Agenda item

The Committee has requested a report setting out the draft guidance arising from the Education Other Than At School (EOTAS) Policy that was approved by Cabinet in July 2025.

 

Cllr Sean Gaul, Cabinet member for Children and Young
People, Lisa Lyons, the Director of Children’s Services, Annette Perrington, Interim Deputy Director: Education and Inclusion, and Deborah Smit, Assistant Director: SEND and Inclusion, have been invited to present the report.

 

The Committee is asked to consider the report and raise any questions, and to AGREE any recommendations it wishes to make to Cabinet arising therefrom.

 

Report not received at the time of publication.

Cllr Sean Gaul, Cabinet member for Children and Young People, Lisa Lyons, the Director of Children’s Services, Annette Perrington, Interim Deputy Director: Education and Inclusion, and Deborah Smit, Assistant Director: SEND and Inclusion, were invited to present the report. Jules Francis-Sinclair, Chair of OxPCF, and Sophia Johnson, Feedback and Reporting Co-Ordinator at OxPCF, were also invited to the meeting to support the Committee’s discussions.

 

The Cabinet Member for Children and Young People introduced the Education Other Than At School (EOTAS) item by recalling his early experience of the topic on joining the County Council and Cabinet, noting the volume of representations and the ongoing public interest. At that point, the Council had required a clear policy framework. Whilst the policy itself had included some co-production, the accompanying guidance had not. Cabinet therefore approved the policy but, in line with the Committee’s recommendation required that the guidance be taken through a co production process.

 

The Chair of OxPCF acknowledged the substantial effort invested in developing the EOTAS guidance but considered it not yet ready to be treated as final or genuinely co-produced. Concerns centred on the process and the absence of a clear co production framework, limited senior officer involvement, and unresolved issues raised by parents. The guidance set out expectations of parents with reasonable clarity but it was judged to lack corresponding clarity about the Council’s responsibilities, arrangements for monitoring and safeguarding, and accessibility. The Chair of OxPCF recommended further senior led meetings, clearer language and structure, practical appendices, and a proper publication plan, together with a commitment to review the guidance after one year.

 

The Interim Deputy Director: Education and Inclusion recognised the considerable work and engagement undertaken and accepted that confidence in the document’s usefulness to parents had not yet been fully established. The point of the current stage was to reflect carefully on the feedback and determine the further steps required to secure a helpful, agreed document.

 

The Chair clarified the role of scrutiny in relation to EOTAS and reminded members that the Committee’s function was to make recommendations rather than to dictate to Cabinet. Both the policy and the draft guidance had previously gone to Cabinet; the task now was to focus on what the Committee wished to say about the guidance, rather than revisiting the detailed content line by line.

 

A Member suggested that, whilst the guidance might be clear for officers, it might still be insufficiently accessible for parents and proposed two versions, one setting out full information and one designed explicitly for families. The importance of language and accessibility was emphasised, together with the value of further parent input so that the resulting guidance became both meaningful and usable in practice.

 

Officers advised that, whilst accessibility was a core aim, excluding or oversimplifying legal material could mislead families or produce guidance unable to withstand challenge. It was set out that the combination of legal complexity and the bespoke nature of each EOTAS package meant that co production had been sensitive and time consuming. Officers explained that EOTAS arrangements were intrinsically technical as they depended on strict statutory tests, especially the need to demonstrate that a child’s needs could not be met in a school. Guidance therefore had to address detailed legal points, including the Section 61 test, commissioning responsibilities, safeguarding requirements, and expectations for monitoring provision.

 

The report described involvement from parents through OxPCF, parents of children with EOTAS, CAMHS representation, Oxford Health, and SENDIASS. Clarification was sought on whether these participants had in fact met collectively as a group during the guidance’s development.

 

Officers explained that SENDIASS had been commissioned to coordinate the co production process because of its established links with families. Parent representatives, SENDIASS, health partners and others had been engaged throughout, and drafts had moved iteratively between contributors. It was acknowledged that the process had not followed a “pure” model of co-production, though contributions from parents had been extensive and coordinated.

 

The discussion explored why collaboration had been challenging and whether the legal framework had contributed to complexity. While accessibility was a core aim, Parents on the working group concurred that the legal technicalities complicated the process, with differing interpretations requiring repeated clarification.

 

Officers confirmed that, whilst the policy was required, the Council had considered it good practice to produce guidance for transparency and to help parents navigate the complexity of decisions and arrangements in practice. The guidance had therefore been commissioned to support understanding rather than to fulfil a legal duty.

