Minutes:
(1) Councillor Gilding asked, in spite of Streetpride doing an excellent job of snow clearing, why were 87 out of 147 of Rotherham’s schools closed on Monday 21st January?
Councillor Lakin corrected the figures quoted and confirmed that there were in fact 126 schools in Rotherham of which 74 were closed on the 21st January, 2013. The decision to close a school was delegated to the Head Teacher/Governing Body as a blanket decision by Children and Young People’s Services would be impracticable. The guidance on exceptional school closures outlined specifically that closure must be a last resort when all other options e.g. late opening, partial opening etc. had been investigated.
Many Teachers did not live in the proximity of school and indeed a lot did not even live in Rotherham. Where staff contacted the Head Teacher and reported that they were unable to get in to work, the Head Teacher then had to consider the safeguarding implications of opening the school e.g. were there adequate staff to safely supervise the pupils and meet legal requirements. The electronic reporting of a closure system the Service used had a justification section e.g. insufficient staff, unable to make the site safe etc.
There were also issues to consider such as public transport links for staff unable to drive to work, school transport e.g. pupils at some schools were reliant on a bus service/special schools were reliant on specialised transport etc. It should be noted that large sites had to have pedestrian routes cleared and made safe to enable safe access to and egress from the site. There had been several successful claims for compensation relating to unsafe pedestrian routes on school sites in previous periods of inclement weather.
(2) Councillor Gilding asked what lessons have been learned from the appearance of the Chief Executive and the Strategic Director of Children and Young People’s Services before the House of Commons Select Committee regarding child sexual exploitation?
Councillor Lakin reported that, in preparation for the Select Committee, the Chief Executive and Strategic Director for Children and Young People’s Services had read all the relevant transcripts for Child Sexual Exploitation and this assisted them in deepening their knowledge in responding to Child Sexual Exploitation.
Rotherham’s Safeguarding Children Board would be launching a multi-agency Strategy and Plan in late March that set out how, as partners, the Council would be responding to Child Sexual Exploitation from 2013/14.
This knowledge was shared with the Children, Young People and Families Partnership last week.
Members have been invited to the regional conference on the 8th March, 2013 tackling Child Sexual Exploitation funded by Yorkshire and the Humber. It was hoped as many colleagues as possible could attend.
The Select Committee would be producing a report and recommendations at the conclusion of their enquiries and the Safeguarding Board and its partners would reflect these in the multi-agency Child Sexual Exploitation Plan as appropriate.
(3) Councillor Gilding stated that the Rotherham BME community was now 19,000, equating to 7.5% of the population and asked what were the figures in 2002?
Councillor Hussain reported that an estimate for 2002 showed a BME population of 11,400 or 4.6%.
(4) Councillor Gilding asked for the total final costs involved regarding the former South Yorkshire Trading Standards unit at Chapeltown.
Councillor Akhtar reported that the Council had, since 2005/06, made provision in its statutory accounts of £2.625M in respect of its potential share of the liabilities arising from the former South Yorkshire Trading Standards Unit, but so far no payments had been made.