Agenda item

1.30

The report (ESC6) outlines the developments since November 2020 in transforming SEND services in Oxfordshire. 

The Education Scrutiny Committee is RECOMMENDED to note developments to date since November 2020, in order to transform the provision of education, health and care services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

The Committee had before it a report (ESC6) which outlined the developments since November 2020 in transforming SEND services in Oxfordshire.

The Deputy Director of Education, Hayley Good, introduced the report and summarised the progress set out in the report.  She explained that as a Council and as a local partnership they were committed to achieving the very best outcomes they could for children and young people with SEND within the total resources we have available. There was a growing demand on essential services, an increasing demand and complexity of needs amongst our residents. The financial challenge had provided an opportunity to fundamentally rethink and transform the way that local services were delivered.  The focus was on equitable provision with a drive to meet needs earlier to avoid expensive last resort options.

She reported that they were in the process of recruiting for a permanent Head of SEND in order to lead and deliver on strategic priorities for the Service. Whilst they invested time in the process, key senior leaders from within the SEND team were responsible for the APP, SEND Transformation, Strategy and Partnerships.  Other senior leaders within the Education SLT were supporting the interim line management of the various SEND services.

Interim contract management support was now in place, reviewing contractual arrangements for out of county placements. An interim procurement officer had been appointed and was monitoring and implementing improvements to the procurement of placements in independent non maintained special schools.  A more permanent commissioning structure for Education would be implemented in 2022 through the development of the Health, Education and Social Care arm of the new OCC commissioning hub.  Combined, this additional capacity would have a very positive impact on the rate of progress against actions, specifically on securing best value out of county placements.

An interim casework team was being recruited to work alongside the existing team in order to ensure statutory responsibilities were met in regard to timeliness. The expectation was that the team would-be live-in February 2021 and would take a lead on annual reviews, helping to address the backlog in this area.

The Chairman, Councillor Michael Waine welcomed the update.  Part of the problem was that when schools reached a certain stage with children, schools would feel that it was the County Council’s responsibility and the County Council had little fallback on what the school had not put in place beforehand.  He felt that the word ‘delayed’ could be added to paragraph 15 of the report to reflect this.

The Director for Children’s Services, Kevin Gordon stressed that Councillor Waine had made an important point.  There had to be a change in the roles of how all the different stakeholders and actors play within this system.  The current system for SEND was dysfunctional to distribute resource and pitched stakeholders up against one another.  The County Council did not hold the budget for SEND in Oxfordshire.

Kate Bradley, SEND Strategic Development Improvement Officer reported that part of her role was relationship building, talking to parents and SENCO’s   They were holding their first SENCO briefing shortly and had received over 200 replies.  There were lots of comments that had come in, quite a lot negative, but she was hoping in time that they would turn into suggestions and that it would become a sharing forum.  They were looking at quality so that they could get high quality teaching for all young children in Oxfordshire by pulling funding and support forward to understand early identifiers.  They were also looking at locality models so that schools between them could decide equability where the funds go and support earlier.

During the debate the Committee made the following points:

The Committee welcomed bringing children back in County and the preventative work to stop children having to go out of the family setting.

Carole Thomson welcomed her membership on the Transformation Board which ensured the whole area of Governors was taken on board.  She expressed concerned that the National High Needs Review had still not been published and that the work currently being undertaken may need to be changed as a result of the outcome of the review.  She urged officers to influence the DoE to publish the Review as the escalating EHCPs were taking away support lower down.

The Committee noted that the January Data showed that 66% of EHCPs had been completed within the 20-week deadline which was below national average.

The Committee queried whether any progress had been made with Health colleagues for early flagging through paediatrics when entering the school system.  Kate Bradley confirmed that the early year SEN team were working very closely with Health colleagues and there were 380 Health Care Need Assessments being undertaken at the moment.

RESOLVED:  to note developments to date since November 2020, in order to transform the provision of education, health and care services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.