People Panel

Today was one of the "people advisory panel" meetings. I'm one of the members on this panel.

It's a strange affair, because it doesn't feel as if we have worked or debated on anything that substantial. It took about 6 months to get to a position where we were getting worthwhile business come to us - and even then some items have already been to cabinet and as such were a done deal.

However this week was a bit different. We discussed the implementation of the Children's Trust, and the events in Haringey meant that all members had ideas how we could prevent this kind of systemic failure from occurring in Cheshire East.

One immediate change I think we need is in the membership of the Childrens Trust and the Council's Safeguarding Board. Both of these have a scrutiny function - and in the past we have ensured that the chairman of the two boards were different people, although the membership often ended up quite similar.

We need to ensure that this isn't the case - the membership of the two boards must be completely different to ensure that we get a wide ranging, objective view when it comes to scrutiny of children's social services.