Agenda item

Report of the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People

[Members of the SEND Working Group invited to attend for this item]

The Select Committee considered the draft Cabinet paper on the Children and Families System Transformation Part 2, noting progress made. The Cabinet Member for Children and Young People reminded members that developments with the System Transformation had previously been considered by the Select Committee.

Members received a presentation outlining the whole system model for change and progress to date, highlighting outcomes, which included:

·         effectively managing the removal of the £2.4m Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) funding plus delivering an additional circa £750k as part of the Transformation process;

·         achieved £4.2m Earned Autonomy funding;

·         18% reduction in Local Support Team (LST) caseloads over the past 12 months;

·         17% reduction in the total number of social care cases open in the last 12 months;

·         piloted district Locality Hubs in the Moorlands and South Staffordshire; and,

·         worked with partners to develop a graduated response to need.

Additional pressures had included an increase in the number of looked after children and subsequent pressures on care and court planning, and the Virtual School.

The Select Committee received details of: the underpinning values to the Transformation; the Staffordshire Model; investment in elements of the model; and, stabilizing actions required to address the looked after children number increase. Members also received details of the Business Case for £8.1m investment from 2019/2020 to 2025/26 with a predicted cashable return on investment of £17.072m by 2025/26 and a non-cashable saving of £15.611m from growth avoidance. Members heard that with the current Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) commitment delivered, the underlying overspend on looked after children mitigated, and the predicted return on investment, the impact on the overall MTFS by 2025/26 would be an improved position of £3.453m, with a projected break even date of April 2023.

Members also received details of the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) changes as part of the whole system approach. Stabilisation activity had been introduced to mitigate the funding shortfall for SEND. Future delivery provision would be part of the District Model and would inform the SEND strategy, with funding for children with SEND being via the high needs block.  Key elements of the SEND Transformation included: SEND locality hubs; inclusive mainstream education settings for children with moderate learning difficulties; broadening the remit of Special Schools to support mainstream settings; and, the Special Schools Strategy. It was important to look at the individual child’s needs rather than a “label” to ensure appropriate support. More focused SEND partnership working was in place, which included representation from parents and carers. There was also a change to the way in which need was responded to, which aimed to provide a timely, appropriate and graduated response.

Members noted that the Out of County Placements (OCP) for children with specific SEND were independent non state funded special schools.

Members agreed that to “do nothing” was not an option and that the proposals were welcomed. However, there was concern that the success of much of this work was dependent on partnership working and the need to ensure each partner was fully engaged. The SEND Locality Hubs were welcomed but Members highlighted the necessity for all areas to be working well with this model. Concern was also expressed around possible difficulties in persuading some partners to engage fully with this process, with academies suggested as one potential area of difficulty as the Authority could not require them to attend. The Cabinet Member informed the Select Committee that buy-in from all schools to the SEND Hubs had been very good to date and a lot of place-based work was already successfully taking place.

One of the significant findings in the SEND Ofsted report had been around co-production, and ensuring a relationship developed that allowed relevant partners to contribute to the development of SEND was essential. A governance model had been produced which also took account of how work would be allocated and completed at a district level. The initial hub development had been successful and the expectation was that these would be developed within all of the eight district and boroughs by September 2020. Over half Staffordshire schools were now academies, however all schools were aware of their accountability and statutory responsibilities and the Local Authority worked with academies and academy trusts to ensure that they were part of these developments and saw the value in this partnership working. All schools within South Staffordshire and around the North Staffordshire hub had been fully engaged, with the hub process working well.

In the first phase of the Place Based Approach (PBA) in 2015/16 successful pilot projects had been undertaken in Tamworth and Newcastle. This learning had been successfully rolled out across the County, with some areas having been easier than others. Partnership working had seen district and boroughs, the Police and the Office of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (OPFCC) coming together in the eight localities to identify areas of work that would effect positive change in their area. Robust governance was in place around all this work. The earned autonomy status from the Building Resilient Families and Communities programme (BRFC) had meant that money could be allocated against initiatives agreed by the local partnerships. Monthly performance meetings were held to scrutinise performance against priorities to ensure the investment was working, with good outcomes already evidenced, such as a 7% reduction in anti-social behaviour in Tamworth and a reduction in permanent school exclusions in two other districts.

