Agenda item

[Brenda Wile, Deputy Director of Education, and Julia Cleary, Scrutiny and Systems Manager, to present report. The panel will be asked to consider the remit of the group, the frequency of meetings and the governance arrangements ] – report to follow

The Chair invited Emma Bennett, Executive Director of Families, to present the report.

The Executive Director briefed the panel on the decision by Council on 1 December 2021 to establish a review group relating to the issues detailed in the SEND Written Statement of Action (WSOA).

The Executive Director advised the panel that Council agreed that a report should be presented to the first meeting of Strong Families, Children and Young People Scrutiny with proposals to establish a cross party scrutiny review group. The report details the remit, terms of reference, frequency of meetings, membership, and governance arrangements.

The Executive Director advised the panel that a draft of the WSOA was presented to the panel earlier in the year for comments before it was approved by Cabinet and later signed off by Ofsted.

The Council and partner agencies have been given 18 months to address the issues highlighted in the WSOA. There was a discussion at the time about the benefit of a subgroup of Councillors with the role of monitoring progress against the actions detailed in the WSOA. The report presented to the panel follows on from that discussion about how this idea could be taken forward.

The Executive Director invited Julia Cleary, Scrutiny and Systems Manager, to present further details of the plans for setting up a Cross Party Scrutiny Review Group. The Scrutiny and Systems Manager outlined the remit, frequency of meetings and reporting arrangements and the process for appointing members.

The Scrutiny and Systems Manager added that where possible the meetings of the group would be held in public, unless there was a good reason for not doing so. The aim is that meetings will start in September 2022 and the work would be expected to be completed within six months. However, there is scope to extend the timeline, for example if more time was needed to take evidence from a specific group.

The Scrutiny and Systems Manager commented that following this meeting there would be discussions with the respective political group leaders and the Chair and Vice Chair to nominate five members from the panel to be appointed to the review group. The Scrutiny and Systems Manager added that the report suggests that there would be three nominations from the majority group and two nominations from the opposition group, with the possibility of two members being co-opted from Youth Council.

The panel was invited to comment on the report and the recommendations.

The panel queried the plans for engaging with the public about the ideas for development of the site and suggested that members of Hi5, who are young people with educational needs and disabilities, should be involved. The Executive Director supported this idea and added that the group had already been identified as one that should be asked to be involved in the project.

The panel discussed the membership of the group alternatives to the proposed arrangements.

The panel suggested that the work of the working group should focus on the six areas detailed in the WSOA to add value to the process.

The panel agreed to support the report recommendations.

Resolved:

The panel agreed to accept the remit, terms of reference, and frequency of meetings as detailed in the report to establish a Cross Party Scrutiny Review Group – SEND WSOA.