The Children, Schools and Families Scrutiny Committee were scheduled to meet to discuss provisional school exam results, the Youth Justice Plan, the response to the SEND Provision Scrutiny Panel, and children's social care national reforms.

Youth Justice Plan 2025-2028

The committee was scheduled to discuss the Camden Youth Justice Plan 2025 – 2028, and feedback from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP). The report summarised the priorities of the plan, progress from the previous plan, national and regional priorities, and feedback from the HMIP inspection in May 2025.

The new priorities for 2025-2028 were scheduled to be:

• Tackling domestic violence and abuse
• Supporting victims of youth crime
• Addressing disproportionality
• Enhancing Education, Training and Employment Offer (ETE)
• Continue to expand and improve the YJS Prevention Offer
• Enhance Transitional Safeguarding Arrangements and reduce the risk of re-offending for children leaving the service.

The report noted that Camden Youth Justice Service (YJS) was rated Outstanding by HMIP in May 2025. The inspection found that:

Camden YJS has an authentic culture of care and innovation for the children, families, and victims it works with. It highlighted that the service is supported by a strong management board, which has ensured that the needs of YJS children and families are prioritised across the partnership.

Cabinet Member's Response to SEND Provision

The committee was scheduled to discuss a report from Councillor Marcus Boyland, Cabinet Member for Best Start for Children and Families, which provided an update on improvements for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). This followed the publication of the final report of the SEND Provision Scrutiny Panel.

The report stated that the recommendations from the panel's investigation had been received and had helped to inform forward plans. The report also noted that since the publication of the Scrutiny Panel report, there had been significant local and national changes. The government are planning to publish an education white paper in autumn 2025 which will set out their approach on how best to meet the needs of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

Update on Provisional School Exam Results 2025

The committee was scheduled to receive a report providing an early sight of the provisional school exam outcomes for the 2024-25 academic year for maintained schools in Camden. This included Early Years, the Year 1 Phonics check, Key Stages 2, 4 and 5¹. Three-year trends against national averages were given where known.

These outcomes are provisional, with final validated outcomes released later in the year. Because of this there is limited analysis on the performance of groups within headline data sets. This will be presented in detail, along with local and national comparators to the scrutiny committee in February 2026 when national validated data sets are released.

This data set does not include end of Key Stage 1 (KS1) results as these are now non statutory, nor 2025 Key Stage 2 (KS2) progress scores as these are not available nationally due to the lack of KS1 outcomes in 2021. Progress 8 scores are also not available due to the absence of KS2 outcomes in 2020 that would be used as a baseline for this measure.

Children's Social Care National Reform

The committee was scheduled to receive an overview of the Children's Social Care National Reforms, and details of the programme of work to design and deliver the reforms across Children Social Care in Camden.

The 'Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive' paper has four main principles:

• Children should remain with their families and be safely prevented from entering the care system
• Children are supported to live with kinship carers or in fostering families, rather than in residential care
• Concerns around profiteering in the children's social care market are addressed
• Investment in the key enablers which underpin the children's social care system – including the workforce, better data and information sharing, and to scale and spread evidence-based programmes which have improved children's outcomes

Children, Schools and Families Scrutiny Committee's Work Programme and Action Tracker 2025/26

The committee was scheduled to receive a report providing an outline of the 2025/26 work programme and an update on actions requested at previous meetings.