Children Families & Education SC

Minutes CHILDREN, FAMILIES AND EDUCATION SELECT COMMITTEE 13 November 2024 Meeting held at Committee Room 6 – Civic Centre, High Street, Uxbridge, UB8 1UW Committee Members Present: Councillor Heena Makwana (Chair), Councillor Becky Haggar, Councillor Peter Smallwood, Councillor Kishan Bhatt, Councillor Tony Gill, Councillor Sital Punja, and Councillor Jan Sweeting (Opposition Lead) Co-Opted Member Present: Tony Little Officers Present: Lucy Wylde (Service Manager), Marie Fleming (Team Manager, Youth Justice & Prevention), Tehseen Kauser (Director of Service Delivery – Children's Social Care), Julie Kelly (Corporate Director of Children’s Services), Claire Fry (Assistant Director, Child and Family Support Services), Abi Preston (Director of Education & SEND), Dominika Michalik (Assistant Director of SEND & Inclusion), Gary Binstead (Senior SEND & Inclusion Commissioner), Michael Hawkins (Head of Education & Lifelong Learning), Ash Knight (Children’s Participation Team Manager) and Ryan Dell (Democratic Services Officer) Note: several young people were in attendance for the items 1-5 30. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE (Agenda Item 1) Apologies were received from Councillor Rita Judge with Councillor Sital Punja substituting. 31. DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST IN MATTERS COMING BEFORE THIS MEETING (Agenda Item 2) None. 32. MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING (Agenda Item 3) Members requested that the following sentence be corrected: “Members asked about the tightness in years 9 and 10, particularly in the north of the borough…”. It was requested that “north” be corrected to “south”. RESOLVED: That the minutes of the previous meeting be agreed , subject to the above amendment 33. TO CONFIRM THAT THE ITEMS OF BUSINESS MARKED AS PART I WILL BE CONSIDERED IN PUBLIC AND THAT THE ITEMS MARKED AS PART II WILL BE CONSIDERED IN PRIVATE (Agenda Item 4) 34. HILLINGDON’S YOUTH OFFER AND DELIVERY MODEL – REVIEW OF IMPLEMENTATION OF CABINET DECISIONS FROM SEPTEMBER 2023 (Agenda Item 5) Officers thanked Members for the opportunity to present this update. Cabinet approved the delivery of the new Youth Offer in September 2023, and officers noted that they were on a journey of this implementation. The Youth Offer consist ed of three key teams: Universal, Targeted, and Community and Voluntary Sector. The Universal team currently deliver ed a number of youth work and detached sessions from multiple community locations across the borough. The Targeted team aim ed to respond to emerging needs and their programmes were co-produced with young people. The Communit y and Voluntary Sector team delivered the Holiday Activity and Food Programme (HAF) as well as support groups for young carers, Hillingdon Autistic Care and Support (HACS) and transition to Excel. The implementation of the Youth Offer required a comprehensive and diverse approach, closely collaborating with organisations delivering programmes to children, and the National Youth Agency. A five -year strategy ha d been developed that provide d infrastructure for delivery and accountability of the new Youth Of fer. This strategy focuse d on nine priority areas. A workforce development plan had been created to guide recruitment and training. This included mandatory training and bespoke professional development. The ‘Stepping into Hillingdon’s Youth Offer’ training programme had been designed and delivered to the first cohort of new recruits in August and will continue to be rolled out with all new recruits as part of the induction process. The teams continued to utilise flexible assets in the community including three young people’s centres, Uxbridge Family Hub, Hayes Family Hub, schools, libraries and community spaces. This ensured accessibility seven days a week. A new communications strategy had been co -produced with the Corporate Communications team to advertise the Youth Offer. A thee-month campaign, named #NextGen by children and young people, was due to be launched with a launch event at the young people’s centre in Harlington. The communications strategy involved the creation of photographic materials and TikTok videos all co-produced with children and young people. A young person who had been referred to the Targeted team was in attendance and addressed the Committee. They had been referred to the team as they had been struggling with their mental health. They now worked as a targeted reviewer and had been up and down the country undertaking consultation work for Hillingdon. They had also been involved in two NCS tri ps, to Thorpe Park and to the Brentford Community Stadium. Three members of the Youth Council were in attendance and addressed the Committee. The first young person said that the Youth Offer was a good idea that brought everything together. It would help everyone and was accessible. The second young person, who noted that they were a young carer whose mother had immigrated to the UK, noted that the Offer was impressive, and made it easier for everyone. The third young person highlighted the use of TikTo k, as this was a platform that was widely used by young people. Members thanked the young people for attending, and asked officers about the most and least attended projects. Officers noted that the holiday programmes were well -attended, especially in th e summer. Officers further noted that it would be difficult to highlight lesser attended projects as this would depend on the type of project. For example, some were group sessions while others were 1 -2-1. Officers noted that they could provide a further breakdown of all programmes. Members further congratulated the young people and noted that the Youth Offer had been a long time coming. Members noted that as of January 2023, the plan had been to offer 29 universal sessions per week; that the launch had been delayed; some posts were unfilled; and that the transporter bus had been decommissioned. Members asked if 29 sessions were currently being delivered. Officers advised that the current figure was 23 and that recruiting was ongoing. Citing page 15 of the agenda, Members highlighted some concern about the spread of activities within the borough, especially in the south. Officers noted that outreach work was delivered, and officers were working on a plan to make use of the top of the new Jubilee Centre. Fu rther, there were football events held at the Skills Hub on Tuesdays. Members asked about training for volunteers compared to staff members. Officers noted that as well as specific training for mentors, and a professional qualification for LINK counsello rs, volunteers can access the same training and development resources as staff members. Members asked about programmes for careers and managing finance. Officers noted that while there were not programmes specifically for this, these topics were covered under programmes for boys and young men, and girls and young women. Members asked about remote delivery to increase engagement. Officers noted that there was some of this already in pace. Officers further highlighted the blended approach for virtual plus face-to-face provision, noting that young people had advised via consultation that face -to-face provision was often preferable. Members highlighted the decommissioning of the transporter bus and asked what impact this had had. Officers noted that detached work was ongoing and they were looking to secure two new buses. Members asked about what challenges could be expected over the next two to five years. Officers noted the need to keep up to date with new technologies, and also noted evolving demographics. Members asked about how work was coordinated with the voluntary sector. Officers noted that work was underway to develop a You th Offer Partnership Board including service providers and stakeholders working together to deliver a coordinated programme to respond to identified need . Officers had been working with colleagues across the Council on developing a new improved directory of services which was easier to navigate and categorised services for children and young people. The new directory was currently under construction, but the existing directory was still accessible. A new Volunteer Strategy, which will be implemented over th e next 5 years , would highlight four key priorities for developing the volunteer programme: Promoting the volunteer programme, Welcoming and building a community of volunteers, Celebrating and supporting volunteers; and Providing a quality experience. Members noted that they had been invited to the launch in Harlington but noted it had been delayed. Members asked when this would now take place. Officers noted that this would be done in the new year – it was noted that December was not the best time to launch anything. Members suggested having a further update in future to include an y further information on new transporter buses. Members asked about representation on the Youth Council . The Youth Council s at under the Participation Team. Officers noted that they were in contact with all schools as part of an ongoing two -year project. There were currently 13 regular attendees at the Youth Council . When asked about any gaps in representation, officers noted that there was little representation from Hayes. However, officers were communicating with all schools on this. RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the information presented within the report 35. CHILDREN’S CENTRES DELIVERY MODEL AND EARLY YEARS NURSERIES – REVIEW OF IMPLEMENTATION OF CABINET DECISIONS FROM SEPTEMBER 2023 (Agenda Item 6) Note: the YouTube broadcast started at the beginning of this item. The Chair noted that due to the attendance of young people, items 1 -5 had not been broadcast on YouTube. It was reiterated that this was a meeting held in public, not a public meeting and so there were no speaking rights for members of the public. Officers provided an update on the delivery of the Family Hub Delivery Model and Early Years Nurseries. On Family Hubs: The Family Hub strategy had been presented to and ratified at Cabinet in September 2023. A second Family Hub in Hayes had been open in January 2024. The two hubs (Uxbridge and Hayes ) delivered services to young people aged 0-19, and up to 25 for those with SEND. Highlights included a visit by Dame Andrea Leadsom, who spearheaded the early years healthy development review, in February and the publication of the "Start for Life" offer on the Council website. A strategy to advertise the family hub services had been developed, including a family hub graphic on all communications and a short film showcasing the services. The 0 -19 service directory was on track to be published in January 2025. The Stronger Families Partnership work was highlighted, including a partnership day at Hayes Working Men's Club attended by 130 delegates from both statutory and voluntary community sectors. An outcomes framework was being developed to track and monitor the services more closely. On Early Years Nurseries: The Council was looking to source an alternative provider to maintain childcare on the sites, rather than delivering the services directly. Surveys of the sites had been conducted and offers from three distinct providers had been received. Negotiations were ongoing with one preferred provider, with a recommendation expected at Cabinet in December 2024. Members inquired about how to reach new families and promote the services. Officers noted that they would be happy to engage in any community events. Officers were also able to distribute flyers. Officers were working with community leaders, Heathrow hotels and William Byrd Primary School to identify gaps in engagement. Members further noted it was good to hear that parents were seeking support from other parents. Members noted that it was great to see the progress made by the Hubs and asked about the data on repeat attendances. It was clarified that families were counted rather than unique individuals and so multiple people would count as one attendance. There may be repeat attendances for programs such as midwifery. Members raised concerns about the suitability of family hubs for teenagers and older children. It was acknowledged that it was a challenge to provide an all-age space. Uxbridge Hub was zoned into different spaces for difference ages. Efforts were being made to make the spaces multi -purpose and welcoming for all age groups. Officers constantly reviewed what was offered. If hubs w ere not all -age, it would likely be that buildings would end up only used for a portion of the day. All-age spaces would maximise Council assets. Members further raised concerns about accessibility from all parts of the borough. Officers acknowledged this, and highlighted Cherry Lane children’s centre and Pinkwell children’s centre. Officers had been working with the Resident’s Association in Heathrow Villages to hear from them. Some services were delivered directly located in the hotels and William Byrd Primary School. Members noted that they had been impressed by the early expectations and asked if the Offer had lived up to these expectations. Officers noted that they believed it did. The provision delivered to date had been successful, in particular the start to life offer. Partnership working had also been effective. It was important that there were hubs delivering services with community, health and commissioned partners. One of the most powerful ways a parent can receive help is from other parents and this had been successful. It was noted that the strategy was to deliver six hubs. Two were up and running, and a third was in production. Members asked about the metrics of success. It was explained that attendance data, registrations, and achievements of families attending targeted courses were currently used as metrics, with efforts to develop a broader outcomes framework. There was currently no national framework for measuring success, but officers were working with colleagues in health and as part of the London Region Network to look at the potential for an outcomes framework. It was noted that comments to Cabinet would be delegated. RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the report 36. PROPOSAL FOR SOME COMMUNITY SCHOOLS TO LOWER THEIR AGE RANGE TO TAKE TWO-YEAR OLDS (Agenda Item 7) Officers introduced a report on the proposal to lower the age range for three community schools. This would enable them to provide funded places for two- year-old children. The early years childcare entitlements for children increased from April 2024, allowing funding for working families to access childcare for 15 hours a week. This entitlement increased from September 2024 for children aged 9 to 23 months and was set to increase further from September 2025 from 15 hours to up to 30 hours. The local authority had a statutory responsibility to ensure sufficient childcare places across the borough for working parents and parents training or studying to enter employment. The Council had been looking at childcare sufficiency and working under DfE guidelines to develop childcare provision. Officers noted that there was less sessional care available given the way in which the childcare offer had evolved over the years. Many sessional care p roviders such as play groups exited the market when certain additional requirements in terms of planning and children's learning and development profiles came on board. Schools were well -placed to offer sessional care for younger children. Therefore, officers had spoken to schools and there were two differen t processes. The process for academies involved running their own consultation process, while the statutory mainstream provision required a formal process under DfE guidance, including public consultation. It was noted that this report had come to the Select Committee for consideration and comments ahead of it going to Cabinet in December. The three schools in question were Colham Manor, Field End Infants, and Minet Infant and Nursery School. They had all expressed a desire with their governing bodies' full support to lower their age range to offer two -year-old places by September 2025. A public consultation has been held, and responses were being reviewed. The Chair noted that the purpose of this item was to review the proposals, not to make a decision on them. The final decision would be taken by Cabinet. Members expressed support for the proposal, recalling a similar initiative in the 1970s when the Council used spare class bases to develop n urseries. However, they cautioned about potential future increases in birth rates and the need for additional capacity. It was noted that comments to Cabinet would be delegated. RESOLVED: That the Committee: 1. Noted the report; and 2. Delegated comments to Cabinet to the Democratic Services Officer in conjunction with the Chair, and in consultation with the Opposition Lead 37. PROPOSED CLOSURE OF THE PHYSICAL DISABILITY (PD) SPECIALIST RESOURCED PROVISION (SRP) AT COTEFORD INFANT SCHOOL (Agenda Item 8) Officers introduced the item on the proposed closure of the Specialist Resource Provision (SRP) for Physical Disabilities (PD) at Coteford Infant School. Officers explained that the Local Authority was proposing to formally close the SRP at Coteford Infant School, which was an SRP for physical disabilities. Historically, the SRP had 10 commissioned places, but due to declining demand, the number was reduced to seven, and currently, there were three children attending. Over the next year, only two chi ldren were expected to remain at the SRP. The SRP at Coteford operated differently from a typical SRP, with no separate specialist resource provision room or facilities. The school operated as an inclusive mainstream school. The proposal was more of a technicality, meaning no change for the children as they were already being supported in an inclusive mainstream environment. The funding for the children would remain the same, with the place funding of £6,000 being replaced by exceptional funding of the s ame value to support schools that are highly inclusive. This was about correctly commissioning places according to need. Historically, children may have been more likely to be part of an SRP for physical disability. Nowadays, there was an expectation on m ainstream schools to accommodate these needs. Many schools were DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) compliant. It was noted that while the term ‘closure’ had to be used as per DfE requirements, there would be no change. There would only be a removal of the reference to an SRP. An addendum had been published to correct an error in the report regarding including data in the report on children on the SEND register versus children with SEND support. Ordinarily, officers reported on EHCP and SEND support, and rarely reported on the SEND register. A formal statutory consultation had been conducted from 25 September to 25 October 2024. The consultation included an