Agenda item

To receive Enfield’s new draft Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) – Empowering Young Enfield. 

In addition to the report in the agenda pack a presentation was provided by Victoria Adnan, Strategy & Policy Manager, and Helen Baeckstroem, Strategy & Policy Team Manager.

NOTED:

1.    The new Children and Young Peoples Plan is called Empowering Young Enfield and will be running from 2021 to 2025 if it is approved by Full Council in January.

2.    A significant piece of engagement was carried out with children and young people during the spring term. This was to ascertain what they liked and didn’t like about living in Enfield; what goals they had for the future and what help they would need to achieve them.

3.    This consultation focused on Safety, Health & Wellbeing, Education & Learning, Leisure & Play, Equality & Empowerment and Climate Emergency. This ran in schools during PHSE and Enrichment involving over 900 children and young people at 4 primary and 1 secondary school.

4.    The main document includes quotes from children and young people on some of things they said about living in Enfield.

5.    This evidence has been used to inform the development of the plan. It has also been developed based on evidence of local need, research, best practice and statutory guidance for achieving the best possible outcomes for children and young people. Extensive work has been undertaken across the council to ensure that the plan reflects the different objectives of the services that support children and young people to reach a lifetime of opportunities.

6.    Empowering Young Enfield is an ambitious plan and requires working in collaboration with other partners and stakeholders and support from regional and national government to achieve the level of ambition in the plan.

7.    Members were taken through the 6 priorities:

·         Priority 1 Children and young people are empowered, included and respected

·         Priority 2 Children and young people can thrive through effective early help, good housing and accessible and inclusive services and public places

·         Priority 3 Children, young people and their families are supported to achieve the best possible health and well-being

·         Priority 4 Children and young people have access to an excellent education, are ready to learn when they start school and leave with the skills they need for life and the world of work

·         Priority 5 Children and young people are safe and protected from harm in all places and spaces

·         Priority 6 Children and young people have an environmentally sustainable future.

8.    Following feedback from the Executive Management Team, the youth participation focus has been strengthen of Priority 6. The new draft will include greater information about the 7 key areas of the Climate Action Plan. Priority 6 now focuses solely on youth led climate action. This is supported by the Enfield Earth Principles. The new draft will also reflect the emerging work being undertaken with schools, although this is at the early stages.

9.    The Earth Principles are:

·         Empower children and young people with information and opportunities to develop their knowledge and support them to positively contribute to youth-led climate action

·         Askthem to share their opinions and ideas about how we can work together to combat climate disaster

·         Respect and listen to their opinions and ideas.

·         Take climate action that considers and includes the voices of children and young people and develop opportunities for young people to actively contribute to decision making

·         Have a positive impact on our community, the local environment and our planet.

10.This plan will be monitored by keeping track of the progress towards the priorities. Analysis will be drawn together from a variety of relevant policies and their action plans. Throughout the document there are various strategies and policies signposted and will be utilising those action plans and assessing and keeping track of the progress using the Council’s Corporate Scorecard. As part of the annual review process an annual report will be published with the first one scheduled for January 2022.

11.The Safeguarding Children’s Partnership will have responsible for overseeing the successful delivery of the plan.

12.The Youth Parliament and the Young Mayors as elected representatives of young people will have the opportunity to review the Plan’s progress with either the Leader of the Council or the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services.

13.The Youth Parliament and Young Mayors will also be encouraged to make recommendations during the annual review to the Safeguarding Children’s Partnership.

14.Since completing the draft, officers have concluded some targeted engagement including focus groups and feedback from the following groups:

·         Members of the Parent Engagement Network

·         Members of the Enfield Youth Parliament

·         Young people who take part in the Young Leaders Programme

·         Young people attending Very Important People Services (VIPS)

·         Young People attending SENDIASS (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information Advice and Support Service)

15.The draft has also been shared with Headteachers at 14 schools who had initially registered their interest in taking part of the first phase of engagement. Covid 19 reduced the number of schools who took part during the spring term.

16.The draft has also been shared with; Safeguarding Children’s Partnership, Vulnerable Young People Meeting and Voluntary Sector Strategy Group (VSSG) and will be shared with the Corporate Parenting Board.

17.The next steps now are to review feedback on the draft and enhance the Plan were needed. Examples of feedback received to enhance document are; including more support for young carers, including more on sexual health and making sure that the language used in the plan is easy to read and young people friendly.

18.The final stage will be to seek Full council approval in January 2021.

Questions, comments and queries raised:

·         Following a query on why only 14 schools had been involved, officers advised that the lesson plans (developed in collaboration with 3 schools) was circulated to all schools in the borough. Initially 14 schools signed up, unfortunately not all could participate in the spring term due to Covid 19 and the closure of schools. The draft document has since been shared with those 14 schools who had initially registered their interest in taking part in the first phase of engagement. Headteachers and their staff and pupils were invited to comment.

·         How did officers manage to engage with over 900 young people given the challenges of Covid 19; did this take place in school or online? Officers advised that the engagement took place in person in the classroom during PHSE and Enrichment lessons in the spring term prior to Easter.

