All
Members present are required to declare, at this point in the
meeting or as soon as possible thereafter:
I.Any disclosable
pecuniary interests and / or
II.Other interests arising under the Code of Conduct in
respect of any item(s) of business being considered at this
meeting
NOTES:
·Members are reminded that they must not participate
in any item where they have a disclosable pecuniary interest
·As well as an interest of the Member, this includes
any interest, of which the Member is aware, that relates to the
Member’s spouse or civil partner (or any person with whom the
Member is living as a spouse or civil partner)
·Members with a significant personal interest may
participate in the discussion and vote on that matter unless that
interest could be reasonably regarded as prejudicial.
1.The deadline for Member’s questions is 12.00pm
four working days before the meeting (14 July
2023).
2.The deadline for public questions is seven days
before the meeting(13 July 2023)
3.The deadline for petitions was 14 days before the
meeting, and no petitions have been received.
The
public retain their right to submit questions for written response,
with such answers recorded in the minutes of the meeting;
questioners may participate in meetings to ask a supplementary
question. Petitioners may address the Committee on their petition
for up to three minutes Guidance will be made available to any
member of the public wishing to speak at a meeting.
There were four
public questions, two Members’ questions and no petitions.
The questions and responses were published as a supplement to the
20 July agenda.
In answer to a
supplementary question by Anna Sutherland on whether the end-to-end
review was requested by the Local Government Ombudsman, the Cabinet
Member for Education and Learning said it was separate and planned
by the Service.
Louise Gannon asked a
supplementary question on how to access a refund for an independent
Educational Psychologist assessment. She was directed to the web
page by the Assistant Director for Inclusion & Additional Needs
NE.
In response to a
supplementary question by Amanda Lazenby, the Cabinet Member for
Education and Learning said references to the Independent Provider
of Special Education Advice (IPSEA), the Surrey Independent Advice
Service and Family Voice would be added to the Ordinarily Available
Provision (OAP) video.
Colin Pugh asked what
was being done to improve senior management’s governance and
oversight of case handlers and their line managers.
The Chair noted SEND
case workers were holding an average of 197 cases and wondered if
the pressure of these workloads was a contributory factor to some
negative experiences of Surrey parents and schools.
Actions/requests for further information:
1.Cabinet Member for Education and Learning to provide
a written answer to Colin Pugh’s public question.
2.Assistant Director for Commissioning to add to the
dataset: schools allocated that did not subsequently agree they
could meet a child’s need.
1.The Scrutiny Officer noted that a deadline of March
2030 had been set to reach 80% sufficiency in Surrey for Looked
After Children. With regard to discussing KPI targets with the
Executive Director, a meeting had been planned for
September.
To
show the position at the end of June 2023 with regard to EHCP
timeliness, an areaidentified for
improvement. The report focuses on the data, the capacity and
resources to undertake timely statutory assessments, and the
process improvements that will facilitate this.
Clare Curran, Cabinet Member for Education and
Learning
Rachael Wardell, Executive Director – Children, Families
and Learning (CFL)
Liz
Mills, Director – Education and Lifelong Learning
Tracey Sanders, Assistant Director – Inclusion &
Additional Needs SW
Julia Katherine, Assistant Director – Inclusion &
Additional Needs NE
Sarah Carrington, Headteacher of Stoughton Infant and Nursery
School, a member of Learning Partners Academy Trust
Anna Dawson, Family Voice Surrey Epsom and Ewell
Coordinator
Leanne Henderson, Family Voice Surrey Participation
Manager
Key points
made in the discussion:
The Cabinet Member
apologised that timeliness of Education, Health and Care Plans
(EHCPs) was not yet as good as it should be and said the Leader of
the Council had confirmed their commitment to improving in this
area. As part of the Phase Two Recovery Plan, she would ask for
additional resources for Educational Psychologists (EPs) and SEND
case workers at the July Cabinet meeting in order to address the
backlog. The recovery plan is based on the assumption more
resources are granted by Cabinet.