online survey, a virtual event for families, and a face -to-face event at the school. The response s from the consultation were included in the consultation responses document. Officers acknowledged that there was some confusion and fear around the proposal. Members sought reassurance that the proposed changes were purely technical and will not affect the children's experience or funding. Officers confirmed that the funding and support for the children will remain the same. There may be a difference in the provider of therapy, which would be agreed upon with the school, though the level of therapy would be the same as detailed in each child’s EHCP . Where therapy was provided in mainstream schools, this was commissioned through a contract with CNWL. SRPs tended to commission their own therapy. The funding mechanism would be slightly different but would be the same amount. There would no longer be ‘place funding’ of £6,000 for commissioned places, however officers committed to paying the same £6,000 of ‘exceptional funding’ where schools were over a certain percentage of children with an EHCP. Coteford Inf ant School has a high level of EHCPs and were in receipt of this funding last year. Members asked about possible concerns relating to the wider impact on special needs provision at the school and sought reassurance that the local authority will support any additional needs or concerns that the school may have. Officers highlighted that th ere were a range of challenging needs that schools were managing and supporting effectively. Coteford Infant School was operating as an inclusive mainstream school and there would be no change to the children's experience at the school. Currently, the children in the SRP were in mainstream lessons full time, which was not the traditional SRP model. Usually in an SRP, children would be in a separate base for 15-50% of their timetable. The proposal would not change how the school operated. Officers reassured that the local authority was committed to supporting schools and families with SEND. Officers added that EHCPs were legal documents which were then funded to ensure that the plan was reflective of the student’s needs. If needs changed or there was a need for different provision, the authority would work with the school. Members asked about proactive measures to reassure parents that there will be no change. Officers acknowledged the fear and anxiety caused by the proposal and emphasised the importance of clear communication to reassure parents. Officers noted that there were no financial savings for the Council as a result of the proposal. It was the role of the authority to comm ission effectively according to the evidence and demand, as well as ensuring delivery of an inclusive agenda in all schools. Members raised concerns about the accuracy of the report; the narrative of there being no change; and the need for an equality impact assessment. With regards to the equality impact assessment, officers noted that there was no change as the funding and support for the children remain the same therefore an equality impact assessment was not required. Members asked if the SRP funding would be added to the EHCP funding so that children were not impacted. Officers clarified that this referred to the place funding of £6,000. Officers noted that there was place funding and top up funding. The top up funding would continue in line with needs, and the £6,000 place funding would be paid as exceptional funding , which the Council provided as a non -statutory funding st ream to support schools that were highly inclusive. Members questioned the communication process, given concern from parents. Officers were open to feedback. Officers noted that they had not expected such a negative reaction. However, there was a statuto ry process that had to be followed, which included the use of certain terminology such as ‘closure’. Members asked what role the school had played in communicating the proposals. Officers explained that there ha d been ongoing engagement with the school and efforts to reassure parents through various forums. This had been part of a wider review. Part of this review highlighted the inclusivity for children with physical disabilities. SRP provision across the borough had increased in line with demand and there were 72 additional places provided during 2024, which were for children with ASD. Officers further clarified that they had tried to offer reassurances to the school; there had been a lot of direct dialogue; and there had been a consultation with residents, the school and other interested parties. Members asked if the decision to close the SRP had been made before the consultation started. Officers confirmed that the decision had not been made. There was a statutory process to follow and the convers ation started almost a year ago with the school. Members asked if it were possible for this item to be taken to Full Council before Cabinet. The Chair confirmed it would not go to Full Council and Cabinet would make the decision. Members asked, if there was no change, why parents had been told in January that they could not access this provision. Officers noted that as far as the difference between a child who was considered as attending the SRP versus mainstream, there was no difference in delivery of p rovision, the only difference currently was the provider of the therapy. This was a key point. Officers reiterated that there were no children who would be missing out on anything or being denied anything. EHCPs do not specify who should deliver the provision, only that provision be delivered in order to improve outcomes. Members further asked why funding mechanisms had not been explained to the school. Officers reiterated that they had explained the funding mechanisms on numerous occasions to the school. Exceptional funding was brought in last year. This was a non-statutory funding stream that was in place to support schools who were highly inclusive so that they were not financially disadvantaged by being so inclusive. Place funding was being replaced with exceptional funding because currently the exceptional funding did not include SRP children as they were funded through a differen t mechanism. If this proposal was to move forward, the SRP children would be included in the exceptional funding. It was reiterated that there was no financial saving to be made and no change to the support delivered, apart from potentially who delivered the therapy, which was for discussion with the school. It was noted that comments to Cabinet would be delegated. Members proposed that if Members had issues with reports such as inaccuracies, these could be raised prior to the meeting and this would aid scrutiny of the reports. RESOLVED: That the Children, Families and Education Select Committee: 1. Reviewed the proposed closure of the Specialist Resourced Provision (SRP) for children with Physical Disabilities (PD) at Coteford Infant School detailed in the report; 2. Noted the consultation in response to the proposed closure; and 3. Delegated comments to Cabinet to the Democratic Services Officer in conjunction with the Chair, and in consultation with the Opposition Lead 38. PROPOSED INCREASING OF THE AGE RANGE FOR THE ASSESSMENT BASE AT RUISIP GARDENS PRIMARY SCHOOL (Agenda Item 9) Officers introduced the report on the proposal to extend the age range for the assessment base at Ruislip Gardens Primary School. This assessment base was a new type of provision aimed at identifying needs early and supporting children through the assessment process. The current age range for the assessment base was three to five years old. The proposal was to extend this range to include two-year-olds, in exceptional circumstances. This would be beneficial for two -year-olds who were approaching their third birthday for example, and who would benefit from being part of the assessment base, and having their needs assessed earlier. A formal statutory consultation had been conducted from 25 September to 25 October 2024. The consultation received 12 responses, and the aim was to ensure that as many children as possible can be supported through this provision. Members expressed support for th e proposal and inquired about the compliance with Building Bulletin 104 during the design of the assessment base. Officers confirmed that the design followed Building Bulletin 104 regulations. It was noted that comments to Cabinet would be delegated. RESOLVED: That the Children, Families and Education Select Committee: 1. Reviewed the proposal to expand the current age range of the Specialist Assessment Base for 3 -5 year olds at Ruislip Gardens Primary School to include 2 -year olds when appropriate and necessary in exceptional circumstances; 2. Noted the consultation that has taken place; and 3. Delegated comments to Cabinet to the Democratic Services Officer in conjunction with the Chair, and in consultation with the Opposition Lead 39. DRAFT HILLINGDON EDUCATION STRATEGY (Agenda Item 10) Officers introduced the Draft Education Strategy 2024 -2029, noting the rationale for the priorities and the range of consultation steps taken with school communities and education providers. The strategy set out three main priorities, with the third priority combining elements of broader education work across the Council, including attendance and exclusions. Officers emphasised the importance of collaborative working between schools and settings, which was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Members asked about the key differences between the new strategy and the previous one. Officers noted that while some elements remained the same, there were notable differences. Priority One reflected the identification by headteachers of reduced collaborative working between schools and settings which had been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. The strategy emphasised the need to leverage the strengths of schools within Hillingdon to address area -wide challenges. The similarities were justified by data, indicating that certain issues, such as attendance and the disadvantage gap, persisted and required ongoing attention. These were national issues , however, it is crucial for the local area to address these issues closely and identify areas for improvement. A key focus of the strategy was collaboration with partners, including B runel University London and the Education Endowment Foundation. This collaboration aimed to utilise evidence -based practices and share ideas to improve educational outcomes. The data in the appendices showed that many g roups were performing well, with so me exceeding expectations. However, disadvantaged students, who made up just under 25% of the cohort, require focused attention to meet their school improvement priorities. Another difference from the previous strategy was that this one had been co -produced with young people, and covered a range of services including education and SEND. Members praised the well-written report and the work done between officers and schools, and acknowledged the challenges in raising standards and narrowing gaps. Members asked about progress made since the last strategy. Officers explained that while there has been progress, the pandemic had disrupted some efforts, and the new strategy aim ed to build on existing strengths and address current challenges. Officers further not ed that lots of schools in Hillingdon had fantastic results for their disadvantaged students. Members asked about including citizenship education in the strategy. Officers noted that schools already delivered thi ngs around citizenship. During consultation with young people, topics such as this and financial awareness were raised. Officers further noted a recent instance where an Infant School had used polling booths to run mock elections. Officers further noted the intention to create a preparation for adulthood policy for Hillingdon. Members asked about addressing emotionally based school non-attendance and suggested that this should be framed more broadly in terms of its relation to SEND, rather than just emotionally -based. Officers noted the national attendance issue, and there were a multitude of reasons for this. What officers were trying to do was to present to the school community that there was an area-wide problem and it was important to work together to tackle these issues. Officers acknowledged emerging data from mental health providers that there were large groups of young people, mainly in secondary education around Year 8-9, who were refusing to attend school and that this related to severe anxiety and suicidal i deation amongst others causes. Officers further noted that this had become a focal point in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic and they were keen to have this explicitly in the strategy. While it was important to look at broader attendance, this particula r area of EBSNA was really important to recognise. Members asked about liaison with secondary schools. Officers noted that there were more than 60 schools signed up for a launch event next week, including 12 secondary schools. 19 out of 20 invited school s (including primary and early years providers) had joined the Strategic Partnership Board. Members asked about barriers to collaboration between schools. Officers noted that historically, schools had said that the stability of working with the same people meant that they were more inclined to engage. Staffing was an issue in that a lot of schools were struggling for a full complement of staff. Sometimes there was an element of competition between schools. There was also a perception of distinction be tween the north and south of the borough. Officers also highlighted ongoing initiatives to foster collaboration, such as the Safer Hayes initiative. 15 schools were signed up in the Greater Hayes area. Members also inquired about vocational education, not ing that while mentioned in the strategy, it was not listed as one of the Priorities. Officers noted that prior to post-16 there was a narrow academic focused curriculum. Oak Wood School had launched a programme which included a vocational offer. At post -16, the offer in Hillingdon was strong. There was a need to ensure that every young person was aware of their available options and can make informed choices. Officers further clarified that Priority 2: Preparation for Adulthood did include vocational topics. Members noted the intention of ‘improving inclusion by improving attendance’ by creating a protocol for the early identification of possible Emotionally - Based School Non-Attendance, and asked about working with parents and children on this. Officers noted that they were currently in the process of working with educational psychologists and health partners who are working with young people as their views are central. Members asked about the Council’s efforts to ensure an equitable share of children with SEND across schools. Officers noted that many schools were working hard with a broad range of SEND needs. Officers were also looking at what schools needed and what families needed, and were looking at what services were delivered through the SEND Advisory Service (SAS). Officers were looking at creating a small multidisciplinary team to support with some of the more complex cases in mainstream . Officers also high lighted the importance of sharing good practice, providing training, and supporting schools in managing complex needs. Members expressed concerns about children with complex needs falling through the gaps. Officers noted that while this strategy did not d irectly respond to that, the SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) strategy does address these challenges. Officers further highlighted the ambition of a fully inclusive education. Further, officers noted the importance of ensuring that schools were managing the needs of children in their area. Officers wanted to work towards a system whereby schools were shaped around the needs of the children. It was important to work with schools on this. Officers shared census data of EHCPs with schools termly to understa nd the demographics of the area, the challenges and where there was more versus less pressure. Another area officers were looking at was cluster groups around SEND, bringing together primary and secondary schools to look at the needs of the area. Officers acknowledged that it was a challenge for schools and the landscape around SEND was ever-evolving. It was noted that comments to Cabinet would be delegated. RESOLVED: That the Committee: 1. Noted the key findings set out in the draft Hillingdon Education Strategy report; and 2. Delegated comments to the Democratic Services Officer in conjunction with the Chair, and in consultation with the Opposition Lead 40. PERSISTENT ABSENTEEISM REVIEW – FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (Agenda Item 11) The Chair introduced the item on persistent absenteeism. The Committee had now completed all of its witness sessions, and Members thanked all witnesses for taking part, especially the young people, noting the importance of capturing the voice of the child. It was suggested that Members take some time to consider the notes from each of the witness sessions before formulating recommendations. This was agreed by Members. Members thanked the Democratic Services Officer for organising and note - taking at the witness sessions. Members proposed writing a letter of thanks to the young people for attending the witness session and contributing to the review. The idea was well - received, and it was agreed to bring this proposal forward. RESOLVED: That the Committee: 1. Considered draft findings and recommendations in relation to the review; and 2. Will write to the young people who attended the witness session to formally thank them for their participation 41. FORWARD PLAN (Agenda Item 12) Members considered the Forward Plan. It was noted that a number of the items considered at this Select Committee meeting were on the agenda for the next Cabinet meeting in December 2024. RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the Forward Plan 42. WORK PROGRAMME (Agenda Item 13) The Chair introduced the Work Programme. Members asked whether there would be a budget report upcoming. Officers would confirm. Members proposed adding a further update on the Youth Offer to the work programme. RESOLVED: That the Children, Families and Education Select Committee considered the report and agreed any amendments The meeting, which commenced at 7.00 pm, closed at 9.00 pm. These are the minutes of the above meeting. For more information of any of the resolutions please contact Ryan Dell at democratic@hillingdon.gov.uk. Circulation of these minutes is to Councillors, Officers, the Press and Members of the Public. The public part of this meeting was filmed live on the Council's YouTube Channel to increase transparency in decision -making, however these minutes remain the official and definitive record of proceedings.

Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 1 Part I – Public LEARN HILLINGDON ADULT COMMUNITY EDUCATION SELF- ASSESSMENT REPORT, 2023-24 Committee name Children, Families and Education Select Committee Officer reporting Debbie Scarborough, Service Manager Adult & Com Learning Papers with report Learn Hillingdon Self-Assessment Report 2023-24 Ward All HEADLINES The Self -Assessment Report from Learn Hillingdon is produced by the service annually and evaluates the effectiveness of the education delivered to learners and its impact on them. RECOMMENDATION That the Committee notes the report. SUPPORTING INFORMATION This report is submitted to the Local Authority for scrutiny and to Ofsted and the GLA for their information. It is used by Ofsted to support initial decisions about inspections planned for the service and by the GLA for funding and quality purposes. PERFORMANCE DATA Please see the attached report. RESIDENT BENEFIT The support and challenge provided to the Service Manager by Committee Members enables service developments and helps the service to improve where necessary. FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS There are no direct financial implications for this matter. LEGAL IMPLICATIONS There are no legal implications for this matter. BACKGROUND PAPERS NIL. 1 Learn Hillingdon Self-Assessment Report 2023-24 Grade 2: Good. Debbie Scarborough October 2024 “I am beginning to believe in myself so my confidence is growing” Learner on Specific Learning Difficulties Level 2 Certificate 2 Context of the provision Hillingdon is the second largest and most westerly borough of London with a population of 319,000 (ONS mid-year estimate, 2023) and is divided into 21 wards. There is an older population in wards in the north and a younger, more diverse population in the southern wards. Although there are large employers in the borough, such as Heathrow Airport, RAF Northolt, Hillingdon Hospital and Brunel University, approximately 91% are micro-businesses (UK Business Counts, 2023). Whilst unemployment levels are showing a small rise from 2023, overall rates remain lower than neighbouring boroughs. Skills levels vary between wards, with wards in the south of the borough having lower qualification levels, greater levels of deprivation and higher claim rates of most benefits than wards in the north. The south also has the highest rates of people not in education, employment or training. Hillingdon’s Strategy for 2022-26 focuses on five priorities including a thriving economy and thriving, healthy households. Hillingdon has high prevalence levels of obesity and Type 1 diabetes, and whilst prevalence varies by ward, wards in the south typically have higher rates of obesity and diabetes, with wards in the north seeing higher rates of cancer and dementia. Total number of grant-funded learners/enrolments 1526 learners 4451 enrolments Including Multiply* 1582 learners 56 learners 4665 enrolments 214 enrolments *Multiply is a government-funded initiative to improve the everyday numeracy and maths skills of adults in England. All data contained in this document excludes Multiply Project numbers, unless stated otherwise. Learners’ Residency (by enrolment) 2020-21 2021-22 2022-23 2023-24 Hillingdon resident 2978 90.3% 3275 90% 3117 91% 4065 91% London resident, (outside LB Hillingdon) 249 7.5% 291 8% 230 7% 337 8% Out of London resident 73 2.2% 73 2% 70 2% 49 1% Total 3298 3639 3417 4451 Our learners are adults, and many are parents of the young people who attend the large local college. 18% of learners are male (23% of enrolments). Most learners are female, of white heritage and 35-49 years of age. 65% of learners who are Hillingdon residents live in the most deprived areas in the south of the borough, who in turn are most likely to study ESOL*, English 3 and digital skills. Many enrol on programmes of learning with more than one qualification taken at a time. *ESOL: English for Speakers of Other Languages. Breakdown of enrolments No of learners No of enrolments Retention rate Achievement rate Female 1246 82% 3448 77.5% 93.8% 90.9% Male 281 18% 1002 22.5% 93.3% 91.2% Unspecified 1 1 100% 100% North of the borough 497 32% 1415 32% 94.9 92.0% South of the borough 885 58% 2650 60% 93.0 90.5% Other London Boroughs 123 8% 337 7% 93.4% 89.6% Outside of London 23 2% 49 1% 98.0% 98.0% Improvements in year Support for learners was improved through greater access to financial and practical help which, when combined with consistent data monitoring and focused staff development, contributed to higher pass rates. Learners studying vocational qualifications benefitted from refined initial digital skills assessments, supported by dedicated lessons in virtual learning which enabled them to build the confidence and skills they needed to succeed in their vocational course. New accommodation in the south of the borough improved the learning environment for learners. Service Strengths The service successfully reaches its target group of the most disadvantaged adults (65% live in the most deprived areas in the borough) resulting in 97% of learners on qualification courses being fully funded. 4 Overall attendance, retention, pass and achievement rates are all 91% or above. A service-wide focus on targeted interventions for learners facing financial hardship addressed achievement gaps for three key groups, e.g. Caribbean learners achievement rate increased from 80.7% to 93.6%, Speech and Language skills for learners with learning difficulties and disabilities from 84.3% to 98.6%, and learners living out-of-London doing qualifications from 84.1% to 91.2%. Strong, targeted learning support is effective in enabling learners facing additional barriers to achieve. Learners who have declared learning difficulties and/or disabilities achieved at 4% above those who have no declared disabilities. Learners are engaged and enjoy learning, and many report their increased confidence leading to wider opportunities in their own lives. Areas for Improvement Improve consistency in the quality of teaching and learning in a minority of classes to ensure every learner has an excellent learning experience that helps them progress towards their goals. The service needs to identify innovative ways of recruiting to increase teaching capacity to engage greater numbers of residents in learning. Quality of Education Intent The intention of the provision is to target and recruit the most socially and economically disadvantaged residents; the low-skilled, low- paid adults often from deprived areas who are furthest away from education and least likely to improve their and their family’s life chances without support. We aim to help these groups improve their prospects, which for some means increasing their ability to better support their children’s education or gaining practical skills for everyday life, whilst others wish to improve their ability to find a job or improve their employment prospects. The intention is well understood by staff, who work hard to engage and retain learners and to make the learning as impactful as possible. The curriculum offer reflects local need and national, regional and local priorities well and 97% of those on our qualification programmes are fully funded from within the grant, resulting in programmes that are free to most residents. Learners understand the steps they need to take to achieve their goals. Progression between and within subject areas is good, with additional support utilised well to help learners to achieve their qualifications and goals. 5 Implementation Teaching is good. Learners are engaged and enjoy learning in classes and teachers have cultivated a good classroom atmosphere conducive to learning. Robust initial assessment processes ensure that learners are enrolled on the most suitable course quickly and efficiently. Learning support mechanisms are well utilized to meet individual needs, which has in turn helped to develop learners’ confidence and increased pass rates. Managers monitor lessons regularly and feedback to teachers to ensure a continuous learning process. New skills are being developed in lessons. Most lessons have been planned well with learning tasks and activities well-sequenced. Teachers have good subject knowledge. Teachers in vocational areas are very skilled at teaching and developing technical vocabulary well. Teachers make lessons interesting and include a range of approaches and methods to inspire and motivate learners. The majority of teachers differentiate learning materials well and stretch and challenge learners effectively. Learners with special educational needs report that they enjoy learning, with lessons that reflect individual needs well, for example, using scissors safely. Learner participation is good and learners particularly like practical sessions. Learners benefit from learning that promotes independence, confidence, responsibility and self-management, making decisions, maintaining and improving basic skills such as fine motor and speech, language and communication. Learners also develop employability skills through various opportunities such as the Enterprise project, work experience and volunteering on the Clothing and Toy Banks that they created this year. Some learners with special educational needs have been supported with their application to volunteer with the service e.g. assisting with DBS and other requirements to provide continued work experience as they prepare for external work, and one learner is now a member of staff. Learner feedback is consistently positive as demonstrated by the learner survey . Learners speak highly of their teachers and feel well supported. Learners develop underpinning transferrable skills very well across the service. Many ESOL learners have gained confidence in using their improved English skills outside the classroom, for example, making hospital appointments, in shops, talking with parents in school. Learners in vocational courses feel better prepared for work beca use their time management and employability skills have improved as well as their literacy skills. Learners “Multiple areas of improvement for mental health awareness, improved confidence along with coping with stress a lot better than I ever have before. 100%, everyone has been brilliant and I have loved learning again in the new electronic way of learning. It has helped me understand how my daughter has to do her homework too, she also uses Google classrooms.” Learner on HSC1001(S) Mental Health and Stress Awareness Level 1 Award “I can use a computer and do all my homework, before I had problems” Learner from Preparing to Work in Schools Level 1 Award 6 have gained new skills, for example, in targeted outreach groups, learners have learnt how to use emails and iPads and learn cooking skills, and one learner, who is a carer, felt that it gave her much needed “me time”. Impact The impact of learning is good. Although learner numbers remain largely stable, enrolment numbers significantly increased this year due to the focus on underpinning English, maths and/or digital skills needed by learners undertaking qualification courses. Retention, pass* and **achievement rates remain consistently strong at 91% or above. Service overall Learners Enrolments Retention Pass * Achievement** 2023-24 1526 4451 93.7% 97.1% 91.0% 2022-23 1505 3417 94.7% 96.0% 91.0% 2021-22 1681 3639 93.4% 92.5% 86.4% *Pass rate: results of those who stayed until the end of the course, excluding those who left. **Achievement rate: results for all enrolled learners, including those who left before the end of the course. Learners achieve their aims well across curriculum areas. Some groups achieved significantly above the overall service level, i.e. learners studying for floristry qualifications, adults with learning difficulties and disabilities on independent living courses, and targeted groups of learners on outreach courses. However, slightly lower retention impacted on some achievement rates; one employability pilot in IT reduced achievement rates overall; and staffing issues in counselling led to weaker results. As a result, we reviewed the number of qualifications each learner could undertake, we reorganised the employability course and decided to withdraw the counselling programme for 24-25. Results by curriculum area, including the Multiply project. Curriculum Area Learners Enrolments Retention Pass Achievement “I know how to copy and paste the links, do whiteboard activities, apply for jobs, fill out forms, and last but not least, I am now more confident than before.' Learner from Early Years, Level 1 qualification. “My dream was from a young age to work in a school environment and by doing these courses I feel that I will be confident to do it professionally. I also feel confident to discuss [topics] in front of others and express my ideas clearly” Learner from Safeguarding in a Learning Environment Level 1 Award. 