SEND Improvement Partnership Board – minutes 25 January 2023

Attendance

• Trevor Doughty, Chair of SEND Improvement Partnership Board, Independent
• Shayna Stanbury, SEND Programme Officer, Devon County Council
• Louise Taylor, SEND Local Area Programme Manager, Devon County Council
• Damien Jones, Senior Programme Manager, Deputy Director – Transport Operations, Environment and Waste, Devon County Council
• Amy Bickford, Senior Participation Officer, Devon County Council
• Rachel Shaw, Head of Education (Delivery); Chief Executive Exeter Learning Academy Trust, Devon County Council and Exeter Learning Academy Trust
• Keith Thompson, SEN and Disability Professional Adviser, Department for Education
• Mark Tucker, Senior Learning Disability and Autism Programme Assurance Manager and SEND Lead
  NHS England and NHS Improvement South-West, NHS England
• Jackie Ross, Interim SEND Strategic Director, Devon County Council
• Hannah Pugliese, Head of Women and Children’s Commissioning, NHS Devon
• Victoria Mitchell, Co-chair of Parent Carer Forum Devon (PCFD), Parent Carer Forum Devon
• Julia Bonell, Co-chair of Parent Carer Forum Devon (PCFD), Parent Carer Forum Devon
• Joanne Siney, Head of Service – Disabled Children Service, Devon County Council
• Jan Spicer, Chief Executive, Devon County Council
• Kellie Knot, Head of Vulnerable Children’s Unit – South West, Department for Education
• Meg Booth, Director of Transport Operations, Environment and Waste, Devon Council
• Julian Wooster, Director of Children and Young People’s Futures, Devon County Council
• Cllr John Hart, Lead member of the Council, Devon County Council
• Tandra Foster, Director of Integrated Adult Social Care, Devon County Council
• Rob Gasson, CEO Wave Academy, Wave Academy
• Tony Parker, Head of Communications and Media, Devon County Council
• Angie Sinclair, Director of Finance and Public Value, Devon County Council
• Darryn Allcorn, Chief Nurse, NHS Devon

Apologies

• Beverley Mack, Children’s Alliance Director, Children and Family Health Devon
• Liz Davenport, Chief Executive, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, NHS Devon
• Cllr Andrew Leadbetter, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Devon County Council
• Vikki Hill, Devon NHS-Lead neurodiversity pathway, NHS Devon
• Nick Crippa, Early Help Improvement Lead, Devon County Council
• Jassi Broadmeadow, Deputy Chief Officer – Children’s Services and Head of Social Care, Devon County Council
• Jo Turl, Director of Commissioning Primary, Community and Mental Health Care, NHS Devon

1. Welcome, introductions and apologies

T Doughty welcomed the group and a round of introduction took place.

2. Review of the previous meetings minutes and actions

The group reviewed and agreed the minutes of the previous meeting and the action log. J Wooster suggested adding members job titles (S Stanbury to action).

3. Devon Local Area SEND Improvement Plan – meeting with DfE

Colleagues from Devon County Council, NHS Devon and PCFD met with the Department for Education (DfE) and NHSE to review the SEND Improvement Plan. Feedback given suggested there has been a lot of work carried out however the layout and content needed reviewing and condensing, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are to be streamlined with separate KPIs in an additional document and achieve the desired impact we are making for children and young people and their families.

Key decision: The plan is due to come to the SEND Improvement Partnership Board at the next meeting (22nd February) for sign off with the final resubmission due to the DfE on 24th February.

T Doughty emphasised the plan should be driving genuine change. The board needs to be involved and monitor the progress of the plan and the impact it is having.

4. Case study: Recruitment and Retention of 0 – 25 team

The 0-25 recruitment update report was distributed containing information about the recruitment and retention of the 0 – 25 team.

J Ross thanked D Jones for the work on the report and PCFD and DiAS for their ongoing work in interviews, PCFD informed the board they are currently recruiting and training a team of parent carers to be involved with the recruitment process.

It was raised it would also be good to have young people involved in the interview process.