The Family Voice
Surrey Epsom and Ewell Coordinator described feeling stressed and
impotent as a communications protocol agreed at a stage two
complaint was not adhered to and her child was still without an
EHCP on entering secondary school after waiting nine months to see
an EP.
The Headteacher of
Stoughton Infant and Nursery School said the school had dealt with
six different case workers this year. She described seeing a rise
in anxiety and ADHD since Covid and an increase in inappropriate
and challenging behaviour from children whom the school did not
have the funds to properly support as demand surpassed the SEN
notional budget, resulting in suspensions in infant school for the
first time. She was frustrated to see available specialist infant
provision unfilled because children were waiting for plans. She
explained children were removed from the waiting list to see
paediatrics at age five and there was then a 10-month gap before
they could be referred to MindWorks.
The Headteacher noted positive steps by the Council to improve
communication with her school.
A Member asked what
support was being offered to schools when EHCPs were not delivered
within the legal 20-week time limit, giving the example of the
Earlswood Federation whose governors said they had calculated a
£32,000 EHCP provision deficit. The Assistant Director for
Inclusion & Additional Needs NE acknowledged the impact on
schools and parents. She said they want to ensure children have the
right support whether or not there was a plan in place, and their
Specialist Teachers for Inclusive Practice (STIP) team contacted
schools where delays were encountered. The Director for Education
and Lifelong Learning added that they took their statutory duty
seriously and in addition planned this summer to make the Local
Offer website more accessible and transparent so schools and
families understood the support available while waiting for an
assessment. The Member suggested schools needed more
funding.The Executive Director for CFL
explained that funding for provision identified in an EHCP comes
from ...
view the full minutes text for item 30/23
Sinead Mooney, Cabinet Member for Children and
Families
Rachael Wardell, Executive Director – Children, Families
and Learning
Tina Benjamin, Director – Corporate Parenting
Key points
made in the discussion:
The Cabinet Member
for Children and Families highlighted two new children’s
homes were ready to open.
The Chair expressed
gratitude to everyone involved in Corporate Parenting for their
valuable work.
Asked how
relationships between foster carers and supervising social workers
could be improved, the Director for Corporate Parenting said the
Service had committed to hosting more events where they could
socialise, and the Independent Reviewing Officers (IRO) had been
asked to put more emphasis on this.
Asked how many
fostered children were in short-term foster care and how long for,
and how many were residing in temporary accommodation outside of
Surrey, the Director for Corporate Parenting confirmed most foster
carers lived in Surrey. At the end of March, 413 children lived
with foster carers and of these, 117 lived with connected carers
who were often relatives or family friends. A further 31 care
leavers still lived with foster carers. 165 out of 369 were
approved to provide short-term care but this could change and most
foster carers who agreed to be short-term carers then shifted to
long-term care. Figures included unaccompanied asylum seekers, most
of whom were over 16 and preferred not to live with foster
families.
Asked what was meant
by unsuitable accommodation in relation to care leavers, the
Director for Corporate Parenting said this applied to 4%, or 36
people, of whom 13 were living in custody, seven in emergency
accommodation, seven homeless and five in B&Bs. Personal
advisers are actively working with the young adults to resolve
these situations. A shortage of affordable and suitable
accommodation had exasperated the issue.
Asked why the information in the report only goes to 2022, the
Director of Corporate Parenting explained the DfE only gives
comparative data in November.
Actions/requests for further information:
Director for
Corporate Parenting to give a figure for how many Looked After
Children are in short-term care.
Director for
Corporate Parenting to answer what is the target for the percentage
of Looked After Children being able to live in Surrey by the time
SCC’s current Sufficiency Strategy ends in 2025.
To review new Ofsted reports on Surrey County
Council-run Children’s Homes, received as part of the
communications plan in Children’s Services agreed in
2022.
1.A Member asked why child supervision recorded to
timescale was disappointing. The
Director of Family ResilienceandSafeguardingsaid
that supervision was taking place regularly but uploading data to
the systems had been delayed.
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