Services for Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel

Minutes of the Meeting held on 10 January 2012

Commenced: 4.00pm
Terminated: 5.30pm

Present:

Councillor R Welsh (Chair), Councillor Francis (Deputy Chair)
Councillors Bowden, Cartey, Fitzpatrick, Fowler, Patrick, Peet, Wild.

Mrs Marsh, Mr Osmond, Mr Ahmed.

Apologies for absence:

Councillors Sullivan, White.

Mrs Aspin, Mrs Gregory

The Chair opened the meeting and received apologies.

31. Minutes

The minutes from the last meeting held on 13 December 2011 were approved as a correct record.

32. Special Educational Needs Review

The Panel welcomed Bev Connolly, Head of Integrated Service for Children with Additional Needs, Tameside MBC, and Liz Heeley, Assistant Education Officer, Tameside MBC, to provide an overview of the assessment process for children with SEN in Tameside.

The SEN code of practice guidance ‘Matching Provision to Need’ (2004), helps promote an inclusion friendly framework for effective identification, assessment and provision of SEN within Tameside.

The Council can receive a request for a statutory assessment either from a school or parent. It was highlighted that the majority of requests that the Council receives are from schools.

Once the request has been received a statutory 26 week timescale has to be adhered to. When the request is received the Council has 6 weeks to make a decision whether or not to proceed. If the Council chooses to proceed they have 10 weeks to seek advice from the school, Educational Psychologists and anyone else who has worked with the child. A form is also sent to the child to ask for their views.

The Council has 2 weeks to write a proposed statement or notify the parents of a decision not to make a statement. A further 8 weeks to finalise the statement, which will then run for 12 months. If the parents are unhappy with the decision made by the Council they can contact their named officer or appeal through an independent tribunal.

If a parental request is received, the Local Authority (LA) must investigate the parents concern. It may be that the parents feel that the school isn’t doing enough. During the initial investigation the LA will collect information from the school to determine whether all the available options have been exhausted, this will include School Action and School Action Plus, also whether the school has produced an Individual Education Plan (IEP)

• School Action - 2 x 30min group sessions per week, reading or writing etc.
• School Action Plus- 2 hours of group work and 1 hour of one to one, (IEP).

Schools have a statutory right to ask the LA to conduct a statutory assessment of a child. It is important that the school provides evidence of the measures they have already taken and inform them of progress, if any, that has taken place. Also showing they have involved the parents and the views of the child have been considered.

The Panel was informed by Mrs Connolly that the statutory timescales cannot always be adhered to. In certain circumstances the needs of a child may increase very quickly and immediate intervention is required. In such circumstances the Council will always try to accommodate the needs of the school/parent as soon as possible.

Mrs Connolly also pointed out that there are children without statements who still receive additional support.

The Panel were informed about the funding schools receive. Currently schools should use around 4% of there budget towards provision for children with SEN. They also receive a Pupil Premium, this is additional to main school funding. It is based on the number of children eligible for free school meals, which is also used as an indicator for measuring children with SEN. The funding through the premium will increase from £625m in 2011/12 to £1.25bn in 2012/13. A school currently receives £488 per pupil, which is set to increase to £600 in 2012/13.

The Panel would like to receive a breakdown of how the funding and Pupil Premium is calculated.

Resolved: The Scrutiny Support & Coordination Officer to circulate information to the Panel in relation to the breakdown of the funding schools receive and the Pupil Premium.

Panel meetings are held every fortnight, the Panel is made up of Educational Psychologists, Inclusion Consultant, school representative, Education Officer etc. The Panel make decisions on the cases presented to them by the Assistant Education Officer.

The Panel requested information on the dates and times of forthcoming Panel meetings, with the option for members to attend to familiarise themselves with the process.

Resolved: The Scrutiny Support & Coordination Officer to obtain future Panel meeting dates and circulate them to the panel.

The Panel was presented with examples of the decisions made by Tameside MBC over a 12 month period. During the 2010/11 academic year 18 requests for statutory assessment were refused, of which 7 were parental requests. The Panel discussed 80 cases, of which 66 received statements and 14 were refused.

It was highlighted that the highest amount of assessment requests came from children with a Moderate Learning Difficulty (MLD) along with children with autism and behavioural needs. It was pointed out to the Panel that the average age of children being tested is around the ages of 7,8 and 9 (Key stage 2). It was also mentioned that children with severe learning difficulties were identified at an early age, before school age.

Example papers were passed to members relating to letters that had been sent to parents when a child does not meet the criteria for assessment. Forms were also circulated that are completed by parents and other professionals, which form part of the assessment.

The Panel asked Mrs Connolly and Mrs Heeley whether they felt there are any areas they would like the Scrutiny Panel to look at as part of the SEN review and report.

Mrs Connolly and Mrs Heeley raised issues relating to support staff that are employed to assist the children with SEN in schools. They are currently employed by the schools and it can be difficult to utilise the staff effectively. It could be more efficient for the support staff to be employed by the Council, therefore they could be evenly distributed between schools rather than fixed at one location.

It was also pointed out that the SEN team have faced significant reductions in staff due to the severance exercise. This can make it more difficult when statements need to be reviewed.
The Panel thanked Bev Connolly and Liz Heeley for their contributions to the review.

32. Review Amended Project Plan

The Panel discussed the draft SEN Review project plan. Adjustments had been made to the plan to accommodate for the Panel to attend a tour of a mainstream and/or a special school. It was also agreed that the Panel will meet with a representative from a school at the next panel meeting to be held on 7 February 2012.

33. SEN Report 2004

Paul Radcliffe, Scrutiny Support & Coordination Officer, Tameside MBC provided the Panel with a brief overview of the SEN Report 2004 and the Executive Response.

34. Local Government Act 2000 – Urgent Items

The Chair reported that there were no urgent items for consideration at this meeting.

Chair