Issue - meetings

[Report of the Director for Children’s Services to be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Families.]

To provide Cabinet with an update on the SEND Transport Transformation Plan to address the recommendations of the Cabinet meeting of 10th December 2019.

Clerk’s Note -Cllr Chandwani, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods re-joined the meeting.

The Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Families introduced the report which set out the response to the resolutions made at the Cabinet meeting on 10 December 2019.

The Cabinet Member advised that, following listening to the views of parent’s and carers of children with disabilities, the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, and Councillors, the report was proposing not continuing with the procurement of a transformation partner for the SEND service. In addition, the required period for progressing the contract had expired and the report detailed this.

The Cabinet Member advised that, instead the Council would be supporting development of the SEND service through a change programme. This would be focused on improving the service to accommodate disabled children’s different needs. Steps had already been taken to include buddies on transport provision and the Council had enlisted an experienced external organisation for consulting with parents and carers on development of the service going forward. The Cabinet Member was absolutely clear that the best advice, on the service provision going forward, would be from parents and carers.

In response to questions from Councillor Palmer, it was noted that:

·         The Cabinet Member’s aim was working directly with parents and ensuring disabled children can get to school in a happy and contented way and encouraging parents to come forward and help shape the service.

·         The service was starting to meet with parents and carers, and exploring options to reach out to all stakeholders. Parents and carers had completed a survey in Feb 2020 which had provided a clear indication of issues experienced. In immediate response to the feedback, the application process for transport had been updated. Also the SEND policy, which had been compiled in 2018, would be looked at. There were reports being compiled on this and Cllr Palmer requested a copy.

·         It was acknowledged that co-production had many components to get right and assurance was given that focus would be ensuring all users of the service were reached. Activities would be taken forward with parents in an active collaborative way and the service would be listening to parents to help shape the service going forward.

·          The Cabinet Member was meeting with parents and carers this week and there was engagement and stakeholder group meeting planned for the 24th of June.

·         The procurement window for decision making on a transformation partner had now ended and to restart this would mean a much later decision at the end of the year. This was too late for meeting the forthcoming transport needs of families. Instead the service were focusing on providing reliable consistent transport for September.

·         Officer time spent on preparing for working with an external partner had not been specifically logged. However, the type of activities that were taken forward were business as usual tasks focused on co -production for transport provision. There would not be any value in undertaking an analysis on the resources undertaken on the procurement  ...  view the full minutes text for item 237