Agenda item

The Executive Director (People), Stephen Chandler, presented the report to the Board and made the following points:

·       Oxfordshire, as a system had a local area SEND Inspection in July 2023. It was an inspection under a new reg inspection framework. Oxfordshire was only the 7th system in the country to undergo this so there was lots of learning in relation to the process.

·       As a system, it was already known that things were not going well in the support to special education needs children and their families because earlier in the year, the compliance with the 20-week standard for completing educational health and care plans was amongst the poorest in the country. In January 2023 it was 4% against the England average of 53%. Thais was already being addressed and good progress had been achieved by July. Also, it was known from conversations, comments, complaints and feedback from parents, young people and partners that things were not working well. It was taking too long to get answers to queries. The inspection did not identify anything new.

·       The inspection concluded that Oxfordshire, as a system, made up of three components, the local authority, the NHS and the schools and education facilities, were systematically failing to meet the needs of the group of young people and their families.

Anne Coyle, Interim Director of Childrens Services, presented the five key areas of priority actions to the Board. The key finding was that it was essential to hear the voice of the young person and their family and the importance of their influence. There was a requirement to submit the action plan by 27 October 2023. This was a difficult task, but everyone would come together as a system and have three workshops in order to really identify how the priority action plan, which was part of the ongoing improvement plan. Besides the three workshops, a strategic assurance board meeting had also taken place. This would oversee the overall governance structure.

It was added that the Department of Education required really robust governance overseeing the action plan and improvement. Therefore, a governance structure had been designed that had an independent Chair, strategic steering group that would have all key partners represented in education, health, local authority and most importantly, the parents and carers. It was very important to be able to hold the partnership to account and to have the voices of parents and carers very strongly represented at every point. A lot of frustration and anger had been heard but also the desire of being involved as much as possible in better working.

The Chair commented that is was about the system and Councillor Kate Gregory was in attendance, as the new SEND Improvement Cabinet Holder and was working to improve the system, working collaborately with all partners and parents.

Councillor Howson commented that as a county, there were a large number of primary schools and some had never come across needs assessments. As the small schools were joining larger Trusts, it would be easier to deal with a smaller number of groups to move things in the appropriate level.

Councillor McHugh commented that all political division needed to be put aside and everyone needed to work together, there needed to be good openness acting accordingly and together, it would be good to publish in advance what success would look like and report frequently on performance.

The Chair commented that there would be an all party approach and some detail of what success would look like and when it would be achieved by.

The Chair of Oxfordshire University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was very happy to hear about the effort that had gone into listening, but the report did not assist to understand the governance structure. It was not clear where the responsibility and accountability lied. Some went to health and some to the county council, but this was not clear.

The Board were asked for their thoughts and feedback. There was a meeting planned with DfE to discuss many areas including governance around this. Everyone was monitoring the Oxfordshire progress.

The Chair of Oxfordshire University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust commented that if the Board were part of the governance structure, then it would be good to hear directly from those who had been poorly served. It was pointed out that the HWB were not a decision-making body. However, the Chair pointed out that even though the Board did not make decisions, it was part of the Board’s remit to have oversight.

The GP representative didn’t understand the framework, having supported many families over the years, they needed to be heard as this had been going on for a very long time and was exacerbated by covid and now schools had a difficulty understanding if the results were due to covid or the delayed health plan. Schools felt overwhelmed in SEND departments and a lot of mixed messaging about whether a diagnosis was required before getting a personalised educational plan, so messaging needed to be really clear for parents. It was essential to listen to people who had been affected by this.

Councillor McHugh offered to circulate a paper that he had written that may help with the way forward.

ACTION: Circulate paper – Councillor McHugh

Stephen Chandler commented that as part of the creation of the development action plan, an integrated dashboard would provide all the key measures of success, the systems view. There was a timeframe of 18 months before re-inspection. The action plan would set out the timeframes of what would be done and explicitly clear of the responsibilities of the different groups that had governance responsibility.

ACTION: Further update to be provided at December meeting