Agenda and minutes

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Venue: Cabinet Room 'C' - The Duke of Lancaster Room, County Hall, Preston

Contact: Samantha Parker  Email:  sam.parker@lancashire.gov.uk; Tel 01772 538221

Media

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Items
No. Item

County Councillors Lorraine Beavers, Bernard Dawson and Margaret Pattison replaced County Councillors Hasina Khan, Loraine Cox and Matthew Tomlinson respectively. The Chair of the Education Scrutiny Committee, County Councillor Christian Wakeford and Mrs Janet Hamid, Co-opted Voting Member on the Education Scrutiny Committee also attended the meeting. Jess Basquill, Youth Council representative, was also in attendance.

1.

Apologies

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Councillors John Harbour and Zara Khan.

2.

Disclosure of Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests

Members are asked to consider any Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests they may have to disclose to the meeting in relation to matters under consideration on the Agenda.

Minutes:

County Councillor Andrew Gardiner disclosed a non-pecuniary interest regarding Item 5 – Joint Local Area SEND Inspection in Lancashire, as his son attended a SEND school. County Councillor Margaret Pattison disclosed a non-pecuniary interest as she was a school governor.

3.

Minutes from the meeting held on 6 December 2017 pdf icon PDF 64 KB

Minutes:

Resolved: That the minutes from the meeting held on the 6 December 2017 be confirmed as an accurate record and signed by the Chair.

 

4.

Scrutiny of Budget Proposals for 2018/19 pdf icon PDF 98 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chair welcomed County Councillor Mrs Susie Charles, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Schools; Neil Kissock, Director of Financial Services; John Readman, Interim Executive Director of Education and Children's Services; Dave Carr, Head of Service Policy, Information and Commissioning (Start Well); Rachel Blundell, Financial Intelligence Manager (Start Well); Charlotte Ennis, Wellbeing, Prevention and Early Help Manager; to the meeting.

 

The report presented set out all of the savings proposals as agreed by the Cabinet at its meetings between 14 September and 18 January 2018 inclusive that were relative to both the Children's Services and Education Scrutiny Committees terms of reference for consideration.

 

Future items for Scrutiny review during 2018/19 included:

 

·  Children's Social Care (CSC) – Fostering and Residential. Reassurance requested around the suggested impact of potential future pressures on the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG).

·  SEND Service – Information, Advice and Support (IAS) Team. Update requested from the agreement to a job evaluation and function review of the recently merged Information, Advice and Support Team.

·  SCAYT+- consultation outcome from the proposed decision  to redirect the work of SCAYT so that it generated income by providing specialist multi-agency assessment and intervention to children and families who attracted funding from the Adoption Support Fund. This could be potentially be a 2 year saving unless the adoption support fund was extended.

·  Youth Offending Team (YOT) – consultation outcome from the proposed decision to complete a full service restructure to enable a 25% reduction in LCC's contribution to the budget.

·  Children and Family Wellbeing Service – consultation outcome from the proposed decision to reduce the non-staffing budget by £0.750m and the staffing budget by £0.500m and to reconfigure remaining current staffing structure.

 

Resolved: That;

 

  i.  Matters from the Cabinet Members budget proposals for 2018/19 to form the basis for scrutiny review during 2018/19 be determined.

  ii.  All matters determined by Members be compiled from the minutes of the meeting and form part of the work planning session in readiness for the 2018/19 municipal year.

 

5.

Joint Local Area SEND Inspection in Lancashire pdf icon PDF 84 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chair welcomed David Graham, Head of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities; and Sally Richardson, Principal Educational Psychologist, to the meeting. County Councillor Mrs Susie Charles, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Schools; and John Readman, Interim Executive Director of Education and Children's Services, remained at the table.

 

The report presented explained that between 13 November and 17 November 2017, Ofsted and the CQC conducted a joint inspection of the local area of Lancashire to judge the effectiveness of the area in implementing the special educational needs and disability (SEND) reforms, as set out in the Children and Families Act 2014.

 

As a result of the findings of the inspection, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector (HMCI) had determined that a written statement of action was required due to the significant areas of weakness in the local area's practice. HMCI had also determined that the local authority and the area's clinical commissioning groups were jointly responsible for submitting the written statement to Ofsted.

 

Comments and questions raised were:

 

·  In terms of the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) pathways, it was noted that some CCGs across the authority had pathways that were functioning and others that did not comply with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines. This resulted in inaccurate identification and the needs of children and young people and their families not being met. The local authority was working on a strategy with the CCGs looking at collaborative commissioning.

·  The SEND Team was working with the Communications Team looking at restructuring and improving its website around the local offer to make it more accessible.

·  Prior to the inspection the SEND Team had signed up to a national survey that Lancashire would feed into. The Team was writing to parents of children with special educational needs, and the children, and health professionals to get feedback. This was an ongoing survey to see how the process was working. The team was also working with North West authorities to have quality assurance and audit of its plans.

·  It was noted that a number of parents had reported issues around the transition experience for their children as they moved from mainstream primary schools to secondary schools.

·  It was vital to have a vision for Lancashire SEND that was signed up to by parents and carers, by school leaders, by health and by the Local Authority.

 

Resolved: That;

  i.  The report and comments be noted.

  ii.  Areas identified from discussions be scheduled across both Children's Services and Education Scrutiny Committees work plans.

  iii.  A joint meeting of Children's Services and Education Scrutiny Committees be held on 11 April 2018.

 

 

 

 

6.

Children's Services Scrutiny Committee Work Plan 2017/18 pdf icon PDF 82 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The work plan for the Children's Services Scrutiny Committee for the 2017/18 municipal year was presented. The topics included were identified at the work planning workshop held on 21 June 2017.

 

It was agreed to move the 'EHCP Progress Update and Criteria for EHCP and the role of Local Moderating Panels' scheduled for the 14 March meeting to the joint meeting on 11 April.

 

County Councillor Ian Brown informed the Committee that the Task Group on Supporting Pupils in School with Medical Conditions had its second meeting on 31 January. The Group recognised that it couldn't progress working in isolation so for its next meeting on 27 February it was inviting parents, head teachers and a nurse to attend in order to progress to a satisfactory conclusion.

 

 

Resolved: That;

  i.  The report and comments be noted.

  ii.  The topics and intended outcomes to be considered at the next scheduled meeting be confirmed.

  iii.  The topics scheduled for the remainder of the municipal year be confirmed.

 

7.

Urgent Business

An item of urgent business may only be considered under this heading where, by reason of special circumstances to be recorded in the Minutes, the Chair of the meeting is of the opinion that the item should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency.  Wherever possible, the Chief Executive should be given advance warning of any Member’s intention to raise a matter under this heading.

Minutes:

There were no items of Urgent Business.

8.

Date of the Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Children's Services Scrutiny Committee is due to take place on Wednesday 14 March at 2pm, Cabinet Room C, County Hall, Preston.

Minutes:

The next meeting of the Scrutiny Committee will take place on Wednesday 14 March at 2:00pm in Cabinet Room C (The Duke of Lancaster Room) at the County Hall, Preston.