Agenda item

Report of the Cabinet Member, Learning and Skills

[Ian Turner, Head of Commercial, Andy Burns, Director of Finance and Resources, Sharon Kelly, Entrust Director of Education and Ian Wilkie, Entrust Commercial Lead, also in attendance for this item]

At the 4 September Select Committee meeting Members had requested a further report on the performance of the education support services commissioning arrangements and contract. The primary provider of Staffordshire County Council (SCC) commissioned education support services is Entrust. Entrust was established on 1 April 2013 as a joint venture between the County Council and Capita Plc.

The shared focus for Entrust and the County Council in 2015/16 was at KS2 and KS4 where Staffordshire schools needed to accelerate improvements, and to do more to tackle the variation in attainment between districts, pupils in receipt of FSM and Pupil Premium funding.

Meetings were held on at least a monthly basis to discuss the Service Level Agreement (SLA). There was recognition that some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) needed changing as the information they gave wasn’t helpful in monitoring the contract. These were being developed alongside discussions on how reporting was undertaken in the future. The KPIs were set three years ago and some were now less relevant and therefore required updating.

Members were aware only some of the KPIs delivered by Entrust were within the remit of this Select Committee, however they were unaware of Corporate Review scrutinising those KPIs that fell within their remit.

The percentage of children achieving 5+A*-C grades at GCSE including English and Maths or equivalent had risen in Staffordshire whilst the figures had fallen according to the England average. Members asked what Staffordshire had done to gain this positive direction of travel. There were a range of different reasons for this including the way in which Staffordshire schools tended to manage their curriculum meaning that they had less of an adjustment to achieve good results in this measure than some authorities.

The Select Committee asked that future reports give an explanation of the percentages included as well as statistical neighbour data to enable comparisons. Members also asked why only 95%of sports equipment testing in maintained schools had been achieved, and whether there would be health and safety implications as a result of this. The 5% schools outstanding would be where the equipment testing company had been unable to access the sports equipment in a specific school on a specific occasion, and these would be addressed.

Members asked why there was a 25% governor vacancy rate. The 25% vacancies were over all maintained schools governing bodies across the County. This had increased from the previous year, however as governing bodies were aware of the requirement for them to reconstitute by September 2015 many had chosen not to fill vacancies until after their reconstitution, particularly as governing bodies were expected to become smaller as a result of this process.

The value for money aspect of the contract was raised in respect of training. Should a school wish to purchase a training course they could purchase from a wide range of providers. The County Council however had to purchase training courses from Entrust as part of their agreement.  Value for Money measures were applied at a contractual level rather than for each individual day course.

There was some concern expressed on behalf of governors over the cost and fixed offering for governor training. Training per governor from Entrust was £99.00, with equivalent external training offered at £75.00 per governor. If arranging governor training in school Entrust charged £500.00 per day for ten people, with an extra charge of £50 per person above this without there being an applicable additional cost to Entrust. These governor training sessions were not part of the commissioned service but part of the traded offer. Members were informed that the Entrust governor buy back service had one of the highest satisfaction ratings.

In respect of learning technologies Members noted that only 50% of incidents were fixed at the time the customer first reported them. The Cabinet Member explained there was some concern with learning technologies, and in particular over the provision of broadband to schools and how to generate new technologies. Improvements needed to be made with that part of the contract.

Many of the KPIs were designed to ensure the safe set up of Entrust and were traditional operational measures. Performance management needed to show value for money and a joint exercise was being undertaken to re-shape the KPIs to give more meaningful information. A change protocol was in place to enable both parties (ie Entrust and the County Council) to bring suggested KPI changes forward for discussion. A change log was kept giving an audit trail on what was changed and why. A documented change procedure was also in place giving clear guidance on what level of sign off different types of change required.

The Corporate Review Committee had a role in helping develop the County Council’s business plan. The Business Plan would be taken to Cabinet and County Council in February and would include priorities to drive the work of the County Council. The Entrust SLA was a key development area. Members were informed that Cabinet had a “positive dissatisfaction” approach to ensure there was be no complacency within the authority and to help drive these improvements.

One of the areas of the SLA was support for Staffordshire families who chose to Electively Home Educate (EHE) their children. Members asked if they could see the outcome of this support work. Members asked for clarification over for the actual number of the 100% EHE families who chose to participate in this support work. They were informed that this part of the SDA was currently under discussion. It would be advisable to bring detail of EHE back to the Select Committee in a few months after these discussions had concluded rather than potentially pre-judge their outcome.

There were a number of ways to further improve and develop, including sharing school visit reports. A survey of work undertaken in schools was produced to assess how successful this work had been. Consideration would be given to whether this information should be shared more widely as part of contract performance measures. Members were informed that school visit reports were already shared with headteachers, with the expectation that they would share them more widely within their schools. Analysis was undertaken of school improvement and evidence showed that schools receiving school improvement support services from Entrust improved faster than those who had not receive these services.

The Parent Governor Representative, Mr Paul Woodhead, offered to share governors’ views on Entrust value for money with the Corporate Review Committee.

RESOLVED – That:

a)    progress in further developing the approach to commissioning and contract managing education support services be noted;

b)    the update on performance of the contract be received;

c)    the Chairman write to the Chairman of the Corporate Review Committee asking that they include scrutiny of the Entrust KPIs under their remit on their work programme;

d)    a working group be set up to consider the type of information the Select Committee would like to see reported for future scrutiny, taking account of the current review of KPIs;

e)    school visit reports be shared more widely with chairs og governing bodies;

f)     consideration be given to governor support and access to training  to ensure we attract and retain excellent governors;

g)    a report be brought to the Select Committee illustrating the process of support to EHE; and,

h)   governors’ views on Entrust value for money be shared with the Corporate Review Committee.