Children’s & Education Select Committee - Thursday 26 March 2026, 2:00pm

Children’s & Education Select Committee
Thursday, 26th March 2026 at 2:00pm

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Speaking:

Start of webcast

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Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Susan Morgan

1 Apologies for Absence & Changes in Membership

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Katie Dover - Democratic Services Officer
Cllr Susan Morgan

2 Declarations of Interest

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Cllr Frances Kneller
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Susan Morgan
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr Susan Morgan
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Susan Morgan
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Frances Kneller
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Frances Kneller
Cllr Susan Morgan
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
Cllr Frank Mahon
Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Phil Gomm

3 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

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Minutes of Previous Meeting

4 Public Questions

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5 Chairman's Update

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6 School Standards and Effectiveness Report - 2024/2025 Academic Year

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Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Carl Jackson
Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services
Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager
Cllr Phil Gomm
Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Carl Jackson
Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services
Sarah Sewell - BI BP Children's & Traded Services
Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services
Cllr Maru Mormina
Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services
Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Frances Kneller
Cllr Carl Jackson
Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services
Cllr Frances Kneller
Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services
Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Cllr Carl Jackson
Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA
Cllr Caroline Cornell
Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Wendy Matthews
Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Carl Jackson
Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Maru Mormina
Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager
Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Phil Gomm
Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager
Cllr Phil Gomm

7 SEND Inspections Outcome

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SEND Inspection Outcome Report - Select Committee

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA
Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Carl Jackson
Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Kathy Gibbon
Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Frances Kneller
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Carl Jackson
Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Frances Kneller
Cllr Frank Mahon
Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Phil Gomm

7 SEND Inspections Outcome

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SEND Inspection Outcome Report - Select Committee

Cllr Phil Gomm

8 Performance Monitoring Report Q3

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Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Carl Jackson
Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Llew Monger
Sarah Sewell - BI BP Children's & Traded Services
Cllr Llew Monger
Cllr Phil Gomm
Sarah Sewell - BI BP Children's & Traded Services
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Frank Mahon
Cllr Carl Jackson
Cllr Frank Mahon
Cllr Carl Jackson
Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services
Alison Munt - Service Director for Children's Social Care
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Frances Kneller
Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Carl Jackson
Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA
Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services
Cllr Phil Gomm

10 Work Programme

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Katie Dover - Democratic Services Officer
Cllr Phil Gomm
Cllr Susan Morgan
Cllr Phil Gomm

11 Date of Next Meeting

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Webcast Finished

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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:00:00

Good afternoon everybody and welcome to the Children's Education and Select Committee this afternoon.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:00:11

We have a couple of changes in membership but I will hand over to Katie for our apologies.

1 Apologies for Absence & Changes in Membership

Katie Dover - Democratic Services Officer - 0:00:24

Thank you Chairman. We have apologies from co -opties Tony Wilson and Clive Jones, from Councillors Aslam, Nicknam Hussain and Maz Hussain.

and we have substitutes of Councillors Nella, Monger and Huxley respectively for those Councillors.

The changes in membership are that we have two new Councillors, Catherine Gibbon and Phil Gomm on the committee

and Heather Wallace and Alan Sherwell have left the committee. Thank you Chairman.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:00:50

Thank you. So welcome Councillor Gomm, Councillor Gibbon to the committee

and I'd like to place on record my thanks to Councillor Wallace and Councillor

Sherwell for the phenomenal job that they did whilst on this committee. Thank

2 Declarations of Interest

you. Agenda item 2, declarations of interest. Any declarations of interest

from the committee? No. Moving on, agenda item 3, the minutes of the last meeting.

Cllr Frances Kneller - 0:01:18

Thank you. The select committee procedure rule 2 .64 allows me to submit a

motion without notice to this select committee. It does so by engaging

the council procedure rules. Therefore under council procedure rule 3 .41 I

I propose that number one, select committee procedure rule 2 .4 be suspended so as to

this apply the length of service of the chairman and that number two this

committee elects a new chairman with immediate effect for the remainder of

the current council year. Thank you, if I could just bring in Glen Watson if I may

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:02:15

just to explain that procedure. I would I think in order for the matter to proceed

if that's what happens that motion would need to be seconded formally before we

can then discuss any questions on. Do I have a seconder for the motion?

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:02:27

Councillor Cornell, thank you.

Councillor Watson, did you want to just explain that for the public watching the webcast and for committee members here, if you could just explain that procedural role please.

Thank you chair, yes, my name is Glenn Watson, I'm Senior Governance Manager and one of the Deputy Monitoring Officers.

What has just occurred is a motion without notice, which is a motion that

Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:02:57

can be moved in the Constitution for effectively suspending the term of

office of a chairman of a committee. Normally under the Constitution without

any such motion or other intervening step, the chairmanship would continue

until the next annual meeting. The motion as proposed seeks to suspend the

procedure rule which gives effect to that,

thereby triggering, as has been proposed and seconded,

an election today with immediate effect

as the wording was for a new chair of the committee.

Even if that is, should it go that way,

should that be the will of the meeting,

and there is an election to the position of chairman,

even if that means that the current chairman yourself,

Councillor Morgan, is nominated.

there just needs to be an election.

So what has been proposed is suspend the procedural,

go for an election of the chairman

at this point in the meeting.

In fact, what is called upon for new chair

to be voted upon is passed.

That's what would need to take place.

An election to new chair would be the next procedural step.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:04:03

Thank you.

Councillor Munger.

Thank you, chair.

Cllr Llew Monger - 0:04:09

and thank you Mr. Watson for the explanation.

I'd very much like to move an amendment to that,

but I don't have the written motion,

so I can't be precise about that.

But I'd like to move an amendment to the effect

that the election of the chair is taken

under Agenda Item 9 as already published

and not at this point in the meeting.

so to follow the agreed order of business and allow the committee to

consider the chairs work under the existing appropriate agenda item.

Again that would need to be seconded in order to be considered as an amendment

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:04:54

to the proposal. Thank you we have a seconder. In which case chair you can

Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:04:57

either allow a short debate on the amendment or you can go straight to a

as you deem best.

Thank you.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:05:05

I think we'll allow a short debate on the amendment.

Obviously it would come as no surprise

that I would support that amendment.

I recognise that due to a proportionality review,

that the conservative group holds a majority

on every committee,

but in preparation for the majority group

wanting to replace the chair,

I diligently put agenda item nine onto the agenda.

Both I and officers have spent a lot of time preparing for today's meeting and that would be why I'm in full support of waiting until Agenda Item 9 for the election of the new Chair.

Does anyone else wish to speak on the amendment?

Councillor Mungo?

Cllr Llew Monger - 0:05:53

Thank you chair. What concerns me about this proposed, sorry I'll speak to the amendment,

but I have to make reference to the original proposal in doing so. The whole principle

of scrutiny is locked up in that particular word, scrutiny. And there's much guidance

about including from local government association and the centre for governance and scrutiny

to suggest that the chairs of scrutiny committee should be from a member of the opposition

party or parties in order that the controlling group do not appear to be marking their own

homework which is clearly the case that is developing here.

I happened to watch the very unedifying spectacle of the removal of the excellent Councillor Stuart Wilson from Chair of the Health and Adult Social Care.

And if I have ever seen anything that brought this council and local government democracy into disrepute, it was the awful way that situation was conducted.

We seem to have the same developing again and frankly looking around the table

I am shocked to think that some members of this around this table would support

Going through exactly the same thing again. It's frankly appalling for that reason and

Particularly to ensure that we have adequate scrutiny

I am conscious and and equally that we go through a meeting that has been well published

that people have prepared for, people may have intended to watch particular parts of this,

and it is a timed agenda, if I remember rightly.

And by changing the agenda order at will,

seems to me to be wholly undemocratic, unnecessary, and will do this Council no favours at all.

Thank you, Councillor Munger.

Councillor Mormena.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:08:08

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:08:12

I'm going to speak on the amendment.

We can discuss the other issue when it comes to it.

On the amendment, look, in any organisation there are structures and those structures

exist to facilitate the cooperation needed to conduct the business of that organisation.

And those structures have a leadership.

Call it a manager, a director, a chairman.

And that leadership ensures that everyone plays their role and each individual action

contributes to something that is bigger than the sum of the parts.

Now, changes in that leadership need to ensure continuity so that the organisation does not

descending to chaos and business does not derail.

So that requires an orderly handover.

I'm afraid what's being proposed here

looks more like a hostile takeover.

So we're here to scrutinise one of the most important

services that this council provides,

the education and wellbeing

of future Buckinghamshire residents.

We should be focusing on that, not on who chairs what, frankly.

By not prioritising the scrutiny we're supposed to do, we're signalling to residents, parents,

teachers and children that this Council is more interested in performative power grabs

than in holding to account the service and ensuring that these people in front of me

do the job they are expected to do and paid in some cases quite handsomely frankly.

So I urge us all to get on with what we're supposed to do and

leave the item for or leave the discussion of the chair for whenever it's on the agenda.

And I should not be saying this frankly, we have a monitoring officer

should be doing their job to ensure the orderly transition.

Plan frankly in your place, I would be very ashamed

that we are allowing chaotic, childish,

and frankly petty battles of egos to play out in public.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:10:41

Councillor Momina, can I just ask that we don't publicly

berate officers, there's just not something that

I support as Chair.

Sorry, yes, yes, I apologise.

Thank you.

Councillor, Councillor, Mr Watson, would you like to come back?

Thank you, Chair.

Just to say on this matter, because the procedure rules that have been invoked both as the proposal

and as the amendment are legitimate under the constitution, and as they will be subject,

Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:11:09

both of them, the amendment and the proposal, to a vote, it is entirely legitimate for this

process to take place and is to that extent democratic because you are the democratically

elected people of the of the council nominated to this committee so whatever

decisions you take under the amendment or under the proposal is entirely

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:11:34

legitimate. Thank you I'll move to Councillor Townsend. Thank you I'll also

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 0:11:37

limit my comments to the scope of the amendment though I do note that I

haven't heard any justification or reasoning for the for the purpose of

this motion whatsoever so it's it's difficult really to understand why on

we're going through the motions other than you know seeking control

for control's sake but the public have seen the agenda they expect us to follow

it and moving this motion to the start cuts across that expectation it creates

the impression that we're all just following a process that can be

overridden at the drop of a hat. Councillor Morgan has prepared for this

meeting as the chair we have all prepared for this meeting to scrutinise

is the work of the council

and the work of the children's services.

And that's what we're here to do today.

Why don't we just get on with it, do our job,

do what we've come to do

and sort the petty politics out later.

Thank you.

Councillor Nella.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:12:32

Thank you.

The committee really should follow

the published order of business

Cllr Frances Kneller - 0:12:37

and this has a compelling reason not to.

There's no urgency requiring deviation

and item 9 exists precisely for the purpose that's there. Good governance

relies on consistency and fairness and how our decisions are arrived at.

Respecting the agenda ensures all members can contribute in the right

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:13:04

context. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment? No, in that case

then I will ask for a vote on the amendment.

Those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hands.

That's four.

And those against the amendment.

Five.

Therefore, the amendment is not carried.

Six.

Oh, apologies, Wendy, I didn't see you to my right.

Six.

Therefore, the amendment's not carried.

The answer's still the same.

and we then move forward to the substantive motion

that Councillor Mahon put forward.

I will open up a debate on the motion itself.

Would anybody wish to speak on the substantive motion?

Councillor Townsend.

Thank you.

I would be interested to hear the reasons

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 0:14:03

from the proposal or the seconder

as to why this is being put forward.

It's the final meeting of our year, I believe.

We've got no further children education meetings scheduled.

So what is being gained here for the sake

of the next two hours changing the chair -ship?

It seems to make no sense.

We're removing an experienced chair with no time left

for a successor to really add any value to this process.

The current chair has led the committee professionally,

constructively, and with integrity.

And our scrutiny, I believe, has been focused,

It's been evidence -based and it has been balanced. There's no performance -based case for removal

In support of what my colleague councillor Munger said earlier

Scrutiny only works if it's independent and if it's seen to be independent

The committee this committee scrutinises decisions made by the same political group that's now seeking to control it

So that raises the fundamental question who then is holding decision makers to account

If everyone, even if everyone acts with integrity,

and I'm absolutely sure they will,

the public perception is, it's unavoidable

that the administration is therefore marking

its own homework.

Now we've seen how these committees have played out

over the last few weeks, and we've seen how

very good chairs have been treated and ousted

from their positions, and if that position is going to be,

if that procedure is going to be followed today

and we're repeating that pattern,

then if my conservative colleagues over here

will all vote to remove a perfectly good chairman,

presumably towing the party line,

does that not therefore prove the point

that we're making here?

That there will be a lack of independence

and a perceived lack of independence

on this scrutiny committee?

I think the proof is in the pudding here,

if that's what takes place.

and I would urge, just to say as well,

I'm an independent member.

I don't have to vote with the Lib Dems,

I don't have to even vote the same way

as my Impact Alliance colleague.

I could vote for your motion,

but I've not heard a single reason from anybody yet

as to why the motion has been put forward

and why it is necessary.

So please, convince me.

Thank you, Councillor Townsend.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:16:22

Councillor Mahone, as the proposal of the motion,

did you want to speak to the motion?

Okay, seconder of the motion?

Councillor Mormino.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:16:40

This is a book I read a few years ago, and the book is called The Diversity Bonus, which

I believe was a best seller among organisational consultants and that kind of people.

So you don't need to go beyond the title of the book to understand what the main message

is, which is that in environments that are defined by volatility, uncertainty, ambiguity

and complexity, organisations that survive and thrive are those able to harness cognitive

diversity of its workforce. Why? Because diversity makes groups immune to groupthink and therefore

makes them more innovative, more agile, able to pivot quickly.

I think Fax Council could do with a copy of that book, to be honest.

We need diversity of voices, we need diversity of perspectives, we need diversity of approaches,

particularly in scrutiny committees like this.

