Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillors Jo Monk and David Ross and from Mark Hughes (Parent Governor representative).

None.

Members of the public wishing to take part should notify the Assistant Director for Legal and Governance in writing or by e-mail indicating both the nature and content of their proposed participation no later than 9.00am on the working day before the meeting (in this case 23 May 2023).  Further details are available on the Council's website.  Enquiries can also be made through the telephone number/e-mail address listed in this agenda and on the website.

There were 3 public participants, Sally Arblaster, Dr Richard Jenkinson and Katrina Kear-Wood who asked questions in relation to the agenda item on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Accelerated Progress Plan and Worcestershire Strategy for Children and Young People with SEND 2023-26.

The Chairman thanked the speakers for their questions and confirmed that they would each get a written response.

(previously circulated)

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 22 March 2023 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

(Indicative timing: 10.05 to 10.55am)

In attendance for this item:

Cabinet Member with responsibility for Children and Families

Chief Executive WCF and Director of Children’s Services, WCC

Director of Early Help, Children in Need and Family Front Door

Independent Chair of the Worcestershire Safeguarding Children Partnership

Group Manager, Family Front Door and Assessments

The Panel received an update on activities and achievements relating to GET SAFE in the last 12 months. The Director of Early Help referred to a significant piece of work which had been completed this year with colleagues in adult services to support young people as they reach 18 and transition into adulthood. A Complex Adult Risk Management (CARM) process had been recently introduced and work was ongoing to ensure the GET SAFE and GET THERE processes were harmonised with the CARM framework to enable a smooth transition between child and adult safeguarding services. 

The teams had also worked closely with the Police on identifying, investigating and sharing knowledge regarding online sexual exploitation. This was an area of huge concern in terms of the impact on children and efforts were focussed on ensuring that the system could be as robust as possible to address these issues. The Group Manager explained about their work to manage this risk and support vulnerable individuals. She also highlighted work that had been carried out in the community to raise awareness of exploitation, for instance in conjunction with the Knife Angel display and a production at the Swan theatre on exploitation to engage young people. Multi agency training had also been prioritised to ensure that the pathways to support young people were accessed. 

The Independent Chair advised that there had been a key focus on ensuring that the expectations of the National Child Safeguarding Review Panel were met in respect of learning from the tragic ‘Sarah’ case and implementing that learning, including changing practices. He was pleased that all the agencies had taken full responsibility in their approach, had asked searching questions of themselves and provided comprehensive responses as to how they were responding to the recommendations as part of this process. There had also been a multi- agency audit of 10 cases to test the strength of the partnership framework. He reported that, although there were some areas for improvement, he was happy to confirm that all 10 cases were being dealt with appropriately through the system.

Members were invited to ask questions and the following main points were raised:

·         The Chairman asked what good strong partnership working looked like and what obstacles there were to this. Suggestions put forward included that successful partnership working fed into local planning processes and resulted in effective local multi agency action and the importance of partnership working being delivered at all levels to be effective with agencies working together with families. Some of the challenges highlighted were ensuring that the focus was kept on Get Safe, the potential for knowledge to be lost with turnover of staff and online safety issues. In terms of the latter, it was highlighted  ...  view the full minutes text for item 578.

(Indicative timing: 10.55 to 11.45am)

In attendance for this item:

Cabinet Member with responsibility for Education

Chief Executive, WCF and Director of Children’s Services, WCC

Director of All Age Disability (AAD)

Director of Education, Early Years, Inclusion and Place Planning (Education)

Managing Director, NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB

Headteacher, Wolverley CE Secondary School and Sixth Form

Group Manager, All Age Disability 0-25 Social Care service

Lead Educational Improvements Professional, School Improvements

The Director of AAD highlighted that there were two elements to this report:

·         An update following the Department of Education (DfE)/NHS England (NHSE) 12-month review of the SEND Accelerated Progress Plan (APP) that took place on 29 March 2023.

·         An update on the Worcestershire Strategy for Children and Young People with Special Needs and Disabilities (SEND) 2023-26.

In respect of the 4 remaining areas of weakness of the APP identified at the inspection in 2021, the Lead Officers for those workstreams were in attendance to update the Panel on progress in their area. The Director also highlighted that health colleagues had been co-chairs for each of the workstream areas.

