Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from Councillors Fran Carpenter, Steve Forster, and Neville Penman.

All Members who believe they have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in any matter to be considered at the meeting must declare that interest and, having regard to the circumstances described in Part 3 Paragraph 1.5 of the County Council's Members' Code of Conduct, leave the meeting while the matter is discussed, save for exercising any right to speak in accordance with Paragraph 1.6 of the Code. Furthermore all Members with a Non-Pecuniary interest in a matter being considered at the meeting should consider whether such interest should be declared, and having regard to Part 5, Paragraph 2 of the Code, consider whether it is appropriate to leave the meeting while the matter is discussed, save for exercising any right to speak in accordance with the Code.

Members were mindful that where they believed they had a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in any matter considered at the meeting they must declare that interest at the time of the relevant debate and, having regard to the circumstances described in Part 3, Paragraph 1.5 of the County Council's Members' Code of Conduct, leave the meeting while the matter was discussed, save for exercising any right to speak in accordance with Paragraph 1.6 of the Code. Furthermore Members were mindful that where they believed they had a Non-Pecuniary interest in a matter being considered at the meeting they considered whether such interest should be declared, and having regard to Part 5, Paragraph 2 of the Code, considered whether it was appropriate to leave the meeting whilst the matter was discussed, save for exercising any right to speak in accordance with the Code.

Councillor Jackie Branson declared a personal interest in Item 6, as she is the Chair of Governors at Crookhorn College, which receives Special Education Needs funding.

Councillor Jackie Porter declared a personal interest in Item 6, as she is the Chair of a Pre-School that receives special educational needs funding.

To confirm the minutes of the previous meeting

The Minutes of the meeting held on 20 September 2017 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive any deputations notified under Standing Order 12.

The Committee did not receive any deputations.

To receive any announcements the Chairman may wish to make.

The Chairman made one announcement to the meeting:

New Parent Governor Co-opted Members

Further to the Chairman’s announcement at the last meeting, two new parent governor co-opted members had been recruited and were in attendance at the meeting:

·         Ian Brewerton – representing Secondary Schools

·         Jane Longman - representing Special Schools

In addition, the Chairman noted that Caroline Edmondson had stepped down from her role as parent governor, and therefore the Committee would be seeking nominations for a new parent governor representing primary schools. The Chairman noted his thanks to Caroline for her contribution to the Committee.

The Chairman also noted that the Church of England had nominated Rob Sanders, Deputy Director of Education, who was in attendance as an observer with speaking rights, to be the new representative on the Committee, replacing Rev. Jeff Williams. This would be forwarded to the next Council meeting for formal appointment.

To consider an update on the implementation of the Special Educational Needs and Disability reforms following the Committee’s previous consideration of this item.

The Committee received a report from the Director of Children’s Services and his representatives, alongside NHS colleagues, providing a post-implementation update on the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) reforms (Item 6 in the Minute Book).

Members heard an overview of the report from the presenters. Currently the Department were still waiting for OFSTED/the Care Quality Commission to announce a review of the local area’s response to the SEND reforms. This could happen at any point in the next three years. The previous inspection was a pilot inspection.

The data from the 20 week indicator showed that Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) were not being completed quickly enough, and the Department had resultantly implemented a recovery plan to improve the waiting time to completion. Previously 4.5% of EHCPs were being issued within the 20 week deadline against a 60% national figure. This was in part due to the shortened time for completion compared to SEND statements, which allowed 26 weeks overall. The Department had improved the EHCP figure to 45.8%, but there was much further to go to get to the previously achieved compliance rate of 90%+, which was the achieved level pre-reforms.

The report noted that just under 300 SEND statements had not yet started their journey to becoming EHCPs. Now just seven were yet to be started. The emphasis from Hampshire was that the document should be high quality, and not just a ‘cut and paste’ paper exercise, so some of these would go to the end of the March 2018 Government deadline for all statements to be transitioned.

There had been progress with the creation of the online EHCP hub, where the vision was that all parties could log in securely to track the progress of an EHCP assessment. This software was currently in the testing phase, as Hampshire had helped to shape the product as an early adopter. It was hoped that this self-service product would be available for use by September 2018.

A significant piece of work was on-going with schools to reinforce the need for them to ‘assess, plan, do, review’ with children who are identified with having potential SEND needs. The aim of this work was to help schools to aid children and work with their needs locally, with a referral to the EHCP process being only for those whose needs were severe, long term and complex.

The NHS SEND Designated Clinical Officer for 0-25 years provided a brief update to Members on the areas being progressed by the five Hampshire CCGs in relation to this area. Specifically, projects were currently on-going in relation to reviewing the pre-school advisory groups working with services for young children, and working with communication and language specialist teacher advisors. The children and maternity commissioning team were now co-located in Winchester with Hampshire County Council’s Children’s Services in Winchester, which aided joint working and cemented the commitment to working in partnership.