Scrutiny loses effectiveness when it loses the diversity, and with the diversity, the

independence that comes with it, as my colleague has just articulated.

If we concentrate the scrutiny leadership in the same political group that leads the

Council, this reduces not just the separation that ensures fair decision -making and in this

case fair scrutiny, but it also reduces the diversity of voices that ensures that every

decision is looked at from all angles, avoiding the blind spots that group think creates.

And I think this is particularly important in children's services where oversight needs

to be rigorous and transparent.

We should be seriously consider not just the procedural issue at hand here, but the long -term

implications for governance, for transparency, real or perceived.

Thank you, Councillor Mungo.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:18:55

Cllr Llew Monger - 0:19:00

Councillor Munger please. Thank you chair. The members of this committee are here to

decide on the items on the agenda and any motion moved but ultimately the

final decider on the performance of course is the electorate and any one of

the electorate who may be watching this live or on webcast is going to be at an absolute

loss to understand why it is necessary to suddenly change the running order of the agenda

to exercise something, to exercise a change in the chairmanship, whether it's now or later.

and therefore I really would like to hear from the mover or anyone who thinks they would support the mover, the second or anyone else

as to understand why this is being done now and how they think that changing the chair at this point in the meeting

will enhance the performance of this committee and bring benefit to children in the care of this council

and in education within this local authority area. So do step up and tell us.

Thank you. Councillor Nella please.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:20:31

Cllr Frances Kneller - 0:20:35

Thank you. I am rather surprised that we've had no response from either the mover or the

seconder of this motion. National bodies such as the LGA and SITFA recommend opposition

involvement in scrutiny, leadership and to ensure independence. It's clear that the

party, the Conservative Party, is not interested in scrutiny. This is not about political disagreement,

it's about following recognised best practise in councils and across the

country even in Westminster. Removing opposition leadership from scrutiny

weakens the cheques and balances and that protect our decision -making. The

committee's role is to challenge not to endorse cabinet decisions and to truly

achieve that requires independence from the controlling group. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Linnell. Anyone else on the committee wishing to speak on the motion?

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:21:36

No, in that case, I will bring this to a close.

The purpose of scrutiny exists a challenge. We've worked cross -party on this committee and I believe we've built up a really good culture of good governance and openness.

Removing opposition leaders from scrutiny committees weakens that.

As my colleague has just said, the LGA sit for scrutiny chairs.

There's guidance all over.

It exists because councils have learned the consequences of weakened scrutiny.

This isn't about resisting change.

It's about good governance.

Scrutiny exists to challenge, not to endorse.

The reason Stuart Wilson and I spent 13 hours in meetings last May with Steve Broadbent,

deciding on scrutiny chairs had one principle.

Who was the best person?

I agreed and I was proud to have Councillor Wendy Matthews as my deputy.

We met together for lunch to discuss what we wanted to achieve for the next 12 months.

We're both passionately invested for different reasons in making this committee a success.

Different reasons but shared goals.

One of those goals was to incorporate the voices of children.

Oxfordshire Council have children attend their scrutiny committees, giving their opinions on strategies and whether they have a real impact on their lives.

I wanted to find a way of working behind the scenes, as I have done for months, to find a way of making this happen.

I hope that if I am now replaced as chair that this work continues.

It's not just me going off from left field.

this is something recommended in the Ofsted report, the corporate peer review,

is we need to find a way to incorporate the voices of children more in what we're doing here.

Children and young people's lives are at stake if we don't get these decisions right.

That's why scrutiny oversight must be robust.

Residents who attend or watch the webcast expect scrutiny to be independent.

When the same political group controls both the cabinet and scrutiny committees,

the perception becomes your mark in your own homework.

Even if members act with integrity, perception matters for public confidence.

Children's services has been failing for as long as I've been a councillor, 11 years or

longer.

We need visible, credible challenge to cabinet decisions and effective scrutiny of strategies,

offset improvements and changes in our services.

services. The public, our young people, deserve the best, not just an endorsement of party

political lines. I appreciate the difficult position some of my Conservative colleagues

here have been put in by doing this today. Children's services is not political, it's

real children, young people, and the parents tearing their hair out of the state of our

system. I implore you today to do what's right for them and not what's right for the Conservative

party. If I could move this to a vote now please. Those in favour of the motion

please raise your hands. Six and those against. That's four. That's the motion

carried. Glenn if I could hand over to you for the election of the new chair

please. Thank you chair. So that being the decision of the committee there

and there needs to be an election for the position of chair of this committee.

I'll in a moment call out for nominations.

Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:25:10

Each nomination must be proposed and seconded.

A councillor cannot nominate themselves, but when it comes to it, they can vote for themselves.

If only one nomination is made, that person is deemed to be elected.

If two nominations come forward then I will call for a vote for each of those

nominees. To be successful a nominee must have a clear majority of those voting in

the room. That being the case are there any nominations for chairman of the

committee? Councillor Marl. I nominate Councillor Feildon. Is that

Is that seconded?

Cllr Frank Mahon - 0:25:53

It is.

Any other nominations?

Councillor Nella.

I nominate Councillor Susan Morgan.

Is that seconded?

Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:26:03

Thank you.

Any other nominations?

No.

In which case we have two nominees,

Councillor Phil Gomm and Councillor Susan Morgan.

I will now call for a vote on each in turn.

Remember, you can only vote for one person.

Okay.

So those in favour of Phil Gomm being chair of this committee please raise your hand.

One, two, three, four, five, six. Thank you.

Those in favour of Susan Morgan being chair of this committee.

One, two, three, four, five. Thank you.

In which case that being the vote of the committee,

Councillor Phil Gomm does have a majority of the votes in the room

and is by the will of this committee duly elected chair of it and can take the chair now.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:26:56

Thank you Glenn, I appreciate your time today. I'd like to welcome Councillor GOM as chair of the committee and if officers and colleagues could excuse us for a moment while we chair swap. Thank you.

Sorry, I would like to say thank you very much Councillor Morgan for your hard work and Councillor GOM welcome, you've got big shoes to fill.

Can I also thank you, Susan, for your work and, Phil, congratulations.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:27:44

Firstly, thank you very much everybody for waiting until we got through that process.

Really appreciated. Thank you very much. And then before I go any further, so Councillor

Morgan and I are good friends. I hope we stay that way. This is not to you, but I will say

one of the reasons I wanted to come back to this committee, because I was originally on

this committee at the beginning of the year, was because I enjoyed on there and I, you

Susan was great then and we are very combative when it comes down to children's services.

I'm like you, want to make sure that we serve youth of Buckinghamshire in the best way possible.

Just because I'm on the same party doesn't mean to say that I'm not going to scrutinise

as hard as I can because I would be reliable as chairman as you would have been to rely

on all those members to scrutinise just as hard as I would.

So that the committee is what scrutinises not just the chairman, but you rely on your

Your team to make sure that goes forward and I will continue say I do have a reputation within our group

I do challenge and I will continue to challenge for the best of our communities in Buckinghamshire

Council Morgan I will say I intend to meet you afterwards

I certainly would like a changeover because I know

some of the commitments you made need to continue,

and I'd like to continue those with you

as well on that journey.

So I won't be pushing that to one side by far,

and I hope you appreciate that at the same time.

So as we move forward.

So again, thank you very much for those that voted.

Sorry, those that didn't.

I won't hold it against you, don't worry,

because we're all one team as we move forward.

So I'm looking forward to the next period to work forward

as we continue with the agenda.

Like you say, the agenda was lined up.

I might not be totally on board, but most of you would be.

We've all sort of reviewed and scrutinised, so I will rely

on you as the chairman would rely

on those members that are here.

So as we move forward, we move on to item three of the agenda.

3 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

So I know that we've got colleagues waiting here

on my right -hand side to deliver there what they've got to do.

So we had the minutes, which is item three.

Has everybody seen those minutes?

and everybody agrees those minutes were true to last time.

Yep, okay, thank you very much for that.

Slide them anywhere.

Um, so initially each patient's somewhere at the back.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So we've agreed those minutes and therefore they're all agreed.

Thank you very much for that.

4 Public Questions

Did we have on item four any public questions this afternoon?

We have no public questions whatsoever.

Hopefully, I don't know what it's been like over the last sort of year,

but it would be nice to hear from members of the public.

And again, that's something I shall be discussing with with Councillor Morgan

and Wendy Matthews next door, who is the vice chair as we continue.

So then we go on to item five. This is one.

5 Chairman's Update

Item five was the chairman's update. Now, I don't have an update against that.

I've looked back over the minutes over the last year.

The updates aren't normally sort of supersede, but I'm quite clear that we're short of time.

So if we could move forward, we would appreciate that as we go through.

There's quite an in -depth agenda, as most of you know.

Some very important stuff that's been worked on over the period.

So we're going to move on.

6 School Standards and Effectiveness Report - 2024/2025 Academic Year

Item 6 is School Standards and Effectiveness Report requested from 2024 to 2025.

And I'd like to now hand over to Cabinet Member, Councillor Jackson,

and Errol Albert, the Interim Corporate Director,

and Yvette Thomas, School's Improvement Manager, to introduce the report, please.

Thank you.

Cllr Carl Jackson - 0:33:01

First of all, thank you, Councillor Gorman.

Congratulations on your election as chairman of this committee.

I look forward to working with you.

I thank you as well, Councillor Morgan, for your work as chairman of this committee over

the last year.

I don't tend to make habit of summarising reports, Chairman, that I suspect everyone's

already read.

So if I can just sort of bring in a few developments since the report was produced that I think

will be of relevance and of interest to the committee.

Some changes in terms of people, senior officers in charge

of this area, committee members will recall we had a service

director for education and inclusion, Michael Garrett,

who has left the council.

The choice has been made to split that role into two now.

And I mention it because it applies

to the first two items really we're talking about.

So we're now going to have a service director for education and a service director for centre and inclusion.

The role is going to be split.

The new service director for education is a gentleman called Dan Barton who will be joining us from Leeds City Council.

He has not officially started yet. I think his official start date is the 7th of April.

He's sort of starting his onboarding process at the moment.

So he would have joined us today but he's not quite there yet.

So we have Yvette to join us to handle the education points.

And while I'm mentioning this job split, I would just like to congratulate Anna and Secondgill

on having moved up from being the programme director for SEND Improvement

to become our new service director for SEND and Inclusion.

I know they'll both do a fantastic job.

I just wanted to make the committee aware of that in case they weren't already.

On the education standards and effectiveness report,

I think overall this is an extremely encouraging report on the quality of

education in our county. It's a testament to the hard work of school leaders, of

teachers, of other school staff, parents, let's not forget the pupils, as well and

of course the council school improvement team. Obviously this is an area where the

council which doesn't have direct responsibility, the responsibility for

school performances with the school leadership team and assessment of their

performances with Ofsted, but the council can play a role in helping schools

improve and strengthen and obviously we take an extremely close interest in the performance of

Buckinghamshire schools, which are a real source of pride for our county.

And I think it is worthwhile officers producing this report every year to bring together all the information for the benefit of residents and the

Analyst Committee and give a sense of how schools are performing.

So I'm happy to welcome any questions at that point chairman. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councillor Jackson.

That's really appreciated.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:35:50

And it's nice to hear that we got some, you know,

transformation moving up, especially with send et cetera.

So I'm sure colleagues would welcome that

within Buckinghamshire.

So members who would like to probe with some questions,

please, we'd like that.

I'm gonna allow Councillor Morgan.

So question at a time, please.

Councillor Morgan, you can go first,

then Councillor Townsend and then Marina.

Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you, Chair.

I'm just looking at the page 33 of the report,

you know, where we're looking at the attainment

by key stage.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:36:27

Ellsbury North is my ward.

And I'm just looking at,

I've got nothing comparative in this table

in terms of what have we achieved

since Opportunity Bucks started.

it's been going for a couple of years now.

And I know that Elmhurst in the North Ward

is one of those first to become the family first hub.

Do you anticipate that will help raise this attainment gap?

Or what's your view on how we improve on this figure?

Thank you, Councillor Morgan.

I think the point you've obviously picked up

Cllr Carl Jackson - 0:37:08

in relation to your ward,

and I suspect more generally on the report is the fact that we've seen the attainment

gap between the disadvantaged pupils and other pupils narrow everywhere except in terms of

early years, which I guess is where your comments about the best start family hub comes in.

I mean this is undoubtedly, I mean it's not on the agenda today the best start family

but it's clearly where a lot of these figures lead, I think, in terms of the conversation.

And a lot of the focus of the best start in life strategy is on things which are

effectively to do with education. The priorities are things like strong home learning,

high quality early education, a positive start to school, early sense support.

So, I mean, there's... And I think once you get behind, it's hard to catch up as well. And so,

I think a lot of the fact that we're seeing disparity,

and I suppose disparity is in some ways reflected nationally

and is to be expected,

but the bit that sticks out I think is the fact

that we are not comparing well

compared to the national average, a lot of these stages,

which is what troubles me particularly.

So I think it's that point about getting in early,

which is really, really important

in terms of the best start in life strategy

and when they come, best start family hubs.

and the obvious focus there will be the Opportunity Bucks wards.

So that is where the majority of the attention we focus as we look to roll these out.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:38:49

Thank you. I think you can see from that table that it is the Opportunity Bucks wards that are the most effective.

And Chair, I would like to see an update on this in 12 months to see where we are, to see what we've achieved,

to see if we are moving forward in the right direction, because I think that's really important.

Thank you.

Cllr Carl Jackson - 0:39:07

Chair, I think everyone would like to add something on that if that's okay with you.

Yes, please.

Thank you, Chair.

Councillor Morgan, thank you for that.

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:39:14

You're absolutely right when it comes to the whole methodology and the reasons why it has chosen us,

because very much of that alignment with the opportunity buts wards,

and the fact that there is more to do in those areas

in relation to early support and education,

good levels of development,

and indeed the home learning environment

for more to five year olds and so on.

