Issue - meetings

Following submission of BCP Council and Dorset’s Clinical Commissioning Group’s Written Statement of Action (WSoA), monitoring visits will be held every three months. The Department for Education (DfE) will use these meetings to scrutinise progress towards the delivery of the WSoA. This paper summarises the information given to the DfE during the first monitoring meeting. Feedback from DfE is due imminently.

The Director of Education and Skills presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix ‘E’ to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

Following submission of BCP Council and Dorset’s Clinical Commissioning Group’s Written Statement of Action (WsoA), monitoring visits would be held every three months. The Department for Education (DfE) would use these meetings to scrutinise progress towards the delivery of the WsoA. This paper summarised the information given to the DfE during the first monitoring meeting. Feedback from DfE was due imminently.

The Committee discussed the report and comments were made, including:

• A Committee Member highlighted that it was the SEND Improvement Board scrutinising and providing challenge and that there was a large amount of work ongoing, it was noted that the Board did look at some of the concerns raised and hopefully would be in a position to update after the school holidays
• In response to a query regarding recruitment, the Committee was provided with a positive update on the current position with seven new case officers recruited, two new posts were being recruited to and shortlisting was underway for the Head of SEND
• In response to a query about recruiting more education psychologists, the Committee was advised that contact had been made with Southampton University to encourage its graduates to join BCP, it was noted that there was currently only one vacancy in this area but more educational psychologists were required to meet the demands of the Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs)
• In response to a query from the Chair about what the Director was most concerned about, the Committee was advised that the main challenge was the increased request for EHCPs assessments which was up by 59%, the reasons why the increase had happened were highlighted, including an increase around complex mental health needs and the capacity the service would need to manage the increase in demand over the next three to five years

The Chair requested the Committees thanks be passed to the outgoing Head of SEND.  ACTION

The Chair summarised discussions as follows:

• Recruitment success
• Increase in EHCPs

RESOLVED that the Committee note the progress towards the delivery of the WSoA.