Agenda and minutes

Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee - Thursday, 17th March, 2022 6.30 pm

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Venue: Council Chamber, Town Hall, Bury, BL9 0SW

Contact: Chloe Ashworth  Democratic Services

Items
No. Item

1.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Minutes:

Apologies are noted above.

2.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Minutes:

Councillor Lancaster declared an interest as she is a member of Buy2gether

Councillor Pilkington declared an interest as he has two children who attend Schools; one who is SEND registered and attends within the Local Authority. He also declared an interest in relation to Greater Manchester level as works for Manchester Foundation Trust, Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.

Councillor Wright declared an interest as his wife works within the Local Authority with a Child who is registered as having SEND.

3.

MINUTES pdf icon PDF 240 KB

Minutes from the meeting held on 20 January 2022 are attached.

Minutes:

It was agreed:

 

That the minutes of the meeting held on 20th January 2022 be approved subject to Councillor Boles Declaration of Interest being added.

4.

MATTERS ARISING

Minutes:

Councillor Wright, Chair took the opportunity to thank all Committee Members for their input over the last year.

 

Councillor Wright, Chair advised that the updated action log was sent to members prior to the Committee.

 

Councillor Lancaster asked for a response to her two previous requests regarding the fit and fed scheme and defibrillators be responded to. Paul Cooke Strategic Lead for Education Services advise this update will be ready in the new municipal year and that he will ask Sandra Bruce prepares an update to the Committee on the fit and fed scheme.

5.

PUBLIC QUESTIONS pdf icon PDF 230 KB

A period of 30 minutes has been set aside for members of the public to ask questions on the agenda for tonight’s meeting.

Minutes:

Notice had been received of 1 public question. The Chair gave an undertaking that the questions and responses would be made available on the Council Web Site, following the meeting.

 

Questioner

Topic

Responding

Catherine Black

Children with Disabilities Team

Cllr Tariq

 

In addition there was one member of the public in attendance at the meeting.

 

Ms Delaney presented the following question to the Committee.

 

Last week my son was told he would need an amputation of his left foot. This is a direct result of a lack of action and direct failings of this Council. I would like to know what you as Leaders plan to do under your duty of care to address the needs on my Child due to the lack of response I have received from yourselves on this matter so far.

 

In response Councillor Tariq, advised that the issues raised are new to him and he asked if the issues raised can be taken away and be addressed by the end of tomorrow with Jeanette Richards and Isobel Booler.

 

In addition, the Chair offered the member of the public the opportunity to ask a further question.

 

In response Ms Delaney asked the Committee the following question:

 

What are you going to do to ensure joined up working happens going forward?

 

In response Councillor Tariq, Cabinet Member for Children Young People and Skills agreed that services do require improvement and not yet delivering for families and young people in the Borough. Some of the changes that need to take place are requiring significant culture changes. There is now additional capacity that has been brought in as there has previously been gaps. In addition, we have recently sent out to ask parents for feedback on our services along with engaging with local schools.

 

Alyson Malach, Chair of Governors for Chesham School asked the Committee what training happens and what the impact has been how to meet needs of diverse communities within the Borough. In response Isobel Booler, Director of Education and Skills advised that she has been involved in co-production workshops to hear the views of stakeholders, families, and community groups. Councillor Tariq thanked Alyson for the question and confirmed he constantly challenges practices. The confirmed that work is co-produced and confirmed he will take the comments back regarding SEND practices and engagement to improve services going forward when looking at our public sector equality duty.

 

 

 

6.

MEMBER QUESTION pdf icon PDF 231 KB

A period of up to 15 minutes will be allocated for questions and supplementary questions from members of the Council who are not members of the committee. This period may be varied at the discretion of the chair.

Minutes:

Notice had been received of 1 question. The Chair gave an undertaking that the questions and responses would be made available on the Council Web Site, following the meeting.

 

Questioner

Topic

Responding

Cllr Bernstein

Recruitment

Cllr Tariq

 

 

7.

Update Report on Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) pdf icon PDF 465 KB

Report attached from Councillor Tariq, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Skills.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor Tariq, Cabinet Member for Children Young People and Skills set out the report which provides an update following the detailed Annual Report on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities(SEND) submitted at the Children and Young Persons’ Scrutiny Committee meeting on the 7th September 2021.

 

Bury Council and Clinical Commissioning Group are committed to ensuring that all of our children are safe, have the best start in life, fulfil their potential, and are independent; this commitment extends to all, including our children with a disability and/or learning need.

 

This report sets out a mid-year summary of actions and progress across the SEND provision. A comprehensive SEND annual report will be provided again in the Autumn. A summary of the quarterly update on the Project Safety Valve programme which was submitted to the Department for Education on 1st March 2022 is detailed in Appendix I.

 

A copy of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Report had been circulated to Members ahead of the meeting and in considering the report and the Cabinet Member’s statement the following comments and issues were raised:

 

Requests were made for an update on timescales; In response Councillor Tariq, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Skills advised systemic change is required surrounding SEND and this is improving the experiences of families within the Borough. As an example, Project Safety Valve is a longer-term goal and is looking at a period of 4/5 years to address challenges. However, the way in which we operate on the group will be more imminent. Discussions about the impact of the new Schools on the sufficiency of Project Safety Valve were asked. In response Paul Cooke, Interim Assistant Director of Learning advised plans are in place to support sufficiency especially around the two additional Special Needs School’s which should help needs more effectively and locally. The indicative plan has been devised and will be rolled out over the next 12 months.

 

Further areas on discussion took place regarding health matters within the report. Questions consisted of the following areas:

 

Commissioning of services for matters such as ADHD and Autism; in response Jane Case, Bury CCG advised following the pandemic waiting lists have increase, there is a Greater Manchester Group looking at improvements and on a Bury level there is a consideration to reviewing the pathways. Jane Case, Bury CCG also confirmed any changes to outsourcing will be shared with Committee members.

 

Questions were asked regarding the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH). In response members were informed that MASH is the ‘front door so all referrals come through that pathway; however pathways behind the MASH has been reviewed to be more efficient.

 

Additional questions regarding the CAMHS service review and contract length were requested. In response the Committee were advised that the Pennine contract is a block contract and is not up for consideration of a review.

 

The Committee sought assurances on the Speech Language and Therapy waiting lists. In response Jane Case, Bury CCG advised the impact of COVID has  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

8.

Children and Young People Improvement Plan Update pdf icon PDF 203 KB

Report attached from Councillor Tariq, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Skills.

Minutes:

As agreed under the previous agenda item this matter will be discussed on Wednesday 23rd March 2022.

9.

URGENT BUSINESS

Minutes:

There was no urgent business.