And we absolutely hope to see,

in terms of the work that's been done there,

the linkage to this,

and the only way we can evaluate the impact of those hubs

is very much by keeping an eye on those data.

And you're absolutely right to bring the linkage there,

because it's very much aligned to what we want to see in terms of these figures. Thank you.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:40:00

Thank you very much and Councillor Townsend, please.

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 0:40:04

Thank you. The two things that jump out to me from this report are the widening of that attainment gap,

particularly in early years,

and also the

outcomes for black and Asian pupils being below the national average in some of the stages.

I think Councillor Morgan's question addressed some of the points I wanted to

address in terms of the attainment gap at early years but my question really

relates to in terms of both of those those issues and what's changed

operationally or what are we what are we doing wrong to produce that attainment

gap and those less than national average outcomes and how confident are we about

reversing those statistics and those figures.

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:40:56

Thank you, I'll pass to my colleague to say I just want to say in a sense to the

phrase what we're doing wrong. I think this is as you will know multifaceted

there are a number of hugely complex issues in relation to some of the

figures that you'll see here and what we see in terms of outcomes. Just raising

that issue of black, the majority children and the population. Again, when

you ask what we're doing, there's more for us to do in terms of a bit of a deep

dive and it was a recent conversation that I had in relation to understanding

a bit more around the demographics and the difference within those communities

that is really important to identify and recognise as part of the statistics here

in relation to outcomes and achievement within certain demographics within our

So there is more to do in terms of taking that forward.

We want to take a deeper look into the data

and into the details around some of that data.

But I will pass over to my colleague Yvette

who can provide a bit more detail.

Thank you.

Good afternoon colleagues.

So in terms of early years,

the data is showing children that in through the COVID period,

so I think that's also something to take into account.

But nevertheless, the schools in Opportunity Bucks

where the data is showing lower than expected attainment.

They are being given additional support earlier.

So there's an early intervention approach in early years

to try and reverse that data set for next year.

So they are getting more support earlier.

In terms of school improvement and opportunity box wards,

what we've done is we set up a challenge programme.

It's been ongoing now for over three years.

And I think the key stage two results and phonics, etc.,

end up to key stage four.

You'll see that from the intense work that some of those schools

are doing that their results have gone up.

So I think it is about the kinds of programmes

that we're running with schools, the targeting of support.

We can't force schools to take up our offer.

However, if they are a maintained school,

then we have a more leverage with them

to get them to sign up to the programme and to get involved

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 0:43:08

and to participate in it.

Research, we use the education...

Yvette, sorry, can I just jump in?

So much struggling to hear you.

Oh, sorry.

I do apologise.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:43:17

You were on a good flow then, but sorry.

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 0:43:23

I was going to say that the Education Endowment Fund research drives much of what we do.

If the practise is out there and it's good practise,

we use that practise with our head teachers to share with them,

to go through training events with them,

and then to explore our own action research

as to what works in Buckinghamshire.

So we've brought out on an annual basis

for the last two to three years,

we've brought out handbooks that highlight

the good practise in Bux,

and then we're trying to ensure that schools

are embedding this within their own schools.

These things take time.

We're not saying that we recognise the challenges,

we understand disadvantaged groups,

including those vulnerable learners

from different communities have got gaps that are wider than the national, but in terms

of Buckinghamshire we've seen a steady increase over time. Ideally we want to close that gap

to the point where it's similar to national and then the gap is lower than national and

that's the ideal.

Thank you. Can I just clarify a point? You mentioned about getting in, oh sorry, you

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 0:44:29

mentioned about getting in there earlier and there are a few references throughout the

report to things like schools being offered,

particularly opportunity buck schools,

being offered support a term earlier.

What does that mean?

I didn't, I didn't.

So I suppose we get the data quite earlier

than you get the data.

It's not validated data, so we can't publish that data,

but we get through our risk assessments

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 0:44:57

of schools and settings, through getting the data early

after the summer holidays, we're able to put support in

even earlier than expected for an academic year.

So those schools will get their support intensely

before other schools will get it

because of their data results.

So what's the normal then?

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 0:45:19

So kids arrive at school in early years

and then the support comes when?

Well we will spend the summer looking at results in August,

looking at some of the results.

And also because of our risk assessment,

some of those schools would have already been assessed before results come out and therefore

their support will start from day one of September term. Other schools will be grading that they'll

start in October, November depending on matching people, schools to the experts in our system that

are working across the board with all schools and settings.

Councillor Momina?

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:45:58

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:46:01

I do have a bunch of questions and might come back if the chair allows me with more questions.

I'd like to ask you about your side by saying…

Councillor Momina, I will give you some leverage on questions but…

Well, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

But for now, I'd like to follow on my colleagues' line of questioning about the gap for disadvantaged

pupils, particularly from black and some Asian communities.

Because last meeting, I did request a quality impact assessment on the EHCP refusals, and

the answer I got was, we don't collect that data.

Now, I wonder what is the link between missed cases of children with additional education

needs that are not being picked up or are being refused EHCPs and this disadvantage

or this gap that we see in attainment among some ethnic minorities.

Because we don't collect the data, I don't think we have an answer on that.

So I would like to know your views on whether we should be collecting some data on that

front.

And on the question of opportunity bugs, I read through the report reference to you side

by side.

You just mentioned your Buckinghamshire Challenge programme.

Of course, we have opportunity bugs.

So, a related question is how do we make sure that all these programmes align to ensure that

the schools in high -need wards, i .e. opportunity -backed wards, receive coherent support and not fragmented

across all these different programmes?

So, two different things.

Thank you, Chad.

Sure.

I think on the operation of Side -by -Side and Bux -Talent, I might leave it there.

Hold on.

Cllr Carl Jackson - 0:48:12

Microphone, please.

On the first point, in terms of, is it data you're looking for

on refused, refusal to assess for EHCPs?

Is that what you're asking?

Because I think we will have some of that data.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:48:32

Well, yes, I did ask last meeting for some equality data.

Oh, equality data.

Equality data.

So breakdowns, who's been refused EHCPs in terms of,

you know, geography, ethnicity, so a bit of a breakdown.

And in the action plan, it said we don't collect that date.

So my question is, should we be collecting that date?

Should we have a handle on who, you know, who's receiving what?

Thank you.

No, I understand now.

No, I remember discussing this after you raised it and being told that we hadn't collected

that data before.

Cllr Carl Jackson - 0:49:17

I think I will look to offices on how feasible it is or whether we're entitled to collect

that sort of data.

I mean, sort of, I…

Yeah.

So, I'll bring Sarah in shortly, who is our data person, so I'm pleased that she's

here to provide a bit more around the background in terms of how we collect that data.

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:49:34

The first issue, however, just links back to my comment.

There is more to do, Councillor, so pick up the points

that you've made.

But I will pass this area now to explain

to you all around the detail.

Thank you.

Yeah, with the refusal to assess, we do hold some

of that data.

We obviously track the children through the process and can see

Sarah Sewell - BI BP Children's & Traded Services - 0:49:52

where their cases don't go forward to become an EHCP.

And we will have some quality data for some of those cases,

particularly where children have been in one of our schools.

while that process has been ongoing,

we will have that information.

So we can do some of that breakdown for you.

There will be some cases where that information isn't held

because it isn't always collected.

So we can look to fill in some of those gaps,

but we can produce what we have

and bring that back to the committee.

If you're happy for us to do that, Errol.

As long as you're happy with that, Councillor.

In addition, I would say that in terms of the,

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:50:25

how we ensure the programmes and aligns,

and I'll turn to my colleague here,

But we do obviously speak regularly with schools in relation to these programmes and ensure that

there is a connexion between so all of our schools know what other schools are doing.

Yvette, you may want to add in terms of that peer support that we offer as part of the

Side -by -Side Programme, et cetera.

I'll pass to Yvette on that.

Thank you.

I'll clarify.

I'm not asking for data for data's sake.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:50:56

The data needs to be used, needs to inform decision.

So that's why I'm asking for the data.

Indeed, and given, obviously, resources users,

as you should be aware, we're not going to do data

for data sake either.

So, yeah, it's a very fair point.

Thank you.

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:51:07

Okay.

In terms of side -by -side challenge, opportunity

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 0:51:13

bugs, all three, those key buzzwords, they all have

the same objective, and that is to raise achievement

for all pupils.

Some are more targeted support.

some are more universal support.

So there's a level of support that all schools will get

through the Challenge Programme.

We have conferences and workshops

that any school interested can join.

Obviously, we target schools as well.

So if we look at the data and we see that they're not doing

as well as they should be doing,

we would encourage them to come to that programme.

Not all schools do.

We cannot force them to, but with Maintain Schools,

as I said earlier, we do have a little bit of leverage

with them and we will encourage them

to come to those programmes.

In terms of side by side, that programme

is where our good and out in the old language of the Ofsted

framework, our good and outstanding head teachers

will work with a school leader who's

facing more challenges than them and in our risk assessment

has been identified as requiring intervention support.

So we would match a good and outstanding leader

with a school that requires support

based on all sorts of location,

the cohort of children,

the experience of the supporting head teacher.

And they would go in and with skilled teachers,

advanced skilled teachers type colleagues,

they would go in and support that school.

And my service of advisors will oversee that work

in a lot of the schools.

If there's, sometimes we can't always match school leaders

with schools, so advisors will then go in and do the work themselves and get, bring

in other skilled teachers to support them with middle management, with subject areas,

etc.

So, and the same advisors are the same ones delivering the challenge programme and giving

the same messages through Side -by -Side, through the challenge programme, and the Opportunity

Bucks programme that we've been running in school improvement has been about literacy and phonics

And so we've been working with targeted schools within the Opportunity Bucks wards.

Some of them, a significant number, are also academies.

And we really have no control over if they join our programmes or not.

And that's also a challenge for us at the local authority.

The children are ours, but not all the schools are ours.

Thank you very much. Very kind of those updates.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:53:46

Okay, next counsellor is counsellor Nella.

Thank you.

Cllr Frances Kneller - 0:53:51

I was interested in the chart on page 39, again, looking at opportunity bucks status

and showing there that the quality of education is not as high really as it could or should be.

And it reminded me of a report we've recently had

that health and adult social care in relation to GPs,

where there's insufficient GPs and the funding is fairly low.

So we've got an issue here in opportunity -backed areas

of both health and education really not delivering

for our communities.

I was interested really to get a sense of how this quality

of education situation is as it is, and what your targets and timeframes are for delivering

an improvement.

Okay, if I have to start, I'll look to the best on sort of anything we've got on targets

Cllr Carl Jackson - 0:54:54

and timeframes, but I think the, and health I'll leave because it's sort of outside the

scope of my portfolio and obviously this committee.

I think the crucial point to remember here is that obviously we can encourage,

point to support, offer help, try and link schools with better performing schools.

We obviously have a role to play in things like early intervention where there are said needs

and things to support schools which obviously that's it. We have a role we can play less or

more directly depending on the issue.

But when it comes to school performance,

it is ultimately for the sort of leadership

of the school to address.

We are always happy to connect people

with leadership of schools that are doing better

in those areas where other schools are weaker.

We're always happy to provide training,

signpost to training.

Some examples would be things like,

so there's a new Ofsted inspection framework,

which makes a lot of the data in here

kind of difficult to work with

because through a combination, no inspections during COVID

and then a change of framework,

it's almost hard to look at data

over the last five, 10 years now.

But so we have, for example,

we have examples where schools which have been through

ofstead onto the new framework,

will explain to other schools what that's been like,

how it's worked, what the inspection

has sort of been like to experience

and how to work with it.

So we're always trying to connect people

with as much information as we can

and sort of get schools to share best practise and help.

But ultimately, we can't sort of,

we don't have targets ourselves for improvements

in specific schools because we're not

kind of running the schools directly.

Aaron, I think you want to come in, don't you?

Yeah, thank you, Councillor, for the question.

I think it's a really important one

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:56:35

in terms of that cohesion and that link up.

We are seeing significant changes due

in relation to the wider national policy landscape.

and it's very, it's difficult not to look at one part

of the system without looking at the other.

And if you look at the reforms, for instance,

where they talk about schools now,

particularly in the schools white paper

being that community anchor.

So they're gonna be very much at the heart of community.

And what was mentioned earlier on around

the Best Start in Life programme,

very much talks around particularly with the hubs,

ensuring that schools are very much part of that community

and where there is health involved. The 10 -year plan within health talks about

integrated neighbourhood teams which involves that whole community approach

to ensuring that outcomes are improved for that local community and health play

a big part in that. We again looking ahead in terms of the future are having

those conversations with our public health colleagues in particular in

relation to opportunities where we can have those one -stop shops where for

instance Elmhurst was mentioned earlier on the aspiration is very much around

potentially having medical advice in the same place where somebody can receive

some advice around attendance at school or provision around money advice and so

on. So there are opportunities we can't talk about one without talking the other

but you're absolutely right schools are at the centre and will continue to be at

the centre of that very much that community feel as we move forward with

the changes in legislation.

Yeah, I'll let you come back.

The reason I suppose I've raised this is the fact that you look at these board statements.

Cllr Frances Kneller - 0:58:23

If I represent an opportunity box ward and I feel that if I was a parent looking at these numbers,

I'm sensing, oh, we don't have the best teachers.

I can't get to the GP, we don't have the best health services.

And turning that around, about people feel about their value and their worth and such

like.

And I think it's really important as a council that we're seeing how we work within Opportunity

Bucks and those wards, that we do value people, but also that these numbers are of concern

to us.

even if we can't directly impact on it, it's really important that we are seen,

that we're doing everything around that to make sure that what people feel about

their communities and what is being delivered is the best that we can offer.

Indeed and as part of our responsibilities as a council is very

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:59:20

much working in partnership with our health colleagues, education partners,

voluntary community and faith sector as well within those communities who have a

a big part to play in terms of that.

