Attendance
- Amy Bickford, Senior Participation Officer, Devon County Council
- Angie Sinclair, Director of Finance and Public Value, Devon County Council
- Frank O’Friel, Lead for Neuro Diversity, NHS Devon
- Gary Patch, Head of Adult Social Care Operations, Devon County Council
- Julia Bonell, Co-chair of Parent Carer Forum Devon (PCFD)
- Keith Bennett, Executive Principal of Marland School and Chair of Devon Special School Heads (DSSH)
- Kellie Knott, SEND Improvement Director, Devon County Council
- Liam Ennis, Intervention Case Lead for SEND and Social Care, DfE
- Melanie Coleman, Project Manager for SEND Transformation Programme, Devon County Council
- Mike Bomford, Media and PR Manager (Strategic), Devon County Council
- Rachel Shaw, Devon School Leadership Services
- Shayna Stanbury, SEND Programme Officer/minutes, Devon County Council
- Stuart Collins, Director of Children and Young People’s Futures, Devon County Council
- Trevor Doughty, Chair of SEND Improvement Partnership Board, Independent
Apologies
- Beverley Mack, Children’s Alliance Director, Devon County Council
- Councillor Lois Samuel, Cabinet member for SEND, Devon County Council
- Donna Manson, Chief Executive, Devon County Council
- Hannah Pugeliese, Head of Women’s and Children’s Commissioning, NHS Devon
- Mark Tucker, Senior LD and Sutism Programme Assurance Manager and SEND Lead, NHS England and NHS Improvement South West
- Paul Walker, Chair of Devon Schools Leadership Service (DSLS) and First Federation CEO
- Tandra Forster, Director of Integrated Adult Social Care, Devon County Council
- Victoria Mitchell, Co-chair of Parent Carer Forum Devon (PCFD)
1. Welcome, introductions and apologies
T Doughty welcomed the group to the board and a round of introduction took place.
2. Review of previous meeting minutes and actions
The group agreed accuracy of the minutes of the previous meeting, actions were discussed, and updates provided.
3. SEND Transformation programme progress report
Progress update
M Coleman provided an update on the red and red/amber RAG rated workstream.
- K Knott advised members the strategy group met yesterday, and the work is moving forward, therefore the RAG status should move from amber/red to amber/green.
- V Mitchell raised the coproduction day was successful however highlighted that there are barriers to working out the actions to move the work forward.
- M Bomford advised work is underway around how to make the local offer accessible for those who have not got access to the internet, through family hubs, DiAS.
- Special Schools Outreach – a mini expression of interest is ready to be sent out to special school colleagues. Devon is having difficulties with commissioning capacity, therefore alternative provision and quality assurance has been identified as the priority, keeping children safe and local. There are a small number of special schools who could be ready for September however the majority of schools are not going to be ready until January.
- Discussions were held around difficulties in moving the preparing for adulthood work forward, board members agreed this is a crucial partnership issue across education, health and care. K Knott advised there will be a review of projects to understand the different work under the SEND Transformation Programme. Board members agreed the SEND Transformation Programme Board will work to understand the operational issues and make recommendations to the Strategic Partnership Board. Action: Preparing for Adulthood agenda item at a July board meeting following work outside the Strategic board.
- K Knott advised the SEN Statutory Team is in a better place in terms of wellbeing, while managing the implementation of changes. Four additional plan writers have been recruited and additional recruitment over capacity underway to support with producing plans on time way and to develop communications. Key decision: The quality assurance framework is 95% complete and will be tabled at the next board for sign off.
- Multi-agency pathways, the chair suggested to confirm the RAG status of the report. Discussions were held around trialling the clinical prioritisation in Devon and Plymouth.
Risks and issues
- There is not sufficient commissioning capacity to do the work at the pace required. Work is needed to identify and prioritise additional commissioning capacity across the partnership. T Doughty suggested it is helpful to understand the risk presented however the risks would sit within the local authority’s governance. K Knott advised the risk is being escalated through Devon’s internal governance structure and picked up thorugh senior leadership team. A Sinclair chairs a Corporate Performance and Improvement Board of which a paper on the risk is going to.
SEND Dashboard
M Coleman provided an update on the SEND Dashboard.
Discussions were held around the quality assurance of EHCPs and the impact on children and young people and their family. S Chapman advised the process of delivering the framework needs to be embedded, meaningful and in a process which makes a difference.
4. Coproduction
A strategic planning meeting was held last week to talk about coproduction at strategic, service and also individual levels around children and young people plans and to think about the priorities to move coproduction forward.
K Knott advised the challenge is around culture, values and how we work therefore practical steps are required to develop this. The planning meeting discussed the difference between children and young person and parent carer coproduction, how this is looked at separately rather than together.
There was a focus on key areas, developing an action plan which we want the partnership to own to move the work forward. However the challenge was what practical actions should be taken.
J Bonell raised it was a productive day, however the difficulty is the understanding there is a lot of work to do in this area. There was not enough time to reach a point to agree on those next steps and this is crucial to keep the work moving forward.
S Collins advised members on 21st June Devon is meeting with colleagues outside of the local authority to undertake a peer review and bring into Devon good practice.
A Bickford offered for the young people to review the action plan and contribute to.
5. Ordinarily Available Inclusive Provision (OAIP) Framework
S Chapman provided background and progress of the OAIP framework. Work is underway with stakeholders to pull the content together along with work with communications colleagues to begin to develop an online accessible format and develop the process of implementation which is key.
PCFD offered support around working with families, in partnership to move the work forward and share the toolkit as a whole.
R Shaw suggested specific and to the point language in the document, raising and being clear on the expectation.
Discussions were held around schools being preferred due to the reputation of the support given to children and young people however the toolkit will provide the standard that should be provide across all schools and will therefore reduce that preference. There are some schools out who cannot provide what is set out in an EHCP whether this is down to staffing or the building.
6. Stakeholder update
M Bomford provided an update on the communications, news highlights and work underway within the local authority, with health providers and Parent Carer Forum Devon.
7. AOB
- R Shaw questioned the impact of the phone lines moving to the customer service centre. J Bonell advised there has not been any negative experiences shared regarding the transition of the phone calls. Key decision: K Knott advised the digital transformation team are capturing feedback from every call in a 6 week timeframe and will provide the results of this at the next board.
- T Doughty raised today is international day of Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG).
Date for next meeting: Thursday 13 June 2024