Agenda item

Report ECHS19062

The Committee considered a report presenting the 6-monthly update of the Children, Education and Families Portfolio Plan 2018-22.

The Plan focussed on four priority outcomes: Safeguarding, Life chances, resilience and wellbeing, Implement the SEND reforms, and Ensuring efficiency and effectiveness. 

Members noted that key achievements of the 2018 to 2022 Portfolio Plan for the second half of 2018/19 were:

Priority 1 – Safeguarding:

·  The Bromley Safeguarding Children Board held a successful conference during the autumn 2018 providing training and greater awareness of safeguarding issues in Bromley.

·  The first annual Children’s Social Care Conference, held in October 2018, focussed on social work values and practice including safeguarding. The second annual conference was planned for October 2019.

·  The Children’s Performance Framework was now embedded with associated weekly, monthly and annual reports and analysis provided; The monthly Performance Digests for Children’s Social Care and Education had been refreshed.

Priority 2 – Life chances, resilience and wellbeing:

·  A new school improvement strategy was presented to maintained schools on 29 April 2019.

·  Work to close the achievement and progress gap continued with the Improving Outcomes for Bromley’s Disadvantaged Pupils Conference and recruitment to the Closing the Gap project.A Summer conference on reciprocal reading was planned for July 2019

·  Commissioningof complementary vocational alternative provision offer was underway, using a £250k p.a. pump prime investment

·  There had been 1 permanent exclusion from primary schools in 2018/19 year to date.

Priority 3 – Implement the SEND Reforms:

·  7 Primary Specialist Leaders in Education had been recruited, training had taken place and they were ready to commence delivery in schools to model effective practice in supporting pupils who had SEND.

·  Establishing Service Level Agreements with all mainstream schools with additionally resourced provision.

·  The SEN Statutory Assessment Team had been restructured with case allocations realigned providing a far greater emphasis on placing children and young people at the centre.

·  A Group Leader had been appointed to lead the SEN Advisory Teams, bringing together expertise and a much stronger offer of support to schools and settings across the continuum of provision and age range (0-25yrs).

·  A Quality Assurance and Improvement Lead (QAIL) was being appointed to drive the improvements in working practices, quality and timeliness of the statutory process.

·  The extended 2019-22 strategy was being drafted for implementation in September 2019

·  An Expression of Interest had been successful to establish a new primary Free Special School for children who had ASD with a profile of more complex needs. Phase 2 was underway and the school was likely to open in September 2020.

Priority 4 – Ensuring efficiency and effectiveness:

·  User Voice Framework launched in October 2018 continued to help improve how the department collated and used feedback from residents and service users, with associated guidance and best practice being rolled out.

In response to a question concerning the impact of moving to temporary accommodation on levels of school attendance, the Director of Children’s Social Care confirmed that issues were managed on a case by case basis.  Issues centred on the size of families and the availability of suitable property but families were always located as near as possible.  The Director of Education noted that families could not be forced to move their children to a different, more local, school when they were placed in temporary accommodation.  Whilst the Local Authority had a duty of care, Officers would seek to work with and support families.  Ultimately it was a decision for individual families who may want some continuity in their child’s life and for their child to maintain existing friendship groups and support networks.  The Director of Education confirmed that Education Welfare Officers would always follow up where concerns about individual attendance had been raised.

The Chairman noted that in the past the Committee had received a report concerning the sufficiency of childcare places across the Borough.  It was agreed that this should be added to the work programme.

In response to a question, the Director of Education confirmed that ensuring that there was sufficient local provision for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) was inherent in all the work undertaken by his department.  Over the previous few months there had been a drive in terms of engagement and this work had resulted in the  development of an engagement strategy.  In terms of sufficiency, the application for a new free school in the Borough had been approved and in-depth work had begun.  A further needs analysis would be conducted and work to deliver additional secondary places had been factored into the departmental work plan for the year.  The Director of Education confirmed that parental engagement would be part of the process.

The Committee requested that an update on narrowing the educational gap be presented to the next meeting.

RESOLVED: That progress on the actions associated with the Children, Education and Families Portfolio Plan 2018/22 for the second half of 2018/19 be noted.