7 Emotional Health and Wellbeing 111 324 92.9% 97.7% 90.7% Multiply project 153 214 94.4% 100.0% 94.4% Childcare 207 514 94.5% 96.5% 91.2% Floristry 60 88 96.6% 100.0% 96.6% Arts, Media, Leisure (AML) Arts 65 112 92.9% 95.2% 88.4% Languages 40 65 93.8% 100.0% 93.8% Leisure 30 43 95.3% 97.6% 93.0% AML Total 135 220 93.6% 97.1% 90.9% IT and Digital Skills 162 287 91.6% 92.4% 84.7% English, Maths, ESOL (EME) English 134 301 89.7% 92.3% 82.8% ESOL 439 996 90.3% 97.5% 88.0% Maths 23 54 83.3% 97.8% 81.5% EME Total 560 1351 89.9% 96.4% 86.6% Independent Living (adults with LDD) 138 898 98.5% 98.0% 96.5% Targeted Outreach (TO) ART 80 141 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% ENG 3 3 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% ESO 68 108 84.3% 97.8% 82.4% FLO 14 17 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% HOR 55 60 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% HSC 8 8 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% ITS 57 111 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% TO Total 257 448 96.2% 99.5% 95.8% Health and Social Care Counselling 31 31 90.3% 92.9% 83.9% Health and Social Care 103 290 93.4% 98.0% 91.5% H&SC Total 132 321 93.1% 97.5% 90.7% Achievement gaps are defined as results 5% or greater below the overall service achievement results, (91% this year) and are denoted in red ink. There are no significant achievement gaps by gender, age or those living in the north or south of the borough. Achievement gaps identified for learners from a Caribbean background, those who 8 live outside London, and learners with speech and language difficulties have been addressed. However, they remain for White/Asian and those aged 19-24 years. As a result, for 2024-25 we reviewed the number of qualifications each learner could undertake, we reorganised the employability course and decided to withdraw the counselling programme. Achievement Gap Enrolments and % of enrolments Retention Pass Achievement Achievement rate 22-23 White/Asian 46 1% 82.60% 100.00% 82.60% 84.8% Caribbean 115 2.6% 95.70% 97.90% 93.60% 80.7% Out of London ASB 74 1.7% 95.90% 95.10% 91.20% 84.1% Speech & Language difficulties 71 1.6% 98.60% 100.00% 98.60% 84.3% 19-24 years 83 1.9% 88.50% 95.40% 84.40% 85.5% Partnership work is effective and has a direct impact on learners. • 32 council and local partners ran workshops at our careers event for 98 residents. As a result, residents accessed 252 places on these workshops. • 61 learners accessed 1-1 careers advice with National Careers Service advisors. • Partnership work with the Youth team led to 45 residents in receipt of free school meals cooking healthy meals as a family through the Holiday Activities and Food Programme. Progression is good. 60% of learners progressed onto the next level of qualification in 2023-24 and 37% progressed within non-qualification courses. Most learners progressed to the next qualification within their subject areas, such as 73% within ESOL and 65% within childcare, whilst 24% of those who studied English moved into vocational provision. Based on 143 responses from an internal survey, 18 (13%) learners in vocational qualification courses obtained employment and 37 (26%) were actively seeking employment. Behaviour and attitudes Staff and learners maintain a respectful atmosphere in the service. Learners are aware of the importance of attendance, punctuality and commitment to learning from the beginning. As a result, the service attendance rate is high at 94% and punctuality is good, demonstrated by late marks that account for 1021 (2.5%) of our total attendance marks (41,293). “I have secured employment while on this course. I have been offered a job today. I need to sign the contract” Learner on Adverse Childhood Experiences Level 2 Certificate 9 . Safeguarding is effective and encompasses the safety of learners and staff well. The Staying Safe Board monitors the quality of safeguarding actions well and the service is a member of the council’s Adult Safeguarding Board and Prevent Partnership Boards. Learners enjoy their time with the service. The service’s end-of-course learner survey attracted 836 individual responses, of which: • 99% said they felt safe and respected in their class • 98% said they were supported well to complete their course • 97% said their teacher gave helpful feedback • 97% agreed or strongly agreed they know what safeguarding is and they know what to do if they have a concern • 93% agreed or strongly agreed they know what to do if they have a concern about someone at risk of becoming involved in extremism or terrorism • 86% learners said they achieved their work skills goals; 91% learners achieved their social skills goals and 88% achieved their wellbeing goals. Personal Development Personal development is good. Learners’ benefit from a wide range of personal development opportunities that enhance their learning and help them link that learning with their lives outside the classroom. Learners with difficulties and disabilities volunteer in the clothes bank and nine volunteers help learners and staff across the service, including helping at events and acting as an interpreter for learners during enrolment. 11 learners were elected to the Learner Council by their peers. They act as secret shoppers and meet with management termly to help drive improvement. One learner with learning difficulties and disabilitites reported, “ 'I've got more confident. I travel more on the bus by myself now, but I didn't before.' Learner Forum. 10 The rights and duties of active citizens are embedded into the vocational curriculum well through discussions and workbooks on topics such as learner council, course representation, the UK voting system and community service. Learners are encouraged to volunteer for the NHS and local charities, and vocational learners volunteer within their chosen sector, all of which encourages them to develop new skills and support their community. Embedded employability provides the opportunity to experience a mock interview, which for some learners is a first. In English, Maths and ESOL, in addition to helping learners gain qualifications, tutors embed a wide range of themes that support learners’ holistic learning. These include health (Mental Health Awareness week, Movember) and equity (International Women’s Day, Black History Month). All courses also successfully embed elements of active citizenship, digital skills and employability skills that help learners in their everyday lives and in their pursuit of further study or employment. 14 Level 1/2 English and ESOL learners took part in a Parliament Week debate about the sugar tax, which was attended by the Portfolio Holder for Children, Families and Education. 93 English and ESOL learners attended Parliament Week workshops, one of which included a visit from the local MP at the time, who told learners about MPs roles and responsibilities and how Parliament works. Hillingdon Talking Therapies ran several free workshops for learners during the academic year. 102 learners attended Healthy Heart Month workshops where topics included ‘Activity and Mood’ and ‘Nutrition and Mental Health’; workshops during Mental Health Awareness Week were attended by 50 learners, including ‘Exam Stress’, ‘Worry Management’ and ‘Physical Activity and Mood’; and 56 learners attended workshops on World Mental Health Day. Certificate presentation ceremonies are led by local dignitaries, with 85 learners and their guests attending the qualification achievement celebration, and 75 learners and guests attending the equivalent celebration for adults with learning difficulties and disabilities. Good information, advice and guidance helps learners to enrol on the right course and to take their next steps. A digital screener was developed and introduced in-year to quickly and accurately identify learners who needed to develop their digital skills before beginning other qualifications. Leadership and Management The learner feedback from the UK Parliament Week workshop attended by Steve Tuckwell, MP included “It was the first time that I saw our MP' 'I learned about the Houses of Parliament, petitions, making laws, that there are 650 Members of Parliament'. "The classes have changed my life. Before these courses, I didn't understand anyone and found it difficult to speak. Now I'm happy to speak in pubic,help my children with homework and be able to go to the GP by myself. I want to finish my studying and be a Teaching Assistant, and I've applied to be a Teaching Assistant in a school." ESOL learner, quoted at the Celebration of Learning event. 11 Leadership and management are good. A well-designed curriculum offer reflects local needs, targeting residents who face the most disadvantage and encouraging them from their first steps back into learning towards challenging career goals. The flexible and committed team prioritise individual needs well to ensure learners feel safe and confident in the centres and receive high quality learning opportunities. 30 learners discussed their experiences of learning with the Service Manager through Learner Forums, as did 8 tutors in the Staff Forum. One learner’s suggestion led to a simplified enrolment process for learners re- enrolling termly in-year. The Service Manager also attended one of the termly Learner Forums for adults with learning difficulties and disabilities, where one of the 13 learners reported, ‘I couldn’t make choices before. They were made for me. Now I can make my own choices and use my own voice’. The service prioritised and reviewed support for learners this year, from the Loan and Learn scheme which provides learners studying for qualifications with IT equipment to the 68 learners who received financial support with bus fares, introduced in the summer term. When asked to update managers on how well the bus fares were being received by learners, a Student Services Officer commented, ‘It's been super popular here and the feedback is lovely. I had one learner cry as £7 per week was a lot for her and it's taking real pressure off her family. She was given a form some time ago and did not fill it in as she couldn't understand it. Feedback honestly has been so positive. It's amazing that we can make an instant difference to our learners.” The management team took a new approach to quality improvement this year, clarifying the expectations and monitoring of quality standards for staff. The importance of learning support was emphasised at the annual staff conference which focused on strategies to support learners with mental health issues and dyslexia, and the Specific Learning Difficulties qualification armed six staff with new skills to develop their practice. The transition to an individualised approach to professional development for teaching staff began this year, however staff sickness and vacancies meant this work was limited in scope, so it will be further developed next year. Staff development is good within the service. Managers encourage learners to get involved in activities outside class, and those who volunteer within the service undergo mandatory safeguarding and data protection training. Since 2019, 41 learners that volunteered with us have progressed into work, 18 of whom have continued into employment with the service whilst 13 work at local schools. Two current senior managers began as learners and many staff have been promoted within the service. Partnership work is strong in providing learning opportunities for residents. In the community, a variety of successful workshops were delivered for families from 13 local primary schools, which included short ESOL programmes and a bespoke programme for parents to support the emotional At one Learner Forum, H explained that she had just started her Health and Social Care class. She was studying about mental health, and she ‘loves it’. She said, ‘if you miss a lesson, you’re stuck it can pile up, so you need to get into a routine. It is training me in routines as I have no excess time.’ When asked how learning will help with her career, she explained, ‘I’d like to be a Mental Health Support Worker, but don’t know yet. Doors are opening up’. 12 needs of their children. Provision at a Children’s Centre supported a small group of female travellers into learning, which is continuing in 24-25. A tailor-made programme for a local charity enable d local women back into employment by strengthening their basic maths and budgeting, and bespoke IT workshops at local libraries were provided for service users from a range of partners, including The Carers Trust, H4All, Age UK, Hillingdon Women’s Centre and several Children’s Centres. Partnerships with mental health providers are well developed, resulting in a significant increase in enrolments by learners with mental health issues this academic year. 21% (23/110) of our learners have been referred by these partners, such as Care Assist, Splendid Supported Housing, and New Horizon Health Care. These residents enrolled in classes such as ‘Understanding and Managing Symptoms of Stress’ and ‘Tapping into Positive Health & Wellbeing’ Internal partnerships within the Local Authority (LA) enabled learners to volunteer in schools, which were struggling to fill vacancies; enabled nine LA staff to engage in qualifications that supported their practice in mental health, working with children and young people, and adverse childhood experiences, saving the LA almost £12k in course fees; and we collaborated with the Early Years team to deliver a Childminding conference that increased 20 residents awareness and understanding of that career option. Learners benefited from three new classrooms in a premises move in a school in the south of the borough in September 2024, with two additional rooms there enabling us to better meet local demand. Governance is good. The Advisory Board was introduced this year to strengthen the governance arrangements beyond the Local Authority structures and into the wider learning community. This governance structure is being embedded and evolving over time to ensure board members have appropriate oversight and challenge, in addition to the existing governance arrangements within the local authority. This work will be strengthened in 2024-25. DS/December 2024. “I've become more confident in using my digital skills and I gained more confidence in working with teachers and supporting students in their learning journey. I am pleased to say that taking this course has been incredibly rewarding. I have developed significantly and learned many new things from my time volunteering in school. This experience has truly enriched my professional growth.” Learner on STL Level 2 Certificate

Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 1 Part I – Public 2025/26 BUDGET PROPOSALS FOR SERVICES WITHIN THE REMIT OF CHILDREN, FAMILIES & EDUCATION SELECT COMMITTEE Committee name Children, Families & Education Select Committee Officer reporting Andy Goodwin, Head of Strategic Finance Richard Ennis, Corporate Director of Finance Papers with report Children, Families & Education, Savings Appendix Ward All HEADLINES 1. To comply with the Budget and Policy Framework procedure rules as part of the agreed consultation process for the General Fund and Housing Revenue Account budgets, alongside the Council's Capital Programme, this report sets out the draft revenue budget a nd Capital Programme for the services within the remit of the Children, Families & Education Select Committee. Following consideration by Cabinet on 12 December 2024, these proposals are now under consultation, and the relevant proposals being discussed at the January cycle of the Select Committees. 2. Cabinet will next consider the budget proposals on 13 February 2025 , and the report will include comments received from Select Committees. At the meeting on 13 February 2025 Cabinet will make recommendations to full Council regarding the budget and Council Tax levels for 202 5/26. Subsequently, Council will then meet to agree the budgets and Council Tax for 2025/26 on 27 February 2025. 3. The Committee needs to consider the budget proposals as they relate to the relevant service areas within the Children, Families & Education Cabinet Portfolio, but within the corporate context and the constraints applying as a result of the aggregate financial position of the authority. RECOMMENDATIONS 4. That the Committee: a. Notes the budget projections contained in the report; and b. Comments as appropriate on the combined budget proposals affecting the relevant service areas within the Children, Families & Education Cabinet Portfolio, within the context of the corporate budgetary position. SUPPORTING INFORMATION General Fund Budget Executive Summary Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 2 Part I – Public 5. The Council aims to set a balance budget for 2025/26 , with the Consultation Budget presented to Cabinet in December presenting a requirement to drawdown £6.4m of reserves to achieve this, with further focus on the period to 2029/30, with this report setting out in the appendices, published alongside the consultation budget, a 5-year budget strategy. In this setting this medium-term financial strategy, the objectives are: i. To continue to drive value for money for our residents in our services; ii. To continue to be a low Council Tax charging borough; iii. To review our operating model to deliver even more efficient and effective services and make significant savings; iv. To invest in new assets for the borough, building out our infrastructure and seeking invest to save opportunities through our capital programme; v. To invest in improving the quality of our homes for our housing residents; vi. To increase our income levels and charge appropriate levels of fees; vii. To continue to respond to inadequate levels of Government funding including lobbying central Government and the GLA for more funding for our residents; and viii. Rebuilding our financial resilience 6. These are financially challenging times for local authorities to deal with, and respond, to a number of significant national pressures, within a significantly reduced funding envelope . Particular pressures for Hillingdon include the increased cost of adult social care, children’s placements, homelessness, asylum seekers and ensuring it has an experienced workforce to deliver the best services it can to its residents. 7. The Council will continue to lobby national Government and the Greater London Authority [GLA] for increases in funding to deal with particular issues to us, such as the impacts of being a port authority. Budget Strategy 8. Budget proposals for 2025/26 have been prepared in the context of a wider strategy addressing the five-year MTFS period through which service expenditure is to be managed within available resources in the context of a challenging economic environment in terms of ongoing exceptional demand for Homelessness Support, Social Care and legacy impacts from periods of high inflation and the COVID -19 pandemic. To balance the budget, the Council has a number of mechanisms at its disposal to deliver this including a combination of:  Options the Council has used in this budget strategy:  Increased net savings (reducing expenditure and maximising income);  Council Tax policy (within Referendum Thresholds); and  Release funding from reserves.  Options the Council is not pursuing:  Seek Secretary of State approval for an increase in Council Tax above the Referendum Threshold;  Hold a Referendum to ask the Residents to support a Council Tax increase above the Referendum Threshold; and/or Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 3 Part I – Public  Seek Secretary of State approval for Exceptional Financial Support [EFS] through a Capitalisation Direction, which is effectively a loan to the Council that is required to be repaid (potentially with extra interest charges) but gives an authority more time to identify and implement measures that close the budget gap. 9. This budget strategy is based upon the Council’s financial challenges including high demand for services, ongoing national issues and reduced Go vernment funding since the austerity measures began in 2013/14, in a Council that has relatively low reserves compared to London neighbours. The latest monitoring position for the 2024/25 financial year reporting a net overspend of £8.9m which will leave uncommitted General Balances at £26.2m entering the 2025/26 financial year. 10. The Month 7 monitoring position for the services within this select committee present a net variance of £3.0m as presented in the table below: Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 4 Part I – Public Table 1: Service Operating Budgets Service Approved Budget Underlying Forecast Earmarked Reserves Transformation Capitalisation Forecast Outturn Variance Month 6 Movement £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 Children, Families & Education Expenditure 98.6 106.8 0.0 (4.1) 102.7 4.1 4.1 0.0 Income (23.3) (24.4) 0.0 0.0 (24.4) (1.1) (1.1) 0.0 Subtotal 75.3 82.4 0.0 (4.1) 78.3 3.0 3.0 0.0 Corporate Resources & Infrastructure Expenditure 191.6 192.3 (0.2) (3.4) 188.7 (2.9) (3.0) 0.1 Income (118.2) (118.0) 0.0 0.0 (118.0) 0.2 0.3 (0.1) Subtotal 73.4 74.3 (0.2) (3.4) 70.7 (2.7) (2.7) 0.0 Residents' Services Expenditure 84.8 104.1 (0.8) (0.5) 102.8 18.0 15.9 2.1 Income (47.1) (56.6) 0.1 0.0 (56.5) (9.4) (9.4) 0.0 Subtotal 37.7 47.5 (0.7) (0.5) 46.3 8.6 6.5 2.1 Health & Social Care Expenditure 160.1 169.8 0.0 (0.5) 169.3 9.2 9.1 0.1 Income (50.3) (55.1) (0.3) 0.0 (55.4) (5.1) (4.9) (0.2) Subtotal 109.8 114.7 (0.3) (0.5) 113.9 4.1 4.2 (0.1) Total Service Operating Budgets 296.2 318.9 (1.2) (8.5) 309.2 13.0 11.0 2.0 Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 5 Part I – Public 11. With the following narrative setting out the variances and movement from Month 6 on an exception basis: a. Children, Families & Education – At Month 7, an underlying pressure of £3.0m is being reported, with the pressure nearly wholly related to care provision to looked after children as a result of demand outstripping the budget strategy growth for the service. Further pressures are included within the position across income streams including room hire with further pressures being driven by the Early Years Centres, however, these have been mitigated by service underspends within the Children in Need & Protection service from staffing underspends. 12. The savings requirement for 2024/25 is £15.8m as set ou t in the Council’s budget strategy, this position has been supplemented by a further £5.7m of prior year savings carried forward into 2024/25, resulting in an overall programme of £21.5m savings being delivered in year: Table 2: Savings Tracker Cabinet Member Portfolio Blue Green Amber I Amber II Red Banked Delivery in progress Early stages of delivery Potential problems in delivery Serious problems in delivery Total £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 Children, Families & Education (0.3) (0.6) (0.3) (0.2) (0.3) (1.7) Corporate Resources & Infrastructure (0.4) (3.3) (0.3) (0.5) (0.4) (4.9) Residents' Services (0.2) (1.9) (0.7) 0.0 (0.9) (3.7) Health & Social Care (0.1) (1.2) (0.2) 0.0 0.0 (1.5) Cross-Cutting 0.0 0.0 (6.1) 0.0 (3.6) (9.7) Total 2024/25 Savings Programme (1.0) (7.0) (7.6) (0.7) (5.2) (21.5) 5% 33% 35% 3% 24% 100% 13. Based on 2.99% per annum increases in the core Council Tax and 2% per annum increases in the Social Care Precept for 2025/26 and throughout the life of the MTFS, funding available to support service expenditure is projected to grow by £ 49.2m to £333.8m between 2024/25 and 202 9/30. A combination of exceptional demand pressures within Social Care and Homelessness support , together with capital investment plans is p rojected to generate a £111.4m uplift in service expenditure across the five -year term. In order to address this differential, to date, a savings programme of £65.2m has been developed, leaving a residual budget gap of £ 3.1m across the five -year MTFF period, with £ 32.6m of savings being proposed for 2025/26 increasing throughout the later years of the MTFF period. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 6 Part I – Public Table 3: Budget Strategy 2024/25 2025/26 2026/27 2027/28 2028/29 2029/30 £m £m £m £m £m £m Total Resources 284.5 299.8 305.5 315.1 325.2 333.8 Total Service Expenditure 284.5 306.2 303.7 312.9 322.2 330.7 (Surplus)/Deficit 0.0 6.4 (1.8) (2.2) (3.0) (3.1) Select Committee Spend: Children, Families & Education 60.2 57.8 57.4 57.1 58.8 60.6 Corporate Resources & Infrastructure 73.0 74.1 79.2 82.5 87.3 91.4 Residents' Services 38.1 42.0 42.3 43.2 44.9 46.6 Health & Social Care 125.4 127.3 131.6 138.6 144.7 150.6 Corporate Budgets (12.2) 5.0 (6.8) (8.5) (13.5) (18.5) Total Service Expenditure 284.5 306.2 303.7 312.9 322.2 330.7 14. As is the case for the vast majority of local authorities, the Council has experienced exceptional demand for homelessness support and social care against the backdrop of the country exiting a period of high inflation, which is having a significant impact on the cost of providing services to residents, with Government funding no longer keeping pace with the increased expenditure the Council is facing. Furthermore, the Council has carried out a rebasing ex ercise that adjusted for legacy budget issues, adding £14.1m to the 2025/26 saving requirement, with a further £6.4m of legacy unallocated savings being written out. 15. The Autumn Statement announced in parliament on 30 October 2024 announced increased funding for Social Care and Homelessness, as well as an overall increase in funding for Local Authorities. The statement also confirmed that the public sector will receive compensation against the changes in employers National Insurance against the Council ’s own workforce. These elements have been estimated in the Council’s budget strategy to yield an additional £3.9m, with this sum to be firmed up in the Provisional Local Government Settlement expected in the third week of December 2024 or subsequently in the Final Settlement due at the end of January 2025. Risk Management 16. The draft budget set out in this report includes a number of savings that are in early stages of development, and which need to be thoroughly refined and progressed over the coming months ahead of and during the early part of 2025/26. This is the case for all savings proposals and in particular, for the Target Operating Model saving line (£5m in 2025/26, rising to £15m in 2026/27 and a further £5m in both 2028/29 and 2029/30). They will need a laser focus on planning and delivery and where needed additional capacity and expert capability added to our existing teams. Risk awareness, management and mitigations will have a heightened importance over the course of the remainder of this financial year and onwards to maintain a robust budget with adequate reserves to mitigate for any further adverse financial developments or non-delivery of assumed savings. 17. Council approved the 2024/25 Budget and MTFS and recognised the need to replenish reserves, then estimated to total £37.3m at the start of the current year and then grow by £1.5m per year to total £44.8m by the end of 2028/29. This rebuilding in reserves was consistent with the then Director of Finance written opinion that between a minimum of £32m Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 7 Part I – Public up to a maximum £55m was necessary given the financial risks facing the Council. The position on the expectation on reserves will be revisited ahead of the February budget considering our prevailing financial position. 18. Some of the risks identified in (or unforeseen at the time of) the current year budget being set in February 2024 have materialised and as such our latest revenue monitoring position reflects closing general and available earmarked reserves falling to £ 26.2m against a previously anticipated £38.8m. This change from previous assumptions helps illustrate the need to hold adequate levels of reserves against such events. 19. The Council has not needed to request Exceptional Financial Support [EFS] from Government and is working hard to resolve its own financial pressures. Given the pressures and scale of financial savings officers will ensure that the Cabinet and Council are regularly updated in this respect. Our financial position is very challenging and whilst th is is a national issue and systematic failure and not a uniquely Hillingdon problem, it is the Council’s responsibility to ensure strong financial management to avoid this risk crystallising. If the savings are not delivered in broad terms EFS cannot be ruled out as is the case with many boroughs. 20. The Cabinet have given a clear steer to officers that they wish to resolve as much as possible the financial issues facing the borough, with our own efficiencies and savings programme. Exceptional Financial Sup port through borrowing as viewed by many as a ‘sticking plaster’ that does not resolve the underlying reductions and lack of funding for Hillingdon and Local Government as a whole. EFS, increases the cost to the tax payer, through additional borrowing costs, unless funded through additional capital receipts to a large extent. 21. Reference to the summary budget position set out in Section 6 of this report shows anticipated levels of future reserves based on the budget assumptions set out in this report and is summarised below: Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 8 Part I – Public Chart 11: Budgeted and Assumed Levels of Reserves 22. Having low levels of reserves to mitigate future potential risk is a significant risk in itself and ultimately could lead to the issuing of a s114 Notice leading to an immediate cessation of all non-essential spend and raising the possibility of Government intervention 23. The budget as it currently stands contains a significant degree of risk in its assumptions, and in particular the following: i. Declining and the slow rebuild of general and earmarked reserve levels; ii. Significant and the largest savings programme put forward to be delivered and will require stringent monitoring to ensure delivery and any optimism bias removed; iii. Further potential demand pressures that may arise – particularly around social care costs and temporary accommodation pressures; iv. Macro-economic headwinds including inflation, interest rates and pressures that could further arise as the result of any downturn in the general economy; v. Future Government funding levels being maintained in real terms – especially if the government’s growth agenda to re-balance public finances fails to deliver as planned; vi. Changes to the business rates system further increasing cost of occupying the Council’s larger buildings or indirectly through our partners on the running cost of leisure centres; vii. Whilst a fundamental review of the local government finance system has again been promised, any rebasing has the potential for the Council to lose the gains from growth above baseline already accumulated since 2013/14; and Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 9 Part I – Public viii. The Council has a significant Dedicated Schools Grant deficit which is currently held on the Balance Sheet but not impacting on the level of general reserves. Should the statutory over-ride preventing it from affecting general reserves be withdrawn this would result in general reserves being negative 24. Any delay in the timeframes for the delivery of assumed savings (or their quantum) has the potential to adversely impact on the forecast level of future reserves. To date, a significant number of savings proposals remain to have a full delivery programme validated to provide necessary assurance Budget Proposals for the Children, Families & Education Select Committee 25. Service expenditure will grow due to inflationary pressures, demand -led growth and other corporate items including capital financing costs. The below table sets out the impact of these expenditure movements across the services within the remit of this Select Committee for 2024/25. Table 4: Service Expenditure Budget Proposals 2024/25 Inflation Demand- led Growth Corporate Items Savings Proposals 2025/26 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 Children, Families & Education 60.2 2.4 0.4 0.0 (5.2) 57.8 Corporate Resources & Infrastructure 73.0 2.8 0.0 5.3 (7.0) 74.1 Residents' Services 38.1 2.8 7.7 0.0 (6.6) 42.0 Health & Social Care 125.4 3.0 4.2 2.5 (7.8) 127.3 Corporate Budgets (12.2) (6.3) 0.0 29.5 (6.0) 5.0 Total Service Expenditure 284.5 4.7 12.3 37.3 (32.6) 306.2 26. Inflation: C ost pressures of £ 2.4m are projected against 202 4/25 expenditure going into 2025/26, with material uplifts in relation to workforce budgets, care placements, contracted expenditure and energy costs. In line with wider MTF S modelling, inflation projections are predicated on contracted expenditure uplifts for 2025/26 being in line with September’s CPI figure of 1.7% in line with the Government’s approach to use this index to uplift funding and expenditure across many areas of the public sector, with latter years forecast to be in line with the Bank of England’s target rate of 2% per annum. The 2024/25 pay award has been agreed below the Council’s assumptions at t he time of setting the 2024/25 budget, with the MTFS including an assumption that the pay award is 3% in 2025/26, also reducing to 2% per annum thereafter. 