Agenda item

NB This was originally set as Agenda Point 6 but it was discussed and agreed in the meeting that it would make more sense to go through this information as agenda item 4 first before discussing the Schools Block Transfer.

 

Renata Chantrill presented on the Paper which addresses the work to date on the SEND Investment Fund and how the Local Authority are looking to spend the funds to support children and young people with social, emotional and mental health needs within the 2025/26 academic year.

 

The purpose of looking at the paper in forum was to update on where we are and discuss the confirmed offers due to be launched in mainstream educational settings within Leicestershire. The offers have been co-produced with a working group of schools to ensure funding is being spent in the most impactful areas. Work is now being completed to finalise these offers and launch them during the next term.

 

The following summary of offers was provided:

 

• Fully funded SEMH training will be available for all maintained schools - Areas include training on Trauma Informed Approaches, ADHD and Emotionally Based School non-attendance. It was confirmed that a contribution towards backfill costs would be provided from the fund to help with attendance for full-day courses.
• Primary in-school Alternative Provision and Outreach Support – offer includes an extension to existing Oakfield support to provide additional drop-ins and increased capacity to help reduce existing waiting time to access support. Also, there will be a pilot for primary in-school alternative provision support via new Graduated Response practitioners, and a team of Speech and Language therapists to support the Oakfield Outreach offer which will cover both Primary and Secondary schools.
• Secondary in-school Alternative Provision an Outreach Support – The Oakfield Outreach offer will also be available for Secondary schools as this has been identified as a particular gap. There we be a new Multi-Disciplinary Outreach team run through the new Oakfield Secondary, who will be going into schools to help support children and young people.
• Introduction of Online Consultations focusing on supporting professionals working with children and young people experiencing emotionally-based school non-attendance. This will be led by the Educational Psychology Services.
• Introduction of a directory of support and advice for schools to help easily signpost available services. It will provide clear guidance on how to access support, book training courses and engage with new initiatives.

 

There will be a number of impact measures put in place to help monitor the effectiveness and relevance of these offers. The measures include gathering early initial feed back from schools to enable ongoing tailoring and improvement of services if something is not working.

 

Further reports on progress will be brought to School’s Forum over the next 12 months around how these measures are being implemented and if they are resulting in the required impact.

 

Carolyn Shoyer expressed her support and encouragement for the proposals offered, which also resonates with the work of the Diocese. It was also mentioned that the Children’s Commissioner, Rachel de Souza had published “The Children’s Plan: The Children’s Commissioner’s School Census” the previous day, and much of what is being proposed by the Local Authority resonates with some of the themes outlined in the report. Carolyn noted that there is a lot of work to do to support schools and expressed the need for clear communication so that everyone involved is working collectively to address the issues and act on the system working together.

 

Dr Jude Mellor was appreciative of there being more clarity on how the SEND Investment Fund is being utilised. She expressed some concerns over the sustainability of some of the offers. Dr Jude also expressed her concerns around the amount of the fund appointed to staffing, which it appears has not yet been appointed so means that school may not see staff until after October half-term. She noted that the transfer of funding has resulted in tangible staffing cuts in school and now ironically, some of those people will need to be reintroduced into the system, but with a gap of 8 weeks, and the worry is what is going to happen at the end of this academic year with regards to approving further funding. Dr Jude noted that the evaluation of the impact will not be provided until the end of this academic year and when asking for funding for the 2027/2028 academic year, queried how will the fact that we are already behind with implementing the use of the funding this year be accounted for.

 

Renata acknowledged that she was conscious of the gap with recruitment and that the Authority are working to bring staff in as quickly as possible. The issue around sustainability has been core to the conversations had within the working group when looking at what support is being put in place. The proposed training, and Outreach staff going into schools to help upskill school staff working with children and young people with SEMH needs, is intended to support a more sustainable approach. The awareness that some of what’s on offer has a finite end, particularly in terms of Outreach staffing that will be put in place, is something that is continuing to be considered collectively.

 

Pete Leatherland noted that the proposals look great but he was unable to clearly see in the paper how they will actually alleviate pressure on the High Needs Block spending, or how it would prevent students from going on to get EHCP’s. He noted there is no evidence of any milestones that are aiming to be reached.

 

Renata advised that the proposals have been designed to help support mainstream settings to be more inclusive in general for children with SEMH needs and the intention is to try to keep more children within mainstream settings where suitable. The approach is one of prevention, putting strategies in place earlier to help stop needs escalating to a point where they need an EHCP or a move to a specialist provision. We are conscious that some of the strategies are going to take time to bed in, and we might not see the impact of them until towards the end of the academic year, or possibly the following year, so measures for the fund will initially be more focused on what we have been able to deliver. With regards to the lack of milestones with the documents shared with Forum today, more detailed work around the impact will be picked up in the next working group.

 

Phil Lewin voiced his support for the direction which is being suggested, especially around the Speech and Language aspect, but agreed that it’s difficult to see what the outcomes of all this will be. There is the hope that there will be a resulting reduction of EHCP’s, but there may be pressure for some people to be pushed along the EHCP route as this is currently a way to get more funding for schools that are struggling.

 

Suzanne Uprichard questioned whether there is consideration being given to the fact that more parents are pushing for their children to have an EHCP in school.

 

Renata agreed that the Local Authority have seen an increase in the number or requests coming through from parents, and the working group are keen to put additional support in for parents and carers through the SEND Investment Fund. For example, they are looking at possibly providing training and education sessions for parents wo help with understanding their children’s needs and strategies to manage them. However, the funding for this would be relatively limited so is being looked at in the wider terms of the Local Authorities education services to see what other support can be offered locally.

 

Martin Towers questioned whether the money being used for recruitment was for recruiting permanent or temporary roles, and if temporary, is that why not all roles have been filled yet.

 

Renata advised that roles being recruited for are a combination of temporary and permanent. A new role which is currently being recruited for the first time is for temporary Assistant Educational Psychologists, and there has been significantly more applications than expected, so applicants are not being put off by the temporary nature of the roles we are recruiting for.

 

Dr Jude Mellor questioned whether people who are appointed to start after the October half term, will their post run to the next October half term and what impact would that have on the funds allocated.

 

Tim Browne advised that the money used to create the fund will essentially form part of the high needs block, so the money will be drawn down from that in order to make sure that the full value of the fund is realised throughout the 12 month period, some of the spend will start straight away and some will be lagged. There are added complications due to academies having a different financial year to maintained schools/the Local Authority, so the accountancy flexibility needs to be adopted to ensure the school system is getting full value from the fund and the right level of support.

 

Beth Clements offered some further reassurance regarding the impact of these new proposals and trying to implement a model of the right support at the right time and place through the fund. In terms of recruitment, some of the positions can be filled utilising existing Local Authority staff who work part time and have flexibility to offer temporary part time provision to schools. The hope is that we will be able to produce some really effective results and come back together to look at the benefits and possible future changes.

 

 

The LA made the following recommendation:

 

2.That Schools’ Forum is asked to note the offers to be funded for the 2025/26 academic year and the approach to measure the impact of the fund.

 

There were no further questions or comments from members on this report.