The variation in the skills and commitment of some mainstream schools to provide effective support for children who have SEND.

The Lead Educational Improvement Professional advised that they had been working on building relationships with schools, monitoring their activities and building indicators to identify inclusive practice. They were then in a position to support, challenge and share good practice with high quality support and training. In the year ahead the key areas of focus included integrating school improvement with the SEND Strategy, evaluating the impact of existing activities, and developing activities that needed to grow such as extending pupil voice and developing the leadership potential of SENCOs.

The Headteacher, also part of this workstream team, explained that the work required a cultural shift in thinking to ensure that it was successful, but he felt there was now a genuine shared vision and ownership of the challenges ahead with Headteachers believing it was their responsibility to ensure that the changes happened. He highlighted that it would be a long journey for sustainable improvement, but the foundations were in place, it was recognised where support would be needed, and they were on track with the ‘next steps’ identified in the report.

The lack of suitable specialist provision to meet the identified needs of children and young people

The Director of Education explained that this workstream was not just focussed on increasing the number of places available, but also changing the culture to ensure that a child’s needs were analysed, understood and planned for in a timely manner. She confirmed that the information from the All-Age disability team fed into the place planning process and that an annual sufficiency report, including specialist support, was presented to Cabinet each year. She also stressed the importance of health practitioners being involved at an early stage which would enhance forecasting data.

The Director of Education highlighted the successful bid for funding for a new school for children with autism, which  ...  view the full minutes text for item 579.

(Indicative timing: 11.45am to 12.10pm)

The Panel received an update on the outcome of the Ofsted Inspection carried out in February 2023.

The Cabinet Member took the opportunity to inform the Panel of the positive experiences of a young man who had been in foster care in Worcestershire, who had recently shared some of his journey through the care system as part of a book which included a collection of experiences from a range of contributors.

The Assistant Director of Safeguarding Services set out the background reminding the Panel of the Ofsted visit in September 2021 where an overall judgment was issued of ‘requires improvement’. In response to that judgement the Fostering Service Improvement Plan (SIP) had been developed with 7 workstreams to address the areas where improvement was required.  The Panel was informed that during the recent 5-day inspection inspectors recognised that good progress had been made with all requirements having been met.

The Panel was informed that in terms of the grading awarded the overall grading was ‘good’ although the effectiveness of leaders and managers was identified as ‘requires improvement to be good’. The Assistant Director reported that the Inspectors had provided very positive feedback on improvements, and highlighted that children felt happy and safe with their foster families, they were well supported by their fostering social workers who had a strong emphasis on the voice of the child and of whom families were overwhelmingly positive in respect of the support they received. In terms of the effectiveness of leaders and managers, the Inspectors recognised that the interim arrangements had been effective, but that a registered manager must be appointed.

The Assistant Director advised that they were very pleased with the outcome of the Inspection, and she praised the Team Managers for stepping up to ensure that the required changes identified in the Improvement Plan were completed. She also informed the Panel that the registered manager post had now been successfully recruited to and she was pleased that they would take up their post in late July.

In response to a Member’s question, the Chief Executive explained that the only reason why the service had received a ‘requires improvement to be good’ for its effectiveness of leaders and managers was due to the lack of a permanent Registered Manager in post. Ofsted had acknowledged that proactive efforts had been made to recruit, but without a registered manager in post a ‘good’ rating could not be awarded. The Inspectors had recognised that the interim management arrangements had not stopped progress, with requirements and recommendations from the last inspection having been met.

A further question was raised regarding the availability of comparative data of foster carers pay with independent fostering agencies. The Chief Executive advised that pay varied so significantly in the independent sector, for various reasons, and it was not always easy to identify exactly what their pay levels were. She confirmed that the WCF Independent Foster Carers had received a 2% pay increase, with 4% to those supporting children aged over 11. She  ...  view the full minutes text for item 580.

(Indicative timing: 12.10 to 12.20pm)

The Panel reviewed its Work Programme and the following additions were made:

·         Youth Justice would be added to the December Panel meeting.

·         Update on the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Accelerated Progress Plan, if possible, for December Panel.