27. Demand-Led Growth: items within the remit of this Select Committee account for £0.4m of the £ 12.3m increase across the Council for 2025/26 , with a breakdown of these items presented below. 28. Support for Looked After Children & Children with Disabilities is forecast to grow in line with population projections, adding £0.5m in 2025/26 and a further £1.6m p er annum thereafter. The demand-led growth bid in this service represents the gross pressure on the service before Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 10 Part I – Public interventions, with savings later in the report that more than mitigate against this pressure and lead to an overall reduction in spend for the service. 29. SEND Transport are forecasting an increase of £1.0m in 2025/26, rising by a further £3.8m over the following four years, the growth rate within the service is currently running at 7% per annum, with ongoing demand for Education, Health & Care Plan [EHCP], with an underspend in 2024/25 being released to offset the growth in 2025/26, with the latter years anticipating this to reduce as population projections forecast children numbers to decline in later years. 30. Corporate Items: there are no corporate items within the remit of this committee included in the £37.3m increase across the Council in 2025/26. Savings Proposals 31. As mentioned above, £ 32.6m of savings proposals have been incorporated into the draft budget for 2025/26, with £5.2m falling within the remit of this Select Committee. Details of the savings programme propels within the remit of this Select Committee are discussed below , with a full list available included in Appendix A6 to this report, in line with the appendix presented with the Consultation Budget presented at December Cabinet. 32. Children’s, Families & Education proposals account for £5.2m of the savings programme for 2025/26, rising to £9.1m by 2027/28, with proposals including: i. The service are proposing to reduce expenditure on Semi-Independent and Shared Accommodation by £2.2m in 2025/26, rising to £2.6m by 2027/28, with the proposal centred around moving young people into appropriate accommodation which has been a challenge in 2024/25 due to demands on General Needs property, with the plan to maximise the Council’s ‘Staying Close’ strategy to reduce costs on the service. ii. A further £1.0m is proposed to be delivered from a revised Social Care Delivery Model which contains 2 strands of activity, firstly, under the Stronger Families Initiative, the service aim to avoid more cost interventions within the Children in Need service and the housing support provided to Children (£400k), secondly redirecting post adoption care to avoid court proceedings costs (£600k). iii. Children’s Social Care are proposing a new Care Model (Operating Model), forecast to deliver £0.6m in 2025/26, rising to £3.7m by 2027/28, with the saving to be achieved by converting more expensive placements in external fostering provision to a lower cost internally run fostering service, effectively saving the management fee whilst maintaining or improving the level of service being offered. iv. Other savings included in this portfolio are set out in the Savings Appendix (A6) and include a review of the Early Years Operating Model (with a report to Cabinet on the same agenda as the consultation budget report) securing £0.2m in 2025/26, a review of catering to secure £0.2m and inflationary uplifts in Fees & Charges increases to secure £0.8m, with the remaining balance to come from smaller proposals. 33. Target Operating Model A full review of the Council’s Target Operating Model to identify and deliver a further £5.0m saving in 2025/26, rising by a further £10.0m in 2026/27 to a total of £15.0m, with a further £5.0m in each of the last two financial years of the budget strategy, with a full review of every service and how it operates, building on the work that started in Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 11 Part I – Public the Zero-Based Budgeting reviews that set the groundwork for this budget strategy. The delivery of target Operating Model savings are essential for the financial future of this Council. 34. Cross-Cutting Initiatives proposals amount to £6.0m in 2025/26, rising by a further £13.5m over the next two years to deliver £19.5m of savings by 2027/28. Savings recorded as cross-cutting include: i. Procurement savings of £0.6m are included in each of the three years, with the procurement service to work with service areas during contract negotiations and tender exercises to maximise opportunities for the Council and effectively counter the impact of the inflationary uplift built into the budget strategy. ii. Pension measures of £0.4m are included for 2025/26, rising by a further £0.1m in 2025/26 from a combination of cashflow measures with the interactions between the General Fund and Pension Fund (£0.3m) and a proposal to delay automatic enrolment for new starters into the pension scheme until post- probation (£0.1m in 2025/26, £0.2m by 2026/27). iii. Finally, inflationary uplifts to Fees & Charges from 2026/27 onwards are included under cross-cutting items at £1.1m per annum to 2027/28, with the impact of uplifts for 2025/26 included under each portfolio. 35. The increases in Fees & Charges is shown in Appendix C and maintains significant discounts for residents. Further work will be undertaken ahead of the February Cabinet to test any impact caused by the elasticity of demand. Capital Proposals 36. Capital investment of £301.6m over the period 2025/26 to 2029/30 has been incorporated into the wider General Fund budget strategy set out within this report, with £134.1m investment in major projects, primarily delivering new or expanded infrastructure, a nd £157.5m investment in recurrent programme of works, ensuring that existing infrastructure is maintained and improved, with further detail available in Appendix A8 that accompanied the Consultation Budget Report presented at December Cabinet. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 12 Part I – Public Table 5: General Fund Capital Programme by Cabinet Portfolio Major Projects Programme of Works General Contingency Total £'000 £'000 £'000 Total Capital Programme 174.1 157.5 10.0 341.6 Select Committee Breakdown: Children, Families & Education 11.3 2.3 0.0 13.6 Corporate Resources & Infrastructure 129.7 132.4 10.0 272.1 Residents' Services 8.6 8.5 0.0 17.1 Health & Social Care 24.5 14.3 0.0 38.8 Total Capital Programme 174.1 157.5 10.0 341.6 37. Further to the over view presented above, the below section sets out the Capital Proposals within the remit of this Select Committee. 38. Children, Families and Education – Total capital investment in this area is forecast to be £13.6m, with £11.3m of Major Projects relating to Schools programmes includi ng increasing special education needs placements and increasing school placements capacity. The Programme of Works budget of £2.3m funds £1.9m of Devolved Capital to Schools and £0.4m for Scout/Guide groups via the Youth Provision programme budget. SCHOOLS BUDGET In-Year monitoring position and background 39. The Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) total Block for the Maintained Schools is forecasting an in-year deficit of £1 7.3m based on Month 7 (October 2024), representing a significant improvement from the projected £25.6m reported at outturn 2023/24 as a result of a broad range of positive measures being deployed by the Council. This position has been impacted by a one-off £4.0m adverse movement as a r esult of a review of the balance sheet and the need to recognise a prior year correction required to the accounts. The in-year deficit is largely driven by High Needs placement demand and cost pressures which continue to be significantly underfunded in the DSG settlement that the authority receives from the DfE. This position means that the cumulative deficit carried forward to 2025/26 is forecast at £68.8m. 40. There is currently a time -limited statutory override in place until 31 March 202 6 effectively keeping the Schools Budget deficit behind a ringfence which ensures that this deficit does not impact upon general reserves, and the Council’s General Fund budget strategy is predicated on the further continuation of this override. The Council is one of many l ocal authorities managing a large deficit within the Schools Budget and this stood at £47.5m at 31 March 2024 and therefore exceeded General Fund reserve levels. It is worth noting that between outturn 2023/24 and the position presented in this report, the Council has successfully reduced in-year spend against the Schools Budget by £ 8.3m and continues to make good progress in reducing spend in this area (albeit that an adverse adjustment of £4m has proved necessary in respect of prior years’ income). Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 13 Part I – Public 41. The Autumn Statement announced increased funding for SEND provision, with the Council awaiting details of the individual allocations, with Schools Forum being consulted on the 2025/26 budget. BACKGROUND PAPERS 2025/26 BUDGET AND FUTURE MEDIUM -TERM FINANCIAL STRATEGY, presented to 1 2 December 20 24 Cabinet Meeting (London Borough of Hillingdon - Agenda for CABINET on Thursday, 12th December, 2024, 7.00 pm) APPENDIX Children, Families & Education, Savings Appendix

The Council's Budget (2025/26 - 2029/30) - Medium Term Financial Strategy Appendix A6 2025/26 2026/27 2027/28 2028/29 2029/30 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 (762) (530) 0 0 0 (1,292) (1,292) (1,138) (211) (57) 0 0 (1,406) (1,406) (5,064) (1,192) (230) 0 0 (6,486) (6,486) (6,585) (1,084) (786) 0 0 (8,455) (8,455) (5,247) (1,880) (2,016) 0 0 (9,143) (9,143) (7,787) (1,123) 0 0 0 (8,910) (8,910) (6,000) (11,800) (1,700) (5,000) (5,000) (19,500) (29,500) (32,583) (17,820) (4,789) (5,000) (5,000) (55,192) (65,192) (22,930) (14,168) (2,283) (5,000) (5,000) (39,381) (49,381) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 (100) (100) 0 0 0 (200) (200) (1,066) (998) (600) 0 0 (2,664) (2,664) (5,782) (1,770) (1,120) 0 0 (8,672) (8,672) (2,705) (784) (786) 0 0 (4,275) (4,275) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 (32,583) (17,820) (4,789) (5,000) (5,000) (55,192) (65,192) Review of Semi Independent & Shared Accommodation (T) (2,156) (216) (216) (2,588) (2,588) Social Care Delivery Model (T) (1,059) (154) (154) (1,367) (1,367) Fees & Charges Uplifts (C) (843) (843) (843) New Care Offer - Review of Operating Model (T) (626) (1,417) (1,616) (3,659) (3,659) Savings Proposals Savings Programme by Theme Service Transformation (T) Digital Strategy (D) Workforce (W) Procurement (P) Income Generation & Commercialisation (C) Zero Based Reviews (Z) Impact on Other Funds (O) Specific Savings Proposals Five Year Outlook Savings by Portfolio Property, Highways & Transport Finance Corporate Services Residents' Services Children, Families & Education Health & Social Care Cross-Cutting Initiatives Specific Savings Proposals General Fund Budget Savings Programme T h e m e Annual Movement in Budget Requirement Three Year Outlook The Council's Budget (2025/26 - 2029/30) - Medium Term Financial Strategy Appendix A6 2025/26 2026/27 2027/28 2028/29 2029/30 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 Five Year OutlookGeneral Fund Budget Savings Programme T h e m e Annual Movement in Budget Requirement Three Year Outlook Review of Catering Service in Care Delivery Settings (T) (194) (194) (194) Review of Early Years Operating Model (T) (187) (93) (30) (310) (310) Child and Family Support Service Staffing Review (T) (182) (182) (182) (5,247) (1,880) (2,016) 0 0 (9,143) (9,143)Total Children, Families & Education

Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 1 Part I – Public SEND & AP STRATEGY UPDATE Committee name Children, Families & Education Select Committee Officer reporting Abi Preston – Director of Education & SEND Dominika Michalik – Assistant Director of SEND & Inclusion Papers with report Appendix 1 – Hillingdon Local Area SEND and Alternative Provision Strategy for Children and Young People 0-25 years 2023 - 2028 Strategy (and easy read version) Appendix 2 – The Hillingdon SEND Local Area Partnership Improvement Plan Ward All HEADLINES The purpose of the report is to provide the Children, Families and Education Select Committee with an update on Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Strategy 2023-2028 which has been published one year ago. The strategy outlines how Hillingdon Council plan to further develop the SEND and AP offer in Hillingdon within five years to deliver our shared vision for Hillingdon to be a place where children and young people with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities and those who attend Alternative Provision and their families lead happy and fulfilled lives from early years through adolescence to adulthood, in communities that accept and understand them. RECOMMENDATION That the Children, Families & Education Select Committee note the update SUPPORTING INFORMATION Background information The SEND and AP Strategy 2023-2028, published in December 2023, is being collaboratively implemented by the Local Area Partnership. The strategy was created as a partnership between the Council and the ICB, with close collaboration with schools, the Parent Carer Forum, voluntary organisation, families and young people. The local area partnership has worked at pace to deliver improvements to the SEND services and AP support over the last year. The vision of the area is: We want Hillingdon to be a place where children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities and their families lead happy and fulfilled lives from early years through adolescence to adulthood, in communities that accept and understand them. Following formal approval of the new strategy, the governance model was updated and now includes ‘ambition groups’ which focus on each of the ambitions laid out in the strategy. There is Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 2 Part I – Public a lead for each group along with membership from representatives across the partnership, who are best placed to move forward the priorities outlined in each ambition. The strategy appropriately identified the key areas of development for the area and also takes into account the work the area is doing to be more financially efficient in supporting children and young people with SEND, as part of the Safety Valve programme. The local area was inspected in April 2024 by Ofsted & CQC – the strategy already encompasses the key areas of development identified during the subsequent inspection. Ofsted & CQC Local Area SEND inspection 2024 From April 29th to May 3rd, 2024, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) conducted a joint inspection of Hillingdon’s Local Area Partnership. The inspection aimed to: • Provide an independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the local area partnership’s arrangements for children and young people with SEND. • Recommend improvements where necessary. The inspection concluded that “the local area partnership’s arrangements lead to inconsistent experiences and outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)”. Despite this, the report acknowledged the Local Area Partnership's effective self -evaluation and awareness of its improvement areas. Inspectors noted the leaders' high ambition and collaborative work with various stakeholders, including children and young people (CYP). The strategy for SEND and AP was developed and launched less than six months before the inspection and captured the key areas of improvement that were required for the local area. This was as a result of the partnership working closely together to highlight strengths and identify areas for improvement to ensure children with SEND and those attending AP were supported to meet their potential. Much of the partnership’s improvement work is already in progress. Inspectors also recognised the positive relationships with the Hillingdon Parent Carer Forum (PCF) and the effectiveness of the SEND Information, Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS). It was evident that CYP generally achieve well at the end of their education and benefit from strategies preparing them for adulthood. Leaders' efforts are helping more young people stay in education, training, and employment. There is also significant work to identify SEND in young children, supported by early years advisers working with nurseries and childminders. Leaders need to refine their strategies for training the workforce across education, health and social care in better understanding and supporting children and young people and their families. This should include how well mainstream schools identify children’s needs in relation to SEND and then effectively plan provision that meets their needs, thereby helping to avoid the risk of suspension and/or permanent exclusion. The positive outcome was that the identified areas for improvement align with the ambitions and objectives of the SEND and AP Strategy 2023-2028. This indicates that our strategy has effectively identified gaps and next steps for improving SEND across education, health, and social care. There were four areas for improvement identified during the inspection: Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 3 Part I – Public 1. Leaders in education, health and social care should collaborate in a multi-agency approach to strengthen and embed their quality assurance framework of existing, amended EHC plans and annual reviews. 2. Leaders should improve how well information about children and young people and their families is shared and used between and across all those involved in the partnership. 3. Leaders need to refine their strategies for training the workforce across education, health and social care in better understanding and supporting children and young people and their families. This should include how well mainstream schools identify children’s needs in relation to SEND and then effectively plan provision that meets their needs, thereby helping to avoid the risk of suspension and/or permanent exclusion. 4. Leaders across the partnership need to further improve their support for young people in PfA. For more details, please refer to Appendix 2: Ofsted and CQC Inspection Report - Area SEND inspection of Hillingdon Local Area Partnership. Progress since the launch of the new strategy Following the inspection, the Local Area Partnership developed the Hillingdon SEND Local Area Partnership Improvement Plan, published in November 2024. Its implementation will continue within the existing governance structure, with multiagency Ambition Groups focusing on specific objectives from the strategy and improvement plan. While the objectives remain unchanged, a detailed plan is now in place to capture all the key ambitions detailed in the strategy and the actions to meet the objectives that were identified in the inspection. SEND & AP Strategy Governance: Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 4 Part I – Public The SEND governance model has continued as it was detailed in the strategy document. The ambitions groups meet bi -monthly, with their work overseen by the SEND Operational Group (SOG) and the strategic SEND Executive Partnership Board (SEPB). The membership of both the SOG and SEPB has been reviewed to ensure the involvement of appropriate strategic leaders. The new SEPB will ensure integrated leadership for all aspects of SEND, with active involvement from parents, carers, and young people. This board will also continue to provide both high support and high challenge across the partnership, as well as a route for escalation where required, facilitating solution- focused practice to resolve challenges and barriers which impact on the timely delivery of actions. The SEND Executive Partnership Board (SEPB) is now chaired by the Director for Children’s Services and the SEND Operational Board is co-chaired by the Director for Education & SEND and the Borough Director for Hillingdon ICB. Starting in January 2025, both the Strategic Boards' SEND Operational Group (SOG) and SEBP will include young people with SEND as members. This change is part of a governance restructure aimed at ensuring that young people's voices are involved in strategic discussions, helping to shape and improve the delivery of operational services. Strategy Implementation Progress The five ambitions outlined in our SEND and AP Strategy 2023-2028 focus on the delivery of local area services for children and young people with SEND and their families are: • The right support, at the right time, in the right place We will improve children's and parents' experience of the SEND system by delivering the right support in the right place at the right time. • Fully inclusive education for all We will support all schools and settings in Hillingdon to be inclusive and welcome children and young people with SEND. • Provision meets the needs of Hillingdon's children and young people We will deliver a new, ambitious, and innovative provision that enables children and young people with SEND to receive excellent education in their local community. • Children and young people live happy and fulfilled lives where they are included in the community We will enable all children and young people to achieve independence, take part in activities they want to be part of, build good relationships and have meaningful outcomes in adulthood. • There is a flexible offer and range of interventions available for children to access alternative provision We will create a 3-tiered model for alternative provision that offers flexible interventions and supports children back into mainstream where possible. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 5 Part I – Public Ambition Group 1 - The right support, at the right time, in the right place Review and refine early intervention offer Children with SEND Support and EHCPs in mainstream have increased term on term since we launched the strategy. In Autumn 2023, SEND Support was 11.8% and 2.5% EHCPs. In Autumn 2024, 12.1% of children are on SEND Support and 2.8% with EHCPs. This evidences that more schools are identifying children’s needs and putting in support by identifying needs on the SEND register and more children with EHCPs are being placed in mainstream schools. There is still a significant difference between primary and secondary SEND children attending mainstream schools across the borough – primary children with EHCPs are currently at 3% and secondary is 2.5%. Changes in SEND Support and EHCP levels in mainstream schools (based on Autumn census data for each year): 2022-23 2023-24 2024-25 SEN Support EHCP SEN Support EHCP SEN Support EHCP Primary (inc. infant and junior) 11.8% 2.4% 13.0% 2.6% 13.4% 3% Secondary 9.1% 2.2% 10.3% 2.3% 10.7% 2.5% In line with the target to ‘provide more support to our early years settings via the SEND Advisory Service, EPS and health services to ensure that needs are identified early, and appropriate interventions are in place’, an Early Years specialist Educational Psychologist post has been created which enabled a new traded offer to be created to Private, Voluntary, and Independent (PVI) settings. The role also assists other educational teams in delivering services to Early Years (EY) settings, integrating child development knowledge and psychological theory into practice. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 6 Part I – Public Strategic support has been provided to various panels (EHN, ESF, SEND) and projects, promoting early intervention strategies in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) as part of a multi - disciplinary approach. Review and refine approaches to early identification, assessment and reviewing of EHCPs A significant amount of work has gone into the annual reviews project, increasing the number of reviews which are processed within the expected timelines. Previously there was a significant backlog of reviews, so the team acted quickly in recruiting fixed term officers to focus on the annual reviews and bring them up to date. The service is now working with a permanent team to ensure annual reviews are actioned within timescales and produce high quality outcomes. A new tool had been purchased to quality assure the annual reviews so there is a targeted focus on improving the quality of plans and reviews. Work is underway to create more effective reporting mechanisms for annual reviews. The chart below shows the significant increase to annual reviews being completed: The Early Identification toolkit has been re-formatted to improve accessibility, and its content will be reviewed by a working group. The SAS school team has adapted its working methods. The Schools and Early Years (EYs) team are reviewing transition support, with the quality of information shared being monitored through joint transition meetings. Collaboration with the admissions team will be undertaken to ensure the earliest possible provision of transition support. Children's centres lead transition workshops to prepare children for starting school. Develop clear pathways for support The Early Help Notification panel has been successfully operating and has now evolved into the Early Years Tracking Panel. This panel aims to ensure that children who need assessments receive ‘the right support at the right time’, along with appropriate provision to meet their needs early on. It consists of a multidisciplinary team with a wealth of expertise to recommend suitable services, provide signposting, and identify a lead professional. Additionally, this panel handles referrals to the new assessment centre. The Ruislip Gardens Assessment Centre is now open and live. There are currently 16 children attending the setting part -time or full-time. The Centre formally opened to children from September 2024 so it is still early days, however, the centre will provide a strong foundation for children awaiting assessment and aims to close the gap earlier. Develop new collaborative agreement & ways of working for Children’s Integrated Therapies The Council and the North-West London ICB jointly commission therapy services for children and young people across Hillingdon, through a range of universal, and targeted support measures, delivering preventative and statutory services to meet the needs of children and young people Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 7 Part I – Public with SEND. Working with our delivery partner (CNWL), we have developed a new ‘collaborative agreement’ that will see all three organisations working closer together across the partnership. This new collaborative agreement will cover areas like recruitment and retention of therapy services, increased demand, and is designed to meet the challenges we all face in relation to service delivery at a local and national level. We have already started to review referral pathways and have recently delivered an initiative collaboratively to reduce waiting times for speech and language therapy (SaLT) and occupational therapy (OT) services with some additional investment and targeted service delivery. The new agreement is expected to commence from April 2025. Improve outcomes for children with EHCPs and SEND Support Education, Health and Care assessments are completed in an increasingly improved timescale and are improving in quality. The table below evidences the improvement in timeliness from academic year 2023-24 compared to the start of 2024-25 year. During the fi rst term, the service has improved from 54% to 84%. Managers have close oversight of the process of EHCNAs, leading to improved outcomes. 