a)     

The Council regretted the report and accepted Ofsted’s findings and would work with the Local Area Partnership to improve services for the city’s most vulnerable and would look to build in a bright future for all its SEN users;

b)     

The Council would be making arrangements to hold an improvement Board meeting in September which would continue 6 weekly thereafter in order to make sustained change at pace with the help of Ofsted and partners;

c)     

Ofsted recognised that there were some areas of strength within the partnership which included commitment, some strong working schools, some strong work with Plymouth’s youngest children, some work with post 16 children and some work with social and emotional needs;

d)     

Areas of improvement included making children with SEND the centre of improvement plans, with clear oversight and tracking to measure impact. Plymouth should be better at understanding increased risk to children with SEND;

e)     

Plymouth should reduce the risk of a child/young person being excluded where they had an EHCP;

f)      

Plymouth required to be consistent with all children around the healthy child programme;

g)     

The Parent Carer Forum had been actively involved and helped the Local Area Partnership with the plan and help determine what the outcomes would be for children with SEND;

h)     

There would be changes to professional development for staff to enact change in culture across the partnership to put children with SEND at the heart of everything the service did;

i)      

There were increases in the number of young children coming up to school age, following Covid with limited language and was an area of focus through the stronger practice hub. There was a rolling program of training with a special educational needs co-coordinator and this would need to be pulled together as part of the SEND improvement planning;

j)      

Part time timetables should only be used as a temporary measure and all children should be in full time education. They were too prevalent in Plymouth that was used to regularly by schools and work was on-going with schools in Plymouth to remedy;

k)     

Most children with an EHCP in Plymouth were in mainstream education however it was acknowledged the Plymouth had a shortage of places requiring the correct provision and a sufficiency plan was underway to create more spaces. The Council was exploring a number of options which included opening a further provision and increasing existing provisions;

l)      

To ensure all schools in the city were working to good outcomes for Plymouth SEND children, the partnership would need to create a common goal. The council offered support and had undertaken an audit of its secondary schools to make them aware of what could be done and what training was in place. There were assurances from Department  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18.

a)     

The plan allowed a way in which the council could work across the system but in a preventative model to introduce early interventions and prevent people becoming not in education, employment and training;

b)     

Young people in the SEND cohort would transition to education and training at a rate of 1 in 2 and very few transitioned into employment;

c)     

A care experienced young person transitioned into education, training and employment at a rate of 1 in 5 and this was the same for those in the criminal justice system;

d)     

Early employment pathways in the city existed in very low numbers and a SEND employment forum was established, the Council had grown its supported internship numbers from nine to 49, was working hard to grow supported apprenticeship opportunities and other innovative pathways that would lead to employment.

e)     

There were many people and organisations operating across the city, but were operating in silo’s. The council would not need to provide additional funding as it was already present but partners and the council were not working effectively across the system and the Unlocking Plymouth’s Potential strategy would bring it all together and drive it across Plymouth in a coordinated approach. The strategy would triage young people more appropriately;

a)     

Good mental health was important for children and young people to develop and thrive. Emotional health and wellbeing influenced their cognitive development and ability to engage with learning. It also affected physical and social health;

b)     

Ofsted’s school inspection handbook set out what inspectors took account of to ensure schools provided high quality pastoral care to enable pupils and students to develop into resilient adults with good mental health. All schools had a statutory duty to promote the welfare of their pupils and students, including preventing impairment of health or development as set out in Keeping Children Safe in Education (updated 2023) statutory guidance;

c)     

The Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Code of Practice defined Social Emotional Mental Health (SEMH) difficulties whereby children may experience a wide range of needs that manifest themselves in many ways. These included becoming withdrawn or isolated, as well as displaying challenging, disruptive or disturbing behaviour. These behaviours may have reflected underlying mental health difficulties such as anxiety or depression, self-harming, substance misuse, eating disorders or physical symptoms that are medically unexplained. Other children and young people may have had needs related to attention deficit, hyperactivity, or attachment (and/or trauma). The experiences and needs of children and young people should always be understood in the context of environmental factors within the home, community and school/setting. Children experiencing primary SEMH SEND need may have been impacted by other needs such as in the areas of communication and interaction and/or cognition and learning;

d)     

