Agenda item

The Committee considered the report of the Chief Executive, which provided an overview of progress towards delivery of the key priorities within the Council Plan 2023-27 in line with the Council’s corporate performance framework. The report also covered performance in and to the end of quarter two, 2023/24, July to September 2023 (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Corporate Equality and Strategy Manger was in attendance to deliver the report.

Councillor Crute referred to the Education, Health Care Plans and indicated that this was more of a problem than first anticipated as the figures were not improving despite assurances that plans were in place. He understood that there was a nationwide problem with the recruitment of educational psychologists but this did not appear to impact on other local authorities and asked if there was a reason there was a problem in Durham. He then asked for more details around the graduated approach, he continued by referring to the young people who were currently in the system and asked what was being done to help those young people who need the Education, Health Care Plans in place.

The Corporate Equality and Strategy Manger responded that within the work programme the Head of Service would be presenting a report that would provide a detailed response to the question. In terms of demand, he could not speak for other local authorities but he did know that the relative increase in demand for Education, Health Care Plans in Durham was bigger than other local authorities. He continued that the graduated approach was getting more support to families and young people in schools without necessarily needing an Education, Health Care Plan such as top up funding without the need to go through the Education, Health Care Plan process that had been endorsed as good practice by the Department for Education. He commented that since COVID a number of families had applied for an Education, Health Care Plan. In terms of the waiting list a number of applicants were received at once that resulted in the number of children and young people waiting for a plan had increased, however, work was in place to ensure anyone on a waiting list was given support while waiting. With regard to progress the agency support took some time to get through the procurement process but this came into place in October/November and were working with the service and had increased capacity now. Up to December the length of time people was waiting for a plan stopped getting longer and they needed to work over the next six months to reduce the number of people on the waiting list to ensure they receive the assessment in a timely manner.

The Head of Education and Skills responded that they were looking at demand issues across schools and had recently undertaken a piece of work with schools in Stanley. He continued by providing an example of a school who have an experienced SENCO teacher who had 12 requests for an Education, Health Care Plan and only two were being progressed. In an alternative school where there was no experienced SENCO, they had received 18 requests for an Education, Health Care Plan that were all being progressed but when the experienced SENCO had looked at these and, in her opinion, only seven of the requests required to be progressed.

Councillor Crute referred to the dashboard and stated that nationally 48% of Education, Health Care Plans requests were dealt with within the 20 weeks. He stated that the national shortage of educational psychologists does not appear to impact on all other local authorities and asked if they could look at statistics and information from other similar local authorities and learn from these local authorities.

The Corporate Equality and Strategy Manger responded that the statistics from other local authorities was published data but stated that the data was historical and the data was for 2022 and a lot had happened in the last year.

The Head of Education and Skills advised Members that he would ask the Head of Early Help, Inclusion & Vulnerable Children to look into this and report back to Members when he delivers his report to the Committee later in the year.

The Principal Overview and Scrutiny Officer confirmed that the special meeting of the Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee scheduled to be held on 25 January 2024 was to consider SEND and he would refer Members request for the information to the Officer.

Councillor Walton referred to the shortage of educational psychologists and asked if there was an alternative temporary solution.

The Corporate Equality and Strategy Manger responded that the alternative was the use of agency staff to draw in support externally with the contract running for the next eighteen months to two years.

The Head of Education and Skills advised that some work was being undertaken around the SENCO network to ensure there were not any unnecessary requests for Education, Health Care Plans and indicated that there were other funding options available to schools.

Councillor Hunt referred to social workers and asked what work was being undertaken for retention.

The Corporate Equality and Strategy Manger responded that this had previously been reported on and advised that the retention allowance had been expanded in terms of pay.

The Practice Lead Safeguarding advised Members that a Sub-Group that she leads on that reported directly to the Corporate Efficiency Board and advised Members that they had students, trainees and people employed from Durham University who move on to become social workers for Durham so that they could future proof social workers. She continued that nationally retention of social workers was a challenge and they had used retention payments in particularly in challenging areas of the service. She reported that there had being some stability in the workforce but this would continue to be a challenge but the care review would see the profile of social workers delivering change over the next few years and that in conjunction with other measures around retention should stabilise that workforce.

The Chair advised Members that an informal meeting would be held on 10 January 2024 via Microsoft Teams regarding efficiency and third-party payments.

Councillor Deinali referred to the graduated approach and asked what was in place in terms of ensuring that any top up funding was used for the child to ensure that they received the support that they needed, particularly when there was a reduction in budgets. She then referred to parents who had elected to home educate their children who have additional needs and asked what was in place to support those families to ensure quality of education.

The Head of Education and Skills indicated that this was not his area but they had some concerns around the number of elective home education. They have a proactive team in this area and they were challenging those parents who choose to home school their children and were also challenging the schools who were non-discouraging parents to home school their children. The team had reintegrated around 320 children back into school and their needs were a key part of their assessment. A key priority for his team was to ensure that children with SEN do not drop out of the system and indicated that a challenge was schools who were issuing fixed penalty notices that destroyed relationships with parents.

The Finance Manager advised Members that schools waiting for the Education, Health Care Plan process would still receive funding through some kind of SEN support for that pupil.

Resolved: That the overall position and direction of travel in relation to quarter two performance, and the actions being taken to address areas of challenge be noted.