The Cabinet Member informed the Select Committee that a robust plan was in place to ensure effective roll out of hubs, with a risk register developed to enable mitigation of identified risks. A governance structure had been developed to manage the process and to ensure that the plan met key milestones. Members requested a copy of the plan to help in their future scrutiny of progress made.

Whilst supporting the proposed new approach the Select Committee were aware that it would require significant changes to culture and practice and asked whether this was an indication that the current system was wrong. The Cabinet Member informed them that over a period of time everything developed and there was a need to change systems and ways of working to ensure best outcomes, such as through the development of restorative practice and whole family working.

On considering the significant cultural changes required for this new approach, Members highlighted the difficulties in ensuring all staff were motivated and supported the changes and were assured that work had been, and continued to be undertaken to support this change.

Members noted that the Ofsted inspection of children’s social services had been positive and asked whether the significant changes proposed in the Transformation System would result in losing some of this good practice. The Cabinet Member informed them that regular meetings were held with representatives from Ofsted, outside of the formal inspection processes. Ofsted had indicated they were happy with the proposed changes and direction of travel, which had taken into account the work of a number of local authorities who had been judged as “outstanding”.

It was also noted that statutory interventions were seen as a last resort, with children only coming into the care system if they were at risk of serious harm. The new system was designed to work with the whole family, with this intensive family support enabling more children to stay in their family setting and fewer being brought into the care system.

The Select Committee noted that North Yorkshire was referred to as an outstanding authority from which learning had informed the development of Staffordshire’s Transformation proposals. They were informed that during the development of the Transformation programme evidence of ways of working had been gathered from many areas, including authorities judged as outstanding, including Essex, Leeds, East Sussex and North Yorkshire. A number of authorities had received innovation funding, with most of these authorities using this funding for family group conference work, which was one of the areas Staffordshire was now putting in place to support the intensive family support and reduce the number of looked after children. It had been felt that transforming the model as a whole would result in better and more joined up ways of working, rather than developing individual parts of the service in isolation, particularly as each part impacted on the other. Learning from other local authorities which had informed decisions for Staffordshire proposals had included both the areas that worked and those areas that in hindsight suggested a different approach.

Members sought reassurance that the decision making process using the one front door approach had the right intelligence base to enable appropriate decisions to be taken. They also referred to information they had recently received in respect of Catch 22 and Domestic Abuse (DA), highlighting the vital importance of effective  information sharing to enable informed and accurate decision making. Information was gathered through the Early Help systems. The Cabinet Member offered to forward details of how the new IT system would work after the meeting to highlight the breadth of information shared between partners to enable the most effective decision making for service users.

Members noted the rise in unaccompanied asylum seekers and the work undertaken by the Virtual Schools to support them.

Whilst the Select Committee were pleased to note the extra staff resource the Transformation Programme allowed, they had concerns over difficulties in recruitment of appropriately trained staff. The biggest section of recruitment was around family support workers , which was also the easiest area to recruit to. Qualified social workers and educational psychologists were difficult to recruit, and this was a national problem. Wider recruitment tools were being used as well as work to enable Staffordshire to grow and train their own staff resource.

Members felt this proposed approach was very aspirational and had some concerns that the Transformation and its subsequent savings were based on a number of assumptions. Whilst understanding the reasons behind this the Select Committee felt it imperative to ensure milestones were met and progress effective. To help support this process they proposed creating a working group to meet monthly, or as appropriate, to scrutinise the progress made.

RESOLVED – That:

a)    the progress made to date on the Children and Families System Transformation Part 2, the system aspiration and investment be noted;

b)    further detail on how the new IT system enables effective information sharing be forwarded to Members;

c)    a copy of plan for developing the roll out of hubs, giving key milestones, be forwarded to the Select Committee to enable them to monitor and scrutinise progress made;

d)    a Select Committee working group be established to monitor progress made on a monthly (or as appropriate) basis with the following membership:

·         Bob Spencer

·         Ann Beech

·         Ron Clarke

·         Mike Worthington

·         Paul Snape