Draft
These are the draft minutes of the SEND Strategic Partnership Board. This note will be removed once the minutes are signed off at the next meeting.
Attendance
- Adrian Fox, Principal Accountant – Education and Learning, Devon County Council
- Ceri Morgan, Deputy Director – Education and Learning, Devon County Council
- Councillor Lois Samuel, Cabinet member for SEND, Devon County Council
- Councillor Tracy Adams, Chair of the Children’s Scrutiny Committee, Devon County Council
- Frank O’Friel, Lead for Neuro Diversity, NHS Devon
- Jennie Harvey, Head Teacher for Lampard Community School and Chair of DSSH (Devon Special School Heads)
- Julia Bonell, Co-chair of Parent Carer Forum Devon (PCFD)
- Kellie Knott, SEND Improvement Director, Devon County Council
- Liz Wood, Assistant Director for Disability Services, Adult Disability Leadership, Devon County Council
- Melanie Coleman, Programme Manager for SEND Transformation Programme, Devon County Council
- Mike Bomford, Media and PR Manager (Strategic), Devon County Council
- Shayna Stanbury, SEND Programme Officer/minutes, Devon County Council
- Stuart Collins, Director of Children and Young People’s Futures, Devon County Council
- Su Smart, Deputy Director of Commissioning – Out of Hospital, NHS Devon
- Trevor Doughty, Chair of SEND Strategic Partnership Board, Independent
- Victoria Mitchell, Co-chair of Parent Carer Forum Devon (PCFD)
Apologies
- Donna Manson, Chief Executive, Devon County Council
- Liam Ennis, Intervention Case Lead for SEND and Social Care, Department for Education
- Rachel Shaw, CEO Exeter Learning Academy Trust
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.
Programme overview
Members discussed the difficulties in heath data contributing to the SEND Dashboard. S Smart advised Children and Family Health Devon had a system change over and it has therefore taken 4 – 5 months to gather the data. Members agreed to have the health data available for the next SEND Strategic Partnership Board.
Action: S Smart/F O’Friel to ensure health data is ready and contributed to the SEND Dashboard.
Programme milestones
Members discussed the special school outreach offer, J Lampard raised concerns regarding the target delivery date, taking into consideration recruitment and the fact schools have not been made aware of the new date.
Action: K Knott to speak to Z Heywood and S McShane regarding new delivery date and communicating the new plan for special school outreach to Devon Special School Heads.
Members raised concerns with the delay of the Sufficiency Strategy, questioning why it is being delayed and the actions in place to move it forward. The strategy is key to many other aspects of work in place and delaying causes a risk across the programme.
T Doughty requested the Sufficiency Strategy as an item at the next SEND Strategic Partnership Board, covering the action plan for recovering and delivering the strategy and any issues in delivering.
Programme Delivery Tracker
K Knott advised the capital bid has been accepted to support creating additional further education placements for Preparing for Adulthood.
Concerns were raised regarding the progress of coproduction and the need for it to be covered across the programme. Discussions were held around the lack of understanding and the culture change required to move into the right way of working and having a better understanding of the coproduction work happening in each work strand.
Action: Senior Responsible Officers to map out the coproduction activities in each work strand, identifying the gaps and where further work is required to present at the next SEND Strategic Partnership Board.
DfE/NHSE Agreed Delivery targets
V Mitchell raised concerns regarding Egress, families are requesting to ‘opt out’ of using it as they are losing emails being sent to them and are preferring to have a paper copy sent out. M Coleman advised K Kilbride is looking into ‘opt out’ being an option.
Average Costs Dashboard
J Bonell suggested it would be helpful to have more context behind the costings.
Action: M Coleman to revise the ‘Average Cost Dashboard’ slide to present the information in an alternative way.
Communications update
M Bomford provided an update on the communications sent out over July and August.
4. Accelerated Progress Plan
Points had been raised through the programme report.
S Stanbury advised members will receive both the detailed Accelerated Progress Plan and the dashboard monthly to review and bring questions to the meeting.
5. SEND Strategy
The SEND Strategy has been in development for the last year. The local area, along with parent carers and Parent Carer Forum Devon have been, and continue to, work together to develop the SEND Strategy. This new strategy has a different approach to previous strategies in terms of honesty and setting the scene.
Councillor Adams raised slide 2, where are we now, is a fantastic slide, providing transparency.
Members suggested keeping in mind coproduction and how we understand what colleagues are doing to support meaningful change.
J Bonell and V Mitchell provided information on the Four Cornerstones and the reasons as to why it is included in the SEND Strategy.
K Knott asked members for sign off with the caveat that there are minor changes to be made and it is important for the working group to sign it off when they meet next week.
J Bonell thanked K Knott for leading on this work, it’s a huge step forward from where we have previous been, delivering something new and special for Devon and hopefully that is a strong foundation to build moving forward.
T Doughty agreed, raising it is heartening to hear this is not a strategy which sits on the shelf. T Doughty expressed his gratitude and congratulations to the working group.
6. EHCP QA Framework
K Knott raised the purpose of this item is to sign off the EHCP QA Framework.
V Mitchell questioned how it would be shared with parent carers.
Action K Knott, J Bonell and V Mitchell to discuss the best way to communicate the EHCP QA Framework to parent carers.
J Harvey questioned how the framework applies for review where schools have completed the paperwork.
Action: K Knott to take forward how the QA framework applies for review where schools have completed the paperwork.
T Doughty requested a follow up report of the quality of EHCP’s at the December board following implementation of the framework.
Members agreed and signed off the EHCP QA framework.
7. AOB
T Doughty informed members of a report commissioned by the Local Government Association regarding an ‘effected and financially sustainable approach to SEND in England’ which is in helpful article.
Date for next meeting: Thursday 17 October 2024