To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies had been received from Cllr Clare Davies, and from Jan Frances (Co-opted representative for families).

To receive details of members nominated to attend the meeting in place of a member of the committee.

There had been no named substitutes.

To receive declarations of interests from members of the committee in respect of items on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest.

To receive the minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday 21 January 2025.

The minutes of the previous meeting were received.

Resolved: That the minutes of the meeting held on 21 January 2025 be confirmed as a correct record and be signed by the Chairperson.

To receive any written questions from members of the public.

There had been one question received from a member of the public, which had been published, along with a response, as a supplement to the meeting agenda on the Herefordshire Council website.

To receive any written questions from members of the council.

There had been no questions received from members of the council.

To share the feedback report from Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) following the area SEND inspection of Herefordshire conducted in December 2024.

The Service Director Education, Learning and Skills introduced and gave an overview of the report.

A joint Ofsted and CQC inspection of SEND services had been conducted in Herefordshire during December 2024.

The inspection process had been spread over three weeks and included two weeks of onsite activity, involving case tracking of individual children and the services wrapped around their families.

The outcome had been the middle of three possible ratings and reflected the variable experiences of children and families across Herefordshire.

Strengths identified within the service and partnership included:

• Strong leadership across the partnership.
• An adaptable workforce that was able to swiftly respond to growing demand for services.
• Positive relationships between children and their workers.
• Co-production across the partnership such as the recently opened Youth Employment Hub, which had been developed with input from local young people.
• The SENCO Network, Early Help Services and the Children with Disabilities Team had been praised for working in a collaborative, innovative and effective manner.

Four priority areas requiring improvement had been identified:

• Reducing the length of waiting times for young people to access health services, especially in relation to neurodivergence assessment and diagnosis
• The local area partnership needed to ensure sufficient capacity, stability and improved quality across all health services to improve service consistency, development and delivery.
• Young people who had recently been diagnosed with or were waiting for treatment for a neurodivergent condition needed to be well-informed about accessing available support.
• The local area partnership needed to ensure that high-quality and accurate information regarding the range of services available to children and young people with SEND, their families, and professionals was promoted and communicated in an accessible form.
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The Director of Operations and Delivery Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board pointed out that work was already underway to change the model of neurodivergent support through the introduction of workshops and improvements to the Local Offer.

The Service Director Education, Learning and Skills stated that the inspection outcome was partly good news and that the next full inspection would take place in three years.

The Chair invited comments and discussion from the committee in relation to the report. The key points of the discussion are detailed below:

1. The committee enquired about how the SEND financial deficit was being managed.

2. The committee raised concerns about open-ended spending and asked how value for money was measured in relation to SEND services.

For the committee to consider the support offered to children with additional needs and their families.

The Head of Service Starting Well introduced and gave an overview of the report, which showed progress in relation to the sufficiency of short breaks available to children, young people and their families within Herefordshire. The report identified opportunities for further development and confirmed how the service was moving forward to co-produce the Local Offer.

It was explained that following the SEND inspection the service had challenged itself to answer the following four questions:

• How do we publicise information re short break services at a universal, targeted and specialist level and how effective are we in doing so?

• Are we assured that there is transparency and equity across the system giving opportunity to children of all ages, disability and level of need?

• Are we using the services that we have in place efficiently and do they offer safe, flexible and cost-effective choice to families?

• How are we going to develop increased sufficiency that delivers flexibility and choice for families ensuring that they can access a short break safely and easily?

The Head of Service Starting Well provided an overview of the response from the service to the questions.

The Chair invited comments and discussion from the committee in relation to the report. The key points of the discussion are detailed below:

1. The committee asked for an outline of the main issues around recruitment in short breaks and foster care placements.

2. The committee enquired about feedback provided by families regarding short breaks.
   
   

3. The committee asked whether supply for short breaks was currently meeting demand
   
   

4. The committee asked if the council was able to work with economic development colleagues to grow a local provider market?

An update to the committee on responses to its recommendations made in 2024.

The Statutory Scrutiny Officer gave an overview of the responses received in relation to recommendations made in 2024 and advised that the committee would need to decide what it wished to do with the responses in a future meeting.

The committee suggested that it might be helpful to arrange a workshop to help committee/council members to better understand - through officer feedback - how to make recommendations that would help improve the work of the executive.

Action: A workshop to be arranged with committee members and officers to discuss crafting effective recommendations.

The Statutory Scrutiny Officer read out a recommendation that had been made by the Herefordshire Council Connected Communities Scrutiny Committee at its meeting of 12 March 2025 and the Chair proposed that this be approved by the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee:

Resolved:

That Herefordshire Council:

1.     Ensures that the statutory scrutiny officer drafts a cross-scrutiny committee protocol, to ensure timely responses with faster escalation as required to outstanding recommendations.

To consider the work programme for the committee.

The committee considered the work programme included at item 10 of the agenda and unanimously approved the following recommendation:

Resolved That:

1.     The committee agree the work programme for the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee contained in the work programme report attached as Appendix 1.

Tuesday 27 May 2025, 2pm

Tuesday 27 May 2025, 2pm