Agenda item

The minutes of the meeting of the High Needs Block Working Group meeting held on 9 November 2021 are attached.  Schools Forum will also receive an update on behalf of the Working Group and there will be an update on the Independent Special School review.

Helean Hughes (Director of Education and Skills) gave an update on behalf of the High Needs Block Working Group and highlighted the following:

·         The Temporary Support Funding had been discussed.  There was currently an issue in meeting the statutory 20 week requirement for EHCPs.  Due to national an increased demand for assessments and recruitment issues, Education Psychologist resource was in short supply which was causing delays and whilst they were trying to recruit additional EP resource there was an immediate issue for the meeting the 20 week deadline.  The use of £4k per pupil was agreed to be used for supporting the pupil whilst awaiting the outcome of the EHCP application; and

·         The test site for the Ordinarily Available Provision (OAP) had been shared which set out what was available for learners with SEND, for parents. Schools and all parties.  Officers were dedicated to being able to launch this in the new year.

Cate Mullen (Head of SEND and Inclusion) reported that the DfE SEND review would be set up by Will Quince (Children’s Minister) and was due to be issued in the first quarter of 2022.  They were hoping to see adaptations to be made to the SEND Code of Practice so that the law that sits behind sets out the intentions of the DfE in terms of the inspection framework for Ofsted and CQC local area inspections. 

Lisa Fryer (Education Officer – Independent Specialist Placements) presented an update on the Independent Special School wave 1 review and highlighted the following:

• There were 68 cases where savings had been made and the vast majority of those were in specialist ISS.  There had been 54 step downs and/or ‘bring backs’ which had made savings to stepping down to a lesser option whilst fully meeting their needs in a different way or moving into mainstream education.  So of the significant bring backs where from young people coming back into the county having been in ‘out of county placements’ for quite a long time;

• Some of the key things learned in the last 12 months were that ISS are not always more able to meet complex SEN learners needs. It was identified that it was possible to step down and bring back from ISS placements but this was often very labour intensive with colleagues working many hours on these;

• In 2020 there was an open book and a review of all those in the ISS sector was carried out.  68 young people were identified as the focus target group to step down and bring back and Officers would continue to look at cases to see if savings could be made;

• Something else that had been highlighted was that because of some unsatisfactory Ofsted judgements some of the groups who run ISS are starting to be more cautious about who they will take in their placements which impacts on our placement offers being withdrawn at short notice in some cases;

• Case studies of step down and bring backs were shared which showed how valuable that work was;

• The slide entitled ‘Achieving better outcomes for learners with SEND’ showed the sorts of savings that had been made with some day placements stepping down from something high end to something still supportive for that young person.  The High Needs working group target savings of £500k had been achieved for 2020-21 and was on target to achieve for 2021-22; and

• The wave 2 takeaways were that the learner voice had been integral to step downs/bring back and would remain key as was keeping the young people close to their families and communities.  The quality assurance monitoring of settings would continue to be increasingly focused on.

The Chair thanked Lisa Fryer for her presentation and confirmed that the slides would be attached as Appendix 1 to the minutes.

The Wiltshire Parent Carer Council representative agreed that the amount of money spent on a placement didn’t always mean it was of high quality although this was a perception from parents/carers.  She reported that the Parent Carer Council had received a high number of calls relating to children and young people who were on long term part-time education timetables and that there were a lot of mental health issues because of this and the levels of school avoidance were high. 

The Early Years representative commented that the considerable savings made in this work were impressive and he acknowledged how complex and time consuming the cases were but asked about the costs of the work to make those savings in relation to the staffing time etc spent on that work.  Lisa Fryer confirmed that she had been seconded to move into this role and her post had had to be backfilled and whilst there had been some challenges, there hadn’t been any additional resource brought in to carry out the work and that it was sitting within the existing team.  They felt that it was proportionate between the amount of work going in and the savings being achieved and that the focus was on the best outcomes for the young people and that made it a worthwhile exercise.

Helean Hughes reported that the team would now be moving into business as usual work and that a model PFA pathway for adulthood would be the next challenge to ensure that it was fully addressing the SEND and Inclusion Strategy.

Resolved: That Schools Forum

1.           Note the minutes of the High Needs Block Working Group meeting     held on 9 November 2021.

2.           Note the update on behalf of the High Needs Block Working Group.

3.                 Note the update on the Independent Special School Review.