Agenda item

Report of the Statutory Scrutiny Officer

Councillor Cheryl Barnard, Portfolio Holder for Children Young People and Schools, and Nick Lee, Director of Education Services, presented the report and delivered a presentation highlighting the following:

(a)  in Nottingham City, 16% of children have identified special needs or disabilities (SEND). Of these, 1411 have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). 618 of these attend a special school, with the rest educated  in mainstream schools. Nottingham has pursued a policy of supporting children with SEND, wherever possible and appropriate, to attend mainstream school provision;

(b)  a new inspection framework came into effect in January 2023 and the first inspections of local areas under the new framework have been undertaken. A key difference in the new framework is that local areas will now receive one of 3 graded judgements that are positive, inconsistent or failing;

(c)  areas of common weakness across inspections include timeliness of issuing of EHCPs and annual reviews of EHCPs, children waiting too long for access to health services in particular speech and language, CAMHs and neurodevelopment pathways, the use of data across partnerships to understand young people’s needs and implement a robust joint commissioning approach to services, and the effectiveness of the Local Offer;

(d)  Nottingham’s strategic priorities for SEND are:

·  Implementation of strengthened governance arrangements for SEND;

·  Widening of co-production and engagement opportunities with parents and young people;

·  Development and implementation of the revised SEND strategy in collaboration with parents, young people and wider stakeholders;

·  Joint work with Nottinghamshire County Council and the ICB on improving timeliness of access to health pathways/services;

·  Digitisation of the EHCP process and EHCP quality assurance processes;

·  Embedding of joint Nottingham/Nottinghamshire/ICB EHCP QA process;

·  Reviewing the Local Offer platform and updating current content;

·  Co-production with parents and young people in development of the revised SEND strategy.

(e)  last year the parents and carers forum approached senior leaders to work towards improved relationships with the Council. New methods of engagement have been sought, for example through schools where groups have been set up. This has enabled the new SEND strategy to be co-produced with parents and carers;

(f)  the transition from primary to secondary school is recognised to be a challenging time for children with SEND. Levelling up funding has been received to run a pilot to support this transition at the Wells Academy and Bulwell Academy along with their feeder schools, working together with Family Support and SEND teams;

(g)  the Council is close to launching a joint quality assurance framework for EHCPs with the county council. Young peoples’ voices have been built into this and parents have been involved. In a recent annual review of the EHCP process, parents said that they are now getting better information and the quality of plans has improved;

In response to questions from the Committee and during subsequent discussion the following points were made:

(h)  neurodiverse children are more likely to be excluded from school. Particularly secondary school following difficult transitions. The new project with transition is aimed at reducing these numbers by supporting transition;

(i)  families whose first language is not English are less likely to come forward for advice and help for SEND children. Some schools in diverse areas are already good at identifying children with need. A project was done with the Roma community with community leaders to improve attendance and awareness of expectations;

(j)  the number of school aged children with complex needs and autism is increasing demand for special school places. Special school places are expensive so the high needs budget must be used effectively, but the Council is in a relatively good position of not having a budget deficit;

(k)  children in secondary schools without EHCPs do not always receive the support they require. The Council is working with secondary schools to build on collective knowledge and develop a peer support system. This can be a challenge due to the autonomous nature of academies.

Resolved to

(1)  investigate how the Council can communicate its services better such as through the use of a newsletter; and

(2)  review the basic information published so that it is available in different languages.