Agenda item

To note the Cabinet response to the Committee's Home to School Travel Assistance recommendations and follow up the Cabinet response to the Committee's Additional Needs and Disabilities: Parent and Carer Experience Task Group recommendations.

Witnesses

·         Clare Curran, Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning

·         Rachael Wardell, Executive Director for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning

·         Julia Katherine, Director for Education and Lifelong Learning

·         Tracey Sanders, Assistant Director for Inclusion and Additional Needs – SEN Recovery and Educational Psychology

·         Liz Bone, Send County Service Planning & Performance Leader - SEN Recovery

Key points made in the discussion

1.    The Chair informed the Committee that an academic who specialises in SEND had been in touch to say the task group’s findings were entirely in line with the experiences of the case officers with whom she has conducted research, and thanked the group for ensuring the case officer voice was heard.

2.    Asked when the business case for increasing staff to 135 permanent establishment FTEs would be presented to Cabinet, the Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning (CFLL) said the upcoming budget would be very tight and the scope to increase the staffing budget may be compromised. She mentioned the need to wait for the local government settlement in December to finalise plans, but a need for more staff would be addressed once processes were simplified and made more effective. If posts were built into the permanent establishment, this would be considered as part of the ordinary budget round rather than a separate business case. The Cabinet Member noted the £15 million secured for the recovery plan, of which half remained, which would enable the additional temporary staff to continue to be funded until March 2026 if needed. The Assistant Director of Inclusion and Additional Needs added that agency staff in the recovery team were a stable team provided externally and managed by a single manager, unlike other agency staff in the quadrants with higher turnover. The Executive Director confirmed future staffing needs, once recovery plan funding comes to an end, would be built into ordinary budget rounds. Need may be reduced by implementing the end-to-end review work. Asked for clarification on whether funding would be sought in the current budget round, the Cabinet Member responded that services for children with additional needs was her greatest directorate priority, however funding from the government’s high needs block – the primary source of funding – was limited.

3.    A Member asked how realistic the list of tasks outlined by the end-to-end review was, and when the public would start to see change. The Assistant Director said a number of changes had already been implemented since the review began in 2023, which had improved timeliness and quality. She recognised there continued to be concerns about decisions and provision received. She explained that some of the plans for further progress relied on changing the current structure of four separate quadrant teams. A unified leadership structure, expected to be in place in March 2025, was needed to drive forward change consistently.

4.    A Member questioned whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) could cope with the complexity of each unique case and whether the team was engaging with colleagues in other local authorities to learn about their use of AI. The SEND County Service Planning and Performance Leader confirmed the team's collaboration with experts and the 19 South East local authorities and emphasised there were no plans to use AI as a decision-making tool. It would be used for the summarisation of reports in order to reduce case officers’ administrative work, and no data would leave the Surrey County Council domain.

5.    A Member asked how case officers would be trained in understanding the lived experiences of parents and carers. The SEND County Service Planning and Performance Leader replied they would look to develop video resources and that a task group with Family Voice Surrey and ATLAS, Surrey’s participation group, was gathering input from families and young people. Officers had engaged in training in having challenging conversations with families in a supportive and solutions-focused way. The recruitment process would make clear their most significant priority of relational working. The Director for Education and Lifelong Learning added that their practice would continue to be informed by annual parent surveys.

6.    A Member asked whether training would be mandated if offered but not accepted, and if certain training would be required for both existing and new staff during induction.  The SEND County Service Planning and Performance Leader explained that the choice of wording reflected the organisation’s approach that aimed to match training with each staff member’s existing skills and avoid repeating courses they had already completed. She assured that appropriate training would be ensured in the first month, be that through the induction process or through checking for prior training.

7.    Several Members reflected on the tone of the Cabinet’s response to the Select Committee’s recommendations. It was suggested that to not endorse recommendations despite accepting the principles behind them, could be perceived as dismissive and risked undermining collaboration. The Cabinet Member acknowledged the response could have been more positive. The Executive Director noted that substantial ongoing improvement work, done in parallel with the task group research, had not been fully acknowledged in the recommendations. Members responded they were not aware of the detail of end-to-end review work and the group had reflected what parents and case officers told them. The discussion ended with a commitment to promote a more collaborative approach going forward. The Committee agreed to progress check both endorsed recommendations and those already planned or underway, at the beginning of the next municipal year, noting that many items were expected to be complete by March 2025.

8.    A Member asked about interim measures for monitoring response times to parents' communications before a new IT system would be ready in April 2025. The SEND County Service Planning and Performance Leader said calls to and from L-SPA were being tracked and the level of complaints on communication monitored. The Member reported out-of-office notifications, when case officers were unavailable or had left, was still an issue for some residents. The Assistant Director of Inclusion and Additional Needs shared that a mystery shopper type exercise was underway to improve compliance. A survey in one quadrant found that between 70-80% of out-of-office responses were correctly worded.

9.    Asked why Surrey had more parents resorting to tribunals than other local authorities in England, the Director for Education and Lifelong Learning explained Surrey County Council ranked eighth nationally in proportion to its volume of EHCPs. She highlighted efforts to resolve disputes early through informal mediation, with a trial achieving a 57% success rate in resolving disagreements, and expressed confidence that expanding this approach would further reduce appeals to the tribunal. Due to national delays, current tribunals were lodged a year ago or more, and the criteria for requests to assess for an EHCP had since been made clearer. It was pointed out that more than 20% of Surrey pupils attend an independent school compared with 7% nationally, and the Council was under pressure to use this sector. The SEND Capital Programme aims to increase maintained specialist school provision within the county. The Cabinet Member noted that the introduction of VAT on independent school fees risked leading to a higher rate of tribunals.

10.  Asked what the learnings were from common issues at tribunal over the past year, the Director for Education and Lifelong Learning highlighted the importance of increasing specialist placements within the county, mentioning the ongoing SEN Capital Programme that aimed to double capacity by completion. They were also strengthening the Council’s early intervention offer to support schools and boost parental confidence in ordinarily available provision.

Actions:

·         Service Manager - SEND Practice: To follow up on the 2024/25 year-to-date figures and the numbers of parents/carers who have used the mediation and dispute resolution service rather than just percentages.