To obtain Cabinet approval to undertake a procurement exercise utilising a tender procedure in line with section 4.6.of the council’s contract procedure rules in order to identify a preferred provider of pupil referral services (includes Herefordshire’s pupil referral function, behaviour outreach function and home and hospital education function)

(a)          That the council undertakes a procurement exercise with a view to identifying   a preferred provider of pupil referral services following the recent amalgamation of pupil referral services into a single pupil referral unit (PRU).

(b)          Delegated authority is provided to enable the Director of Childrens Wellbeing to conclude the procurement process and authorise award of the resulting contract on the basis it is within the financial envelope described below.

Undertaking a thorough procurement exercise will allow the council to seek a high quality specialist provider for Herefordshire’s pupil referral services and for this to be delivered on a sustainable basis through a contract with a detailed service specification.  This will allow the contract to be closely monitored and for the council to take rapid action if there are any difficulties in the delivery or quality of services.

1              Maintain the current arrangements.  Seek another short-term partner to line manage the pupil referral services as an executive headteacher. The current line management arrangement is not sustainable as the governing body of the current executive headteacher is not willing to continue the present arrangement. This was set up as a short-term arrangement four years ago.  It would be difficult to find another headteacher with the required skill set who would be able to work within the current flexible arrangements.

2              Agree that the PRU should convert to academy status and join an academy chain with an executive headteacher.  The disadvantage to this is that the academy conversion process is not reversible.  PRUs can be very volatile environments, because of the nature of the students that attend, which need to be well managed.  The council maintains the direct responsibility for pupils attending the PRU and if the sponsoring academy school was to experience a period of weak leadership and management, as recent experience has shown,  the council would have difficulty in ensuring rapid improvement in a setting for which they do not have the direct responsibility.  It should be noted that line management under the current line manager has been of high quality but there can be no certainty that this would necessarily be the case if there was a change of headteacher at the academy sponsor.

3              Take the responsibility for running pupil referral services back into direct council line management.  The pupil referral services have benefitted greatly over the past four years from having a dedicated behaviour specialist as the senior line manager rather than a generic manager.  It would be prudent to try to continue to maintain this degree of specialist knowledge and experience.  There are also issues of capacity within a reducing council resource.