And I think most importantly is ensuring that we hear

from the voice of those communities

as to what their needs are.

And again, when I come back to,

not necessarily all about the data,

but in terms of those measures,

they're very much set down by central government

in terms of what we need to achieve,

including good levels of development,

the 80 % target that we have now

as part of that Best Start programme.

So it starts here, doesn't it?

In terms of those conversations,

the relationships that we have,

I have with health colleagues and others,

but equally the community and those who live

within those areas who want to see better

for their communities.

I think the fact that wards have been identified

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:00:10

as opportunity -based wards shows a determination,

a recognition of the challenges those wards face

and perhaps some others don't.

Our determination to do something about it.

Obviously you asked about school performance,

which is something we take a close interest in

want to help with, which isn't sort of directly ours to control.

Obviously, for areas which are within our control, we absolutely want to help in the

opportunity box areas.

You will see very soon with the Best Start Family Hub announcement, the first one and

then the ones that follow, opportunity box areas are going to be the focus.

And there is in the Best Start in Life strategy and in the services provided in the Best Start

Family Hubs, as they will become, there's a strong focus on health.

there is also a strong focus on support for education

and making sure people don't fall,

children don't fall behind almost before they've started.

So where it is not a responsibility,

the opportunity box areas are a big area of focus for us.

Thank you very much.

I have two more questions for this section

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:01:11

because I'm sorry, but I'm conscious of the time

and I wish people would put their hands up at the beginning

so I could time it maybe a bit shorter

with some of your questions.

I apologise, Chair. You did say you wanted one question only.

I did.

Come down for round two.

I gave a little bit of openness because not many people put their hands up, but it's just

generated.

But you're smiling very nicely at me, so that could work.

Caroline Connell, Councillor, please.

Thank you, Chair.

This is just a quick one.

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 1:01:45

It comes back to the thing I always go on about, is why we've got this huge ride in

special education needs and EHCP.

I'm looking at the January figures of 7 ,712 EHCPs maintained by Bucks,

113 were new and we've got a further 16, 23 coming on for assessment.

So, and as we don't have control over the academies,

if they go into the academies, are we sure that these children

that we are looking after and paying for are looked after properly

with proper education, with proper teachers, not education,

teachers and quiet rooms, et cetera.

So can we say that?

Can we do that?

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:02:22

So this is about sort of how we ensure the HCP support

is delivered properly within schools.

Is that, I mean, I'll look to Allen for that.

Absolutely, so we have a process in place

called annual reviews, which is an opportunity

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA - 1:02:35

to review the effectiveness of the plan.

But outside of that, our ECCOs, our specialist teachers,

and our EPs play a real role in making sure

that whatever is on the plan is delivered and understood.

And they also support to upskill some schools

to help them understand how they might need

to work differently with those children.

So there is a wraparound support for each school around that.

And we do make sure the deliverables that we identify

in EHC plans are absolutely deliverable by the school.

Thank you for that.

Does that include, sorry, that includes SEND children as well?

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 1:03:11

Yes, that does include children with SEND support as well.

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA - 1:03:16

Because I had one resident whose child didn't go to school for a whole term and

Cllr Caroline Cornell - 1:03:18

the school didn't notice he wasn't there and that was a same child and I find

that quite disconcerting. This is just one but it is one that could be more. I

think I'm more than happy if it's an individual child to speak about that

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA - 1:03:33

separately and maybe have a look at that absolutely. I wouldn't want to do it.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:03:38

Cllr Wendy Matthews - 1:03:41

Very good. Councillor Matthews. Thank you. Yeah in your plan of the areas that you

provided. There are other wards outside the Opportunity Bucks wards which are shown as

underperforming, particularly in the south of the county. So what support do schools

in those areas get?

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 1:04:03

Universal support is there for everyone. Everything that we offer is offered openly to both maintained

schools and academies. The take -up is primarily maintained schools because academies are

funded differently and they have their own support mechanisms. Some do, single

standalone academies have bought and do continue to buy support from us.

Sometimes we do things like specialist reviews with them because they don't

have anybody in their school setting or within the, if it's a multi -academy trust,

they don't have that expertise so they'll come to us and they purchase that

from us. Maintain schools, we've got a statutory responsibility to oversee and

standards, etc., in those schools, safeguarding special educational needs.

So any school will get support if they want it. That's blanket across the board.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:04:58

Thank you very much. So I did say earlier on a question and you've manoeuvred me into a position

and I don't mind because I want to show you that I am a person that will allow scrutiny to go on.

So I'm going to give you a second round, but I am conscious of time because people are looking in

and they want to get onto the time schedule, but I know we drifted slightly earlier, so hence.

So short question please. Councillor Morgan first.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 1:05:23

Well, Councillor Townsend and I have both just been discussing, because I think we've got similar

questions on the same subject. Do you want to go first?

I can do, yeah, if that's okay.

Yeah, absolutely.

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 1:05:37

There's a big, there's another attainment gap that jumps out at me from this report,

and that's shown by the bar chart on page 29.

And that's the attainment eight measure results by different school admissions types.

So we've got our selective schools and we've got our non -selective schools.

And as you can see, the selective schools perform almost twice

as well as the non -selective schools.

Now, pass on the back, we're above average.

Brilliant.

But we all know, and those of us who have children who are approaching 11 plus or doing

11 plus, we all know that you only really stand a good chance of passing the 11 plus

and going to a selective school if you can afford to pay for tuition to get your kid

through those exams.

I appreciate the fact that we're doing better than the national average, but I don't think

that's good enough, actually.

I think we need to be doing more to improve the outcomes for children in our non -selective

schools.

And I'd really like to hear if there are any plans in the pipeline for that.

And I know Councillor Morgan perhaps wanted to dig into some of the data a bit more.

Is that right?

So we're looking at page 32.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 1:06:44

And what I want to, and on page 30, it talks about areas of strength.

And it says, Attainment 8 at Key Stage 4 continues to be significantly above

that of both national and statistical neighbours.

And you said it's 53 .3.

Well, according to the table for key stage four non -selective schools, we're nowhere

near that.

And we might be, averagely, if you average out both selective and non -selective schools.

I think that's unfair.

And I also think that actually this non -selective school table doesn't actually do us justice

in terms of what we're scrutinising.

We have non -selective schools in Buckinghamshire that actually are very, very high achievers.

You know, some of those schools have a 72 % pass rate, grade A to D.

And some of our schools go down to 35%, let's say.

And so this key Stage 4 table for non -selective schools includes both cohorts, if you like,

of the ones that are doing really well, the ones that aren't doing so well.

So I would like to see a bigger breakdown of the non -selective school part,

so we can actually see which ones are our most seriously underperforming schools.

Is that in the opportunity box areas? Those are the kind of things I can't see from this table.

Where do we need the help?

Thank you for that.

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:08:16

And it's something that we are talking about in school improvement in particular.

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 1:08:21

If you look at the data and you look at the schools and then you cross match that with

OB schools and you cross match that with free school meals, you'll find that the greatest

number of children on free school meals and therefore economically disadvantaged will

be those in non -selective schools. So we've got not just the fact that they're non -selective,

we've got the fact that they have a higher number of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Earlier somebody equated quality of education with good teaching. Well actually quality

of education isn't just about the teaching, you might have excellent teachers in some

of those OB schools.

In fact, I know we have a significant number of teachers

who are excellent in the OB schools.

What we have, though, are the social issues

that are very challenging.

We've got issues around intersectionality.

So there's special education needs and disability.

You've got race.

You've got gender issues.

You've got free school meal issues.

You've got low expectations that we're still

working on with some schools.

But by far and wide, it's the social issues,

the non -attendance at school, significantly more

non -attendors at school in non -selective schools

than they are in the other schools.

There's so many different factors

that will impact attainment,

and it's not just about the school,

it's about the services that we provide as a local authority

that all of our multi -agency partners,

health, et cetera, CAMS, et cetera.

So we do have to work in partnership.

It's a whole system approach that I'm talking about here.

It shouldn't be just the school on its own.

It's not about the school on its own.

It's about all of us taking responsibility for the data.

So yes, it pains us when we see that data,

but we also recognise that there are bigger issues

that schools have to tackle

than they used to tackle in the past.

But the data is improving.

It doesn't sound great,

and it doesn't sound like we're ambitious.

we're incredibly ambitious for all children in Bucks and therefore we're

not sitting and accepting that we're constantly driving that and I've just

put more emphasis at the moment on secondary schools because I think that

transition from year six to year seven is going to be a really key one and

we're looking at how we're working with schools on that around attendance and

around family support as well because we still need to recognise that. Young

carers in schools. There's so many groups of vulnerable children that are sitting

in a non -selective school compared to selective schools and that needs to be

recognised the challenges that school leaders are facing. Thank you. Last

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:11:10

question, Councillor Mina please. Thank you. I was going to ask you something else

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:11:14

but I'm going to follow up on that question because it jumped out to me as

well. The huge disparity in the distribution of where these disadvantaged

these children are.

And just in brackets, I think we need

to revise a bit our definition of disadvantage,

because I think there are pockets of disadvantage,

even in my wealthy area.

But yes, so the selective schools

have an incredibly small percentage

of disadvantaged pupils compared to the non -selective schools.

And that to me seems unfair, basically.

I know that organisations like Fairhive, they provide tutoring for their young residents.

Now, when I spoke to them, they can only fund a handful.

So they've got more children in the waiting list that they can possibly take.

Now what are we doing?

What can BAGS Council do to ensure that more children can access and be successful at the

11 plus, particularly from those disadvantaged backgrounds?

It seems to me that the crunch point is you pass the 11 plus if you can afford a tutor.

I've been there, I've done that.

If you can't afford the tutoring, well, tough luck.

How can we help?

Thank you.

Did you want to come in first, Martha?

There are guidelines around what can be done by primary schools in terms of preparing children

for the 11 plus.

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 1:13:13

They get three practise tests.

They're not allowed to do tutoring for the 11 plus.

We do see an alignment sometimes between the key stage 2 SATs results and 11 plus.

I know that work's been done before in the council, so there isn't much disparity between

them.

So the same children that get the 11 plus will get the better grades at key stage two assessment.

So there is an alignment there.

Tuition does, it's all about practise, practise, practise for an 11 plus exam.

I've had three children go through that system.

I don't want to talk about myself personally, but I know lots of parents that don't want to put that pressure on their children

to do more tuition at the weekends or after school.

And schools aren't allowed to do it specifically

for the 11 plus.

And that's the challenge there.

Thank you.

I was just coming on a few of those points.

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:14:12

We spoke earlier about not having data for data's sake,

which I know we all want to avoid.

If you have suggestions, Councillor Morgan,

on ways you would like to see data broken

down in the next report, then I'm very happy to see them,

I'm very happy to consider them.

There's nothing here that we're looking to mask or hide,

so if there's a way we can make it clear

or provide more useful information,

then I'm perfectly happy with that.

My apologies to members of this committee

if they already know this.

Of course, the situation with the grammar school admissions

is that the grammar schools kind of look after themselves

in terms of admissions as the Buckinghamshire grammar schools

and Buckinghamshire Council is involved

as effectively an administrative role on a contract.

And we feel it's valuable to play that role

because it can ensure a level of consistency and fairness as far

as administrative role can over the county.

But it is for them as, I mean, they're all academies,

sort of to determine their own admissions.

And I think there's undoubtedly, you're undoubtedly right,

there is a gap in terms of the number

of disadvantaged pupils, selective

and non -selective schools.

I went to challenges in Arisham.

I remember seeing the figures when I was there for a number

of pupils on free school meals, and I'm pretty sure it was a very round number.

And that's, you know, that's not really changed.

Tutoring, I think, has grown as an industry.

I think it is an industry.

I mean, we're seeing in my ward Little Chalfont now, which has the very good,

Dr. Shanners High School, grammar school.

We're seeing schools which are massively or significantly undersubscribed

at reception year one, year two, which we're having to look and think

about bulge classes for year four as people move into the area to try and get in here

in time to be in the classroom for the 11 plus.

There will be different ways of looking to solve that problem.

My argument is I think we've got to a point

where we don't have enough grammar school places

for the number of children who could probably benefit

for them and be suited for them.

Others might take a different view.

But our role is sort of administrative

so we don't encourage tutoring.

We don't have a view on tutoring.

You know, the grammar schools sort

of run their own admissions process

and people will obviously approach that as they see fit

to do the best for their children.

I'm not sure there's much more I can add

from the council's point of view on that, Jim.

Very good, thank you very much.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:16:29

No, sorry, if it's short, I'll go for it.

It was a suggestion, Chair, if I may,

just thinking in terms of what

Cllr Susan Morgan - 1:16:34

Council direction was saying.

I think one of the things you might be able

to influence as cabinet member

would be the Opportunity Bucks programme.

I know Rachel Schimmen, as our previous CEO,

is really passionate about using Opportunity Bucks

to try and close that attainment gap.

if Fairhive are really struggling and there are other housing, Red Kite and

L &Q and whatever they're called now, perhaps there's something that could be

done there with opportunity bucks to try and open that up in some way so that

there's more tuition available to perhaps tenants of those housing

associations. Okay, thank you very much. I'm sure the cabinet member will take that away.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:17:14

And then, okay, so we're going to move on to the next section, but I'd just like to

I feel that was a good talk,

bit of scrutiny, good questioning there

to our officers over the file site

and they asked extremely well.

Council Morgan, I picked up that you said

that you'd like to hear, to see a report

in a year's time, just following up from that.

I don't know if I'm allowed to

because I'm on a learning curve at the moment,

but what about if, like it's being monitored,

there's a great deal of work going on.

Could we ask for a brief update in six months time

just to see how things are progressing

or would that be a bit much of me to ask in that period?

Because I can tell there's a lot of work going on.

Well, the data only comes out once a year.

Oh, right. Okay.

