Agenda item

At the Chair’s invitation the Assistant Director for Children, Anne-Marie Dobbs

Introduced a presentation stating the following:

·         North Northamptonshire encompassed 142 schools and 62 early years providers.

·         A number of pupils were registered as high needs but not specialist provision.

·         There were 2,500 pupils with an educational health plan and the virtual school were working with 1,020 pupils.

·         Key areas of focus were special educational needs, prevalence of speech and language skills.  They were expecting an increase on needs.

·         They worked with the Department of Education in terms of improvement.  They needed to have an impact on single academy trusts and that work was different to that provided with the maintained schools.  They had to work more collegiately with academies which had some system wide challenges.

·         There was a demand for children with educational needs but only a limited resource to meet them.  Central Government decided how they could provide services.  Nationally 200 was a recognised caseload but the North of the county had 400.  So one challenge was where to put resource.

·         How they worked was another challenge.

·         There was an overspend on the high needs block so there was a pressure on the schools’ forum.  Northamptonshire’s picture was more favourable than others but this was a national issue. 

·         The demand on healthcare plans was rising but the budget was not rising with the demand.  The department was therefore considering how they might work differently with these children.  Provision of therapy health services was one of the issues they had considered managing across the partnership.  Strong partnerships and effective intervention was required from their health partners.

·         There would be a SEND inspection from Ofsted forthcoming, which was expected this to take place in the Spring of 2022.  The Authority would not receive a judgement in the same way as social care but a statement of action.  There was a new SEND strategy and framework. 

·         There was a need to change their relationships with academies which were independent of the local authority, but which was still responsible for ensuring they had capable provision.  The Department aimed to become an equal partner with those schools. 

·         There was also a need to improve on Children’s Social Care.  There was a need to improve on brokering support.  The Local Authority would look to the sector to tell them what they did well. 

·         Services provided to schools for free would be reviewed. 

·         There was also a need to consider alternative provision for those schools that could not educate their children.  A single provider did not meet all of the needs of the children so there was a need to look at the cost of it and obtain alternative providers.  They wished to provide more sympathetic provision for children. 

Queries on the presentation were answered as follows:

·         The flow of individual practitioners in terms of education healthcare plans was not unique to North Northamptonshire.  The department was providing the resource and also doing some work that was not statutory.  Some of the services could be provided elsewhere in the Services.  There was also the need to consider those pupils without an educational healthcare plan to ensure those who required additional support were receiving support in the correct manner to ensure all needs were met. 

·         The virtual school also provided duties around any child who had a social worker.

·         They would not be providing to children aged 0-2 years.  That would be managed largely by colleagues in the Northamptonshire Children’s Trust.  They undertook a lot of work with the early years’ settings.  They also worked with childminders and others in the sector to ensure children’s needs were met.

·         The SEND Board had met with partners across the system so they could understand how effective the work was. 

·         With many early years’ settings being lost the opportunity to work with the children earlier had reduced and that increased the SEND need at a later date.

·         A full review of higher needs funding was required particularly as having spoken to headteachers it appeared the higher needs funding wasn’t working so well.  It was difficult to be able to fund a school in September for those children they hadn’t yet received but there were ideas in the system for how it could work better.  One of these was that whilst the funding panel was chaired by a local officer from a local authority the panel was made up of teachers in the area.  So a group of professionals would get together to discuss how they challenged the issues and start to learn from each other how they might approach the issues in the future. 

·         The Assistant Director for Children had discussed with colleagues the best way to ensure funding was provided to schools to support children and ensure they did not miss out.

RESOLVED that:  the Education, Skills and Employment Advisory Panel noted the presentation on key areas of focus from each of the service areas across Education and Employment.