More about Slough Children's Trust

The Children's Trust consists of all those organisations that have a clear duty to cooperate in planning and delivering services for children and young people in Slough.  The Children's Trust Board consists of representatives from these organisations and is responsible for planning, implementing, and monitoring the delivery of high quality services for children, young people, and their families in Slough, based on government guidance and using shared resources to meet local need.  

Our vision for children and young people in Slough is:

"We want all our children and young people growing up in Slough to enjoy life, achieve through learning, to be proud of where they live, and be valuable members of the community".

The Children's Trust will:

• Involve and empower children, young people, parents and carers in the development and delivery of services and show how they have made a difference
• Deliver high quality services as locally as possible based on the agreed priorities for children and young people, their families and carers in Slough 
• Work to narrow the outcome gaps between children from disadvantaged backgrounds, while improving outcomes for all children 
• Focus on the prevention and early identification of children with additional needs 
• Develop early intervention and prevention services, locally delivered 
• Promote equality of opportunity and access for all children and young people 
• Support parents in caring for and educating their children  
• Drive effective integrated working between professionals working with children and young people in Slough 
• Ensure that partner organisations employ high quality staff who are trained and supported to work with children and young people 
• Respect and value the diversity of the workforce 
• Monitor performance and focus on achieving improved outcomes 
• Make the best use of resources for children and young people in Slough 
• Use a commissioning approach and the flexible use of pooled budgets to secure services to meet agreed outcomes, based on need, through the voluntary and community sector 
• Develop effective systems for sharing and using information systematically 
• Be structured and work in a way that enables members to carry out these responsibilities in partnership

Responsibilities and governance arrangements 

Slough Borough Council has a statutory duty as the Children's Services authority to arrange co-operation between the agencies which deliver services for and in connection with children, young people and their families in Slough.

The Director of Children's Services is responsible for ensuring improved outcomes for children and young people, and building strong partnerships which focus resources on achieving these outcomes.  The Lead Member for Children's Services in Slough Borough Council has responsibility for ensuring that the wider community is engaged in improving outcomes for children and young people and that services across partner agencies improve outcomes.

The partner agencies involved in the Children's Trust with a "duty to co-operate" are:

• The local authority
• Police authority 
• Youth Offending Team 
• Strategic Health Authority 
• Primary care Trust 
• Connexions Partnership 
• Learning and Skills Council

There are a number of significant partners not listed as having a "duty to co-operate" but are vital as local partners including, for example:

• Schools
• Colleges 
• Universities 
• Private and voluntary sector providers 
• Probation Board 
• Fire and Rescue 
• Voluntary and community sector representatives 
• Faith groups 
• Representatives of parent groups 
• Representatives of children and young people

The Slough Children's Trust Board is responsible for:

• driving collaboration between agencies working for and with children, young people and families in Slough
• leading the Children's Trust in Slough 
• representing children's services within the Local Strategic Partnership (Slough Focus) and planning and monitoring Local Area Agreement targets 
• providing the overall vision for children and young people in Slough 
• implementing the vision through developing and approving partnership plans, policies and strategies 
• ensure that priorities for improvement resulting from inspection reports are considered, implemented and reviewed 
• working collaboratively under Section 10 (Duty to Co-operate) of the Children Act 2004 to improve outcomes for children and young people 
• engaging and consulting children, young people and the community in planning and reviewing services 
• monitoring performance, the impact of services and the effective use of resources 
• contributing to self-evaluation, inspections and other relevant local and national assessments 
• commissioning services to meet the identified priorities for children, young people and families in the borough 
• engaging with the voluntary and community sector in commissioning services 
• ensuring high quality service delivery that meets the requirements of the Children Act 2004 in relation to safeguarding, through regular reporting arrangements with the Local Safeguarding Children Board 
• planning current and future workforce needs based on the priorities identified in the plan 
• appointing a chair 
• setting and overseeing the work of the Executive and the sub-groups

The Board is supported by an Executive and a number of sub-groups, and short-term groups set up to focus on work agreed by the Board. All groups will report at agreed intervals to the Children's Trust Board.

The Board meets every two months, and at least five times a year.

Members who wish to send a substitute are asked to notify the chair in advance, and declare whether the substitute is an observer or has voting rights.

Observers will be welcome at the Board by arrangement

The Slough Children's Trust Board Executive is responsible for:

• undertaking and reviewing the analysis of need to inform the work of the Children's Trust
• data collection and analysis to inform local priorities and planning 
• identification and allocation of resources against the agreed priorities 
• overseeing and contributing to multi-agency inspections 
• planning and managing the agenda for the Children's Trust Board
• agreeing the commissioning of services based on the work of the Commissioning Group 
• monitoring the working groups reporting to the Slough Children's Trust Board
• agreeing communication to Children's Trust members

The Executive meets every 2 months, and always 2 weeks before the Board meeting.

Chairs of working groups (currently commissioning, localities, performance and data, workforce) are responsible for drawing together a group of representatives relevant to their area of work. The function of this group is to focus on the agreed priorities and outcomes outlined in the Children and Young People's Plan 2008-11, develop an action plan to implement their work across the Children's Trust in Slough, and report progress to each Children's Trust Board meeting.

Each of the five chairs of the outcome groups  are responsible for setting out the priority outcomes and improvement or maintenance of performance in each of the five outcome areas and ensuring that an action plan is developed for each area of the five outcomes which includes outcomes for children, allocated resources, performance targets, and milestones for assessing impact. This may involve drawing together a working group of colleagues from across the Children's Trust, who will need a clear statement of purpose for their work.