A maximum of 15 minutes will be allocated to public questions submitted in writing to Democratic Services (democratic.services@trafford.gov.uk) by 4 p.m. on the working day prior to the meeting. Questions must be relevant to items appearing on the agenda and will be submitted in the order in which they were received.

Four questions were received from Members of the Public ahead of the Meeting and were read out by the Chair in the order in which they were received.

The first question is outlined below:

‘We would like to ask how the local authority is working to improve understanding within education, health and social care, that an academically able child can have complex support needs, so that blanket policies based on academic ability do not prevent a young person from accessing support, preparing for adulthood and accessing appropriate education and leisure opportunities. Our 15 year old has cognitive abilities on the 99th percentile but independence/self-help skills on the 1st percentile and social skills on the 3rd percentile. Due to his academic ability, he has not received the necessary support required to prepare him for adulthood. He is completely dependent on us to meet all basic needs and requires full parental support to access anything in the community. There is currently no post 16 provision that could meet his needs.’

The Director for Education, Standards, Quality and Performance informed the Committee that due to the complexity and detail required for the question, that they would respond to the questioner after the Meeting in writing.

The second question is outlined below:

‘How are panel decisions transparent and due consideration given to these when there is no clarity on who sits on the panel, there are no minutes taken and/or shared, no reasons offered for decisions made and no appeal process? 

The questioner also provided the following background to their question –

Our lived experience is very important and the committee need to understand the background to my question - My two young people have education, health and social care plans reviewed in April but still not finalised - outcomes, needs and provision were discussed as working by all professionals at annual review. Panel have stripped provision from one - which leaves outcomes unable to now be met and still awaiting panel for the other.

Communication and waiting times are diabolical and having direct impact on children and young people, causing trauma to families.’

The Director for Education, Standards, Quality and Performance requested to provide a response after the meeting adding that it would be inappropriate to respond to individual cases in Scrutiny.

The Director did however add that Education, Health, and Social care panels and Short Rate Panels did have decision letters which gave reasons for the decision and explained the appeals process.

The Director referenced the Change Programme Partnership the Council was working with, with the Department for Education who had asked for the Council to consider the parental understanding of panels, with the Trafford Parent Carer forum cited on this.

The third and fourth questions were submitted together and can be seen below:

‘Referring to page 18 of the document pack regarding the Local Area SEND inspection states the following improvements are required:

"Leaders across the partnership should ensure that the SEND strategy is fully embedded across health, education and social care. They should tighten their strategic oversight so that all workstreams have equal clarity in how they are mapped out and organised. This is to reduce the disconnect and to improve accountability between strategy and practice."

"Leaders across the partnership should develop, deliver and embed a clear approach to address how they will support children and young people with a range of mental health and neurodiverse needs. This includes identification, assessment and support for children and young people, with or without a diagnosis."

How do you plan to undertake any improvements when the Local Authority services actively use the ultimate weapon of parent blame including perplexing presentations & fabric or induced illness (FII) as a mechanism to paralyse parents who have no other choice but to fight for their neurodivergent children?

With the rise of Emotionally Based School Non Attendance (EBSNA), burnout for NHS clinically diagnosed autistic children, and undiagnosed children with autistic profiling and the many families experiences of the lack of support, LA/ICB service failures and systemic culture belief in parent blame first, culture of covering up failures and the non-existence proactive approach to supporting families in crisis, we want officers to answer why there is no accountability whatsoever across social care, education and health services?  Why is it acceptable to ignore questions submitted through complaints process and ignoring family trauma experiences in fact is used as evidence against parents?’

The Director for Education, Standards, Quality and Performance said a more detailed response would be provided in writing. In the meeting, the Director confirmed that the Council did answer complaints, with a RAG rating in place to ensure that the Council was on track with managing complaints, with an endeavour to learn from complaints also.

Regarding the EBSNA burnout, the Director informed Members of a Steering Group, significant work on the toolkit, and work done on a Greater Manchester level to support with this. Work had been ongoing across the partnership to resolve these issues, with the Trafford Parent Carer Forum being integral to some of this work.

The Director finished by saying that the service did not practice a culture of blame and if this were ever apparent, the Director confirmed that it would be challenged.

Councillor Procter requested that a copy of the questions and responses be provided to Committee Members after the meeting.

Councillor Maitland asked when questions had to be submitted by. The Senior Democratic Support Officer confirmed that they needed to be submitted by 4pm the working day before the meeting.

The Committee asked that any question received prior to the meeting be shared with the Committee.

Councillor Procter asked whether the deadline for questions could be moved earlier. The Senior Democratic Support Officer suggested that this be taken away.

The Corporate Director for Children’s Services felt that the personal circumstances of the questions received were not appropriate to be answered in the Committee, with this making it difficult for the Service to respond in the meeting.

RESOLVED:

1)    That the questions and responses be noted.

2)    That the Officers provided detailed written responses to the questioners outside of the meeting.

3)    That questions be shared with the Committee when they are received, prior to the meeting.