Agenda and draft minutes

To receive any apologies for absence and temporary appointments.

Lisa Lyons, the Director of Children’s Services, sent apologies that she would be late.

See guidance note on the back page.

There were none.

The Committee is recommended to APPROVE the minutes of the meeting held on 21 November 2025 and to receive information arising from them.

The Committee APPROVED the minutes of the previous meeting held on 21 November 2025 as a true and accurate record.

Members of the public who wish to speak on an item on the agenda at this meeting can attend the meeting in person or ‘virtually’ through an online connection.

Requests to speak must be submitted no later than 9am three working days before the meeting, i.e. Tuesday, 27 January 2026.

Requests should be submitted to the Scrutiny Officer at scrutiny@oxfordshire.gov.uk.

If you are speaking ‘virtually’, you may submit a written statement of your presentation to ensure that if the technology fails, then your views can still be taken into account. A written copy of your statement can be provided no later than 9am on the day of the meeting. Written submissions should be no longer than 1 A4 sheet.

Where there are a number of requests from persons wishing to present similar views on the same issue, the Chair may require that the views be put by a single spokesperson. It is expected that only in exceptional circumstances will a person (or organisation) be allowed to address more than one meeting on a particular issue in any period of six months.

The public is reminded that the Committee is not a decision-making body and that it cannot investigate individual complaints.  The Committee requests that no individual children are named when addressing the Committee.

Dr Claire El Moudan addressed the Committee, stated that the Council had not followed instructions to co-produce EOTAS guidance with parents. She said that, since June of the previous year, there had been no meetings between officers and parents about the guidance, and only one meeting about the toolkit. Dr El Moudan’s EOTAS Working Group had conducted their own consultation, finding the guidance unclear, overly complex, and inaccessible. She called for practical tools, clearer responsibilities, and questioned the implementation of scrutiny recommendations.

The Chair reminded the Committee that it could not instruct.  The Committee had made recommendations.

The Committee has requested a report on the Local Area Partnership’s SEND monitoring and Priority Action Plan and the opportunity to consider the Area SEND monitoring visit inspection report.

The Committee has invited Cllr Sean Gaul, Cabinet member for Children and Young People, Lisa Lyons, the Director of Children’s Services, Matthew Tait, the Integrated Care Board’s Chief Operating Officer, to attend to present the report as well as Annette Perrington, Interim Deputy Director for Education, Deborah Smit, Assistant Director: SEND and Inclusion, Steve Crocker, independent Chair of the Oxfordshire SEND Strategic Improvement and Assurance Board, and the Co-Chair of the Oxfordshire Parent Carer Forum.

The Committee is asked to consider the report and raise any questions, and to AGREE any recommendations it wishes to make to Cabinet on behalf of Local Area Partnership system partners arising therefrom.

The Committee invited Cllr Sean Gaul, Cabinet member for Children and Young People, Lisa Lyons, the Director of Children’s Services, Matthew Tait, the Integrated Care Board’s Chief Operating Officer, to attend to present the report as well as Annette Perrington, Interim Deputy Director for Education, Deborah Smit, Assistant Director: SEND and Inclusion, Steve Crocker, Independent Chair of the Oxfordshire SEND Strategic Improvement and Assurance Board, and Jules Francis-Sinclair, the Chair of the Oxfordshire Parent Carer Forum.

The Committee also welcomed Sophia Johnson, Feedback and Reporting Co-Ordinator at OxPCF, to the meeting to support the discussion.

The Cabinet Member for Children and Young People commented on the progress within the SEND Local Area Partnership over recent years and expressed confidence that the Partnership had matured into a more coherent, outcome focused endeavour. This renewed assurance stemmed from stronger joint working arrangements and the steady stewardship of The Independent Chair. The Cabinet Member emphasised that collective effort across agencies and dedicated work by officers had helped establish a clearer, shared purpose around improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND.

The Assistant Director: SEND and Inclusion provided a structured overview of the Local Area Partnership’s progress since the SEND inspection of July 2023. Five priority action areas framed the work: elevating the voices of children and young people with SEND; strengthening communication across the system; improving the quality and timeliness of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs); reinforcing commissioning; and ensuring robust accountability and governance. She reported steady, evidenced progress across each area, supported by ongoing monitoring and scrutiny by national regulators. Whilst acknowledging improvements, she highlighted challenges that still required attention, including inconsistencies in communication, deepening workforce understanding of SEND, and widening participation in the youth forum so that more voices were captured.

The Independent Chair underscored the centrality of partnership working. He observed that the system had become more cohesive and practical in its focus, with headteachers, health partners and Council officers working more consistently toward shared objectives. He nonetheless cautioned that the Partnership operated within a national context marked by structural pressures, uneven performance and ongoing turbulence. Sustaining local progress would therefore require vigilance, continuous attention to delivery, and a readiness to adapt.

Building on those points, the Integrated Care Board’s Chief Operating Officer set out the developments seen across joint working in the previous six to twelve months. He noted that partners had engaged in difficult conversations and stayed committed despite pressures. The shift in emphasis towards transformation, redesigned pathways, and earlier access to support had begun to make a difference in some areas, even where the overall system remained under strain. These changes reflected a growing confidence to test new models rather than rely solely on additional capacity.

The Feedback and Reporting Co-ordinator at the OxPCF explained that she and colleagues had contributed extensively to the coproduction of the Priority Action Plan. Many of the Forum’s proposals had been retained in the final document; others had not been included because they lacked measurable indicators or  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5/26

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.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6/26

The Committee is recommended to AGREE its work programme for forthcoming meetings, having heard any changes from previous iterations, and taking account of the Cabinet Forward Plan and of the Budget Management Monitoring Report.

The Committee AGREED to the forward work plan.

The Committee was advised that terms of reference for the Woodeaton working group were being developed and it was now intended that they be submitted to the Committee at its February meeting.

The Committee agreed to a future item on support for adoptive parents, particularly focusing on challenges faced when children have difficulty adjusting, to review what support is provided in Oxfordshire.

The Committee was advised the upcoming SEND White Paper will require local area partnerships to create a transformation response plan for the Department for Education, likely by summer or autumn, which the committee will review once available.

The Committee is recommended to NOTE the progress of previous recommendations and actions arising from previous meetings, having raised any questions on the contents.

The Committee NOTED the action and recommendation tracker.