Agenda item

Consideration of the report deferred from 14 September 2023

The Oxfordshire Education Commission reported to Cabinet on 19 September 2023 when Cabinet resolved to note the report.

The Independent Chair of the Commission, has been invited to present the report.  Cllr Liz Brighouse, Cabinet Member for Children, Education, and Young People’s Services, Stephen Chandler, Interim Executive Director: People, Transformation, and Performance, Anne Coyle, Interim Corporate Director: Children’s Services, have also been invited to answer the Committee’s questions.

The Committee is recommended to consider the report, to ask any questions, and to AGREE any recommendations it wishes to make to Cabinet arising from the report and discussion.

Gail Tolley, the independent chair of the Oxfordshire Education Commission, attended the Committee to present the Commission’s report, Time for Change: Improving Educational Opportunity for All Oxfordshire’s Children and Young People.  Jeremy Long, Martha O’Curry, and Jan Davison-Fischer, three of the Commission’s nine members, were also in attendance.  The Leader of the Council, Cllr Liz Leffman, and the newly-appointed Cabinet Member for Children, Education, and Young People’s Services, Cllr John Howson, also attended as did the Interim Executive Director for People, Transformation, and Performance (‘the Interim Executive Director’), Stephen Chandler, and the Interim Corporate Director for Children’s Services (‘the Interim Corporate Director’), Anne Coyle.

The Chair of the Commission introduced the Commission’s report which explored data for the 2021/22 school year as well as the experiences of stakeholders and made 17 recommendations to the Council which were primarily intended to deliver on the recommendations from the voices of children and young people which the Commission had summarised as:

·       Help children who find things difficult; not everyone learns in the same way;

·       Let children be good at something in their own way;

·       Be ambitious for every child; do not put children in boxes;

·       Foster a sense of belonging for every child. 

Ms Tolley reminded members that members of the Committee had been given a progress update on the work of the Commission in March 2023 and she expressed the Commission’s thanks to those members who had provided responses to the research questions posed.

Ms Tolley drew the Committee’s attention to the fact that Oxfordshire’s performance data, on first appearances, looked positive when considered nationally.  However, it compared unfavourably with its statistical neighbours.  Those who find it harder to succeed faced particular challenges and did not achieve the outcomes the Council would desire for them.  It was highlighted that there are elements of intersectionality with black heritage pupils on free school meals with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) facing particular challenges to success.

The Commission spoke to a range of young people as well as to some parents and to school leaders.  There was a consensus that, as set out in part four of the report, there needed to be a reckoning in Oxfordshire.

Ms Tolley emphasised that the focus of the Commission’s research was on children and their experiences rather than on structures and that the Commission had been agnostic on the merits of different varieties of school governance.  Instead of whether a school was maintained by the local authority or not, the Commission’s focus was on results.

There had been a breadth of responses but the Commission had identified a need for clear and collaborative leadership with a shared, clear vision for education and called for partners to play ‘the same game not the blame game’ (4.6.1).  4.6.3 set out that there were agreed strategies for Early Help and SEND as well as the Practice Framework but there was a need for stakeholders to identify synergies between the implementation plan of the SEND strategy and the action plan based on the Commission’s recommendations.  The report had been written before the Local Area SEND Inspection but the action plan would, of course, need to connect with that too.

Ms Tolley emphasised that the intention had very much not been for a report to be written to be placed on a shelf but that it ended with a call to action.  There were 17 proposals with suggested accountabilities which were in response to the ambition and collective commitments of stakeholders for a reset and a genuine collaboration. 

One of the proposals related to the importance of Scrutiny and Ms Tolley urged the Committee to ensure that pupil attainment outcomes should be considered in March 2024 with senior leaders and partners from across the education sector, including school leaders, being invited to attend.  Ms Tolley further encouraged the Committee to carefully monitor “educational outcomes for all children and young people, especially the most disadvantaged and vulnerable”, as set out in proposal 3 in 5.1.2. 

It had been a privilege to chair the Commission and Ms Tolley praised the outstanding work of her colleagues and their commitment to deliver for Oxfordshire’s children and young people.