So that's the challenge of coming back mid -year,

apart from to say what if we're doing anything new

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 1:17:59

based on the report that you have before you,

but the plans are in there for the next academic year.

So...

No, I take that on board. Thank you.

I just learned a little bit from the education there,

from yourself. Thank you very much.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:18:13

So we look for next year.

Everybody agree?

Yeah, lovely.

Thank you very much.

As we carry, I say that a lot.

Thank you very much.

So item seven, everybody's looking in.

We are running a short way behind, but we are sort of catching up.

Do you want to push it?

7 SEND Inspections Outcome

We now move on to send inspections outcome.

Again, I'll hand over to Councillor Jackson, L. Albert, the corporate director.

And let's see if I can do it.

Chairman Secant Gill, did I get it right?

No.

I'll go and stand on the naughty step just behind me.

I do apologise.

That's fine.

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA - 1:18:49

I'm sure you'll educate me as we go through.

No worries.

So over to you, please.

Thank you, Chairman.

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:18:57

Yeah, again, I won't summarise a fairly short report.

The committee, I think, will be familiar with activity in this area as the paper on the

Senate Improvement Plan came before the committee of the 29th of January meeting anyway and

sort of covered the internal workstreams and work with external partners in this area.

I won't rehash it.

I think the only, I'll just add new points that have come up since this report was sent

to the committee.

The committee will be aware of the back and forth with central government over the creation

of a new special free school, 152 places it should have been.

We were told we were getting it, then told we weren't but could make representations.

We have made those representations to the Minister for Children and Families

and have received a letter back today saying that the decision will be

reviewed now following our representations. So I'm hoping we can

get back to the original promise but there is is no guarantee. Obviously as

soon as we know we'll be happy to let the committee know developments on that.

I've already mentioned on the previous item Amman's promotion to Service

Director for

Assertions and Inclusion.

So I won't cover that again.

So I think I'll just throw it

open to questions now.

I'd like to say,

Cabinet Member,

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:20:12

a lot of us in the community

have been so concerned

they would ascend implications

there and it's,

I think everyone would agree,

would be, it's great to hear

that you're pushing back

to the Minister to try

and bring that back on board

for Buckinghamshire

because it has concerned a lot

of people, so again,

thank you very much

to push that.

And we look,

we will await eagerly for the response. Hopefully it will be the way that we will want it, but

that's what we've got to wait for. Okay, members, over to you. Councillor Townsend was up first.

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 1:20:48

You first, please. Thank you very much. Back to the question I ask every two months, this select

committee. Back on to the increasing the timeliness of our EHCP assessments. We've all seen the Q3

results that are going down and we've spoken about it before we expected them to go down because we are

clearing the backlog and I don't think that the q3

Results accurately reflect the efforts that the team are putting in behind the scenes

Can you give us an update on how we're doing in terms of numbers and clearing that backlog?

Are we increasing month on month as we expected?

Yeah, so

So absolutely, we're really confident

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA - 1:21:30

that the recovery team has picked

up the work they need to.

So you'll remember the conversation was they have

to have educational psychologist assessments before their plan

can actually be drafted.

So we've been able to allocate the project team

to date to complete 164 EP assessments.

And that's from the 20th of, 27th of January,

which is when they went live.

And bear in mind, they had a week

of induction with us as well.

So they are absolutely progressing the work in the right way.

What we're really focused on is the throughput of plans increasing,

and you'll appreciate there is a time lag between this EP assessment being completed

to then the actual plan being drafted,

because that's the area that requires lots of co -productions with families,

with settings coming back to share actually that, you know, this is the offer they can provide.

So that's the piece of work that is kind of happening as we speak based on those completed EP assessments.

We also have made sure that there is a panel in place so that we're consistent in the delivery of EHCs,

because what we don't want is for, you know, one child to get a gold star service and another one to not have that.

So we've made sure that any plans that are drafted by our project team are put through that process of a panel,

so it's consistent in terms of what we're offering and what we would ordinarily offer.

So that is having an impact in terms of the next steps of moving forward,

and you will absolutely see more plans being produced

in terms of that work.

What we can't control is the demand coming through,

and we're really aware that in light of the SEND reforms,

lots of families and communities will be really worried

about their children not being able to get an EHC

in the future, so we absolutely know

that that's something we're keeping a really close eye on,

because obviously that's the piece of work

that could potentially impact the throughput

we're doing at the moment.

I was reassured at the, I think it was the last meeting,

or perhaps it was when I spoke to Councillor Jackson about it.

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 1:23:23

You were able to give me the numbers

of how many EHCPS we were issuing each month,

and it was increasing, which was reassuring.

Can you give an update on those specific numbers?

Yeah, absolutely, I can.

I wouldn't have been able to find a bookmaker

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:23:39

who could have taken a bet on you asking about that issue

of Councillor Townsend, so I think I was ready and waiting.

I just didn't know whether it would be this item or the next one

about the Q3 performance.

So obviously the Q3 figures, as you understand,

effectively relate to a period

before the external team came in.

So it's kind of the last period

where they will have effectively made no difference

to the figures.

Right, so as we've discussed before,

there's obviously gonna be a bit of a lag

in terms of hitting the 20 weeks.

So what we're looking for, what we're all looking for,

is signs of those kind of pre -stages getting better.

So the figures I've got here,

So, effectively, I've almost added an extra pre -stage for you.

So, there's what they call the sort of the app Ds,

which is the educational psychologist input into the EHC piece.

So, we saw 71 of those completed in January,

107 in February and 156 in March.

And the sort of the output of the internal team, or in -house team,

was fairly consistent over that period.

because obviously that team's not sort of transformed

in that time.

It's around the kind of 60 or 70 miles.

The difference now is kicking in from the external team.

So, obviously, they didn't really have any involvement

in the app group.

Then in February, they were producing, they produced 43

of the app Ds, and in March, it was 100.

So this is where you're now starting to see it kick

through these earlier stages.

In terms of the HCPs issued, so we're looking at 87 in January,

109 in February, and then obviously my figures

for March aren't complete.

These are as of yesterday, I think.

We were at 100 for yesterday.

So I'm hoping we'll go probably over 109,

slightly over 109 for March.

So we're starting to see that increase.

Now obviously what we want to see happening then is starting

to see times come down in terms of waiting times.

So the average assessment now,

length of a request for an assessment to an AHC PV issue is just starting to tick down.

Obviously, getting on the four -fifths of the requests are already sort of beyond the 20

weeks, and that's obviously what we've got to start dealing with first.

We just start to see the average assessment tick down from about 61 and a half weeks to

about 58 and a half.

Just starting to see it nudge.

I think really interesting as well, and this is where we're seeing the biggest impact at

the earliest stage, the educational psychologist input, the average length of time to get that

APD part done, down from an average of about 49 and a half weeks in January down to 20

weeks in March. Now, obviously, these figures don't tell the whole storey to individual cases.

There are still people who have been waiting for more than a year who are still waiting.

Most of the outstanding requests for assessment are already beyond 20 weeks. And obviously,

while I could get a very quick political win on my queue,

on my quarterly figures by saying,

let's start on a, let's put half the external team

or whole external team on everyone who's on 10 weeks

and start bashing away.

I think morally, if that's not too strong a word,

we need to be chronological about this,

except where there's exceptional circumstances.

We can't be working on people who've been waiting 10 weeks

to make the figures look better quicker

while there are people who are at 50 weeks and 60 weeks.

So there's still a lot of work to do

in those who've gone beyond 20 weeks already.

So I think we are looking at some time before

that figure gets better without meaning, Chairman,

to straighten to the next item, although it's slightly

inevitably.

But what we're seeing is those earlier stage figures now,

the APDs, the waiting times, the number of plans issued,

starting to show those signs

of improvement a couple of months in.

A little patience still required, but I'm happy

that the things that need to be moving for us

to get the breakthrough on the 20 weeks are now starting

to happen.

Do you think we're on track and what does the track look like?

When do we get down to meeting the 20 weeks in 50 % of cases?

You invite me to be a hostage to fortune, Councillor Townsend, thank you.

The official target on this is half the backlog in two years.

I'm confident that's a minimum, I'll put it that way.

I would like to see us go beyond that, I think we can.

But we also do need to remember that even while we

produce more, even while we issue more plans,

even while waiting times are coming down,

the total number of requests ticks slightly up overall,

because that demand hasn't run.

We're not to the point where there's no more requests

coming in, we're just clearing a backlog.

The demand keeps rolling in.

I think the last figure I saw for the number of requests

was in, I think it was November, was about 120.

So I don't know if we've topped that since.

But it shows that, you know, even if there are some months

where we could issue 100 plans

and still have got 20 further behind, you know.

In that case, I think it's worth remembering that.

I'm not going to be brave enough to put an exact timeline

on when we hit specific points on 20 weeks.

For me, the key thing is

that we're constantly heading closer to that point in terms

of waiting times coming down for all stages of the HCP.

And, you know, clearing as many as possible of those cases

which have been waiting, you know, well, you know,

first over a year and then start to build from there.

Thank you very much.

Councillor Molina.

Nice to see ambition.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:29:07

And I look forward to quarter four

and seeing that trend upward and not downward.

The outcome of the report is inconsistent

and inconsistent is doing a lot of work there

because behind that label of inconsistent,

there's an awful lot that's going on.

Inconsistency in communication,

inconsistency in understanding of children's situations,

inconsistency in the support given

while children are waiting for the assessment.

Now, I appreciate that you have a recovery plan.

I haven't seen KPIs for the recovery plans.

I haven't seen what it means in practise beyond recruiting more EPs.

I believe that what's needed is a laser focus on the internal processes of the services

because as a counsellor representing parents, it's incredibly difficult to know who's who.

You get bounced from one inbox to another.

Parents, you know, receive inconsistent answers or answers

that are incorrect, incorrect assessment.

So what is the recovery plan doing to improve the internal

workings of the service?

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:30:48

Thank you, Councillor. You mentioned the upcoming quarter four figures on the HCPs and hope

to see an improvement. I would be realistic about it because bearing my quarter four brings

us only really into the start of the period where the external teams come in to support

them. So quarter four I doubt will see a major transformation. I'm certainly not bracing

I think we're probably looking at, I would say,

maybe quarter two of the following one by the time we see a real breakthrough.

But what's important, I think, is that quarter four needs to show continued

progress on those earlier stages.

The AMD, the number of the HCPs issued.

Again, maybe the waiting times starting to show things in the right direction.

Effectively, all those things that need to start moving in the right direction

before we sort of break through to real progress in the 20 weeks.

So I would urge caution over quarter four.

But at the same time, I'm keeping a very, very close eye

on the figures that kind of lie behind that,

if you know what I mean.

Yeah, so your comments on the, also on basically the response

to the Ofsted findings.

I can assure you that laser focus is exactly what we're

working on.

I mean, there's a reason, as I explained at the start,

that we have sort of split that education inclusion role

into and now have a separate education service director

and a centre of inclusion director.

I think Anna will probably add on that.

It is to give it that extra focus.

It is to give it that extra attention.

You mentioned communications.

I think that's really important.

I've said it probably more often before I took this role

in the context of planning than I did in children's services.

But, you know, I always said when if someone's waiting

for a planning decision, they don't mind if you tell them

that it's going to be delayed by two or three weeks.

What really drives them mad is not knowing.

just not hearing anything.

They don't know if they've been forgotten,

they don't know if they've been put in the bin or whatever.

And so, but we have recruited into a communication job

specifically to make sure people aren't,

don't find themselves in that situation

where they're going, what's happening?

Am I still in the system?

So that is a big area of focus.

I think as well, it is important to take the positives

from the Austed report.

There were a lot of very sort of encouraging bits

of feedback there we ought to recognise.

Obviously, until we're in the top group of those three,

we're not going to be popping champagne corks,

but I think there's signs of real progress

that the Ofsted team recognised,

and that was really important.

I think what's also wonderful on the record, Chairman,

is that where areas are identified for improvement,

they weren't surprises to us.

They are areas that we already have recognised.

We're already acting on,

and say Alan might want to add more detail

on the highlights of that.

Where I'd be worried is if we were told that something wasn't going very well,

where we'd all been high -fiving each other because we thought we were giving a five -star service.

But you're right. I think what the AUSTED report, if I was going to summarise in a sentence,

which I will for the sake of time now, Jem, is we know how to provide good service.

We know how to deliver good performance.

It is now getting those systems in place and that way of working place to make sure it's every time for every child.

And I don't know if you want to add more detail on any of those points at all.

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA - 1:34:06

I think just to add, we did already have our improvement programme, which an update was provided

to last time, and a big theme across that is communication.

Because we absolutely know if there's lots of activity happening, but we're not talking

about the impact of it or the difference it makes to families, it's never going to serve

a purpose.

So we do have all of our improvement programme, and there's a very clear common strategy that's

being developed.

and we also have very recently put in place a comms task and finish group and we've got some

representatives from families and communities in that group to help us shape the communication

that goes out to families as well. Sorry I'm not talking about corporate communication,

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:34:45

I'm talking about communication with parents between the echo and the family, between the

caseworker and the family and the school. So that's what I'm talking about, I don't want to

to hear about corporate communications.

Okay, I think we've covered that topic enough.

We've covered that topic enough, okay.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:35:01

But if you'd like to talk to any of the officers offline,

I'm pleased to.

So as we continue, Councillor Gibbon.

Excuse me, Chair.

I did not know that I had...

Yeah, I've got your name down.

I thought you said we'd finished that.

No, no, no, no.

Well, the topic of what we just talked about there

with the Councillor, we're just staying the same.

So, saying on the same topic, thank you very much.

So, why tell them?

OK, Councillor, give it over to you.

Cllr Kathy Gibbon - 1:35:35

Yes, do you have any sort of provision for students who are put into mainstream schools,

but it's then found that they actually can't cope?

Say, for example, their level of English isn't up to the, say, or similar level to children of that age,

or their comprehension.