Comments/questions raised from members:

• How do we reduce pressure to the team rather than recruit? What is driving the pressure and having a better understanding of how this is addressed.
• The number of children and young people in the backlog is a significant number, along with the quality of those as they are being produced. This is a matter the board should be receiving data to show the progress going forward.
• There needs to be a whole system focus on colleagues and teams outside the 0 – 25 team and Devon County Council.
• Do health have the capacity and are meeting deadlines with the expanding 0 – 25 team?
• Opportunity to better understand the process, understand what professionals are spending their time on and if there are smarter ways to carry out their core function? The parent carer survey identifies where there are blockages within the EHCP journey, and this information can be extracted.
• Information was shared to members of the qualifications, knowledge and background required to be a case worker.
• Work is underway on a case management system to have an overview on case worders workload, deadlines etc.
• A significant contributing factor as to why there is such a delay is due to Educational Psychologist (EP) assessments.
• The board should be seeing more of an analysis of recruitment and retention, including staff sickness, differences in absence in localities, why higher paid staff are leaving in comparison to those on lower levels and why Devon County Council is not able to retain staff.
• Exit interviews are being held with staff to analyse reasons for leaving and exploring cultural issues.
• Workforce strategy provides an opportunity for multi-agency working and supporting the message that affects our young people and cultural work.

Work is also being done around comparing pay and job descriptions in relation to other local authorities and a workforce strategy

Action: D Jones and colleagues to develop a broader interagency workforce assessment to the March board including the workforce strategy and considering the comments above.

The board was asked for views on endorsing stakeholder and parent carer involvement in interviews. Key decision: members agreed best practice is partnership working with Parent Carer Forum Devon however if there were any issues which would result in delaying the process this would be recorded and Devon County Council would make a decision in absence of those who are not able to attend.

5. Quick read version of SEND Improvement Plan

The purpose of this document is to have a shortened version of the plan to enable professionals, children and young people and their families to have a clear understanding on the work ongoing. In addition, the DfE have asked Devon to issue communications in the immediate future advising all parents and the Devon community of what action Devon is taking and progress of the improvement plan.

Comments for development of the paper:

• To include a vision at the start of the document and emphasis Devon local area understands the whole code of practice and other work is going on elsewhere.
• Make clear it is a summary of the plan
• Develop the communications section
• Develop the wider strategic vision and implement the terms of reference into it.

Action: Programme Team, T Doughty and PCFD to develop the paper taking into consideration the board members comments. Sign off following by PCFD, T Doughty and J Ross within the week with discussions with the communications team on sending it out.

6. SEND Improvement Plan Workstreams

The workstream leads (section A: J Wooster, Section B: T Parker, Section C: J Ross, Section D: H Pugliese) provided an update on the work in the workstreams as set out in the attached document.

Comments/questions from members:

• There are various KPIs in the plan, how are those being monitored? Have the board agreed what they want to see?
• Section A
  • SEND Support services to be developed, including what the arrangements are in supporting families and schools.
  • Understanding the pressures on the service locally and nationally.
• Section C
  • Board members to have an understanding of the backlog targets
  • It has been agreed in another meeting to continue the pause of traded offer with EPs until the end of the academic year
  • A review of delayed ECHPs and support being received.

SEND Governance and reporting schedule arrangements

The current SEND governance was shared with the members, highlighting further clarity is required on what information is going to the board, recognising there are duplicate meetings and being clear on the purpose of the groups.

K Knott reflected it was good to have this clarity as the Board had felt like a ‘nice discussion’ and given 8 months have now passed since the revisit, there is further drive that’s needed from the board to hold itself to account.

The proposal was agreed for the board to receive progress reports, data, the impact of the plan/areas of weakness and KPI’s etc and to replace the Leadership Group with the Improvement Plan Delivery Group which will escalate risks to the board, bring reports together from the workstreams etc. More information on the proposals are in the attached document.

8. AOB

The board members thanked J Spicer for all the work she has done over the past months.

Date for next meeting: Wednesday, 22 February 2023 10:00 – 12:00