(Members Code of Conduct – Part 4A of the Constitution)

To receive disclosures of interests from members and co-opted members on matters to be considered at the meeting. The disclosure must include the nature of the interest.

An interest must also be disclosed in the meeting when it becomes apparent to the member during the meeting.

Notes:

(1)       Members must consider their interests, and act according to the following:

(2)       Disclosable pecuniary interests relate to the Member concerned or their spouse/partner.

(3)       Members in arrears of Council Tax by more than two months must not vote in decisions on, or which might affect, budget calculations, and must disclose at the meeting that this restriction applies to them.  A failure to comply with these requirements is a criminal offence under section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. 

(4)       Officers must disclose interests in accordance with Council Standing Order 44.

No disclosures of interest in matters under consideration were received.

Recommended –

That the minutes of the meetings held on 29 November 2023 and 20 December 2023 be signed as a correct record (previously circulated).

(Kav Amrez / Louis Kingdom – 07929 070228 / 07890 416570)

Resolved –

That the minutes of the meetings held 29 November 2023 and 20 December 2023 be signed as a correct record.

(Access to Information Procedure Rules – Part 3B of the Constitution)

Reports and background papers for agenda items may be inspected by contacting the person shown after each agenda item.  Certain reports and background papers may be restricted. 

Any request to remove the restriction on a report or background paper should be made to the relevant Strategic Director or Assistant Director whose name is shown on the front page of the report. 

If that request is refused, there is a right of appeal to this meeting. 

Please contact the officer shown below in advance of the meeting if you wish to appeal. 

(Kav Amrez / Louis Kingdom – 07929 070228 / 07890 416570)

There were no appeals submitted by the public to review decisions to restrict documents.

Any referrals that have been made to this Committee up to and including the date of publication of this agenda will be reported at the meeting.

There were no referrals to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The Strategic Director of Children’s Services will submit a report (Document “O”) which provides an update on the progress towards the WSOA that followed the March 2022 SEND Area Inspection and core activities relating to support children with additional needs.

Recommended –

That the contents of the report be noted.

(Niall Devlin – 01274 431356)

The Strategic Director of Children’s Services submitted a report (Document “O”) which provided an update on the progress towards the WSOA that followed the March 2022 SEND Area Inspection and core activities relating to support children with additional needs.

The report contained high level overview of progress within each of the 5 areas for improvement and added in benchmark data from other councils of similar size in supporting children with SEND. The 5 areas were as follows:

·         Poor communication between stakeholders across education, health and care.

·         The variable quality of Education Health and Care plans, including plans which do not fully describe the provision that children and young people with SEND need.

·         The inconsistent delivery of the 0 to 19 health visiting, school nursing and specialist nursing services.

·         Children and young people wait too long for assessments, treatment, and diagnosis. There is insufficient support for children and young people with SEND who are waiting for provision, services, diagnosis, or equipment.

·         Education, health, and care services do not work together well. The arrangements for joint commissioning are underdeveloped.

Following the Officer’s presentation, members were then given the opportunity to comment and ask questions.  The details of these and the responses given are as below.

Members of the Committee sought further clarification on section 2.4.2 of the report relating to SEND assessments and demand. In response to this, the presenting officer reported that the service started from a very low base during the pandemic and had since worked extremely hard to improve on meeting the threshold for SEND. It was further reported that Bradford had a higher number of Education Health Care Plans (EHCP) than some neighbouring local authorities, but the service was working progressively to catch up with the national average as the aim was to have 70% of EHCPs deemed to meet the required quality mark in 2024.

Members asked if there were any issues with specialist places for children and young people. In response to this, it was reported that there had not been any major issues with specialist places as majority of the placements were local, there were around 6,500 children on the SEND plan and only 500 of the children were placed outside the local area and 110 children were placed in ultra cost placements.

Members asked for further clarity on section 2.6.7 of the report relating to initial assessments of children and young people. In response to this, the presenting officer reported that the service has been working hard to address this issue, various avenues have been explored but, one of the programmes the service has worked with allowed nurses to work at the weekends and evenings to improve on Initial Health Assessments and by September 2024, 90% of children and young people will have received an Initial Health Assessment within 20 days after going into care.

A member of the Committee referred to section 2.4.2 of the report and said that the service was still under target, this led to pressure being felt by the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 45.

The Chair of the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee will submit a draft report (Document “P”) which contains the findings from the Elective Home Education Scrutiny Review.

Recommended –

That the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee adopts the findings contained within the Draft Elective Home Education Scrutiny Review Report.

(Mustansir Butt – 01274 432574)

The Chair of the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee submitted a draft report (Document “P”) which contained the findings from the Elective Home Education Scrutiny Review.

The Overview and Scrutiny Lead reported that Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee had previously agreed to undertake a scrutiny review relating to Elective Home Education. The completion of this scrutiny had been delayed by the Covid19 pandemic and the subsequent membership changed to the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The report of the Chair of the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Document “Q”) includes the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee work programme for 2023/24.

Recommended –

(1)           That members consider and comment on the areas of work included in the work programme.

(2)           That members consider any detailed scrutiny reviews that they may wish to conduct.

(Mustansir Butt – 01274 432574)

The report of the Chair of the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Document “Q”) included the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee work programme for 2023/24.

The work programme was briefly discussed and the Overview and Scrutiny Lead summarised what items would be considered at future meetings.