Agenda item

(To receive a report from Eileen McMorrow, Senior Project Officer SEND Review, which provides the Committee with an update on the consultation on the Building Communities of Specialist Provision Strategy; and to advise of the revised timeline for Executive decision making)

Consideration was given to a report which provided the Committee with an update on the consultation on the Building Communities of Specialist Provision Strategy and also informed members of the revised timeline for Executive decision making.

The Committee was already aware that the Strategy being consulted on proposed to make significant changes to existing special education provision in Lincolnshire.  It aimed to create an integrated and sustainable school system where pupils with additional needs could attend their nearest school, confident that their education and health needs could be fully met.

Members were also advised that the strategy had been collaboratively produced with all Special School Leaders, Lincolnshire County Council and the Lincolnshire Parent Carer Forum to ensure the proposed model was based upon sector expertise and parental views. 

Importantly, members were reminded that the strategy proposed to address the current system pressures which were making the existing system unsustainable which included

·         increased demand on a limited number of school places,

·         excessively long journeys for a significant number of pupils,

·         the potentially detrimental impact of some Out of County placements on families

·         the need for significant improvements to some special school buildings.

The proposed strategy was presented to this Committee on 1st December 2017 and to Executive on 5th December 2017.  Approval was granted to engage in public consultation on both the proposed strategy and the proposed changes to individual schools simultaneously. The strategy was subject to public consultation over a 9 week period from 8th January 2018 to 14th March 2018.

The report provided members with a brief summary of the consultation process, some initial outcomes from the consultation and the revised timeline on the next steps.  Since the report was written, members were advised that officers had also received two petitions – one in support of the proposal and one in opposition.  These petitions would both be included as part of the consultation and would be included in the analysed consultation findings which would be scrutinised by this Committee at the appropriate time.

It was reported that the timeline had been amended to ensure all Academy Trusts and the Regional School Commissioner had sufficient time to consider the outcomes of the consultation and also to ensure that the final decision made by Executive was informed by public consultation, the decision of Academy Trusts and the Regional School Commissioner.

In terms of the timeline, the public consultation period for this strategy had now ended, with initial findings summarised in the report.

The implementation of the Strategy, if approved, would be complex as the authority would need to co-ordinate a number of processes in the maintained and Academy sectors.  The timeline was reviewed to ensure that the different processes could, as far as possible, be aligned.  This would ensure that Council decision-makers had as much information as possible about what was happening across the system, to inform their decision.

As the consultation was now complete, the next stage would be to share the findings with the Academy Trusts to enable them to make their decisions regarding the proposals affecting their schools.

If there continued to be support for the proposals, each Trust would submit a business plan to the Regional School Commissioner, who was the formal decision-maker for changes to an Academy.  This would be done by the 21st June 2018 in line with DfE guidance.

Changes to Local Authority Maintained schools go through a significantly different process and the Council was required to conduct a statutory consultation by publishing a formal notice and allowing 4 weeks for the making of representations.

The Executive Councillor would consider the outcomes of the first stage of consultation and decide whether to proceed to the formal representation period in July 2018 with the representation period starting in September to avoid the school holiday period.

By making this decision in July, the Executive Councillor would know which Academy Trust Business Cases had been submitted to the Regional School Commissioner and the Regional School Commissioner's decision was likely to have already been shared. This gives additional assurance that the required system-wide co-ordination was being achieved.

When making the decision in July to progress to statutory consultation, the Executive Councillor would consider the fully analysed consultation findings.  These findings would also be shared with the members of the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee at this point but will not be considered formally by the Committee until later in the process.  This was consistent with the Council's usual process in terms of school organisation changes, where the decision to consult was not the subject of scrutiny but the final decision was.

The consultation findings would therefore be formally considered by the Committee at the meeting in October 2018.  A final decision would then be taken by the full Executive at its meeting in November 2018.

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         In relation to the breakdown of consultation results, it was queried whether they could be presented by school.  Members were advised that the intention was to break down the results by consultation event, and it was considered a good assumption that parents would have attended the consultation event for the school their child attended.  However, it could not be confirmed that every attendee at a particular event had a child that attended that school.

·         In relation to the decision that the Executive would need to make, it was clarified that this would be to approve the Strategy and an allocation of capital funding.  Individual schools would then present their business plans to the Regional School Commissioner for Academies and through the LA process for changed to maintained schools. 

·         It was noted that Lincolnshire was the first local authority to carry out a process like this on this scale.

·         Members were advised that if the Council agreed the Strategy before the academies had agreed to it, the Council would not have any power to implement it. 

·         If there were one or two schools which did not agree to the Strategy, then the authority would be able to make clear any unintended consequences before the Strategy was approved.

·         It was noted that the majority of special schools were academies.

·         It was queried what the consequences would be for schools that did not comply.  Members were advised that there could be unintended consequences as a result of schools not making any changes to their criteria, but it was emphasised that this was not an issue of schools needing to comply with the Strategy.  The local authority would follow the code of practice for school places whether or not schools wished to make any changes to their entry criteria.

RESOLVED

            That the report be noted.