The Children and Families Act (2014) placed a duty on local authorities to ensure integration of education, health and social care to promote wellbeing and improve quality of provision for disabled young people and those with SEND;

e)     

The following plans supported EHWB in Plymouth for all pupils, as well as those with additional needs, are highlighted for reference:

· A Bright Future 2021-2026

· NHS Long Term Plan – focus on emotional mental health

· SEND Strategy

· Area SEND Inspection Priority Action Plan (in development)

· Inclusion Strategy task and finish group facilitated by the place-based plan

· Special Educational Needs graduated approach to Inclusion and iThrive frameworks.

f)      

The Emotional Health and Wellbeing Steering Group met quarterly and was chaired by a Plymouth city council Public Health Officer. Representatives attended from Education, Health and Independent Sector providers. The group provided a forum to support optimisation of the system through local organisations and agencies coming together. Updates and information sharing provided opportunity for partnership, collaboration and improved system effectiveness. The work supported the system to share and co-own the vision and ambition of a Bright Future;

g)     

The Trauma Informed Plymouth Network was an independent network where the ambition for Plymouth was to be a trauma informed city. It had an education branch providing a reflective learning space for mainstream, specialist and higher education staff  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.

a)     

The Council had initiated a recruitment and retention plan and would see staff in area’s of the children social work service receive retention payments to ensure a stable workforce that would help drive improvement work. The Council would also cover the cost of social work registrations;

b)     

Dorset County Council, Plymouth’s sector led improvement partner had undertaken a deep dive of the Multi-agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) which highlighted urgent work required to ensure no drift or delay for children was occurring at the service’s front door. The service had worked hard to remedy the actions required and all children were having an outcome within the 24 hour timescale;

c)     

There was additional management capacity in place and work was underway to improve the partner threshold guidance;

d)     

Some areas of the service were experiencing high workloads which was a knock on effect from what was discovered in the MASH;

e)     

There would be increased capacity within the Initial Response Teams and Children’s Social Work service as the bulge in work moved through the department;

f)      

The consultation for the Targeted Operating Model (TOM) had ended and a phased plan for introduction of locality model would be implemented;

g)     

The Improvement Plan was being refreshed and would have a clearer focus for the service over the next 3-6 months and progress would be available at the next scrutiny meeting.

a)     

The service was committed and determined to bring about changes that were required. Engagement and ownership had been key in the first few weeks to bring about change for the service. The Social Work Academy was exploring models to help social workers with their emotional health and wellbeing into the future;

b)     

The service would be increasing capacity in areas of the service to reduce pressures on workloads for the staff and the international recruitment of social workers had been going well;

c)     

Health checks for cared for children were improving and it was noted that the health team nurses were well embedded in the service. Dentistry was an issue not just for Plymouth but nationally, but work was on-going in the city to address the issues.

a)     

Members of the committee were urged to read the report from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) which stated that 83% of residential placements in the country were delivered by the private market. It was noted that Plymouth City Council did not have any of its own residential provision in the city;

b)     

There more children in independent fostering provision rather than in house fostering provision and it was a priority to grow the provision;

c)     

There needed to be a national conversation around what was required to effect change within the market;

d)     

There were five children in unregulated placements for the Council which was a reduction from seven in August 2023. This area was a priority action for the Council and the target was to have no children in unregulated provision;

e)     

Two children/young people were awaiting met the requirements for a secure placement but there were 40 children nationally awaiting this type of placement;

f)      

From the end of the financial year, all post 16 provision would be required to be regulated and work was on-going from the Commissioning team to understand how Plymouth’s providers were going to manage the transition;

g)     

Plymouth was producing a quality list of providers that could deliver unregulated arrangements should they be required;

h)     

Plymouth worked well with its providers in the city and one of them would be opening a two bed crisis home which would alleviate issues of unregulated provisions.

i)      

Foster carers were in the older cohort and nationally work was required to remedy a more broad fostering culture.