 

Officers confirmed that other local authorities did publish EOTAS guidance, and examples had been reviewed. These could not simply be replicated, since each area’s EOTAS landscape differed in local practice, parental expectations and the complexity of packages and guidance from elsewhere would not have been co-produced with Oxfordshire parents. It was also noted that some Councils operated blanket restrictions on EOTAS, whereas Oxfordshire had a comparatively higher number of complex packages, further limiting the usefulness of national templates. The guidance, therefore, needed to be shaped locally.

 

The breadth of parent carer involvement was discussed, including representation across different backgrounds, needs and experiences. Officers confirmed that the working group had included OxPCF, parents of children with EOTAS, SENDIASS, Oxford Health and CAMHS. SENDIASS had coordinated much of the engagement owing to strong links with families. Officers also acknowledged that they could not confirm representation across all protected characteristics or the full diversity of the parent population; achieving such representation remained challenging despite multiple routes of engagement.

 

Concerns about accessible language recurred, with suggestions that parents would benefit from a practical, plain English companion document containing checklists, templates, and examples. A short, two-to-five-page introduction with a glossary and contents page was suggested, supported by appendices for technical material. Officers regarded this as a reasonable approach.

 

Much of the existing length and complexity flowed from legal requirements and the bespoke nature of packages; however, a simplified version could outline key processes, responsibilities and safeguards in a more usable format. The Assistant Director: SEND and Inclusion agreed that placing more technical material in appendices and improving clarity would be beneficial, and the Chair of OxPCF supported developing a parent facing counterpart to the technical guidance.

 

The Director of Children’s Services joined the meeting at this stage.

 

The Chair returned to the question of scrutiny’s role and the appropriate recommendations to Cabinet. It was suggested that Cabinet be asked to consider providing a pro forma, without the need for co production, to assist OxPCF in producing accessible materials for families. The aim would be a simpler, user-friendly resource that accurately reflected the agreed policy while improving clarity and accessibility for parents engaging with EOTAS.

 

The Interim Deputy Director: Education and Inclusion concluded that, although the guidance had benefited from significant input by parents and the working group, the diversity of circumstances meant it would always be difficult to meet every need fully. Not all parents were dissatisfied, but the emotive nature of EOTAS and the complexity of packages in Oxfordshire were recognised. The commitment remained to make the guidance as clear as possible, acknowledging the challenge of consensus and the learning taken from the process.

 

The Assistant Director: SEND and Inclusion reflected that the draft attempted both to inform parents and to document internal Officer processes; the original intention had been to guide parents through understanding EOTAS rather than to set out internal procedures. Separating the two strands into appendices was considered useful, allowing for updates as frameworks evolved, including any changes arising from a future White Paper. The emphasis would be on trust, transparency, and manageable structure.

 

The Committee explored whether children who had never attended school owing to severe health needs would be disadvantaged when seeking EOTAS. Officers explained that decisions turned on the legal test, whether needs could not be met in a school, rather than on prior attendance. A school would normally be consulted to assess whether it could reasonably meet the child’s needs, but this did not require prior physical attendance. Children with very complex medical needs were often supported by the Hospital and Home Education Service rather than through EOTAS packages. Decisions were bespoke, and a lack of attendance history did not disadvantage such children.

 

Costs and construction of EOTAS packages were then discussed. Officers explained that packages were highly bespoke and therefore varied considerably in cost. The most expensive package had been around £300,000 per year, with most falling between £60,000 and £100,000 annually. These figures reflected the requirement to commission individual provision, including tutors, therapists, specialist staff and bespoke timetables assembled to meet each child’s assessed needs. Across Oxfordshire, the total cost of EOTAS packages had previously been estimated at about £3.8 million for approximately seventy children. Each package was built from a detailed assessment of need, determining which elements could not be delivered in a school setting; this bespoke approach explained both the variation in cost and the complexity of managing EOTAS arrangements.

 

Funding for enhanced pathways was also considered, to understand how mainstream based inclusion programmes were resourced relative to EOTAS. Officers stated that each enhanced pathway was funded at the level of one teacher and one high level teaching assistant, amounting to roughly £85,000 per year. This supported a cohort of around ten children with higher levels of need who might otherwise be at risk of moving into specialist provision. To avoid double funding, the Council deducted the Element 3 top up already allocated to each child through their EHCP, with the pathway funding supplementing that amount. The model had stabilised placements and reduced the flow into specialist settings, and the Council was exploring expansion in response to positive impact.

 

In concluding remarks, the Committee recognised that the guidance had progressed but accepted the case for further refinement. Recommendations favoured a clearer separation between statutory/technical material and practical, parent facing information, improved accessibility and structure, and a plan for publication and ongoing review.

 

The Committee AGREED to recommendations under the following headings:

 

• That the EOTAS guidance be broken down, with simpler, plain English and accessible information for parents provided in separate appendices. This approach aimed to make the main guidance more manageable and user-friendly, while allowing detailed officer processes and updates to be maintained in the appendices.