Attendance
- Adrian Fox, Head Accountant: Education and Learning, Devon County Council
- Brian Gale, SEND Adviser, DfE
- Councillor Tracy Adams, Chair of the Children’s Scrutiny Committee, Devon County Council
- Frank O’Friel, Lead for Neurodiversity, 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)
- Julian Wooster, Interim Director of Children and Young People’s Future, Devon County Council
- Liam Ennis, Intervention Case Lead for SEND and Social Care, Department for Education
- 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
- Phill Adams, SEND Assistant Director, Devon County Council
- Shayna Stanbury, SEND Programme Officer/minutes, Devon County Council
- Simon Niles, Schools Planning, Pupil Placement and Commissioning Manager, Devon County Council
- Su Smart, Deputy Director of Commissioning – Out of Hospital, NHS Devon
- Trevor Doughty, Chair of SEND Strategic Partnership Board, Independent
Apologies
- Angie Sinclair, Director of Finance and Public Value, Devon County Council
- Councillor Lois Samuel, Cabinet member for SEND, Devon County Council
- Donna Manson, Chief Executive, Devon County Council
- Emma O’Connell, Children and Family Health Devon Acting Director
- Jack Newton, Deputy Director – Education and Schools, Devon County Council
- Kellie Knott, SEND Improvement Director/Chair, Devon County Council
- Keri Denton, Director of Performance and Partnerships, Devon County Council
- Paul Walker, CEO, First Federation Multi-Academy Trust and Chair of Devon Schools Leadership Services (DSLS)
- 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 introductions 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. Challenges and actions taken re Ivybridge and Cranbrook
S Niles provided an overview of the report. The concerns in moving this work forward is the delay in the Government confirming a contract.
The temporary provision in Tavistock will be a permanent provision.
There is a strong sponsor in place for the Ivybridge site, with an aim to open in November 2026. The team will start working with children and families to understand how thy might want their education delivered and getting the offer right.
J Wooster raised an additional issue is the capacity of builders which could impact on the building delivery dates.
S Niles advised the Cranbrook sponsor is critical and are waiting for the Department for Education to decide on the preferred sponsor.
L Ennis advised members regular conversations are being held with colleagues in the Department for Education to keep them up to date with concerns. S Niles recommended weekly meetings are being held with Devon and Department for Education colleagues.
J Bonell offered to support this is in any way that is needed.
4. Emerging data underpinning the Sufficiency Strategy
S Niles shared a presentation to members providing background information, 2024 context, an overview of data, demographic and demand forecasts to 2029 and recommendations.
S Niles raised the work underway in Newton Abbot is focusing on how we create a resource provision that meets the need of the community and flexibility of the commissioning specifically around the three areas of need.
Questions and comments from members:
- Councillor T Adams questioned how the potential £21,000.00 fine to schools for exclusion will be spent to support the programme? P Adams raised there are a number of issues with the cost of provision for SEND, increased demand and reduced resource available. Exclusion rates are high and work is needed around early help and early intervention and how schools and the local area are going to work together to solve this.
- Discussions were held around the correlation in deprived areas, J Bonell suggested the correlation is school specific as they have varying ways to work with children and young people and this effects the level of support received. Good practice should be celebrated and schools have a key role to play.
- B Gale questioned the steps Devon is taking in relation to the high percentage of SLCN. J Bonell raised SLCN is an area of significant weakness and Devon lacks specialist SLCN support. In addition suggested colleagues linking with Neil Maslen, Director of Education for Speech and Language UK.
Action: J Wooster to arrange a meeting with NHS colleagues, PHN and Neil Maslen, Director of Education for Speech and Language UK to discuss the lack of SLCN support in Devon and discuss bringing support in Devon. - J Bonell raised SEMH as a label is not helpful as it covers a wide variety of presentations and is a result of a lack of early support and intervention.
- L Wood raised the importance of understanding how this work will link with adults social care.
- F O’Friel raised work is underway with the balanced system and the Neurodiversity Strategy should be ready to share with members at the January board.
S Niles raised local learning communities are those primary and secondary schools in a catchment area.