Because what I've seen is that these students, they come,

they're lovely children, really want to learn,

but because, say take for example their English,

they don't understand what's happening in the lesson,

and they get very frustrated, they often get badly behaved

because they're just bored and there's this thing where you can't look stupid,

so you've got to then, you know, it's like a protective thing.

But it's just because they can't understand what is going on,

but from no fault of their own.

They just, for example, it could be that they're

remitted to that level.

So they would need either somebody with them one to one,

which I have seen on some occasions.

That makes a massive difference.

That's how I can then progress.

But then if they're left on their own with no support,

they can't cope.

And we're really failing these children.

And I just wondered if there's any support for these children

who can't cope in mainstream education

and to get that extra support, you get them to a point

where they can cope in mainstream education.

Thank you very much for the question.

Yes, there is offers of support for all schools in Bucks.

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 1:37:01

The Bell Foundation is nationally recognised

for its English as an additional language training.

We deliver that training to schools.

There was a session just within the last week.

school leaders can then ask for support,

to look at strategies for supporting children

with English as an Additional Language,

which we offer to them.

It's also part of the Challenge Programme

that I spoke about earlier,

and the network of head teachers that meet in liaison groups

raise those issues of children with additional needs

or English as an Additional Language,

and they look at best practise amongst themselves.

So there is support in schools.

There are strategies in place,

but they're not all successful with every child,

but they do have the opportunity to develop strategies

with support from the local authority.

Thank you.

Great, thank you very much.

Right, so as we go on,

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:37:59

if we could keep our questions a bit tighter, please.

I'd appreciate that.

Councillor Munger, over to you, sir.

Thank you, Chair.

It was actually the matter of EHCP

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:38:10

that I want to come in on.

So forgive me for going back to that.

And also, I'd like to refer to something in a report to come out.

I thought it would be helpful to stay on the EHCP rather than me bring it up again

at the later item, which is, refers on page 91 of your agenda's refers to it.

First of all, though at 3 .6 on this report,

it clearly states that change must continue at greater pace and consistency on EHCP,

timelessness and variability and annual reviews.

So there's no question that as recently as February,

we were told that more work needs to be done.

If we refer to that report on page 91,

forgive me if I'm going over all ground here,

as I'm only substituting today, but it is an area that is

regularly in focus for me, given a wife who spent her career in education and a daughter

who is deputy head of a 1600 people comprehensive school.

So let's secondary school.

I do know something of the subject.

The targets, the target for Buckinghamshire for achieving responses within 20 weeks is

that 38 .2 % of applications will receive a response within 20 weeks. And we're achieving

6 .2. Frankly, it's appalling. It's not just bad. It's appalling. And that target is based

on the calendar year 2024. So my first question is, how often do we review the target? Because

we all know that EHCP applications are increasing exponentially, even within that year that

the target is based on that increased by 12%.

Councillor Munger, sorry, can I interject a minute?

I'm being informed that's the next agenda item.

Well, I thought it was helpful,

but I'm happy to wait till the next item.

Can we just double cheque, Councillor?

If we're talking about the Q3 figures,

then that's technically the next item.

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:40:23

But I mean, we can answer whatever you need to, Chair.

Well, okay.

Next item, please, yeah, thank you very much.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:40:30

Fine, we'll go back over all ground,

if that's what you want.

So next one is Councillor Nella, please.

Thank you.

Cllr Frances Kneller - 1:40:41

I speak almost weekly to families in Cheshire North who have SEND needs.

And so it was great interest to have a look at the report that came through.

And I looked at page 84 and 3 .3.

And I think the reaction to some of those families that are reported here in terms of

children and families have uneven experiences.

Some good, some not so good, and I think some of the people I'm speaking to will say not

good at all.

The length of time waiting.

I spoke to a colleague outside here.

Their grandson has just had his ECHP after 18 months.

That's not unusual.

The timeframe is a real concern to lots of people.

And it's not just about the ECHP,

it's what comes downstream.

I've got families who have got children who have needs

who've got no school for this September,

being sent a four hour round trip journey

to find an appropriate school in central London.

We've got situations where we've got very little provision

for children with mild to moderate learning difficulties to go to.

People are being offered 15 hours of provision.

The services that are being offered, even once the ECHP is in place,

is putting intolerable strains on families.

And the concern is what are we actually giving to families

who do have high levels of needs and whose children's needs are not being met?

We can't ask working families to homeschool children who've got these needs.

The family's dependent on the family income, they can't take time off.

And my concern is that the provision, even when we've got the ECHPs in place,

are not meeting the need.

The idea that we're going to have another school, maybe, of course it's great,

but we haven't got the provision we need across the county

to meet the needs of children who are coming through the system

and it is causing absolute devastation

in some of these families.

It's intolerable.

And the number of breakdowns that are going on,

we need to do something in terms of delivery behind it.

It's not just the ECHBs.

It's what comes afterwards.

Do you feel you could answer that first?

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:43:11

Yeah, thank you.

I mean, first of all, I say obviously we're not going to get

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:43:15

into sort of individual cases.

You won't want to raise them here.

I don't know, but if there is a case which you feel sort of

hasn't been handled or that hasn't been communicated

in a sort of a period of time, then do bring that to me.

And then we can always look at individual cases.

You mentioned a new free school,

that's clearly part of it in terms of provision,

that's not a small thing.

I mean, that was, hopefully still will be,

a major part of our plans to meet complex needs

for children, young people who can't engage

with mainstream education at all who need a special school place.

We've been told, well, just try and expand your existing special schools.

But to a great extent, we've already done that.

Eventually, you start to run out of space,

and you start to run out of options.

So we need that.

That's a big part of it.

That's why we made those representations and why hopefully we get the review.

In terms of overall improvement, I mean, well,

now also we've got the feedback from Ofsted.

There's a lot of positive feedback.

as all the areas for improvement.

It's why we have the Send Improvement Plan.

It's not just about the three million pounds

to get the HCPs issued more quickly.

It is a wider plan to try and make sure

that once we've assessed need

and established what support it requires,

we can then go on and meet that need

or work with others to meet that need.

So it is a plan that goes all the way through.

The team are working extremely hard on it.

It's not a lack of commitment or good intentions.

It's a surging demand, which is creating a lot of difficulties.

Like I said, even as we increase the number of EHCPs issued, although I appreciate it's wider than just that matter,

we still see the overall number outstanding, ticking up, albeit not much, because that demand keeps coming through.

It's a problem that a lot of local authorities are facing but I think

We think we've got a plan that's credible for OSTF plan to be credible and we will see improvement

I'm not going to see your itching to come in as well

Yeah, just so the inspection took place in November and obviously our recovery programme started in January

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA - 1:45:24

So there is that difference but inspectors were really clear that they felt we had the right

Priorities in terms of what we were looking at and it hasn't been forgotten that

that sufficiency is something that needs to be considered.

So all the briefings that we've had

around the recovery programme,

there's been lots of conversation around sufficiency,

recognising that what we don't wanna do

is just pull children out of school.

It's the worst thing to do.

Some children are managing really well

in the provision that they've got.

And just because they've got an EHC,

that should enhance their provision

and not necessarily just remove them from that school.

There is a dedicated education sufficiency board

that's in place.

And that conversation, not just around send provision,

but education sufficiency generally, and what that looks

like across the county is constantly being addressed

and looked at within that sufficiency board as well.

So it's absolutely not forgotten.

And obviously our partners such as health play a big role

in the provision they provide for those children as well.

And last question from Councilman Hooton, please.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:46:26

Thank you.

Cllr Frances Kneller - 1:46:33

very quickly real quick one for me will the committee this committee see a copy

of the updated strategic plan sorry can you repeat I didn't get it will the

Cllr Frank Mahon - 1:46:47

committee see a copy of the updated strategic plan yes so we've have to

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA - 1:46:55

publish it by Wednesday the 15th of April and it's a co -produced plan so

It's not a plan that the council, because it's a local area partnership.

So at the moment, the updated actions from the input from the inspection and what we need

to do and look at it, there's been lots of conversations with different,

our parent carer forum, with health colleagues

around what additional actions we want to put in place.

What we don't want to do is lose sight that our strategy was up until 2030.

So there are things that we need to add into it, but they cannot be things

that we simply stopped doing just because the inspection focus is something else.

So we're pulling all the items together into an updated strategy

and that absolutely will be shared and published on the 15th of April.

Thank you.

That's the last question in this item.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:47:42

No, we're going to move on.

So thank you.

We have until 5 o 'clock on this meeting.

Excuse me.

What would you like to, what was that?

Sorry, I was just trying to clarify. Does the committee meeting not run until five o 'clock?

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:47:59

Well, I'm going to buy my timing on the Chairman's script that says it's got timing,

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:48:06

so I'm just working to timings. I believe it's scheduled to be five o 'clock.

Thank you very much, Councillor. Maybe next time we change it, I've got a script and I'm

just sticking to what was there, so it might have been done differently earlier on, but I'll stick to

Okay, so our next item is performance monitoring.

We're going to take a five -minute break, okay, if everyone's happy with that, just to stretch

your legs.

And we'll convene again in five minutes.

Is that fine?

So it's 10 -2 now.

Well, it's nearly coming up to 10 -2.

So nearly at 5 -2, please return.

Thank you.

7 SEND Inspections Outcome

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:48:41

Welcome back to the Children's and Education Select Committee.

We just had a short break there so we could just stretch our legs.

Thank you very much for allowing us to do so.

8 Performance Monitoring Report Q3

As we're going to go back to the agenda, the next item is gender item eight,

which is performance monitoring report.

Going to go back again to Councillor Jackson to introduce the report.

Also ask Erin Albert and Alison Munt, this time our service director

for Children's Social Care, to follow up as well.

Nice to see you here. Thank you.

Thank you Chairman, I think the report is fairly clear so I've got nothing really to

add at this point.

I'll just have to take questions.

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:49:20

And Albert, have you got anything you'd like to add?

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:49:23

Happy to take questions Chair, thank you.

Okay and Alison, they all say no to, I was looking forward to you speaking a little bit

actually for our members.

Here we go.

Question time for you, the hands are flying in the air.

Councillor Morgan, always allow you first.

Thank you, Chair.

I have obviously taught well in this committee

Cllr Susan Morgan - 1:49:46

where I like to have lots of time for questions

and answers and not reports,

and I hope that the committee have actually read them.

It also makes them read it before they come here,

I have to say, Chair, if that's anything I can help with.

I'm learning a lot, Councillor Morgan,

today, I can assure you.

Councillor Jackson, you know, we come here at every committee meeting, the targets are

going down and down on page 91 as we can see.

I don't actually think that page 91 is helpful anymore and I think it's something that you

and the chair need to look at quite frankly.

I think it doesn't do you any service whatsoever and it's not helpful to us either.

I think we need some new KPIs around EHCPs

so that we can actually see the improvement perhaps

in the restorative service, you know,

in that backlog that's been worked on.

And then what impact that's having on the newer EHCP wait

times in terms of what's coming in.

Because this just tells us not a lot really, 6 .2%.

It's probably lower than that now, honestly.

But just if we could have a look at that.

at a later stage, because I just don't think this is useful anymore.

Thank you. Well, Councillor Morgan, in the spirit of the non -partisan way this committee often runs,

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:51:11

you invite me to tell more good news storeys, and I'm certainly very happy to do it.

I think the reason, I mean, this 20 week target

wasn't in the quarterly KPIs when I took over

the capital portfolio.

I, perhaps as a glutton for punishment,

asked for it to be put back in,

simply because it is a sort of statutory requirement

that we hit it.

It's the only kind of really serious target we're given,

I suppose, in the sense on this.

So I felt it ought to be in there.

And I think that we ought to sort of front up

about where we are.

So it's one that I feel,

the honest thing to do is put it in there.

It obviously doesn't make pleasant reading at the moment.

I think it will make more pleasant reading

and perhaps become more useful in a couple of quarters

times three quarters, four quarters, and so on,

which is why I would be tempted to leave it there

if the committee's still happy to see it.

I'm more than happy to add some additional KPIs which start to tell the better storey of the good work which is being done now.

So those APD figures we mentioned earlier, the number of EATPs being issued, the average waiting times,

I'm more than happy to put good news storeys in there if the committee wants to see them.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 1:52:38

Chair, I think we answered to our residents and one of the things we scrutinised, it is a really good figure and you're right,

We have to be transparent about this.

But I do think context for this committee,

because this is obviously a cabinet KPI,

but perhaps just some context for this committee,

just around what this report actually means,

maybe another page just with those key figures

and that explanation, just so that we can see for ourselves.

And if we see figures dropping or we see something

then that's not quite right,

we can then have that conversation with you.

That's kind of where I was going.

Yeah, but I think Anna would like to come in to add a little more context.

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:53:12

Yeah, I completely agree. I think there's lots of other data we should be sharing.

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA - 1:53:15

Some of it is very much around the successes of, for example, the recovery project and the amount of EP assessments they've already done.

You know, 186 in three or four weeks is a really good number.

So I think we definitely need to kind of maybe think about what we can add in to kind of demonstrate where we're at at the moment,

whilst this figure takes time to creep up again.

Lovely, so picking up on that from,

picking up on that from Councillor Morgan,

I understand, yeah, like you said, it is not helpful.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 1:53:46

So I picked that up with the cabinet member.

That was on your watch.

You saw it develop and you've seen what's good or bad.

So I take that on board,

but I'd also like to have a conversation

with you on that one,

so we can take that forward and work it that way.

everybody just obliged me because Councillor Mungar did have the floor

earlier on and I stopped him because it was in the infinite section and I know

that Councillor who was to go next would you oblige me and allow Councillor

Mungar to go next because I can see he's hot over there to continue.

Well thank you chair I'll actually skip quite a lot of what I was going to cover

Cllr Llew Monger - 1:54:28

The reason I wanted to raise it earlier was because it's ECHP and that's what we were talking about.

