Apologies: Councillors Alipoor and Sajawal

In the interest of transparency, the following Members declared an interest in the item relating to SEND Services Update:

·         Councillor Winnard was the Chair of Aware Charity;

·         Councillor Pollard was a Governor of a Special Provision School;

·         Councillor Berry’s wife was employed by an early health organisation; and,

·         Parent Governor Representative, Fauzia Raza was a SEND Governor at a primary school.

ACTION: Director of Legal & Governance (Monitoring Officer)

(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. 

(Jill Bell/Kanwal Amrez- 07970 413716/07929 070288)

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

To consider referrals made to this Committee.

The Committee is asked to note the referrals listed above and decide how it wishes to proceed, for example by incorporating the item into the work programme, requesting that it be subject to more detailed examination, or refer it to an appropriate Working Group/Committee.

There were no referrals made to the committee.

In late 2021 and early 2022, the Secretary of State for Education issued a statutory direction to Bradford Council. This required the Council to work with a central Government appointed Commissioner to set up a Trust to deliver Children’s Services in the District.

In the past year, the Council and the Commissioner have worked with local partners to review and strengthen our improvement work. One area of concern, highlighted by the Commissioner, was the overly complex nature of the previous improvement plan. As such the Council and the Commissioner have worked with partners on the Improvement Board and have agreed to a revised Improvement Plan. This sets out, how the district will work together to improve the lives of local children and families and the services that work with them.

To ensure Overview and Scrutiny have proper oversight of the implementation of the plan, it is proposed that officers provide:

·         Regular reporting of the Improvement Plan scorecard in line with Overview and Scrutiny timetable.

·         Exception reporting of other issues as required.

This approach should provide Overview and Scrutiny with full information and enable it to assess progress and scrutinise the effectiveness of the plan and the Improvement Board.  The report of the Strategic director of Children’s Services (Document “H”) is submitted.

Recommended -

            Overview and Scrutiny is recommended to consider and agree the  proposed approach, which includes the vision and objectives for arrangements to monitor and evaluate improvements delivered to Children’s Services through  the Improvement Plan, and the work of the Improvement Board.

(Picklu Roychoudhury -01274 431175)

In late 2021 and early 2022, the Secretary of State for Education issued a statutory direction to Bradford Council. This required the Council to work with a central Government appointed Commissioner to set up a Trust to deliver Children’s Services in the District.

In the past year, the Council and the Commissioner have worked with local partners to review and strengthen our improvement work. One area of concern, highlighted by the Commissioner, was the overly complex nature of the previous improvement plan. As such the Council and the Commissioner have worked with partners on the Improvement Board and have agreed to a revised Improvement Plan. This sets out, how the district will work together to improve the lives of local children and families and the services that work with them.

To ensure Overview and Scrutiny have proper oversight of the implementation of the plan, it is proposed that officers provide:

•      Regular reporting of the Improvement Plan scorecard in line with Overview and Scrutiny timetable.

•      Exception reporting of other issues as required.

This approach provided the Overview and Scrutiny with full information and enabled it to assess progress and scrutinise the effectiveness of the plan and the Improvement Board. The report of the Strategic director of Children’s Services (Document “H”) was submitted.

Following a synopsis of the report, a discussion took place on the subject of the Improvement Plan being one sided and it entailed a lack of policy development. Information towards the level of support for scrutiny and the expectation of committee members was not substantive enough. The Improvement Board needed to be a more participating process and therefore:

Resolved –

(1)       This Committee requests that the new and detailed improvement plan be presented to the Committee in November 2022.

(2)       The Committee requests that the outcomes delivered for the Children’s Services Improvement Plan, from September 2021 to March 2022, also be presented to the Committee in November 2022.

ACTION:  Strategic Director, Children’s Services

The report of the Strategic Director of Children’s Services (Document “I”) provides the Overview and Scrutiny Committees with an update on the SEND Inspection and activities relating SEND in the Bradford Local Area.

Recommended -

Members are asked to consider the contents of the report.

 (Stu Barratt – 01274 43 41175)

The report of the Strategic Director of Children’s Services (Document “I”) provided the Overview and Scrutiny Committees with an update on the SEND Inspection and activities relating SEND in the Bradford Local Area.

Strategic Manager Integrated Assessment, Transformation and Compliance Manager was in attendance and gave a synopsis of the report.

Following a summary of the report, a question and answer session ensued:

• For the purpose of clarity, what was the final deadline for further actions to be returned?
  • 21 September 2022;
• In relation to concerns, what issues had arisen during the inspection?
  • Most new plans were sufficient as opposed to some historical plans due to lack of updates in accordance with child SEND needs;
• Had multi-lingual factors being addressed?
  • In order to address this matter, a recruitment exercise had been undertaken to appoint Assessment Team officers who focused on multi-lingual approaches. In addition, the team was dedicated in working closely with Health Officers in order to put across quality health advice that everyone clearly understood;
• What was the narrative of paragraph 2.18 on page 25 contained within the report?
  • That numbers had decreased over the last 12 months. This was in partly due to the narrowing and increase in the numbers of children who received an EHCP. This is also partly due to the Pandemic and a reduced throughput of new requests for SEN Support;
• It seemed that there were thresholds being set at different levels which were not accurate?
  • This concept was a central direction that came directly from the DFE;
• In regards to paragraph 2.21 on page 26 contained within the report, which services did not have representation?
  • Ofsted met with families and professionals to discuss the hubs and found that the access to services within the hubs was too variable. This was partly due to the pandemic and some limited access to services;
• Due to the disruption caused by the impact of Covid, what is being addressed to assist children who have missed significant language development?
  • Public Health colleagues were looking at various means to best address this concern;
• What was the impact on children who had hearing difficulties and were unable to have implants?
  • It was recognised from an audiology point of view that to take no action was not good enough. Therefore, Public Health team was investing heavily to improve this area of treatment services;
• Local Authority schools were under immense stress with SEND and the fact that a significant level of transitions were continuous. It was also understood that occasionally children with complex needs were not accompanied with vital information on their needs. Hence, what was the standard ECHP turnaround time?
  • Bradford Authority was at the bottom end of 2019 league table for issuing ECHP Plans however the authority’s performance had improved in 2020. Statistically, the authority was above the national average. Conversely, if a new arrival in the country then the assessment process would begin with a home visit to establish whether a child would need to be fast tracked.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26.

The report of the Chair of the Children’s Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee (Document “J”) includes the Children’s Service Overview and Scrutiny Committee work programme for 2022/23.

Recommended –

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

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

(Mustansir Butt – 01274 432574)

The report of the Chair of the Children’s Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee (Document “J”) included the Children’s Service Overview and Scrutiny Committee work programme for 2022/23.

Resolved –

Members discussed and amended the work programme.

ACTION:  Overview and Scrutiny Lead