S Niles advised members the sufficiency strategy is in draft and will be going out to key stakeholders to review.
5. One Devon Autism Waiting List Recovery
S Smart provided an update on the Autism Waiting List Recovery plan. S Smart noted the trajectory is being reviewed to understand when the targets can be met.
Councillor T Adams questioned how are children and young people and their families are being communicated and managing expectations? F O’Friel advised 500 letters have been sent out to those on the wait list with information on the support available and steps in diagnosis. In additional communications have been sent out to professionals supporting children and young people on the wait list.
Neurodiversity – Getting Advice and Getting Help
T Doughty raised it is very helpful to have a report and regular updates on the Autism Waiting List Recovery for members to scrutinise, acknowledging it’s a challenging area
6. Resources Reinforcement Actions
Recognised 5 priorities for additional support across the SEND include; financial management, governance, education redesign, engagement and places with schools and engagement with health partners.
Councillor T Adams questioned if the education redesign will result to redundancies? P Adams raised there are skills gaps identified but the numbers of workforce is not different.
F O’Friel suggested the work with health providers has moved on over the past couple months and it would be positive to move this forward and into locality based models.
Discussions where held around the importance of not just communicating with both mainstream and special schools heads but working coproductively.
J Bonell raised there are several parents who can support coproduction work who have expert specialist knowledge.
7. SEND Transformation programme progress report.
Programme overview
M Coleman provided an overview of the successes and challenges.
B Gale raised embedding the strategy will be a key line of enquiry at the next inspection, asking how the strategy is embedded and how they work alongside and in accordance to the SEND Strategy and Four Cornerstones.
Communications
M Bomford provided an update on the communications sent out this month. Additional featured news in that edition, included news that we had prepared in latter weeks of October, including:
- What do Education, Health and Care Plans cover and what do they not cover – setting out what EHCPs cover and don’t cover, and to signpost to the culmination of a lot of work from our digital team to re-present and explain the EHCP process better to parents, through online information on our website.
- Enhancing further education for young people with SEND – introducing to parents the work that we have been doing with Exeter College and PETROC College to create at least 350 additional post-16 places for young people with SEND. Earlier this month (December) we have followed up with the two colleges to start planning a further story about the courses available.
- Improvements continue to be made within our SEND Statutory Service – update parents and carers on progress with EHCP requests and improvements to EHCP Reviews which will start to take effect in the new year.
- Raising Aspirations of Employment project – young people in our Champions for Change group have been working with the Careers Hub and our youth and inclusion teams on a project to explore why young people from special schools find it harder to get a job when they leave school, and what we can do to help change that.
- Summer fun – opportunities over the summer for young people with special educational needs and disabilities to get involved and have their voice heard.
- Let’s talk about bullying -in response to a number of calls from parents to DiAS, seeking advice about dealing with bullying and how to report it.
- Changing schools next September – in response to concerns raised by parents to DiAS about the transition from primary to secondary school, or pre-school to primary.
- What is a ‘Team Around the Family’ meeting – in response to questions from parents about the purpose of TAF meetings, and who attends them.
- Could you volunteer for DiAS- promoting the online training and face to face training available on dates in November.
Social Media
The comms team have been focusing on different aspects of the SEND Strategy in posts on our social media channels. They continue to utilise both the SEND Facebook channel and the main corporate DCC social media channels to promote information to the public
Other comms support
- Preparing for Adulthood – Transitions Guide digital/online) – this work has now been completed and is undergoing user testing with parents and young people.
- Information and guidance – information and guidance that is available on the Local Offer, Adult Social Care and other areas of DCC’s websites is currently being reviewed and restructured to ensure it is accurate and easy to navigate.
- EBSA – new information for parents was approved by the Transformation Board in early December and has been published as web pages on the main site. We will develop a comms plans to promote communicate and promote these new pages, to include the SEND Partnership newsletter in December. The team is also working on information for schools, with a view to user testing with schools in the New Year.
- You Said, We Did – webpages in progress.
8. AOB
None raised
Date for next meeting: Thursday 30 January 2025