And it seems sensible to avoid discussing it twice, but we are now discussing it twice.

It's clear that as Councillor Morgan has pointed out and has been accepted by the cabinet member, the data is nonsense.

It's also very bad though, and we can't escape that.

You know, even the target, the target flatlines three times

across a 12 -month period.

I don't understand why it reduces

in flatlines each time.

But the actual results continue to decline,

particularly in quarter three.

They didn't flatline.

They declined further

against what we know is an increasing reality target,

not the printed target here of 38 .2 % or for that matter England's target of 46 .4%.

That's the reality is that the numbers must be much greater than appear

and therefore the percentage performance must be much lower.

And the public need to know that.

It's not just about this committee.

This is broadcast.

it's part of the public perception of how the council is achieving in a very

very important area. Let me go just to the very last couple of lines on here

improvement actions. The title, the headline is improvement actions and what

it says here is a range of measures are being used to tackle the delays in

waiting times. That's not an action that's a bunch of words. Let it tell us

what the actions actually are.

How can we judge if we don't know what the actions are

supposed to be?

Similarly, an AHC recovery plan has been developed.

The implementation of the plan will further

improve performance and address the backlog.

How do we know?

Again, it's a bunch of words.

It's not a plan.

We need to see what the plan is, what

the outputs from that plan are expected to be

and what the performance is against that.

So I'll leave it at that.

There's lots more that perhaps would have said

about this area, but I do think it's clear

that we need much more data.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

I'm happy to address those.

I might bring in Sarah a little later on the data

in terms of the moving target, I suspect,

Cllr Carl Jackson - 1:57:13

Sarah will be free to contradict me a little later,

that is assessed against southeast performance

and as the southeast average performance changes,

so does the target, I think that's what we're pegging it to,

so that's why that's, we're not dropping it

just to look like we're lower bit all aligned.

I would take slight issue with the figures being nonsense,

the 6 .2 % figure isn't nonsense, it's accurate,

it's just not very good.

And so, that's why we have the plan in place

to address it in terms of the specifics.

I take your point about a range of measures being used

to tackle delays and waiting times.

That's perhaps a more useful introductory sentence

than it is a specific description of an action.

I mean, in terms of specific actions,

the HCP recovery plan is the big one, which is effectively,

I mean, it's a grand name for effectively buying

in a lot more educational psychologist capacity

because that's the big block.

There's more to it than that,

but that's the big part of it.

Because what we found is,

you have to have educational psychologists input into the HCP.

They're rarer than hen's teeth.

And it's holding up the whole process because they're in such short supply.

And so a big part of the recovery plan is,

let's buy in that capacity, which is hard to recruit at the moment.

And therefore, that is, and in terms of how it's delivering,

If I refer back to the figures that I mentioned to Councillor Townsend earlier,

we're starting, there's a breakdown of what the recovery team, that's the external EP,

the support, and our internal team are doing.

You're seeing the contribution now, the big contribution at the earlier stages

of that external team we've brought in to getting the educational psychology part of the plans done,

which will then philtre through to more and more plans being issued.

Those figures are already getting better, which will then see us get to the point

where we're reducing the backlog of plans

which have gone over the 20 week statutory timetable

and we'll start to see the number of plans

done within 20 weeks start to increase.

There is a bit of a lag in the process.

It is perfectly possible that the quarter four figures

could be worse than the quarter three figures.

That is the lag on this.

But what we need to see is those figures

going on in the background of app D work

and the number of plans being issued getting better

and waiting times coming down.

We are very cautiously just starting to see signs

that that might be working.

Anecdotally, I've had comments from governors

at the school in my ward saying,

we've suddenly had quite a few assessments sorted out

and support coming through.

I'm keeping a very, very close eye on it.

But even though I appreciate that that graph

is not massively helpful to this committee at the moment,

I wouldn't dispute that point at this point in time,

we've got a lot more data going on in the background,

which I'm always happy to share with this committee

and always have been very transparent about,

which is showing that the team is,

with the external support and through the hard work

of our own in -house team, turning this around

and the signs are coming that this is gonna get better.

Thank you.

I don't know.

Can I just thank the cabinet member for the comments.

In terms of this product and where it's come from,

Cllr Llew Monger - 2:00:25

just to give you some background,

this is a cabinet performance report.

Sarah Sewell - BI BP Children's & Traded Services - 2:00:29

It's an extract from that, so it's part of a suite

of approximately 90 indicators across the whole council area.

So that's why there aren't that many detailed indicators,

because we'd be giving you a book every quarter

for that otherwise.

In terms of where those targets go,

as part of the cabinet performance pack,

we review targets on an annual basis.

So that is why you are seeing those flat lines

and then dropping down.

They're reviewed each year, and we are benchmarking

against our southeast regional comparators

for other local authorities.

So as their performance is declining, we're adjusting the targets.

So we are realistic targets as best we can.

In terms of where that's sitting currently, you mentioned earlier it's 2024 data.

There is a lag in when the data is collected and provided for all local authorities, unfortunately.

So the data for the 2025 calendar year has just been submitted to the department in the

last couple of weeks.

That will then be published in June this year.

So we will get that data in June, we will look at that and then have conversations with our cabinet member about where we set that target and how we benchmark and compare them.

But there is that long lag in getting that data for comparisons.

Can I just suggest then that for the purposes of this committee and in particular this aspect

Cllr Llew Monger - 2:01:48

of the committee's work, that borrowing process from another area that myself and the chair

of this committee are both involved in, data was produced on a monthly basis and shown

at every committee meeting.

So you can actually see the movement from month to month.

There's a monthly target and a monthly result shown,

and then the cumulative impact is also shown.

And then that should be available at any time

to members of the committee, but particularly at meetings.

Okay, I'll drop in there.

So that's a discussion I'll have with the cabinet member

Cllr Phil Gomm - 2:02:31

as we take forward and see how it's loaded here from you down there.

There is monthly data underneath this as well.

that is all there and tracked, so it is available.

It's just getting it in a format that's appropriate

Sarah Sewell - BI BP Children's & Traded Services - 2:02:41

for this committee that we can get to you.

So we can have those discussions.

Right, so we'll have a discussion and take that forward.

But that was a point that Councillor Morgan said as well

that we'd pick up.

I'm conscious that Councillor Townsend

has got to leave by 4 .30.

So again, oblige me for those that had their hands up,

but Councillor Townsend.

I'll make it very brief actually.

I just wanted to come in on the points

that Councillor Munger made.

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 2:03:06

And almost, I'd like to reassure the members of the committee

that are sitting for the first time

on this committee this year that this is an issue

that we have delved into on many occasions.

I've asked those questions.

We've gone through it.

We've scrutinised the EHCP recovery plan.

And that's why I think, as Councillor Morgan said,

this is, this graph is no longer helpful to us, but we want

to see all the figures that we, that I asked about before.

So we want to see how many EHCPs are being issued month

on month and also the EP output month on month.

That's what is really helpful to enable us.

But I'd also like to say that in terms

of my own individual casework in my ward,

I found Mr. Albert and Councillor Jackson very

responsive and very helpful.

And I do believe there is a committed and concerted effort

to turning this around.

But there's no getting away from the fact

that those figures are dire.

And they are absolutely terrible.

but I am convinced there is a work in progress,

but we just need to stay on top of those

month on month figures,

and that would be really helpful to the committee.

Brilliant, so we can tell,

and thank you very much for your compliments

Cllr Phil Gomm - 2:04:12

that you sent to the cabinet member

and to our level as well.

You know, everyone tries to do their best.

It's great to hear that it is working,

and everyone's made it quite clear

that they'd like to see this monthly improvement.

We've all agreed.

We'll be taking that forward as well, so very good.

Councillor Whom was next.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Will the number of places in

Cllr Frank Mahon - 2:04:38

residential homes programme be sufficient in itself to reach the

57 %

target of LAC within the county boundary?

I think the short answer, and that is no.

So, at the moment where I will look for nods or other gestures

Cllr Carl Jackson - 2:05:01

from down the line, but I think in terms of the number

of looked after children we have, we're at about 40,

5 or 40, something like that.

In 5 or 37, there wasn't a bad guess, given I haven't asked

in a couple of weeks.

So, I mean, obviously, those children and young people

in a range of placements, there's our own foster carers,

there's independent foster carers,

There's external private sector residential homes that are internal.

The total extra places provided by the 10 new homes that are opening should be open

by 2028 time.

I think it's about another 30 places between them.

So that's not going to be, unless there's a significant drop in the number of children

in care, that's not going to move the 10 % on its own.

And of course, that's not the only sort of moving part in terms of doing that.

We're also looking to recruit more foster carers.

And obviously, our foster carers, they will be box -based.

So that is, if we can have children, young people moving out of private sector residential

homes into foster carers based in box, and that will improve those figures too.

So it's not just about building and opening the care homes.

The care homes on their own won't, but it's sort of not the only plan we've got to try

improve that situation. Mr Chairman I'll just come back briefly. On our in -house care

Cllr Frank Mahon - 2:06:27

homes we had a plan initially for 10. Where are we? How many is open now and

how many will open in 2026 if you may please? I think the new in -house

Cllr Carl Jackson - 2:06:45

children's home you're talking about. Well right yes I think we've gone four that we've opened.

And is it recently? Two are launching tomorrow. I'm going along to one of them. Oakview, I think it is.

So one I think they're not having the launch tomorrow but it's still about to come on.

Although that will be a single placement at the coach house.

So it's a great opportunity in terms of it's a kind of accommodation we use for a child young person with very complex needs.

so it might be we can bring someone from out of county

into our own provision,

as well as be better hopefully for that child young person,

probably save a fairly significant amount on costs as well.

I think the rest of them are due for 2028, aren't they?

Risk factor in here, I would say, before Alison jumps in,

is the Ofsted registration time.

Councillor Morgan will have heard me talk about this

at the budget scrutiny session.

Our plans, including our latest budget, are based on a six month time from us asking Ofsted to review the children's home, to them saying everything's fine, go for it, get it open.

At the moment we've been told we might need to start expecting something near nine months.

We have written to the Minister about this. We've had a response, I would say a response rather than an answer,

So we are sort of going to have to build that into our figures that we might sometimes be ready to go.

But obviously we can't actually start placing children in these homes until we've got the OSTA registration.

We hope they can start to get back to nearer the six months level for that registration time.

And certainly hope it doesn't go any longer than nine.

I don't know if Alison or Errol want to add anything on that.

Thanks, Councillor Mahon.

I've mentioned here previously as well the additional complication.

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 2:08:34

Whilst we have those homes and we talk about space for children to be in those homes,

one of the other areas that we have to carefully manage is the whole issue around matching

because it's not simply that we can place several children together.

We have to and our staff carefully consider and assess some of those risks that some

those children with really complex needs present and the danger that they present

either to themselves or other residents. So there is a very careful matching

process behind this also which adds into as Councillor has mentioned around the

AUSTED delay but there's also that process that we have to ensure that

children are carefully matched in those individual homes. Thank you.

Thank you. Just to add as well that the children's homes isn't our only part as

Alison Munt - Service Director for Children's Social Care - 2:09:28

As was already mentioned, it's our foster placements as well.

It's our independent foster placements within the area.

And also it's our semi -independent placements.

But the other thing that we have to consider is where children have been placed out of

county for some time, they've built a life in that area as well.

So it's not just a simple case of just uprooting them from what they know and the education

that they're already involved with.

It's actually making sure that if we're going to move children back into Buckinghamshire,

it's also done in a planned way.

We absolutely are committed to having as many children in Buckinghamshire as we can

because that's close to their family networks, it's close to all the local area,

so it's an essential part that we need to do.

But we do have to make sure that we do it on an individual basis and planned.

Thank you very much.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 2:10:18

If I could just ask, see you spoke about the launches of the children's homes,

I don't know if it's out of our remit,

but if we would be invited to one of those,

so we would get to see them or understand them,

or is that a bit out of our realm to see that?

If I could just leave that with you,

cabinet member, to take up the box.

I think we should experience

of what is possibly being delivered in books.

So we understand it a lot more like officers

and yourselves do, just to afford.

Sure, should we pick it up after the meeting?

Very kind.

Okay, Councillor Neill,

Did you ever?

Yeah, it was you.

And then, Councillor Molina.

Thank you, Chair.

Just raising an issue regarding the EHCP data.

Presumably, the details that are here

Cllr Frances Kneller - 2:11:05

were part of the suite of information

that went into the inspection and gave us a band to score.

I was just interested to know whether we were actually

talking or looking at some of the actions and activities of band one

authorities in terms of what they're doing and how they're doing it to

actually get these these numbers into a better position and whether they're sort

of targets and timetables could be emulated to help us at all. Thank you.

Someone who is heavily involved in the inspection and its follow -up, I think I

reports whether that's HMIP inspections whether it's Ofsted inspections or

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA - 2:11:51

local area send inspection of other areas that are doing really well. We're

part of a regional group called Southeast Regional Group as well which

also shares really good practise around what happens in other areas. I think the

challenge is a lot of those areas not to take away from the fantastic work they

have done they are much smaller local authorities that can make a big

difference in terms of the proportion of children they have in their communities

the movement of those children.

So there's lots of factors I think that contribute to what that grade is in terms of the inspection.

I think when you look at nationally, I think there was about 54 -55 % of local authorities and local areas

that all fell into that number two category because we're all battling what is a systems issue.

With the SEND reforms coming in, there is a real opportunity to improve some of that work

and not lose sight of what we need to do for children and families.

And I think the reforms are going to be a real opportunity for lots of local areas

to really rethink how they do things and work in a better, kind of more localised way really

to try and meet the needs of their children and families.

But we always look at what other local authorities are doing,

what other local areas are doing.

I've had several conversations with different local authorities about their use of technology as well in

assessments and how they've used that to help improve timeliness

And that's all kind of activity that we've got as part of our improvement programme

That's impressive that you know you're using that technology and all sorts to

Cllr Phil Gomm - 2:13:30

Try and get alongside them, which is which is good news. So last one I believe is Councillor Morbina

I'm going to carry on on the EHC piece.

