Council Focuses On Moving Forward Following Report

Buckinghamshire County Council has drawn up an action plan for implementing recommendations made in the recent Joint Area Review report. The JAR inspection took place between last July and September, and was linked to the contemporaneous Corporate Performance Assessment (CPA).

It focussed on the five strands of the Government’s Every Child Matters initiative – the extent to which children and young people are healthy, safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and are well prepared to secure economic well-being. Buckinghamshire performed strongly, achieving ‘good’ ratings in eight of the 11 areas inspected.

The recommendations made by JAR now form the council’s accepted action plan. Short-term aims are that the council and partners undertake a review and agree thresholds for social care, including children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities; and to ensure all looked-after children and young people have good quality and up-to-date care plans or transition plans.

A six months plans will see the council ensure pupils permanently excluded from school receive full-time alternative provision; further develop a recruitment and retention strategy for social work staff, and review workloads; implement plans for the young people’s participation network.

Longer term, the council  aims to ensure special school provision and funding is well-matched to the changing needs of children and young people.  The council and partner agencies aim to sustain improvement in outcomes in education, training and employment for young people from minority groups and other vulnerable groups; reduce the time families with children remain in temporary accommodation and make adequate accommodation provision for care-leavers.