Agenda item

The Committee considered the report of the Corporate Director of Resources, which provided progress towards achieving the key outcomes of the Council’s corporate performance framework and highlighted key messages to inform strategic priorities and work programmes. The report covered performance in and to the end of quarter three, October to December 2022 (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Corporate Equalities and Strategy Manager was in attendance to present the report.

Councillor R Charlton-Laine referred to paragraph 18(b) of the report and asked why those three areas were considered and if other schools could be incorporated next time.

The Corporate Equalities and Strategy Manager responded that he was not sure of the criteria and would obtain this information from the service.

Mrs A Gunn referred to educational psychologists and asked if there had been any progress in recruitment and the ability for schools to tap into these services beyond statutory points. She then referred to the increase in SEND numbers that would have a significant impact financially and commented that if they needed specialist provisions this would impact financially and stated that there was already an overspend this year and additional costs can be extremely high and asked what work had been done around this.

The Head of Early Help, Inclusion & Vulnerable Children responded that there was a small pool of Educational Psychologists in the system, and stated that there was a national training programme, but they were not enough new Educational Psychologists coming through the regionally and nationally so was a continued challenge to recruit Educational Psychologists. They had some success with recruitment, but they still had some gaps that had impacted their ability to provide timely educational psychology advice. They wanted a model where quality was important and still had contact with schools and Educational Psychologists were going into schools to do some direct work with young people. They were not happy with virtual assessments, but this had impacted on the waiting list, but quality advice was more important. They had issues with getting advice from social or health care and they had continued to see an increase in the number of people requiring SEND support, but this was less than other parts of the region. They were carrying out a lot of work to support children without the need for a Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) but a lot of schools and parents preferred to go through the formal process. A lot of young people were supported before the ECHP was put into place, sometimes there was no difference in costs as they had a strong graduated offer in County Durham. They were carrying out some work alongside 55 other local authorities regarding higher needs spend and a survey was going out shortly.

Resolved: That the overall position and direction of travel in relation to quarter three performance, the impact of COVID-19 pandemic recovery and the external international factors driving inflation and cost-of-living on the council’s performance, and the actions being taken to address areas of underperformance including the significant economic and well-being challenges because of the pandemic be noted.