Agenda item

To include the outcome of the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) inspection and implications regarding timescales for improvement.

The Director of Education and Skills, AH, gave an update as follows:

• The Joint Ofsted/Care Quality Commission (CQC) Inspection of the Special Education Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) service had taken place in October and the publication of the outcome had been delayed due to the General Election;
• The results of the Inspection had now been made public and the report highlighted 5 areas of concern:
  • 2 of the concerns related to the timeliness of Education and Health Care Plans (EHCP);
  • The underachievement of children with SEND in Bristol;
  • Engagement and relationships between the SEND service and parents/carers;
  • Leadership;
• The report also acknowledged that recent changes had been made to the service, but these had not been embedded and so impact of the changes could not be demonstrated;

• BCC was working with the Health Authority to draft a “Written Statement of Action”, a high level strategic plan to address the 5 areas of concern and this would be backed up by a detailed action plan;
• She had met with the Department for Education (DfE) to discuss timelines for improvements and BCC had 3 months to submit the plan;
• In view of the Council elections, the plan needed to be submitted by 23 March at the latest and Ofsted/CQC would have 10 days to say if the plan was fit for purpose;
• BCC could not publish the plan until it had been agreed by Ofsted/CQC, although the Council was able to share the work through co-production opportunities;
• Once the plan was agreed, BCC had 18 months to deliver against the milestones before a re-inspection in October 2021;
• Co-production was key to the process to ensure:
  • the plan was owned across the city;
  • actions were fit for purpose;
  • plan was embedded and would bring about sustainable change.
• The route for co-production was:
  • tapping into parent/carer forums and looking at how this could be developed;
  • working with colleagues in schools, including Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCOs) to ensure schools get a voice in the Written Statement;
  • attending Governor meetings/Forums.
• The BCC People Scrutiny Commission would be meeting on 3 February to do a deep dive exercise and the outcome of this would be captured in the Written Statement;
• Progress would be monitored by the Children Improvement Board and BCC Scrutiny;
• There would also be a deep dive in relation to data cleansing to ensure an accurate baseline to demonstrate progress by creating a full data dashboard for SEND;
• In terms of next steps, there was a need to make sure the Education Transformation Programme aligned with the Written Statement of Action.

Schools Forum considered how it could participate in the process and the following comments were raised:

• Early Years representatives had close contact with families and this connection was often lost as children got older and families were less visible to education providers.  Early Years providers were able to identify where public bodies could work closer together to support SEND children and their families;
• As the role of Forum related to the monitor of the DSG budget, a key role of the Forum was to monitor the High Needs block in the context of the Education Transformation Programme and this could be a standing item.

RESOLVED - that the verbal update and comments raised be noted.