FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. What is the purpose of the Children & Young People's Plan Strategy 2010 - 2025?
The Children and Young People’s Plan [CYPP] Strategy 2010 - 2025 is the single, strategic, overarching plan for all services for children and young people in Sunderland.
The Plan covers services for all children and young people in the area aged 0-19, those over 19 receiving services, including leaving care, and those over 19 and under 25 with learning difficulties. The local authority has the duty to prepare the Plan, jointly with all relevant partners.
 The purpose of the CYPP Strategy 2010 - 2025 is to make sure that all those who work with children and young people in Sunderland are working collaboratively to achieve the shared vision and improved outcomes in the most effective and efficient way.
The Plan uses needs assessment and resource mapping and sets out how outcomes for all children will be improved locally. The Plan gives priority to early intervention, family support and preventative services. It provides the strategic framework within which services will be planned, commissioned and delivered to meet the needs of all children and young people.
The Plan has a key role to play in setting out the Children’s Trust’s resource requirements for improving outcomes and in providing a link to service and budget strategies across agencies.
Key stakeholders will need to show in individual agency plans, how they will contribute to the overarching strategic objectives and outcomes for children.
Q2. How we have developed the strategy?
The Children's Trust has applied its commissioning process in developing this strategy. In November 2008, the Children's Trust conference engaged partners and stakeholders in the planning for the CYPP Strategy 2010 - 2025 View a copy of the Conference Report ( 115kb).
A number of documents have been prepared which contribute towards this process and the development of the CYPP Strategy 2010 - 2025.
Annual Report 2009 ( 406kb) -reports on the achievements and progress that has been made against each of the priorities and actions within the CYPP 2007 - 2009 and identifies any outstanding areas of work.
The CYPP 2009-2010 ( 274kb) - is an extension of the CYPP 2007 - 2009. It was prepared as part of the process of publishing the Annual Report 2009 and preparing for the Children's Trust's assessment of need.
The Needs Assessment 2009 ( 199kb) - sets out the details of a comprehensive analysis of need and was prepared during January to Septemer 2009. The needs assessment was drawn up looking at a raft of information. Once the needs assessment was prepared the commissioning process allowed the Children's Trust to:
- Set priority outcome areas
- Develop the CYPP 2010-2025
- Develop the three year delivery plan 2010-2013
Q3. How were the priorities decided?
Within the Every Child Matters (ECM) Change for Children Programme local authorities and their partners, in preparing the Children and Young People’s Plan, are required to carry out a needs assessment. The needs assessment provided the evidence base for setting priorities and actions that will contribute to improvement within the five outcomes. Government guidance describes need as “ …whatever is missing and has to be provided if the gap between the current situation and the desired outcome is to be reduced or closed.”
 A needs assessment exercise was devised and a data collection grid sent out to organisations in Sunderland identified as providing services to children and young people. This exercise asked for children and young people’s needs to be identified, the evidence for these needs and how it was gathered to be stated, and current outcomes in relation to these needs to be analysed. All identified needs were required to be recorded, whether or not these were being met within current service provision.
The second part of the exercise was to record the ways in which children and young people are involved in defining their own needs, and the information received indicated a substantial range of high quality participatory activities being organised across the City.
The returned data was collated for each ECM outcome and the results used in conjunction with information from other sources to contribute to the setting of our priorities in the Sunderland Children and Young People’s Plan.
Q4. Why did we have to write a plan?
Being a high performing Local Authority, we were not compelled to produce a CYPP. However, we believe it is good practice to have a single, strategic plan to improve outcomes for all children and young people in the city. The Laming Report identified a number of weaknesses in Children’s Services in some areas. The most significant for the future shape of services are:
- Lack of accountability
- Poor co-ordination of service’s provision across agencies
- Failure to share information
- Weak management of services
- Lack of training
“Every Child Matters; Change for Children” sets out the Government’s vision for children’s services, including a number of measures to address the above issues. This vision is based on the development of national and local arrangements where there is:
- Clear accountability for services
- Integration of key services around the needs of children, in particular, education, social care, health, youth justice and Connexions.
The Government’s preferred model for achieving service integration is a Children’s Trust that will commission services and may provide them directly or contract with public, private or voluntary sector organisations. Part of these arrangements includes having a Children and Young People’s Plan.
Q5. What are the main policy documents driving the work around improving children and young people’s services?
Since ECM and Children Act 2004 (OPSI website) the flow of transformational policy and guidance has been intense. Some key examples include (most recent first):
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
Q6. What are the key issues for children and young people in Sunderland?
 Sunderland has relatively high deprivation levels; the 2007 Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) ranks Sunderland as the 35th most deprived local authority (out of 354). The IMD ranks authorities using seven categories: income; employment; health deprivation and disability; education, skills and training; barriers to housing and services; crime; and living environment.
The review of the CYPP 2007/09 and our needs assessment tells us:
CHILD POPULATION
- The number of children and young people aged 0-19 in Sunderland is 65,800 (Office for National Statistics (ONS) mid 2007 estimates), a fall compared to previous years
- The number of pupils in primary, secondary and special schools has fallen from 41,934 (2008 School Census) to 40,047 (2009 School Census)
- The numbers of children and young people aged 0-15 in Sunderland from a black or minority ethnic heritage is 2800 (5.4% - ONS mid 2006 estimates)
- The number of children and young people eligible for free school meals has fallen from 8,224 (2008 School Census) to 7213 (2009 School Census)
- Figures for 2008 indicate that 29.3% of children and young people in Sunderland are living in poverty compared to 21.3% nationally
CHILDREN WITH ADDITIONAL NEEDS
- The number of children and young people with a special educational need has also fallen from 9,525 (2008 School Census) to 8963 (2009 School Census)
- The number of children in need has risen to 2,251 (January 2009) compared to 2017 in March 2008
- The number of children in care, and therefore looked after by the Council, is 392 (January 2009) compared with 398 in March 2008. The number has remained stable and below the average for both England and Sunderland’s peer group
- The number of children and young people who are subject of a Child Protection Plan is 249 (January 2009) compared with 198 in March 2008.
HEALTH
- 15% of 5 year olds and 15% of 11 year olds are classed as overweight; 10% of 5 year olds and 21% of 11 year olds are classed as obese (National Child Measurement programme 2007-08). All categories are above national averages
- Teenage pregnancies have significantly reduced since the baseline period 1998-2000, from 63.1 per 1,000 females to 55 in 2006, but latest data available shows an increase to 57.3 per 1,000 population in 2007
- 1 in 4 children and young people in Sunderland have some form of mental health problem
- 23% of women in the city continue to smoke during pregnancy
EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING
- The gap between the percentage of pupils achieving Key Stage 2 Level 4+ in both English and Maths, who were eligible and are not eligible for free school meals, has reduced from 25% in 2007, to 23% in 2008
- The number of schools with persistent absence has increased from five in 2007/2008 academic year to seven in 2008/2009. 1,118 secondary age pupils were classed as persistent absentees in 2007/2008 (Spring and Autumn terms), representing 6.5% of enrolments, compared to 6.4% nationally
- Pupils at KS4 recorded the city’s highest results ever GCSE results, with 64% achieving five or more A*-C grades in 2008 and 43% achieving 5+A*-C grades including English and Maths
- 12.8% of 16 to 18 year olds are not in education, employment and training (2008). This is higher than the national average of 6.7%.
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