ISOS have been commissioned to lead on the review of the High Needs Block/SEND provision and will present to the Forum and lead a question and answer session.
Minutes:
Helean Hughes (Director – Education & Skills) reminded the Forum that the ISOS Partnership had been commissioned to lead a strategic review of support, services and provision for children and young people with high needs in Wiltshire.
Helean introduced Ben Bryant and Karina Kulawik from the ISOS Partnership who were present to explain the following to the Forum:
1. That the aims and proposed approach to the review are to
· Build an evidence informed collective understanding of how effectively the local system supports young people with high needs – what is working well, challenges and pressures;
· To engage a broad range of partners, build consensus and harness collective expertise to shape and implement solutions;
· To work co-productively and iteratively to develop a shared strategic approach with clear, practical actions to take forward;
Initial work would be carried out to understand current context, analyse data and documents and scope out evidence gathering (during January to March 2019). During April and May 2019 there would be broad engagement with key partners to gather feedback and evidence. During June and July 2019 ISOS would be testing their findings and shaping recommendations and a future approach through co-production.
2. The six broad themes that ISOS were planning to use to structure their discussions and evidence gathering are:
· Co-production with parents/carers and young people
· Partnerships working across education, health and care
· Identification, assessment and access to support
· Building inclusive capacity in mainstream schools and settings, and providing targeted support for inclusion
· Developing responsive, effective local specialist provision
· Preparation for adulthood
Together with an overarching theme about having effective and sustainable systems, processes, strategic clarity and governance for the system.
They then gave details of some of the key areas they proposed to explore under each of the six themes.
3. That they proposed to work with Schools Forum and colleagues across Wiltshire by undertaking four sets of evidence gathering activities:
· Visits to a selection of settings, schools’ colleagues and other services;
· Workshops with parents and carers
· Engagements with young people
· Two parallel online surveys.
During the latter part of the summer term ISOS were planning the following:
· To share and test with a broad range of partners (professionals and parents/families) their key findings, through a series of workshop discussions;
· Work iteratively with colleagues to develop solutions and recommendations; and
· Work with partners to shape these into a final, accessible, evidence-informed report focused on practical actions required to put a new strategic approach into practice.
Ben asked the Forum’s views on their proposed approach, how the system works currently, future priorities and key questions to explore and the Forum responded as below:
· It is the wish of the Forum for there not to be a continuing overspend on the high needs block year on year – would there be benchmarking carried out to see what is happening in other authorities?
· The Forum would like reassurance that the current pressures are not going to carry on;
Ben responded that his view was that there are systemic issues across the whole education system and that the Authority would need to re-engineer their education, health and care systems to see changes happen and look to establish a cultural change within the organisation.
· The outcome of the review could mean that it ends up costing more – the age range of children that we previously were responsible for was 4-16-year olds – it is now from 0-25-year olds with the same amount of money;
Ben responded that there are no easy answers to the funding issues and they would not say that they can sort out the high needs overspends. Ben had been part of research projects who had highlighted to the DfE the lack of funding and cost pressures that all Local Authorities are facing as this is a nationally recognised issue. There is a limit to the funding available and by carrying out the review work they will not be bringing more money to the table. The journey of completing the review is as important that just receiving the final report – along the way people engage and discuss what improvements/changes can be made.
From the scoping work already carried out we have already identified instances that had they been dealt with earlier then they could have been resolved in a more cost-effective way.
· An overspend of £4m on the high needs budget is not trivial to us – we feel the review is well placed to identify what we can do before the National Funding Formula is in place because there will be nowhere to take money from once that is implemented. The Forum would welcome any solutions you may have to reduce our high needs overspend. We suggest you contact schools for further discussion through WASSH and PHF and to also talk to Early Years providers.
· There are several projects currently going on – where is this positioned?
Helean Hughes acknowledged that this project ties in neatly with the Reset and FACT project and the importance is getting things right earlier on.
The Chairman thanked Ben and Karina for their presentation (attached as Appendix 1 to the Minutes) and gave the Forum’s endorsement and requested that updates be given to future meetings.
Resolved:
That Schools Forum note the aims and proposed approach to the strategic review of support, services and provision for children and young people with high needs in Wiltshire and receive an update at their meeting in June 2019.