On his first day as Cabinet Member for Children, Education, and Young People’s Services, Cllr John Howson explained he was humbled to take on the portfolio and, whilst it was a privilege, he recognised the challenge the Council faced.  He thanked the Commission for its detailed and comprehensive report which underlined what parents had recounted earlier in the meeting.  There needed to be a vision created in Oxfordshire where no child was left behind.  Cllr Howson drew the Committee’s attention to the need for vulnerable children who need to move home unexpectedly and immediately mid-year to be placed in schools and, whilst the Council was not responsible for in-year admissions, committed to his ambition to work together to ensure a place was allocated within three weeks.

The Leader of the Council, Cllr Liz Leffman, thanked the Commission for its excellent piece of work.  It had drawn out the inequality that existed in the county with pockets of disadvantage that had not been successfully addressed for some years.  Whilst this had not been about early years, the Leader emphasised the importance of early years and the recognition of SEND as early as possible.  The 17 proposals were extremely important and co-production was necessary.  Teacher retention and recruitment was a challenge but was vital.  Work with district councils was necessary beyond education and work on Place-making would take account of this report. 

Members of the Committee thanked the Commission for a clear, well-written, comprehensive report and noted that it brought together strands of work which had been undertaken over a number of years.  There was a need for collaborative work across the Council to put things right.  Much of the data was broadly the same as that in reports from the former Education Scrutiny Committee which had made very similar recommendations in 2020 but there had been little discernible action.

Members expressed concern that the Committee had been kept at arm’s length from education since the establishment of the People Overview & Scrutiny Committee and that the centrality of Scrutiny to which the Leader had committed at the beginning of this administration taking office would benefit greatly from the restoration of a discrete Education Scrutiny Committee.

The action plan arising from the report should make specific reference to the leaders of the City and District Councils in the outworking of recommendation 5’s reference to a pan-Oxfordshire initiative. 

Parents are key stakeholders and a parents panel was suggested as a useful contribution to the be included in the action plan.

There was a recognition of the complexity of the interrelationships across the education sector but the Committee was reminded that, as an upper-tier authority, the Council was a lead partner and that collaboration across the local area partnership was key.  Whilst the Council did not maintain all schools in the county, given that all but one secondary school is an academy and around half of primary schools, it was important for the Council to use its power of influence for good.  There was a call from members for a sense of ownership and a recognition of the benefits that having senior staff be permanent rather than interim could bring.  It was also stated that the strength of the organisation lay in the expertise of its staff who were less senior and that such staff needed to be valued and recognised.

The Interim Executive Director commented at the close of the item in response to the discussions.  He thanked the Chair of the Commission and her team for an extremely useful piece of work and welcomed that such information was now all in one place.  Ensuring that the child was at the centre of everything the Council did was imperative.  Strong relationships across the partnership were essential and the Council was committed to playing its part.

The Interim Executive Director explained that the Council intended to have a single joined up action plan responding to the recommendations from the Education Commission and from the Local Area SEND Inspection which would need to be integrated.  This would need to be scrutinised.  The Interim Executive Director explained that he would welcome a discussion with the new Cabinet Member for Children, Education, and Young People’s Services about the possibility of restoring the Education Scrutiny Committee.

The Committee resolved to recommend the make recommendations to Cabinet under the following headings:

·       That the Council should ensure regular data updates are provided to Cabinet and to the Committee on educational outcomes;

·       That the Council should explore how to establish and manage panels, such as a children’s panel, a parents’ panel, and an educational providers’ panel,to ensure the insights of key stakeholders are heard to build collaborative and clear partnership working.

·       That the Council should consider the adoption of a long-term plan for educational improvement in the county under the heading Oxfordshire Charter for Future Generations;

·       That the Council should consider establishing a board for educational improvement;

·       That the Council should, once the SEND Working Group has concluded its work and presented its recommendations to Council, commit to providing officer resource and expertise to the Committee in order to undertake a deep dive into early years provision

·       That the Council should continue to work with other councils to address the problems associated with key worker recruitment and retention;

·       That the Council should ensure that there is sufficient budgetary capacity for the report’s recommendations to be implemented;

·       That the Council should expedite the establishment of a discrete Education Scrutiny Committee with appropriate resources.