To receive a report from the Corporate Director for Children’s Services and the Director for Education Standards, Quality, and Performance

The SEND Improvement Lead introduced the report on behalf of the Corporate Director for Children’s Services, which provided an overview of the SEND Inspection Framework, the activity that took place during the inspection in October 2023 and summarised the findings and subsequent actions. The previous inspection had taken place in 2017 under a different framework.

There were three possible outcomes from the inspection, and the outcome for Trafford was that arrangements led to inconsistent outcomes for young people. The SEND Improvement Lead shared that, as highlighted in the report, the Council had to produce a comprehensive self-assessment during the inspection process. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) had fed back on this, that Trafford knew there service well, with the evaluation accorded with what they had found of the experience of children. The SEND Improvement Lead shared the next steps following the report which included a strategic improvement plan that needed to be published by the 14^th February and an upcoming meeting with the Department for Education (DfE) as part of their monitoring arrangements.

The Committee were shared some of the positives and areas for improvement in the report included below.

The inspection had been clear that there were passionate people in Trafford working hard with children and young people who were ambitious in wanting to improve experience, however, the self-assessment had shown that translation of this into strategic intent and practice on the ground was too inconsistent.

Furthermore, the inspection highlighted that there was good work in terms of parental engagement and through the Lived Experience Advisory Panels (LEAP). The inspection had made clear that the children’s voice was not the strongest in Trafford and was to be an area of focus to improve, with work also to be done on improving the systems response to neurodiverse children and young people.

Signs of improvement had shown in educational healthcare plans (EHCP), however, some variability in the service remained. Further to this, support in preparation for adulthood had been an issue in Trafford for a long time and this was highlighted in the inspections, with work on this needing acceleration.

The Committee were provided with the next steps following the inspection, with an ambition’s plan being produced, and were offered the opportunity to ask questions. The Committee were also offered the opportunity to receive the action plan at future meeting of the Committee.

Councillor Ennis asked if the officers could elaborate further on each of the six work streams behind the six pillars within the ambitions plan. Secondly, what efforts beyond the parent carer forum were being made to reach new SEND experienced families, and how they will improve. Furthermore, Councillor Ennis asked if the Committee could have access to the SEND data dashboard. 

The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance responded positively to the ambitions within the plan and that those were identified as the correct ambitions to have by the inspectors. Each ambition had an ambition lead, who attended a steering group which had them reporting back on the pace, traction and activity that sat behind the individual ambitions, with KPIs in place which fed into the data dashboard. The Director informed that they could bring the data dashboard in future updates. The inspection, however, had found that the strategic work compared to what was taking place on the ground was not consistent across the board. The Director for Education Standards, Quality, and Performance proceeded to provide the Committee with the themes of each ambition.

The SEND Improvement Lead recognised that there was not an equal spread of parental engagement across the Borough. The parent carer forum had a massive role to play in driving engagement, with regular conversations happening to see how it could be improved to also engage with families who may want to engage on a more individual level. On the data dashboard, the SEND Improvement Lead added that in some areas the service was rich in data, whilst in others it was underdeveloped, with work ongoing to improve this. 

Councillor Procter raised concern on not listening and reacting to the voices of children well and enquired as to what the plans were to do this more effectively. Councillor Procter asked further what plans were in place to ensure consistently good annual reviews. 

The SEND Improvement Lead recognised that despite some lovely examples coming through in the inspection, there was a mapping exercise taking place to improve learning from these positive experiences and spread this across. There was also a need to resource improving children’s voices as to drive practice it needs support and would not happen by itself. The service was also aware that improvement needed to be made to make sure children across various levels of need were having their voice heard, as the ability to use voices varied. The workforce also needed to be confident and able to engage with children with SEND.

The Lead for SEND and Inclusion responded that there was some good practice on annual reviews, however, monitoring on completing the circle on a review had not been there with action planning around improving reviews sitting within ambition three. The Committee were shared some work that had begun on improving this, especially for children moving from year six to seven.

Councillor Sutton asked whether the Council were already aware of the issues with neurodiversity and early identification, and the time between identification and response prior to the inspection, with some cases taking years. Secondly, Councillor Sutton asked what awareness the Council had to additional barriers, such as children living in Trafford but attending school in another authority, and what was being done to overcome this. Councillor Sutton also asked about the Council’s knowledge of individual schools who were coding SEND absences properly.