Now, we shouldn't, you know,

forget that there are other indicators.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 2:13:45

And the other indicators are looking good.

So we're focusing on the ones where we need to improve

because that's the purpose of our scrutiny.

But, you know, I just want to acknowledge

that there is really good work done across the service.

Now, I want to pick up on Councillor Monga's point

about the improvement actions.

and it's something that I've raised before.

We need proper actions.

I appreciate that these are reports

that are not written specifically for this committee,

but we need actions that are smart actions,

whatever smart stands for that you never remember,

but we need things that we can see, measure,

put a time bound on it.

So that's one aspect, and I don't know if you can provide

improvement actions that we can measure and scrutinise properly.

With regards to the EHCP, look, to be honest, the 20 -week target,

in many respects, it's not the main issue.

For me, what's important is what happens when, while they're waiting.

So the support that is given to children waiting for a needs assessment,

and that support in many cases is not there.

You talked about the recovery plan and I'm glad to hear that finally I know what the

recovery plan entails, which is effectively just recruiting more educational psychologists.

Now, I'd like to hear from you what you expect to see from more educational psychologists

because the experience I have with my constituents,

in many cases, as the school told me,

they write the EHCP virtually, completely.

So they provide a lot of input already to the EHCP.

Parents do as well.

In many cases, the assessment is done privately,

and still there are delays.

So I want to get to, you know, what you expect to see

from more education as psychologists when, you know,

even when the needs assessment is done,

the EHCP is not produced timely.

And it has very heavy input already

from parents and teachers.

Did you want to go first or me?

You can go first.

Okay, fine.

Right, yeah, okay.

Cllr Carl Jackson - 2:16:27

So, I mean, in terms of support while children are waiting,

obviously a big part of the plan is to make sure that people aren't waiting anything like as long as they were before.

And there are, we've also recruited this communication job we talked about,

which I think clarifying on a previous point,

is not a corporate communications issue.

It is a communication about the progress of individuals' plans

of their individual cases with the families.

It's not about sort of me doing a video and putting it

on Twitter saying, no, isn't this plan good?

So there's going to be, I think, a lot more updates in terms

of people can have more information

about where they stand in time as we get to grips with this.

And obviously, we want people to be waiting a lot less time.

Where there are exceptional cases, very, very complex cases, there are ways of intervening

outside of just going chronologically through the backlog.

So where a school is saying, there's an exceptional case here, please can you consider exceptional

support?

And that is possible.

Council of Townsend will know that from, obviously, the school in her ward, where she takes a

particularly strong interest.

In terms of the various inputs into the EHCP, you're right, of course, it's not just educational

psychologists.

It is also schools, that's why you tend to see a drop off, we certainly did in August,

where the schools aren't really there to provide their input.

And indeed, I think they have an exemption from their usual timeline to do so, donate

the school holidays.

So that in the summer holidays, you might find it's actually the school which is taking

longer to cut back.

And of course, there are other parties involved too.

So when we had our send inspection, which commented a lot on the HCPs and was happy

with the improved quality of them and our plan to try

and to bring down the waiting times.

It was a local area partnership inspection.

It also involved colleagues from sort of health organisations

and the various other organisations need to come in.

So it's not just educational psychologists,

it's not just schools, it's also health.

And they all have their own sort of various struggles

and moving parts as demand continues to be high.

But the point about educational psychologists is

that they have to have an input into every plan.

and they are one big bottleneck in the system.

Not to say that once you've got their input,

everything else is guaranteed to be fine,

it can be sorted in two days,

there are still a lot of other input needs to go in.

Let's not forget to mention the families as well,

we need to have an input into this process.

But there's no doubt that a big part of the problem

was the fact that you'd struggled to get enough

educational psychologist capacity to get their input,

and without them, you're really going nowhere.

whatever, even if everyone else does everything as quickly as feasibly possible.

So I'm confident it's the right approach.

Our team, in -house team, definitely needed that support because we'd reached the point,

which I know I've said before, where the backlog had got beyond the level where a team that

was already working hard could just put in a bit more and deal with it.

We had to get this external support in to help them out.

They were well beyond capacity.

And I think buying an educational psychologist was the sort of sensible way to start.

I would reassure members as well that I have also actually met with the educational housing

and care coordinators because we talk about them so much.

It's involved not to have actually met with them.

And I ask straight up, this plan we're doing, spending three million quid on, is it going to work?

Is this what you need?

Is it going to actually help?

And the answer was yes, this is a big part of the problem.

This is going to help.

So I'm confident it's the right step.

And I don't know if you want to come in.

So yeah, I think just to echo, because the quality of plan is really important.

Aman Sekhon-Gill - Assistant Director, QA - 2:20:11

And what we don't want to do is say, just because the EP part is the statutory part,

let's just produce plans for children, because actually it doesn't account for what their needs might be.

So as Councillor Jackson has said, there's so many different aspects of the plan.

And our view is always that we have to co -produce the plan with the family.

So actually if the family is not in agreement with perhaps what the draught plan is saying or something

We need to work with that that will always have an impact as well in terms of timeliness in terms of you know

The detail that sits behind it and actually I would always argue that is for the right reasons

Because what we don't want to do is rush through a plan

Because we're so focused on just the performance measures that actually then the family don't get a voice in saying

Well, hold on a second. This doesn't appear right?

So, I think there's definitely something that, and there's a number of different factors

like that that can cause a delay from the point that the EP assessment is done to the

point that the plan is produced.

So that might be, for example, a child who's known to social care and they're going through

a very difficult time perhaps during that process.

It could be because there's been loss in the family and actually rightfully so, we say

it's not the right time for us to keep trying to gather that information.

So sometimes it's really valid reasons that sit behind it.

And I think that's important to account for some of that as well.

In terms of the point around measures and the evaluation of that.

So we do have our improvement programme board.

And there is a number of different kind of detailed measures that sit

under each work stream of that improvement activity.

And there are some measures that are kind of being set against that.

And then in addition to that, we have our partnership board,

which parents and carers sit on.

impact co -chair we have and that's also a place where just this morning we've

agreed that we are going to start taking more data and more qualitative

information into that arena so there's a real kind of grip and control on the

impact and outcomes of that. So on the improvement programme there are data

measures but actually we've very recently we're starting to shift to

saying okay but so what what does that mean to families what's the impact of

this piece of work we've done and how much of a difference does it make. So we

are shifting some of the reporting into that improvement programme board to make sure that

it doesn't just account for numbers, but there's a bit of qualitative stuff to hear what families

are telling us.

Can I just add to that as well, really important detail.

Our parent carer forum are on that board, so we speak with them regularly and they input

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 2:22:36

into that as part of that whole co -production piece.

So just an important point to mention.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I believe that's the end of that item section on our agenda.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 2:22:47

Everyone's asked their questions.

It's 4 30.

Council Townsend, very conscious that you needed to get on to another meeting.

Sorry, I've got to pick my children up actually.

Well, no, I said meeting.

I tried to cover you there, but...

Children's is good a reason, isn't it?

Okay, that's good reason actually.

We're going to move on, but I know that everybody is ready.

I'd like to thank the Deputy Cabinet Member and Officers for coming this afternoon.

You made my job a little bit easier for me today, that was for sure, but it won't always be that way, I expect.

But thank you very much for your time coming this afternoon and briefing everybody.

And we've got our actions to take forward, and I'm happy to meet up with both Cabinet Member and Deputy at any stage they want to, or Officers.

but thank you very much again for your time. Thank you. Well our next item is

is item 9 that's been done which was Chairman's further announcements. We move

10 Work Programme

on to item 10. You can stay if you want to or you can go if you like to. It's the

choice is yours. So item 10 is going to be the Work Programme. This is an opportunity

for the committee to reflect on its work over the Council year 2025 to 2026 and

and suggest any items they would like to see included

in the work programme for the next year.

I know that some information was sent out earlier on

by officer, so you could see what's happened

over this last year under the chairmanship

of Councillor Morgan.

So moving forward, how would you like to approach this?

Thank you, Chairman.

I mean, Councillors are welcome to email me

Katie Dover - Democratic Services Officer - 2:24:36

with suggestions for items for the next year.

There is a work programming meeting that will commence

after the Annual Council with the Chairman

and Chief Officers as well to gain their knowledgeable input

into the work programme.

And also we had some suggestions, some volunteers

for the review work on the subject

of elective home education.

So we look to commence that soon as well.

Thank you Chairman.

Very good, thank you very much, Kate. That's appreciated.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 2:25:09

So again, like Kate says, send that information to her and we can start sort of collecting that.

I'd like to have that ready actually as soon as we can so we can hit the ground running ready into the next year as we go on.

And Councillor Morgan, I will be tapping on your shoulder, as I've already said, for your input on that side as well.

and my vice chair, Wendy Matthews, is going to be working with that alongside.

So if we could get that going as quick as possible, I'd appreciate that.

We're nearly to the close of our meeting.

What I would like to say, firstly, before we close down,

the next meeting of our Children's Education Committee Select Committee

will be announced at the annual council meeting on the 20th of May at the Oculus.

So that's when we'll all know where we're at.

But if we could try and arrange anything pre -and I don't know if we're allowed to,

I would like to get some dates out and pencilled in.

But I don't know what the rules are when it comes down like that.

But I'd just like to get ahead of the game so we all know what we're doing.

Again, just before we close down a few things,

talking to Councillor Matthews about, as Vice Chair,

about different things as we move forward again.

we'd like to bring back the pre -meetings.

So it would give me an idea of where everyone is not,

you know, sort of managing it,

but it's just to get,

see what everyone's expectations are.

So a proposal that we'd like to make is we just have maybe a

half hour meeting once we've had papers a week before the

meeting, and then we go from there,

just have a little pre -meet to discuss things.

So I might be able to manage a little bit better on that

side.

Cllr Susan Morgan - 2:27:04

Sorry, Chair. Sorry, Chair, to interrupt you. We have a pre -meet at half past one. So that's what we've done up until this point.

Just wanted to say it's not a reintroduction because we've been doing them this whole time. So unless you're proposing that we change that to...

I thought, sorry, I thought there was a, okay, so it's a discussion.

Cllr Phil Gomm - 2:27:18

If we're happy, then it's a discussion I'll have and we're,

we'll take that forward. I get that. I, yeah,

I would prefer it the same day just before,

but I must admit if it's a bit a week before it just gives me a chance to prep

slightly yourself. But anyway, it's a,

it's a discussion we'll have and then, and then go from there.

So, and that covers that. And again, before we close down,

And I'd like to thank Katie Dover for helping me today,

blending as quick as I could, thank you very much.

And then totally, Councillor Morgan,

you're not gonna get away that easy.

I know that you're disappointed, but trust me,

we do have a good relationship.

I intend to abuse that relationship

by exchanging as much information as we can,

because you and I both have an extreme passion

towards children's education, et cetera,

like our colleagues on this side.

So I look forward to that as we move forward.

Thank you very much everybody for my first meeting.

I appreciate how we handled that today.

I think it was smooth, et cetera.

Make sure you get home nice and safe

and see you again at the next meeting.

Thank you very much.

Cllr Caroline Cornell

Conservative

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Cllr Kathy Gibbon

Conservative

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Cllr Phil Gomm

Conservative

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Cllr Carl Jackson

Conservative

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Cllr Frances Kneller

Liberal Democrats

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Cllr Frank Mahon

Conservative

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Cllr Wendy Matthews

Conservative

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Cllr Llew Monger

Liberal Democrats

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Cllr Susan Morgan

Liberal Democrats

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Cllr Maru Mormina

Green Party

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Cllr Larisa Townsend

Independent

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Children’s & Education Select Committee - Thursday 26 March 2026, 2:00pm - Buckinghamshire Council Webcasting

Children’s & Education Select CommitteeThursday, 26th March 2026 at 2:00pm

Agenda

Slides

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Votes

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:00:00

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:00:11

1 Apologies for Absence & Changes in Membership

Katie Dover - Democratic Services Officer - 0:00:24

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:00:50

2 Declarations of Interest

Cllr Frances Kneller - 0:01:18

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:02:15

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:02:27

Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:02:57

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:04:03

Cllr Llew Monger - 0:04:09

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:04:54

Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:04:57

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:05:05

Cllr Llew Monger - 0:05:53

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:08:08

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:08:12

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:10:41

Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:11:09

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:11:34

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 0:11:37

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:12:32

Cllr Frances Kneller - 0:12:37

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:13:04

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 0:14:03

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:16:22

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:16:40

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:18:55

Cllr Llew Monger - 0:19:00

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:20:31

Cllr Frances Kneller - 0:20:35

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:21:36

Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:25:10

Cllr Frank Mahon - 0:25:53

Glenn Watson - Principal Governance Officer - 0:26:03

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:26:56

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:27:44

3 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

4 Public Questions

5 Chairman's Update

6 School Standards and Effectiveness Report - 2024/2025 Academic Year

Cllr Carl Jackson - 0:33:01

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:35:50

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:36:27

Cllr Carl Jackson - 0:37:08

Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:38:49

Cllr Carl Jackson - 0:39:07

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:39:14

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:40:00

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 0:40:04

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:40:56

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 0:43:08

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:43:17

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 0:43:23

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 0:44:29

Yvette Thomas - School Improvement Manager - 0:44:57

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 0:45:19

Cllr Phil Gomm - 0:45:58

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:46:01

Cllr Carl Jackson - 0:48:12

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:48:32

Cllr Carl Jackson - 0:49:17

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:49:34

Sarah Sewell - BI BP Children's & Traded Services - 0:49:52

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:50:25

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:50:56

Errol Albert - Corporate Director for Children's Services - 0:51:07

Children’s & Education Select Committee
Thursday, 26th March 2026 at 2:00pm