Contents
Attendance
- Amy Bickford, Senior Participation Officer, Devon County Council
- Angie Sinclair, Director of Finance and Public Value, Devon County Council
- Ben Williams, Senior Management Information Officer, Devon County Council
- Beverley Mack, Children’s Alliance Director, Children and Family Health Devon
- Councillor Andrew Leadbetter, Cabinet Member for Childrens Services, Devon County Council
- Councillor John Hart, Leader of the Council, Devon County Council
- Councillor Lois Samuel, Cabinet Member for SEND, Devon County Council
- Councillor Sue Aves, Chair of Children’s Scrutiny, Devon County Council
- Donna Manson, Chief Executive, Devon County Council
- Emily Youngman, Consultant in Public Health, Devon County Council
- Hannah Pugliese, Head of Womens and Children’s Commissioning, NHS Devon
- Jeanette Savage, Director of Inclusion, Dartmoor MAT
- Joanne Siney, Head of Service – Disabled Children’s Service, Devon County Council
- Julia Bonell, Co-chair of Parent Carer Forum Devon (PCFD), Parent Carer Forum Devon
- Julia Foster, Senior Manager, SEN-D, Devon County Council
- Keith Bennett, Executive Principle of Marland School and Chair of SENtient Head Teachers, Marland School, SENtient Head Teachers
- Keith Thompson, SEN and Disability Professional Advisor, Department for Education (DfE)
- Kellie Knott, SEND Improvement Director, Devon County Council
- Liz Halliday, Childrens Services Improvement Communications Lead, Devon County Council
- Mark Tucker, Senior Learning Disability and Autism Programme Assurance Manager and SEND Lead, NHS England and NHS Improvement South–West NHS England
- Meg Booth, Director of Climate Change, Environment and Transport, Devon County Council
- Melanie Coleman, SEND Programme Manager, Devon County Council
- Paul Walker, Schools: Safety Valve, First Federation CEO, First Federation
- Rachel Hearn, Interim Principle Educational Psychologist, Devon County Council
- Rachel Shaw, Head of Education and Learning (Delivery), Devon County Council
- Salam Katbi, Head of Vulnerable Children’s Unit, Department for Education
- Sarah Pickering, Head Teacher Mill Water School, Mill Water School
- 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
- Tony Parker, Head of Communications and Media, Devon County Council
- Trevor Doughty, Chair of SEND Improvement Partnership Board, Independent
- Victoria Mitchell, Co-chair of Parent Carer Forum Devon (PCFD), Parent Carer Forum Devon
Apologies
- Damien Jones, Deputy Director – Transport Operations, Environment and Waste, Devon County Council
- Darryn Allcorn, Chief Nursing Officer, NHS Devon
- Emma Brown, Case Lead, Vulnerable Children’s Unit, Department for Education
- Heather Campbell, Regional Team Manager South-West and South-East, Department for Education
- Kate Stephens, Head of Public Health Nursing, Devon County Council
- Liz Davenport, Chief Executive Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, NHS Devon
- Matthew Shanks, Head of Education and Learning, Devon County Council
- Melanie Walker, Chief Executive, Devon Partnership NHS Trust
- Naomi Chapman, Chief Nursing Officer, NHS Devon
- Richard Reece, Education Business Systems and Contract Manager, Devon County Council
- Steve Brown, Director of Public Health, Devon County Council
- Tandra Forster, Director of Integrated Adult Social Care, Devon County Council
- Vikki Hearn, Head of Service, Children’s Commissioning and Resources, Devon County Council
- Vikki Hill, Devon NHS – Lead Neurodiversity Pathway, NHS Devon
1. Welcome, introductions and apologies
T Doughty welcomed the group and a round of introduction took place.
2. Review of the previous meeting’s minutes and actions
Members signed off the minutes of the previous meeting.
3. Proposed new SEND Improvement Arrangements/Devon’s APP Monitoring Meeting
This reset is following a review of what Devon has been told by parent carers previously for the need for a whole system approach and scrutiny recommendations. As well as reviewing the SEND Improvement Plan to realign the plan with the work under the Safety Valve, shared priorities and reshape the way Devon works to ensure children and young people and their families have the best outcomes.
Further developments are required on how the work links in with Devon Education Forum governance structure and young people engagement.
Action: SEND programme team to develop the new SEND arrangements to include how the work links in with Devon Education Forum governance structure and young people engagement.
Comments/questions from board members:
- Review required of the interface between project which overlap between each pillar.
- The work required on both the Improvement Plan and Safety Valve should result in the same outcomes and will in turn improve the system.
- SEND Finance Gold Command meeting is remaining until at least the Safety Valve proposal is made in December to hopefully integrate into the new structure.
- Department for Education welcomed the new structure and questioned if Devon is confident it will make significant impact of the lives of children and young people in the system. Devon’s SEND Improvement Director advised different pieces of work are underway both to address the experience of families now and long term ambitions.
- Action: SEND programme team to change ‘Community Short Breaks’ to Short Breaks for Disabled Children Commissioning Plan.
- Discussions were held on communicating this both internally and externally to partners and stakeholders.
Monitoring meeting
Conversations have been held between Devon and Department for Education regarding reviewing the SEND Improvement Plan and ensuring the correct reporting arrangements are in place with RAG ratings related to progress and the impact.
4. SEND Joint Dashboard Data
The SEND Improvement Director noted that there are two things the Board has been trying to resolve in relation to data. The first is the key performance indicators (KPIs) which will support in the monitoring of the impact of delivery of the four areas of weakness in the SEND Improvement Plan and which is a requirement of DfE/NHS England. A working group will be pulled together to set targets for time periods which also links to Devon local area’s strategic plan.
