To provide an update on progress and impact of activity undertaken within and across the multi-agency partnership in response to the recommendations made following the Local Government Association (LGA) Peer review carried out in October 2022.

Recommendation(s)

That:

a)    The Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee note the activity and progress thus far in responding to the recommendations of the Peer Review conducted in October 2022; and

b)    The committee indicate any specific areas of practice, performance, or development that it would like to consider in the future work plan.

The Chair suggested to the Committee that it might be helpful to have officers present the Developing SEND Services Progress Report, Draft SEND Strategy and SEND Peer Review Feedback together. Then approve the progress report and peer review feedback and invite discussion and questions on the draft SEND strategy. The committee agreed unanimously to proceed in this manner.

SEND Services Progress Report

Liz Farr (Service Director, Education, Skills and Learning) introduced and gave an overview of the developing SEND services progress report, which provided an update on progress and impact of activity undertaken within and across the multi-agency partnership in response to the recommendations made following the Local Government Association (LGA) Peer review carried out in October 2022.

It was explained that the review made a number of recommendations, as well as identifying strengths in the provision of the SEND pupils in Herefordshire, it was advised that it would be useful to bring together short and medium priorities and actions to address the actions that were received in the report.

It was stated that the SEND partnership group, made up of health, education and school representatives, met regularly to consider and re-evaluate the improvement priorities. A self-evaluation document had been completed along with a draft SEND strategy. Underpinning the strategy was a thorough SEND action plan. Governance arrangements had been strengthened through the establishment of a SEND strategic board chaired by Deborah Glassbrook (Director of Optimising Potential Limited).The strategic board met on a monthly basis.

An update was provided on Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) performance, with the percentage of plans being received within 20 weeks within the County being above the national figure.

It was pointed out that reviews of children’s plans were highly important when children were transferring from primary to secondary school and great focus had been put on this.

The service director highlighted a piece of work on local offer, regarding the services that parents could access. Officers were currently migrating all site content to one place to improve accessibility and navigation for users.

The draft SEND strategy was currently out for comment with schools and sencos (special education needs coordinators) and the service had welcomed support from external partners, meeting with the LGA SEND improvement partner and the DfE SEND Improvement advisor on a fortnightly basis.

Draft SEND Strategy

Les Knight (Head of Additional Needs) and Liz Farr (Service Director, Education, Skills and Learning) presented and provided an overview of the draft strategy.

The service director explained that following the LGA review, the service had taken the opportunity to revisit and rewrite its SEND strategy.

The draft document had been through various groups and Parent Carer Voice had contributed strongly, which was hopefully reflected in the document.

The service had worked with partners in health and education and the strategy reflected the local authorities own staff evaluation of where things were working well and where things could be better.

The document was aligned closely with the Ofsted Inspection Framework, which was republished in January 2023,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 132