The Committee had previously heard about the early years offer during their previous meeting, and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.

To consider an update on services for children with disabilities, to include information on short breaks.

The Committee received a report from the Director of Children’s Services and representatives, which provided an overview of services for children with disabilities (Item 7 in the Minute Book).

Members heard highlights from the report. An outline of the important work undertaken with partners, including the Hampshire Parent Carer Network, and closer alignment with adult services and health, was given.

The savings made as part of Transformation to 2017 were recapped and the overnight respite consultation was discussed.  It was noted that the consultation had recently closed, and the outcomes from this would be considered in January 2018.

The benefits of telecare were highlighted to members, building on work undertaken by Adults’ Health and Care and the County Council’s telecare provider, examples of which had led to improved quality of life for service users and their carers.

In response to questions, Members heard:

• That children’s services were currently evaluating the feedback from the overnight respite consultation, and would be reporting these to the Executive Lead Member for Children’s Services in January 2018.
• Part of the work on overnight respite was whether Hampshire County Council could assist the market to create capacity for this type of service, so that those in receipt of personal budgets could find services with capacity that met their needs.
• That the overnight respite consultation affected 43 families directly, all of whom had been offered individual conversations with the children with disabilities services, in order to record their needs and requirements of any future service.
• That telecare was an exciting innovation for children with disabilities, as it allowed greater independence whilst still maintaining peace of mind, and was leading to improvements in the quality of life for all affected. An example was given of a young adult with epilepsy who had a sensor mat fitted to his bed, which allowed his breathing and sleeping pattern to be monitored by his mother from her own bedside, so that she didn’t need to regularly wake throughout the night to check his condition.
• That it was positive that three children with disabilities were being adopted. The Department were keen to increase this number in future.

The Chairman agreed that any further questions from Members could be sent to the officers via the scrutiny officer.

RESOLVED:

That Members:

1.    Note the overview provided.

2.    Request a further item to consider the overnight respite proposals, and a general update on Transformation to 2019, in January 2018.

To receive a presentation on the changes to the School Funding Formula, and how these will impact on Hampshire schools.

The Committee received a presentation from the Director of Children’s Services and his representatives providing an overview of the changes to school funding formula (Item 8 in the Minute Book).

Members heard that the presentation was a shortened version of that being provided to all school heads and governors across a number of events in the coming weeks. It was important that school representatives had a good grasp of what the changes to the national funding formula meant for the education sector in Hampshire, how the local formula would be applied, and where the gaps in funding and challenges remained.

There continued to be a projected overspend across all blocks of school funding in Hampshire. In previous years the dedicated schools grant reserves had been meet any shortfalls, but this had now been depleted, so the variance in spend must be met by the allocations of funding from 2018/19. These variances did not relate to specific schools with overspends, but a number of different pressures within the system, combined with a formula which didn’t meet the true cost of providing education in the County.

The total pressure on all school budgets was £8m, and this would likely to continue into 2019/20. For the early years block, the pressure on the budget was in part due to accounting, based on the early years census, which was a technical issue but somewhat solvable. There was less pressure on the central block of funding for schools. For high needs, there were multiple causes of pressure on this budget, and this would sit in the system for the next few years, although some actions relating to procurement and efficiency reviews may help ease this amount. As Hampshire County Council manage the high needs budget, Children’s Services have a significant role to play in finding ways to reduce this pressure. The ray of hope was that through the national formula funding, there was increased funding in the high needs block, without which the pressure would be significantly worse. Hampshire was not alone in facing this issue, as every local authority was similarly affected.

An overview of the new national funding formula was provided to Members, who heard that the allocation for schools, central funding, high needs and early years was received by Hampshire County Council in one designation from the Department for Education, who distributed funding in accordance with the national formula. Once divided into the four blocks, money (with small exceptions) could not transfer across these areas. The central budget for administering services on behalf of schools was retained by the Council. The high needs funding was distributed for placements and pupil top up. Both the early years and schools funding was determined by a locally applied formula, and this was agreed and applied by the Schools Forum. From this, funding was passed on to maintained schools and early years providers, and for academies, forwarded to the Education Funding Agency for directing on to academy schools. For those schools in a multi-academy trust,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31.

To consider and approve the Children and Young People Select Committee Work Programme.

The Director of Transformation and Governance presented the Committee’s work programme (see Item 9 in the Minute Book).

The following timings for items were agreed on the work programme:

• School Attainment – to be heard in January 2018.

RESOLVED:

That the work programme, subject to any amendments made during the meeting, is agreed.