Agenda and minutes

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meetings of the Committee held on 17 March 2015 and authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meeting of the Sub-Committee held on 17 March 2015 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Council Officers will present a review of the work of the Corporate Parenting Panel over the last year.

Consideration of this item was deferred until the next meeting on 1 July 2015.

Report attached

Officers had submitted a report on the work of Havering Education Services, a unified brand representing the London Borough of Havering’s traded services for schools. This was a full cost recovery non-profit making team. The current portfolio comprised 25 individual in-house teams which sat within different directorates. The majority of service providers enjoyed very good customer ratings and repeat purchases and they had a long history of supporting schools to bring about continuous and sustained improvements.

Officers explained that the future plan was to develop models of trading for additional non statutory provisions across the council, including targeting the Early Years and PVI sector comprising of 200+ Early Years settings. There was also additional growth potential to be realised in the academy, free school, independent and sixth form college sectors both in Havering and out-of-borough.

A hidden bonus of the service was that it enabled the Local Authority to maintain a presence, in the form of members of staff in schools.

The Sub-Committee was advised that a Marketing Strategy was being developed.

The Sub-Committee noted the report.

Documents attached.

Officers informed the Sub-Committee that back in 2011 the Government had published a Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Green Paper ‘Support and Aspiration’.  This Green Paper represented the most radical reform to special educational needs and disability for thirty years. In that autumn the Departments of Health and Education had launched a significant Pathfinder programme to test proposed reforms to the services and systems which underpinned support for children and young people with SEND.

The Green Paper had now become part of the Children and Families Act 2014 which had come into effect, with the support of all parties, in September 2014. A Code of Practice accompanied the legislation and outlined requirements for Local Authorities and CCGs when bringing in the reforms.

Local Authorities were required to publish in one place a clear and easy to understand ‘Local Offer’ of education, health and social care services to support children and young people with SEND and their families. A test website had been developed in 2013 in close collaboration with parent representatives to ensure that the information was presented in an easy-to-use and appealing format.

A detailed policy had been drafted setting out how requests for inclusion on the Local Offer would be dealt with, as well as identifying where on-going responsibilities (such as responding to feedback) would lie. Havering had made greater progress than other local authorities. The challenge for Havering was tackling the 18-24 year age group.

Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans, would replace Statements of Special Educational Need (SSEN) and Learning Difficulty Assessments (LDA). No new SSEN or LDA’s had been offered since 1 September 2014. The statutory assessment process needed to be co-ordinated across education, health and care. It was vital that the EHC plans reflected the views, interests and aspirations of children, young people and their parents.

Officers had noted an increased demand for EHC plans across all age groups.

The Sub-Committee was assured that parents and young people would still be able to state their preferred school when agreeing an EHC plan.

Officers advised the Sub-Committee that there were approximately 1,400 SSEN to be converted to an EHC plan. This would happen over three years with priority being given to those young people at key year stages, i.e. 5, 7, 11 and 16. Work had been progressing well and the authority was more or less on track.

Under the new arrangements parents and young people would be able to request a personal budget when the local authority had agreed a statutory EHC assessment and confirmed that it would prepare an EHC plan. The aim was to enable parents and young people to have more choice and control over the services they need for themselves or their child.

A Personal Budgets policy had been drafted and reviewed during a bespoke support session offered to Havering as part of the Pathfinder Champion programme.

Officers were working closely with colleagues to ensure there would be a smooth transition from EHC plan to Adult Care Plan when  ...  view the full minutes text for item 81.

The Head of Learning and Achievement will present current performance information to the Sub-Committee.

The Sub-Committee received a full list of the current performance indicators for Children and Learning, they were invited to review the list and suggest any new indicators which they felt would add value.

The Sub-Committee had several suggestions. Unfortunately the majority were indicators which the authority was unable to capture.

The Sub-Committee asked officers to explore the possibility of including a Performance Indicator to capture the number of children using school transport who were late for school. Officers were also asked to write to the Secondary academies to see if they were prepared to share with the authority the number of pupils progressing to higher education.