Agenda item

Areas of the latest draft of the SEN Strategic Plan that are still being developed/evaluated

Minutes:

Lynne Samuel, Senior Finance Specialist continued the presentation and some of the points made by her are listed below:

 

·           Officers were aware that conversations at Schools Forum were always at very high level and there had not been activity detail in previous presentations;

·           The information that was being gathered including the trends, as previously described by Matthew Booth, and was being used to link with finance issues;

·           A lot of the SEND information, for financial planning purposes, was based on the annual January census;

·           The data from the January 2020 census had changed during the year, impacting on the current financial forecast;

·           The figures in the report contained data from the last three years and a snapshot of the current situation, in an effort to give a flavour of the current financial position, and in advance of consultation with Schools Forum on the 201/22 HNB Budget submission;

·           There was a challenge in linking data from EHCPs (which were collated in a different system) into finance systems, this created difficulties in analysing data;

·           Not all EHCP’s drew resources from the HNB, the report contained a breakdown;

·           The report contained information about funding, including how top-ups were calculated;

·           Top-up funding for mainstream schools had not been reviewed for a number of years, its revision was part of the improvement programme;

·           A review of the National SEN factor in the Schools Block Funding Formula had been identified as a recommendation for the Task and Finish Group for the 2022/23 financial year.

 

Resource Bases

·           The report contained detailed information about resource bases in the Borough;

·           Richard Tipping, Category Manager Adult and Children’s Social Care stated that schools had been engaged in the initial review process of resource bases, but had not been kept as informed they should have been.  This was due to issues with staff leaving and Covid-19.  There were significant differences as to how resource base places were funded, there was an intention to move towards a smaller number of categories and the affected schools were being involved in discussions;

·           Richard Tipping stated that it was recognised that a review of resource bases funding had not taken place for a long time, and this was a significant piece of work which was now being undertaken.  There was an interim arrangement in place until the end of this financial year.  It was hoped that by the end of the financial year the review would have been completed and new funding arrangements would be implemented.  He stated that Schools Forum would be kept informed of the outcome of this exercise.

 

Special Schools

·            Lynne Samuel stated that the report contained financial information in relation to the special schools in the Borough and also independent and Out of Borough placements;

·           The report contained a breakdown of EHCP numbers per placement and Key Stage;

·           The most expensive placements accounted for a disproportionate amount of the HNB overspend.  It was important to understand the cause for this, whether it was because of previous practices or other reasons and how to move forward;

·           The report explained how the funding contribution from Health and Social Care was used to fund placements.

 

Post-16

·           There was a breakdown of Post-16 placements in the report;

·           The report contained detail of top up funding from the HNB to Post-16 placements;

·           The report covered the commissioning arrangements and explained the increase in demand from legislative changes;

·           The Chairman asked if the local authority had the expertise to deal with the increase in demand due to legislative changes in Post-16 legislation ;

·           Sonia Aulak, SEND Project Manager stated that there were colleagues in the local authority with Post-16 expertise who were already working towards planning and understanding the demands of Post-16 SEND.

 

PRU

·           There was a programme of work to review the PRU funding arrangements which was being developed with Jay Blundell;

·           Schools Forum would be updated on the outcome of this improvement programme;

·           A meeting with Jay Blundell and officers had already taken place to start the improvement programme;

·           Jay Blundell asked for clarification on the £64k for Outreach Service (page 20).  She believed that this was funding which Sal Thirlway had allocated to Foundry College last year to deal with a particular crisis in the primary sector.  She was under the impression that this was a one off;

·           Jay Blundell stated that all the objectives listed in the 5 year vision plan had arisen as a result of areas of support and referral that had come up during her last four years as head, for which there was no other support available.  She would like to find out if there was a need for those services and to formalise their funding;

·           Lynne Samuel agreed to discuss the detail of the £64k with Jay Blundell outside of the meeting.

 

Therapy

·           Richard Tipping stated that almost all schools received support through the Civic contract, which had been extended for a further year.  Over the next year there would be ongoing work with partners across Berkshire to try and achieve a joined up approach to this service, Wokingham was leading this joint approach.  As part of this work, schools would be consulted in regards to their needs and if any changes were required.

 

SEND Sufficiency Project

·           Richard Tipping stated that this was currently under discussion for approval.  This project would be developed in the first six months of next year.  It was hoped that very detailed proposals for the next five years, to ensure sufficiency of places in the Borough, would be produced.  It would include plans to deal with the issue of the expensive Out of Borough placements.

 

Lynne Samuel stated that it was very complex to try and analyse the whole system, and it had been an important exercise for the finance team to put together this report.  The report tried to set out all factors that were going to be taken into account in setting up the 2021/22 Budget.  The there was a desire to be transparent and improve understanding of the figures.