·         This is a very aspirational document, given the changes bought about by Covid, concern was expressed that there will be multiple issues for young people that perhaps have not been picked up. It was suggested to undertake a post Covid review of the consultation to ensure that the ramifications of the way that young people’s lives have been affected have been taken into account. Young people have experienced lots of issues such as not sitting exams, not seeing their friends and anxiety. How will this be dealt with? Officers advised that there has been an enormous spike in the number of referrals into Children’s Services since schools returned in September. This level is now starting to normalise again. It is recognised that children and young people have been significantly impacted, their education has been affected to keep everyone else safe. The level of mental health support has been increased such as through online therapeutic tools. There has been an increase in children citing loneliness, isolation and anxiety. The schools are very aware of these issues. Officers are also concerned about the number of children perpetually being sent home because of an infection and the impact this will have on their aspirations. Especially those children who do not have access to computers or the internet.

·         It was queried whether the promised computers were received. It was confirmed that these were received and have been issued. They were not for all children and were for very specific age groups. The government had to prioritise who got them. This means that there are lots of children in the borough who do not have laptops, or have multiple siblings and are sharing the same device or having to undertake homework on their parents’ mobile phone.

·         How is this work measured? Officers advised that the document is an overarching document bringing together lots of work, other strategies, policies and plans across the Council and these will have associated action plans. The points in the document will be built into these action plans and will also be using the Council’s Corporate Scorecard which has a range of key performance indicators (KPI). The scorecard records information on a quarterly basis and once a year publishes this on the council website. There will be an annual report published on the plan showing what progress has been made against the 6 priorities. The Youth Parliament and the Young Mayors will have the opportunity to review the Plan’s progress with either the Leader of the council or the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services.

·         Officers reiterated that this is being looked at from 2 angles, the first is numerical measuring KPI’s and looking at how the council is doing. The second part from the plan is enabling young people to have a voice, provide feedback on when they use services or whether they feel that they are being included enough. Officers have started work on a Young Enfield Engagement Policy and this is listed as one of the actions in Empowering Young Enfield which will enable the council to make sure that it is engaging in the right way.

·         An observation was made that this is an overarching document which is hugely aspirational. This document provides details of the what and the why and the real issues are the how’s and the when’s. Hope the practical steps that officers take meet with the intentions of this document and those tasked with listening to feedback both on this document and the actions follow up/act on this feedback. The Council will be judged by the actions taken and how well we listen to people.

·         It was raised that the 2 strategies on the agenda covered different time frames. The first one was 2021-2025 and the second was 2020-2025 is this a mistake. Officers confirmed that both documents should be 2021-2025 and this will be corrected.

·         How will this be funded at a time when the local authorities have been hit quite substantially over the past 10 years and that there are further financial challenges due to Covid. There is a lot within the report that requires funding to be able to deliver. Examples of this given were; page 32 of the agenda pack priority 3- Make sure every child and young person has access to healthy food 365 days a year; same page- Create opportunities to get more children and young people visiting and enjoying our leisure centres; page 39 of the agenda pack priority 5- Fund additional Police officers for the borough who provide additional support for council housing estates.  The report also mentions funding or providing additional youth services. What is the cost of that and how will this cost be met?

·         Over the years the Council found funds within the HRA to fund police officers on estates (14 officers from the HRA). Will these further police officers in the plan be funded by the HRA and this why it mentions council housing estates, council tenants will need to agree to this. How will this be achieved?

·         Undeniable that the council has very significant financial challenges. Everything on the plan where it states that ‘we will’ over the course of the 4-year plan, has been negotiated with individual Directors or Heads of Service. There is nothing in the plan that someone within the council has not agreed is an achievable realistic target. For example, the additional police officers have been discussed with Joanne Drew about the use of the HRA going forward. It is unlikely in the current climate that more money can be invested in council run youth services. However, there are grants available. An example was given of the young Londoners Fund where the council was awarded £1.3m. There are various types of organisations across the borough delivering on youth provision with the aim of providing positive activities and helping young people achieve their goals. The government has recently announced large grants with the expectation that the council provide holiday activities for Easter, Summer and Christmas 2021 for young people and there is a focus on food. Part of these activities will be teaching children and parents how to cook, access to healthy food does not necessarily mean that the council will be buying healthy food instead will be empowering families teaching them about healthy eating.

·         In order to list these priorities officers had to have authorisation from everybody, some will be carried out using existing resources (current and planned as in officer hours) and some will be through funding from external grants

·         A lot of this is at no extra cost to the council except the police officers which are an extra cost to the HRA, will this be reflected in the budget setting meeting with an item aligned on this? Officers advised not clear at present what the budget report will say. It was agreed that officers will follow up with Joanne Drew.

·         There will be some on costs, the whole of London will be competing on grants. The outside world has changed significantly so concerned at how this can be delivered. The Panel was advised that the annual review provides an opportunity to refine the plan, should the council’s financial situation take a dramatic turn for the worse or better would need to adjust the plan accordingly.

·         The plan has great aspirations and it is hoped that this will be achieved. Some numbers would be helpful for example if there is to be a KPI for police- how many and by when and similarly for Leisure centres. It was suggested that when this is presented at Council it would be useful if the speakers in the debate picked out a bullet point or two and gave an example of the kind of action that might sit underneath it and that this would give substance and depth

Officers were thanked for their report and members commended the report and the aspirations within the report.