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. Every child in Bradford was supported;
• What if it is established that a child struggled from depression and anxiety issues then how was such conditions in children assisted?
  • there was a recognition of mental illness and services were delivered according to availability. During this process, the authority worked in consultation with colleagues across the CCG;
• What provision was in place to assist children who were unable to attend school due to a disability?

o   Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 placed a duty on Local Authority’s to make suitable alternative education for children of statutory school age who could not attend school because of an illness, exclusion or any other reason;

·         In response to a child being excluded, then entering a Pupil Referral Unit, was any assessment undertaken to establish whether there were issues relating to behaviour?

o   An assessment was carried out to check whether a child had ADHD symptoms;

·         What was the number of permanent staff with this service?

o   In the region of 40+ full time officers that were employed directly by the authority;

·         Following assessment, how long were parents expected to wait before being diagnosed?

o   31 weeks. However, the authority had been using an external organisation to reduce the length of time. On a significant change, it was important to recognise that service was in confident place as a partnership working arrangement with other organisation; and,

·         Further to the report explaining that health colleagues were aware that the assessment compliance rates for completion within 20 days were not being achieved and a steering group had been established to address this, how confident was the service in meeting the 20 days’ assessment compliance?

o   To date, in the region of 80% of children had been assessed within the expected timeframe. The service was endeavoured to meet national compliance, however, the occasional process with professionals such as Consultant Paediatricians assessed with comprehensive developmental evaluations entailed a lengthy process.

During the latter part of the discussion, a member turned the committee’s attention to the number of children who were not enrol in schools and therefore spending time aimlessly at unsafe locations without the knowledge of parents’. This was also the result of an increasing number of suspensions. It was paramount that the service equally turns its focus on undertaking a big piece of work to address this topic for the purpose of the wellbeing of young children.

The Chair thanked officers for their attendance at the meeting.

Resolved –

This Committee requests that the progress against the Written Statements of Action, (WSOA), Improvement Plan, be presented to this Committee at its meeting on Wednesday 18 January 2023.

ACTION:  Strategic Director, Children’s Services