Contents
Attendance
- Amy Bickford, Senior Participation Officer, Devon County Council
- Angie Sinclair, Director of Finance and Public Value, Devon County Council
- Councillor Lois Samuel, Cabinet member for SEND, Devon County Council
- Dan Carey, SEND Case Lead, Devon County Council
- Donna Manson, Chief Executive, Devon County Council
- Hannah Pugliese, Head of Woman’s and Children’s Commissioning, NHS Devon
- Heather Campbell, Regional Team Manager South – West and South – East, NHS Devon
- 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
- Melanie Coleman, Project 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
- Trevor Doughty, Chair of SEND Improvement Partnership Board, Independent
- Victoria Mitchell, Co-chair of Parent Carer Forum Devon (PCFD)
Apologies
- Paul Walker, Chair of Devon schools Leadership Service (DSLS), First Federation CEO
- Su Smart, Deputy Director of Commissioning – Out of Hospital, NHS Devon
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 the minutes of the previous meeting and agreed accuracy. Actions of the meeting were discussed, and updates provided.
3. SEND Transformation programme progress report.
Progress Update
A presentation was shared setting out the programme overview, delivery tracker and programme risks.
An update was provided on the Safety Valve progress. K Knott advised members; the Department for Educations SEND Advisor confirmed that proposals to achieve the in year balance will be acceptable and that what is proposed is plausible, with risks. But there are risks with most SV agreements. A Sinclair confirmed that there is still ongoing discussion with DfE and DLUHC re how the deficit will be paid. Department for Education colleagues thanked Devon for the huge amount of work that was put into the Safety Valve, which has been recognised.
The programme manager provided an update on the red and red/amber RAG status work packages.
Discussions were held around the Special Schools Outreach work package conflict raised at Transformation Board; members are reviewing a suitable lead from Devon County Council and discuss with school leaders.
School representation raised concerns around designs of new schools are not being consulted with experienced practitioners, resulting in inappropriate environments and delay. PCFD raised the benefit of coproduction at each level and internally. Department for Education colleagues agreed to feed back to the relevant team in the Department for Education the point regarding consulting and coproducing design work with experiences practitioners.
Risks/issues
The strand project managers are developing risk registers to manage stand level risks.
Accelerated Progress Plan (APP)
Discussions were held around amending the end date on the actions in the APP in order to have a true reflection of RAG status’s and are in line with new developments and the SEND Transformation Programme. Department for Education colleagues challenged my moving the dates what does that mean for children and young people and their families, we need to understand the “so what”.
Members agreed when changing the dates, senior responsible officers need to provide explanation on the progress of actions, why those actions are not on track and the impact.
PCFD raised the importance of explaining to families the changes being made. Action: Senior responsible officers to review the actions they are responsible for prior to the programme team with the support of communications to upload the APP onto the local offer with information on the changes and why they have been made.
M Coleman advised members an additional RAG status column has been added to the APP action plan for impact. PCFD challenged how the local area is measuring the impact and where the information is coming from.
Members agreed it would be helpful to have the SEND Dashboard, which supports the APP, at future meetings. T Doughty asked to review comparative data to our statistical neighbours.
4. Coproduction
Parent Carer Forum Devon provided the background to members. Proposals to take forward include a second workshop, especially for those who were not either able to attend the session or were not involved in the SEND Transformation Programme at that point, including the Transformation Programme board. This will include a refresher of the session held in September as well as looking at coproduction operationally and how to move forward in a meaningful way.
PCFD suggested the biggest risk is a lack of understanding this is a priority area and engagement.
H Pugliese suggested one focus around how we support young people understand the system and their care needs throughout their journey to enable them to be confident and prepared when making decisions. A Bickford raised some young people have raised they do not get to make decisions as children however as adults they need to make all the decisions, how can we do this if we don’t know what to do?
Secondly, operationally what does coproduction look like and at each level? All types of coproduction needs to be considered, it highlights the need for a shared understanding, recognising where we are now and where we aspire to be, the steps to get there.
PCFD proposed alongside the second session to begin to develop a coproduction strategy.
Members agreed on the proposed next steps.
Department for Education questioned timescales on dates for the second workshop? PCFD suggested it would be relatively soon and will provide an update at the next meeting with the selected date, proposals to take forward and first steps into a strategy.
5. Stakeholder update
M Bomford shared an update on media stories.
Members were advised there has been a number of requests regarding the Safety Valve. D Manson advised it was agreed there will be an additional cabinet meeting focused on Safety Valve with public communication.
The SEND newsletter has an audience of 2,500 people, with an open rate of 44%. M Bomford suggested it would be helpful to understand, with the help of PCFD, to make sure we are getting the best value out of that channel. Action: M Bomford and PCFD to meet to analyse whether strategic communications is meeting the needs of parents.
The communications team agreed a closer collaboration between the SEND Facebook channel and Devon County Council’s corporate social media channels. To share content on our corporate channels; and to signpost our corporate channel followers to our SEND Facebook account. That will help ensure that messages are seen by our corporate channel followers and will hopefully increase followers to our SEND Facebook channel as well as supporting to get the messages out there.
PCFD raised previously SEND communications has been kept separate from the corporate page unlike other news stories such as information about highways. Previously questions have been raised around why SEND was being kept separate and raising the need to be at the forefront to help understand and develop knowledge in communities. PCFD thanked M Bomford for the changes to the social media pages.
Members were advised it is expected to have a protest at County Hall on Thursday 8th February.
6. Any other business
- Monitoring meeting – Papers are due to be sent to the Department for Education on 22 January. Members may receive a request for to update on progress and impact. A pre–meet will also be scheduled in, prior to the monitoring meeting.
Date of next meeting: Thursday 8 February 2024