Michele Lucas thanked the Committee for providing scrutiny and challenge to the action plan in this municipal year. She went on to present the report on pages 33 – 72.

Councillor Muldowney highlighted her concerns on A2 where the NEET figures had increased in comparison to the last report and questioned how the service would be addressing this. She sought clarification on how A2 and A5 had progressed to green. She was pleased to hear that the service was working on the local offer and said that she had attended some of the parent carer groups and had found it difficult to find the relevant information as a parent/carer. She also sought more detail on the Quality Assurance (QA) visits that took place on 11 and 18 December.

In regards to the NEET figures, Michele Lucas answered that the service had been successful in its Kickstart programme and DWP had some delays partly because the programme had been oversubscribed. The Local Authority had 30 opportunities in the Kickstart programme and the service was looking at how they could support their SEND learners in that. With young people who were NEET, the service had produced videos of young people talking about their experiences on some of the service’s programmes which included Supported Internship programmes and post 16 programmes. Michele Lucas said that she would send an update to the Committee on how the actions of A2 and A5 had progressed from amber to green. In regards to the local offer, Michele Lucas said that Ofsted had not picked this up but the service had. She highlighted the importance of refreshing the local offer to involve parents/carers, children and young people in the delivery of the service to ensure it functioned better.

In regards to the QA visits, Malcolm Taylor said that these were carried out virtually on two of the service’s independent special schools to get an update on the key issues that had been picked up by the previous Ofsted inspection. The service was satisfied with the answers and progress given by the two independent special schools. The discussion focussed on the key issues of the two independent special schools ensuring that the quality of their service was delivering the appropriate needs for the service’s children and also discussed other issues in regards of paperwork; safeguarding links; how many children were in the schools; how children’s needs had been supported during the pandemic; and how these had been discussed with their parents. The QA visits were in addition to the annual reviews that took place around the EHCPs which focused on the individual needs and progress of those pupils and also in addition to the social care visits that took place

The Chair highlighted some discrepancies within the RAG colouring of the actions where some were yellow to which Michele Lucas said she would look at and update.

RESOLVED:

O&S to scrutinise the work that has been undertaken during the period outlined in the report and offer support and challenge.