To receive any public questions, statements or petitions submitted in accordance with the Constitution. Further information on the requirements for submitting these is available to view at the following link:-
The deadline for the submission of public questions is 3 clear working days before the meeting.
The deadline for the submission of a statement is midday the working day before the meeting.
The deadline for the submission of a petition is 10 working days before the meeting.
Minutes:
The Committee received two public questions from Adam Sofianos, who was unable to attend the meeting and had asked Democratic Services to read them on his behalf.
Q1 – Agenda item 9, SEND improvement
Recently the Government published its plans for education reform. The SEND proposals have caused alarm among educators, charities, campaign groups and families.
These proposals have also provoked a formal judicial review challenge.
Families are particularly fearful of the threat to slash the number of children receiving statutory protection, the possible removal of appeal rights, and the move to give schools liability for both the delivery and costs of most support, which may incentivise the restriction of services.
While these plans offer financial breathing-space for councils, the effect on support for disadvantaged children nationally could be a problem, making an under-performing service even worse.
The Government consultation runs until 18th May. How does Council intend to respond, and how will it engage with families and local groups, and councillors, to ensure its response is reflective of the many concerns being raised?
Cllr Richard Burton, Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People, provided an answer as follows:
Thank you Chair and thank you, Adam, as always, for the question.
The Council is taking the Government’s consultation on SEND reforms very seriously, and we are ensuring that our response is informed by the voices and experience of our local area.
To support this, we have issued a survey to all schools across the BCP area, as well as to our Local Area System Leadership Group, which includes key partners such as the Parent Carer Forum and Parent Carer Together.
In addition, our Parent Carer Forum has circulated targeted questions to parents and carers to make sure families are able to share their views directly.
We will now bring this feedback together to help shape a comprehensive Council response to the consultation. This will reflect a range of concerns and perspectives raised locally.
I also want to emphasise that it will be important for all partners, including parents and carers, to respond individually to the national consultation so that their voices are heard as part of the wider national picture.
Through this approach, we aim to ensure that the BCP submission is fully informed, balanced, and reflective of those who will be most affected by the proposed reforms.
Q2 – Agenda item 13, SEND inspection report
Ofsted is not the only party with an interest in SEND performance.
During 2024, the Council was repeatedly asked at this Committee to publish regular updated performance statistics. Eventually a dataset began to be published on the Local Offer microsite.
However, at the time of submitting this question, the most recent data available was for July 2025.
There are 7 months outstanding. How will Council make this missing data available? And will it keep its previous promise, and continue to publish SEND performance data in the future?
Cllr Richard Burton, Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People, provided an answer as follows:
Thank you again, Adam, for your question.
You are absolutely right to highlight the importance of transparency around SEND performance data, and I do want to acknowledge that the Council has not kept this data set as up to date as it should have been. This is a miss on our part, and we are committed to putting this right.
We recognise that regular publication of performance information is essential, not just for this Committee but for families, partners and the wider community who rely on this data to understand how well the system is working.
We are now taking steps to bring the data set fully up to date on the Local Offer website. We are also in the process of co?producing a fully refreshed Local Offer, and this will be an opportunity for us to consider what data we publish and how we best go about presenting it.
Importantly, we will also put in place a clear and reliable process for ongoing updates, to ensure that SEND performance data continues to be published regularly, as previously committed. This will support better oversight, greater transparency and stronger accountability across the local area partnership.
Thank you again for raising this. It’s an important reminder of the standards we must meet.