Action: SEND Programme Manager to pull together a working group to agree targets for time periods which links to Devon local area strategic plan.
The second will look at a whole data set around children and young people with SEND to look at ‘system health’.
The data set provided to the board members is the first set of data for the four areas of weakness.* This has a placeholder in to add in data from parent carers following a survey sent out in July which focused specially on the SEND Improvement Plan key performance indicators which will be repeated throughout the journey. The survey did not include general questions understanding day to day aspects.
Questions/comments from members:
- Request to add the level of complaints into section B. Action: SEND programme team to add the level of complaints into section B of the SEND Improvement Plan/Accelerated Action Plan. Parent representation raised feedback from families as there appears to be a lack of capacity in Devon to work through complaints. When parents do register a complaint, the phoneline doesn’t appear to be functioning and the responses parent carers are receiving highlight the lack of capacity and to refer to the Local Government Ombudsman if they did not agree. It was questioned the capacity Devon has and if there is any training for staff to respond to complaints.
- Request to understand the steps being taken following refusal of EHCP assessment, whether this is mediation or tribunal.
- Communications following refusals should reflect appropriateness and highlight there are other options available and more suitable.
- Work has begun on reviewing statutory processes and quality assurance. Action: K Knott to share the progress of the review of statutory processes and quality assurance to the board in a future meeting.
- Health information was provided and will be incorporated to both dashboards.
More transparency of data is welcomed by the Parent Carer Forum Devon.
5. Exclusion and school absence and actions
A presentation was shared setting out the percentage of exclusions, school absence and the actions taken.* It was acknowledging the challenging climate schools are currently functioning in. In addition, relationships between schools and parent carers have been affected due to the pandemic.
Devon County Council’s Chief Executive highlighted the need to review which schools have low attendance rates and seeing if there is a link between those figures and varying in performance. Attendance should be set out in the corporate plan.
Head of Education and Learning suggested more information is needed regarding information sharing. Action: D Manson to understand what information can be shared between schools/education settings and the Local Authority, alongside practice elsewhere and bring back to the board.
Parent Carer Forum Devon raised there does not appear to be data on those schools which are giving internal exclusions to children where they miss half a day or a few lessons.
Discussions were held around how young people’s views can be included in discussion around behaviours policies, being a whole schools practice at a strategic level.
Members raised the need to understand if other agencies are involved in cases and whether they are the reason children and young people are missing education, such as doctors and dentist appointments during school times.
In addition, some mainstream schools are carrying out inspections, such as pencil case or uniform inspections. These situations do not support our neurodivergent children or those with social, emotional and mental health needs.
A paper is being brought to Children’s Social Care Improvement Board setting out Devon’s early help offer/support to schools.
Action: S Collins to bring the paper from Children’s Social Care Improvement Board setting out Devon’s early help offer/support to schools to a future SEND Improvement Board meeting.
Members questioned if there is a link between low attendance and the more deprived area in Devon. Action: R Shaw to share with board members the figures between attendance and deprived areas in Devon.
Devon County Council has an annual corporate plan which sets out performance framework, as part of this children’s dashboard is being created. D Manson raised the importance to have this linked over the three local authorities with health (Devon, Plymouth and Torbay).
Action: D Manson and H Pugliese to discuss linking health data across the three local authorities with the children’s dashboard under the corporate plan.
Devon County Council’s Chief Executive is meeting with the education minister on 25 September and suggested the points of concern, which some are of national policies, regarding schools raised today to be added to a briefing paper which can be taken to the meeting to discuss.
Action: Members to send their concerns through to S Stanbury to collate into a briefing paper for D Manson to take to a meeting with the education minister.
6. Parent Carer Survey
A survey was developed to solely focus on gathering information for key performance indicators for the four areas of weaknesses identified in the Ofsted inspection in 2018 and which Devon is required to report on as part of the SEND Improvement plan.
Devon County Council Chief Executive thanked Parent Carer Forum Devon and the Young People’s Participation Lead for their work on the survey and the constructive way they have pulled together and presented the results, despite it not being a survey that they would have usually put to parents and carers or young people.
Members highlighted the issues raised around how Devon communicates with children and young people and their families. Devon County Council’s SEND Improvement Director noted the work that is about to start focused on a review of SEN statutory processes and how this is a multi-agency assessment and planning process which will need partners to work with us.
Parent Carer Forum Devon raised the importance of a response from both Devon County Council and NHS Devon to go out to families. This to be between both senior leaders and communications teams between Devon County Council and NHS Devon.
7. Educational Psychologists
The proposal was shared for the reinstatement of Educational Psychology (EP) Early Intervention Services of which board members agreed the overall direction.
Discussions were held around those children and young people with annual reviews and looking at the other advice that can be given where an EP is not required.
Board members raised an interest in seeing an evidence based approach to where schools focus is required and biggest concern.
8. LGSCO Action Plan
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) requested that complaint ref: 22 013 975 was shared with the SEND Improvement Partnership Board. All points are picked up in the SEND action plan under Statutory Processes project in the SEND Transformation Programme and will be part of the improvement work.
9. Any other business
- PCFD raised a concern around the scrutiny papers not being released in time for those who are requesting to attend to make representations.
Date for next meeting: Wednesday 18 October 2023, 10.00am-12.00pm
* Presentations
Presentations are available on request. Please email childsc.sendimprovementprogramme-mailbox@devon.gov.uk. Please include in your email:
- which presentations you would like to receive
- from which Improvement Board meeting
- if you have accessibility needs.