Children's Trust Terms of Reference

Strategic Board

The Strategic Board has the following key functions:

Lead and give clear strategic direction to the priorities and delivery of the Children & Young People’s Plan (CYPP) and drive the whole system change in the needs of children, young people and families.
Secure engagement of all relevant partners and hold itself and individual partner agencies to account for CYPP and LAA targets and publish an annual report on the extent to which partners have acted in accordance with CYPP.
Decide on strategic priorities and investment/disinvestment decisions of joint resources.
Ensure robust local arrangements for safeguarding.

The Children’s Trust also acts as a Delivery Partnership in delivering the Local Area Agreement (LAA). In this role it will:

Lead and co-ordinate the delivery of relevant community strategy outcomes and LAA2 targets, including:
- Development of an action plan for the delivery of the community strategy outcomes and LAA2 targets where actions must be SMART and reflect the needs of different localities.
- Identification of a lead partner for each action or activity.

Meeting Frequency

The Strategic Board will meet on a quarterly basis.

Chairing

The Strategic Board will be chaired by the County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Children, Schools and Young People’s Services.

Membership

The Strategic Board shall comprise Members and Non-Executive representatives as follows:
Suffolk County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Children, Schools and Young People’s Services (Chair)
Suffolk Governors’ Forum
2 District & Borough representatives (appointed via the Suffolk Local Government Association)
NHS Suffolk
NHS Great Yarmouth & Waveney
Suffolk Probation Board
Suffolk Police Authority
Chief Officer of Suffolk Police
2 Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) representatives (appointed via Young Suffolk)
Independent Chair of the Local Safeguarding Children Board
Suffolk County Council’s Director for Children & Young People
School representatives from primary, secondary/ special schools
Representative from a FE / College
Job Centre Plus

Executive Group

The Executive has the following key functions:

Act as senior operational group of the Children’s Trust, overseeing the business of the Trust and setting agendas for the Children’s Trust Strategic Board to enable the Board to undertake its strategic role.
Identify, manage and direct resources, including pooled and aligned budgets in the line with the overarching priorities for commissioning set by the Children’s Trust Strategic Board.
Manage and evaluate performance and outcomes against the targets and priorities in the Children & Young People's Plan.

Definition of commissioning

The Commissioning Support Programme defines commissioning as follows:

“Commissioning is the word that describes the set of activities which enable commissioners to make decisions about how best to use the total resources available for children in order to improve outcomes”

Meeting Frequency

The Executive Group will meet on a cycle both before and after Strategic Board meetings

Chairing

Meetings will be chaired by the County Council’s Director for Children & Young People

Membership

The Executive Group shall comprise representation as follows:

• Director for Children & Young People, Suffolk County Council (Chair)
• Assistant Director Strategic Commissioning, Suffolk County Council
• Assistant Director Learning, Suffolk County Council
• Assistant Director Strategic Finance, Suffolk County Council
• NHS representative (to cover both NHS Suffolk & Great Yarmouth & Waveney)
• District & Borough Councils (2 representatives to cover all D&Bs)
• Safeguarding representative
• Young Suffolk
• Detective Superintendant Public Protection