The SEND Improvement Lead assured that the Council was aware of the issue between identification and response. It was clear that there was going to be difficult partner conversations, with a mismatch in resource for diagnosis and the process that takes place. The Council was aware that this was an issue that needed to be dealt with but recognised that it will likely remain an issue in the meantime. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance added that a commissioning strategy was going to be developed at pace, aiming to raise awareness of bringing the right level of service to the need required. There was also work to be done on workforce development to ensure that schools could meet the needs of children and young people.

In response to the second question, the Lead for SEND and Inclusion responded that there was an aim to develop a contact list for people across Greater Manchester to help navigate cross border issues. Further, speech and language therapists have an agreement that they will work across borders, however, this was a challenge in other services. When requesting data from schools in other local authorities, the Lead mentioned that this was received when requested.

In response to the final question, the Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance mentioned that red, amber, green (RAG) ratings were in place for schools, to monitor how they were coding emotionally based school non-attendance (EBSNA). Those that fall below average on performance were then contacted.

Councillor Duncan raised concern over online interaction and meetings and felt that if parents were told that meetings would be in person, attendance would happen. The SEND Improvement Lead responded that parent and carer engagement was mostly face to face. However, it was clear that a diverse range of engagement was important to suit needs of individual children. Meetings had also taken place with special school heads to look at how best to garner the voice of the young people. The Lead for SEND and Inclusion added that diversity in offer was important, something that had been seen in tutoring.

Councillor Ennis enquired as to why health professionals do not receive the EHCPs that they fed into as this made them unable to cross check their professional advice. Secondly, Councillor Ennis felt that the strength of feeling around issues in transition to adulthood was not replicated in the report and hoped that this would be being worked on in future plans. Finally, the Councillor felt that educational psychology (EP) was spoke of a service which was performing well, which he felt was divorce from reality, wondering if the officers had any thoughts. 

The Lead for SEND and Inclusion answered that there was work being done to improve sharing of draft EHCPs but felt that it was about ensuring decent quality assurance of advice coming from health professionals, so plans would not need to be checked because everyone would be aware of what was within them. It was felt that the plans should be getting shared, however possibility of feedback at that point was limited due to the timeliness of reports. 

The SEND Improvement Lead assured Councillor Ennis that the strength of concern around preparation for adulthood (PfA) was heard, with work being done to improve this, including a PfA workshop. However, it was important that people knew that it was a work in progress.

In response to the Councillor’s final question the Director for Education Standards, Quality, and Performance was aware that teachers were having issues with accessing the EP service. The service had been through staffing issues over the previous year, with maternity cover and recruitment difficulties. Assurances were given that the team was now up to capacity and aiming to balance out need, but that difficulties were still being faced.

Councillor Hirst issued concern with timescales, with the issues of transition to adulthood and the voice of the child being issues six years ago when they sat on the corporate parenting board. Councillor Hirst wanted to know if there was any timescale to bring parents faith back into the service.

The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance recognised that work had been done recently to strengthen governance arrangements. An individual had been hired with a wealth of expertise to help this. OFSTED were confident that with those arrangements, the service was in a place to have a grip on previous issues. The SEND Improvement Lead added that the SEND system was very stretched, with a need to measure pace of improvement, whilst also making sure parents and carers were aware of what challenges were going to be faced.

The Executive Member for Children and Young people paid tribute to the officers in attendance for their individual work and the work done by their teams, recognising that improvements were not near the end, but that plenty of work had already taken place. 

Councillor Haughey highlighted earlier reference that the service was now fully staffed, despite issues of low employment rate, and raised concern as to whether with increased numbers of young people with SEND could the service slip backwards. The Director for Education Standards, Quality, and Performance responded that the service was aware that it needs to work within its means regarding staffing. However, assurance was given that the governance arrangements that were in place, would not allow the service to slip back. The Lead for SEND and Inclusion added that the inspection had highlighted issues within the whole service, and that everyone was aware of the part they had to play to drive improvement. 

The Chair mentioned finally an appetite of members to do further work on SEND Tribunals and transition to adulthood, and asked if the Committee would be interested in completing a piece of task and finish work in one of these areas. The Committee agreed to explore moving this. 

          RESOLVED:

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That the results of the ambitions plan, next steps following on from the inspection, and the SEND data dashboard, be brought to future meetings of the Committee.

3)    That the Committee explore establishing a task and finish group on either SEND tribunal or preparation for adulthood.