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Minutes:
The following questions were heard by the Committee with responses provided at the meeting by the Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People:
The following questions were received from Mr Sofianos:
Q1
The SEND scorecard reveals a significant change in the SEND workforce between May and September this year.
Agency workers rose
from 16% to almost 27% of the team.
Permanent case
officers in post fell from 56% to 38%.
And the proportion
of EHCPs having a change of case officer in September soared to
30%.
This comes as PCT member parents have been advised directly by
Parent-Carers Together (but not by the Council itself) that case
officer teams have been restructured.
What are the causes of these changes, and how will the Council reassure parents – and inform them all – moving forward?
Answer from the Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People:
Thank you, Adam, for your question
These figures are due to the SEND restructure staff changes which is now being implemented and is part of our wider improvement work.
This is a significant planned change to the system involving the reallocation of over 4000 children and case allocation structures/teams.
Many of these changes are a direct response to requests by our Parent Carers Together (PCT) and Parent Carers Foundation (PCF) Forums for new posts in the system e.g.
This is to ensure more caseworkers so that the service can support children and families’ needs better. This evidences that we are committed to co-production and working together better.
Throughout the summer we have shared these plans with PCT, Schools and wider settings and to ensure that families are aware of these changes. Unfortunately, as explained to the two Parent Carers Forums we have current systems limits which means that we cannot do this automatically for our parents.
To this end we have reached out in partnership with PCT and PCF to help disseminate this change and ask for parents to access the Local Offer site to find who their new Case Officer is.
We recognise that our system needs to improve, and this will be addressed in future systems development work.
Q2
AP settings have a mixed record.
A recent national survey found that in 2022/23, AP pupils missed a staggering 42% of sessions overall. 38% of pupils missed 50% or more sessions.
AP pupils travelled almost 3 times as far to school as mainstream peers – almost 9km on average. 25% of these live more than 10km from the setting.
And although by law, 100% of excluded pupils should be placed with an AP within 6 schooldays, the national success rate remains for lower.
What is the current overall rate for APs within BCP, for:
i) sessions missed,
ii) pupil distance travelled,
iii) pupils allocated places within 6 schooldays of exclusion?
Answer from the Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People:
In relation to elements i and ii I am not able to provide a response in the short space of time before the O&S Committee takes place.
The MIT Team is working on this data area for me, and we would look to provide a further update for the next O&S Committee once this information is clearer.
In relation to element iii., in June of 2024 it was reported that 1.3% of children (1 out of 77) who had experienced a Permanent exclusion were allocated within 6 days.
From March 24 a task and finish group was in place to understand the systemic issues causing this poor performance, lead through our improvement work in Education.
This position identified that this was due to delays in the commissioning process in arranging placements and not having an online tuition element able to provide appropriate education while an in-person placement was arranged, as is practice in many other Local Authorities.
Urgent remedial action was put into place from this point to address the delays and lack of online tuition.
Positively, as a result for the academic year of 2024-25 currently 68% of pupils who have experienced a Permanent exclusion have been allocated within 6 days of the exclusion. This is 15 out of 22 children and represents a significant improvement from 1.3%.
For the 7 children who have not been allocated within 6 days this has been due to them either being too young to access the online provision or not being able to access the online provision.
While this figure represents a significant improvement from previous performance, BCP will continue to work to improve this system to ensure that all children are able to receive provision within the 6 day time limit.
This will include further improving commissioning processes and ensuring sufficiency of provision available to be able to allocate places to children in a timely manner.
Q3
The child testimonies in this paper are heartbreaking. Many speak of their struggles in hostile or unsupportive environments, particularly for SEND children – such as one child placed in isolation for wearing the wrong socks.
This follows recent media stories featuring local schools: a girl suspended for leaving a lesson to use the toilet during a heavy period flow, a boy isolated for a week for having a short haircut.
Across BCP, in 2022/23, 53% of all permanent exclusions were given by just 6 schools. Suspension rates are similarly skewed. Some schools appear to use isolation as a tool; others don’t.
High-control settings are a barrier to inclusion. What is Council doing to challenge the way some schools design and apply their internal rules? And how will it interrogate and address the rise in suspensions and exclusions across BCP?
Answer from the Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People:
BCP Council has inclusion and belonging as one of its highest priorities.
BCP already challenges schools on non-inclusive practice, including working pro-actively with them to avoid exclusions wherever possible. In addition, a new co-produced Belonging Strategy will be launched as part of a suite of strategies before Christmas that emphasises the importance of children and young people having that sense of belonging in their school setting and the impact that has on their outcomes.
Moving forwards, a new Information Sharing Agreement is currently being signed up to by all schools to enable transparent and open sharing of school level data in relation to exclusions, suspensions, attendance and the like to enable constructive but challenging conversations to happen between BCP and all schools in relation to their performance in this area.
This transparency and ability to openly interrogate data with all schools in the room together will enable BCP to lead the challenge and discussion, and also enable peer challenge between schools, with their data open for them to all see and challenge – a position we have not previously had in BCP.
Alongside this, the final proposals for the use of the £2.8 million Inclusion Innovation fund will be discussed at Schools Forum in January 2025.
Once approved this will create increased capacity for BCP to support and challenge mainstream schools with their systemic practices and approaches to inclusion.
Inclusion Consultants (ICONs) will be assigned to schools and will provide support, guidance and challenge to their schools in relation to their SEND systems in school and how they provide support to their pupils.
This fund will also provide further training to schools and increase the specialist offer of Outreach Support and BOOST training from our special schools, to provide further expert support and guidance to our mainstream settings on how to support their pupils.
Finally it will also offer schools the opportunity to bid for Innovation funding to enable them to put further support in place in their own setting for their cohorts of children with SEND. Schools will be invited to bid for this funding once the fund has been signed off by Schools Forum.
The following questions were received from Ms Stockwell:
Could the work plan please include the following-
Ensuring suitable emergency accommodation is available when police make place of safety orders for people under 18 soliciting for sex in a public place, who cannot be returned home because this would place them in danger and cannot be charged with soliciting because of their age.
Ensuring the work of the LADO includes investigating licensed sex establishments which pose a risk of harm to children. The Sex Establishment licensing regime does not include a safety of children requirement. Although entry to premises is forbidden to children, marketing through websites and window displays will reach children and case law also says that they will risk attracting people of dubious morals into an area so putting children at risk.