health hub, we know that medicals for children who go for permanence can often cause delay. We are also looking at what the issue means in planning for educational outcomes for looked-after children. Much of that is underpinned by encouraging local authorities to do better strategic commissioning.LACSIG can take a particular issue that we can see from the research is a problem area, such as permanence, and ask what that means. That relates to what we talked about earlier. We ask how we can take a corporate parenting approach and a much more co-ordinated approach to the issue. We ask what it means for the children’s hearings system—it means that we need to review our panel members’ training. What does it mean for health professionals? It means that they need to be much clearer about what permanence means. LACSIG takes an issue and asks what it means for all the organisations and how they can work together differently.
In the same item of business
The Convener (Stewart Maxwell)
SNP
Good morning everybody, and welcome to the ninth meeting in session 4 of the Education and Culture Committee. I remind members and those in the public galler...
Claire Burns (Centre for Excellence for Looked-after Children in Scotland)
I will provide some context about my role. I am the strategic policy implementation manager at the new centre for excellence for looked-after children in Sco...
The Convener
SNP
Thank you—that is helpful in providing an overview at the start of our inquiry.You mentioned a range of different carers and professionals who are involved i...
Claire Burns
We need rigorous data that tells us what the differences are between those groups. We need to examine the evidence and to understand why the attendance and a...
The Convener
SNP
It was a general question. With regard to some of the specifics, you mentioned professional pre-qualification training. What scope is there for introducing s...
Claire Burns
LACSIG is aware of the need for that and is taking it forward. The champion for the workforce development hub is Anna Fowlie, who is the chief executive of t...
The Convener
SNP
I do not mean to be critical as that is all welcome news, but why is it only being thought about now? Why are we only talking about pilots now? The problem i...
Claire Burns
Some of it is already happening, but the research on education attainment is telling us more explicitly all the time that there is a problem. I do not know t...
The Convener
SNP
Okay. I have one final question before I throw open the discussion. What efforts is CELCIS making to link the work that it is doing with the work of the vari...
Claire Burns
CELCIS was only launched in September, so we are fairly new, but we recognise that good stakeholder engagement is important and that we must ensure that ther...
The Convener
SNP
Thank you. I will bring in the rest of the committee now, beginning with Jean Urquhart.
Jean Urquhart (Highlands and Islands) (SNP)
SNP
Thank you for your presentation. The written submission from CELCIS states that LACSIG will“drive forward an implementation programme to improve outcomes for...
Claire Burns
The looked-after children strategic implementation group came out of the reports from the national residential child care initiative. It was recognised that ...
Jean Urquhart
SNP
Your response bears out what is in a lot of our suggested reading material, which shows frustration that a great deal of observation and declaration has take...
Claire Burns
There are ways to drive forward and we are pulling together in the right way. We must be clear about what works. For example, community planning partners’ ro...
Jean Urquhart
SNP
What is the most important single first step for a child?
Claire Burns
That is getting the co-ordinated care plan and having a care plan that everybody is involved in, which everybody knows about and which is monitored and revie...
Jean Urquhart
SNP
What is the single biggest barrier to getting that care plan?
Claire Burns
It is to do with everybody having ownership of the care plan. One difficulty, which comes out in the Association of Directors of Social Work submission, is t...
Jean Urquhart
SNP
Finally on that theme, other than education, there will be different aspects to helping a child attain educationally. What are they, and how do you envisage ...
Claire Burns
We need to ensure that clear support is provided in school and outwith it. I talked about the role of the designated manager in school. They are very much in...
Joan McAlpine (South Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
I have a supplementary question on that issue. You talked about the difficulties of putting in place a care plan, which involves co-ordinating a range of pro...
Claire Burns
I am not aware of that. We have not considered that issue, but we could get information on it to you if you want.
Joan McAlpine
SNP
The reason why I ask is that I have come across the issue with care plans in other areas. I just wondered if it was an issue with care plans for looked-after...
Claire Burns
From the research, we have not been made aware that there is an issue with staff absenteeism, but we can examine that issue for you. The issue that the resea...
Clare Adamson (Central Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
I have a quick supplementary question. You mentioned that some parents are very involved in schooling. Obviously, the parents of some children who are strugg...
Claire Burns
Yes, I think so, but it should not take the parent out of the equation. As the member will be aware, we do not know about the literacy levels of parents of l...
Claire Baker (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab)
Lab
My question follows on from Jean Urquhart’s question. I want to focus on identifying what works. This is our first evidence session and you have raised a lot...
Claire Burns
The solution is about both. As I said, the planning and assessment process needs to be more co-ordinated—it needs to be better. That goes in tandem with know...
The Convener
SNP
We can raise that with them.