20 week timeframe: 2023-24 September – December 2024 A new quality assurance tool has been implemented to ensure new EHCPs are of high quality. The recent Ofsted and CQC inspection identified that newer EHCPs are better quality than those historically, therefore, we are seeing signs that the work is having an early impact and are committed to ensuring all EHCPs are high quality moving forward. Ambition Group 2 - Fully inclusive education for all Promote Hillingdon’s approach to inclusion including increasing uptake in SEND reviews & peer mentoring The SEND Advisory Team assists schools by conducting SEND Reviews and implementing the Inclusion Commitment programme. This helps schools identify needs early and provide timely support. The team collaborate with Hillingdon schools to increase the number of settings conducting SEND reviews, aiming to boost participation from 62% to 93%, thereby enhancing early identification and inclusion. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 8 Part I – Public Settings that have not yet undertaken a SEND Review have been approached by their linked advisor or have received recommendations from Education Improvement officers. Settings that have completed a SEND Review are encouraged to share best practice by offering peer support and participating in the inclusion network event. Settings are also offered bespoke whole school training tailored to their specific needs. The implementation and impact of this training are then monitored throughout the year. Self-evaluation of school SEND provision is conducted at the start of the academic year to identify specific training needs and determine the optimal timing for providing the training. SEND Reviews: April 2023 – March 2024 School SEND Reviews completed Primary 26 Secondary 5 Top 3 next steps themes: Theme No. of schools % OAP/QFT/Adaptive Teaching 22 81% Deployment and effective use of support staff 16 59% Developing an evidence -based approach in relation to the identification of needs process and updating SEND register 9 33% Progression towards next steps: 0 = None 1 = Partial progress 2 = completed Target 1 Target 2 Target 3 1.3 1.4 1.4 Completed by 10 schools using feedback provided approximately after 6 months after the SEND Review date. SEND Review Feedback: 52% of schools completed the SEND Review feedback form. Settings were asked to rate aspects of the process using a scale of 1-6 (insufficient – excellent). The average score across 5 questions was 5.8. This indicates that schools are extremely pleased with the overall process. Feedback was requested on five areas of the process, including the overall experience, collaboration, developing OAP, accuracy in determining strengths and next steps and if the next steps were relevant in developing the schools SEND provision. The highest scoring questions were based on the overall experience and the collaborative manner which achieved 89%. The second highest scoring question was based on accurate identification of strengths 83%. Schools have undertaken a comprehensive self -assessment via SEND Reviews and the Partnership for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS). Self -assessment tool helps to Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 9 Part I – Public identify strengths and areas for development of current whole-school approach to inclusion Improve functionality of the Local Offer Over the last year, a new co-designed name for the Local Offer website has been agreed which is ‘HELLO’ (Hillingdon Empowering Lives Local Offer). A new Task & Finish Group will be established to gather feedback from families, children and young people (CYP), and other professionals to evaluate the Local Offer and identify any gaps. An evaluation and improvement plan for the Local Offer will be then implemented. The impact will be measured through an increase in people using the Local Offer and from feedback from young people. We want to make sure the Local Offer is easily accessible to young people, parents and professionals. Challenges related to keeping the Local Offer updated are being addressed by identifying champions within the teams. Support and empower settings to play their part in a fully inclusive system Since the launch of the strategy, the Council has been sharing local inclusion data with schools to raise awareness of those schools who are supporting higher numbers of EHCPs and where there are schools with lower numbers. The EHC team have been consulting with local schools where they have the resources and capacity to support children with EHCPs. The data above highlights evidence that more children with EHCPs are attending local mainstream schools as a result. There is still a disparity between primary schools and secondary schools, with primary having higher numbers of children with EHCPs compared to secondary schools. To further support schools with strategies, the Ordinarily Available Provision (OAP) has been reviewed and updated in collaboration with schools. After consulting with all local schools to gather feedback, the updated OAP document will be launched in early January 2025. To aid in the implementation of the graduated approach, OAP checklists for early years settings, schools, and post-16 settings have been published to empower school professionals to utilise inclusive interventions. OAP workshops to train both schools and professionals will begin in January 2025. As some schools still lack confidence in meeting the broad range of needs of children with EHCPs, the next steps to support inclusion in Hillingdon settings involve working with the school community to coproduce an Inclusion Consistency Framework. This framework aims to ensure a transparent and coordinated inclusive environment across the Local Area Partnership educational settings. Schools have reported that those who are highly inclusive naturally attract more children with SEND needs due to their positive reputation with SEND. Whilst these schools rightly deserve to be recognised for their efforts, schools have shared their concerns that other local schools do not apply such an inclusive ethos. The strategy recognises these challenges and aims to support and challenge schools who are less flexible in supporting children with SEND, often stating they cannot meet needs when other mainstream schools can. The local area partnership’s vision is to upskill and support mainstream schools in order to ensure all of them can meet a range of needs, so that children can be educated in their local communities, where appropriate. New exceptional funding was introduced in early 2024 to support schools with higher numbers of children with EHCPs in order to ensure those schools are not financially impacted by their positive inclusive approach. Through the Phase Transfer process and census information sharing, the EHC team and schools have collaborated, helping schools to be more open to supporting students with EHCPs in Year 7. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 10 Part I – Public A new team is being created to support mainstream schools when trying to support a range of complex needs of children with EHCPs. This team is called the EHCP+ team and will consist of three highly qualified professionals who will provide expert support and guidance to schools where there is a risk of placement breakdown. This is an innovative new approach which has been developed in response to feedback from schools. Many of our local schools adopt highly inclusive practices and want to do all they can to support children with complex needs to attend their local school and be part of their local community. This team aims to be in place for the latter part of 2024-25 academic year and will consist of a senior ASD specialist teacher, a clinical psychologist (or similar) and an SEMH Educational Psychologist. These roles have been devised from reviewing the cases where there are the most challenges for children in mainstream and aims to provide a supportive approach to schools, to upskill staff in responding to challenges that present and share new interventions and approaches that will enable children and young people to be successful. Develop training opportunities for LBH staff, health, social care and schools The partnership will set up a Task and Finish Group to focus on developing ongoing opportunities for workforce development. A draft training plan has been already developed for the partnership, aimed at enhancing the skills of all educational, social care, and health professionals in the area of SEND. SEND Advisory Team has worked on feedback from schools and designed theme specific, tailored training program for school professionals which has been co-developed with them to ensure the delivery of high-quality training. This training program is continuously reviewed to ensure it remains relevant and aligned with current demands. Review and refine support for SEND children with transitions, attendance and exclusions and vulnerable group As part of the strategy, the partnership are looking to review existing annual review documents, involving young people, parents, schools, and professionals to ensure the documentation is effective and has a positive impact at annual reviews. Clear pathways and expectations will be established for every transition point. The Local Area Partnership will coproduce relevant guidance documents and information for professionals, children and young people (CYP), and their families on educational transition points. This aims to prevent placement breakdowns and reduce requests for specialist placements when mainstream settings are appropriate. A transition pilot program, run by LBH Education in partnership with Centre for ADHD and Autism Support (CAAS), has been implemented in four secondary schools this year to support the transition of CYP with ADHD and ASD who have an EHCP, transferring to mainstream secondary provision. Identified Year 7 pupils with ASD or ADHD are receiving enhanced transition support to prevent placement breakdowns and ensure young people have the additional support to be successful in their mainstream school. There are regular meetings between EHC team and CAAS to monitor the pilot and the assessment of the project's success will be in the early summer term. The Exclusion and Reintegration Team provides advice and support to schools and other professionals to c onsider alternatives to exclusion. Monitoring and progress of proactive support provided to schools by the Exclusion and Reintegration Team has improved, based on suspension data analysis. The Vulnerable Learners Clinic, which was updated to become Inclusion Clinics, has also evolved to Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 11 Part I – Public provide more support and to improve engagement. An Early Intervention and Inclusion Panel has also been launched. Collaborative work between the Exclusion and Reintegration Team and the Adolescence Development Service (ADS) is underway to develop a support program aimed at reducing suspensions. Additionally, collaboration with Exclusions and Reintegration, SAS, EPS, S END EHC Team, and Education Improvement colleagues will focus on identifying trends and providing support for children at risk of exclusion and for schools that may be struggling. For academic year 2023-24, the data suggests the services are already having an impact. There has been a total of 21% reduction in number pupils with SEND who were permanently excluded from Hillingdon’s schools compared to the previous year. In the 2023/24 academic year in Hillingdon, 40 permanent exclusions were upheld and 13 were retracted. Among the upheld exclusions, 11 (27.5%) were pupils with SEND (1 with an EHCP and 10 with SEN Support). Of the retracted exclusions, 8 (61.5%) had SEND ( 2 with EHCPs, 4 with SEN Support, and 2 undergoing EHCNA). Overall, the 11 exclusions that were upheld this represents a 21% reduction in permanent exclusions for pupils with SEND compared to the previous year. The impact of this work allows services to collaborate to prevent suspensions and permanent exclusions of pupils with SEND. However, it has been recognised that the lack of alternative provisions available for primary-aged children is a barrier currently. Hillingdon Secondary Schools continue to offer academic pathways, and we are exploring available alternative provisions. We are also working on enhanced support opportunities to help children have successful placements in their mainstream schools. Ambition Group 3 - Provision meets the needs of Hillingdon's children and young people Review SEND Funding approach Significant progress has been made on developing a new approach to funding for SEND across Hillingdon. The previous banding model had been in place since 2014, when the changes to the Children and Families Act 2014 were introduced, and operated as one framework for all maintained schools (mainstream and special). The focus for creating a new system was to ensure that there is a fair, transparent and effective funding system that supports the right provision and support being in place at the right time locally for children with SEND needs. The banding review consists of two elements: a mainstream banding framework and a special school banding framework. The mainstream banding framework has now been completed after a working party, made up of local school leaders and support from a specialist consultant, coproduced new descriptors to capture the range of needs. The framework was developed in partnership with the Parent Carer Forum, health partners, schools and the Council. The mainstream banding framework now includes up to date hourly rates for support staff with appropriate oncosts and clear descriptors of language, such as ‘small group’ and whether needs are ‘severe’ or ‘moderate etc. This was launched in September 2024 and EHCPs will transition to this new banding over the next two years. Work is now taking place with local partners to ensure there is a consistent approach to the use of terminology across all services, ensuring a common language which aligns to the framework. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 12 Part I – Public The special school banding framework is being coproduced currently with special school leaders. The descriptors have been drafted and schools are currently applying these to a sample of children and moderating their findings. The next step is to allocate appropriate funding to each band which will be completed by early January 2025. The aim is to apply the new funding matrices to all children in special schools for the 2025-26 special school budgets. There have been ongoing workshops for schools to learn how to apply the framework and to gather feedback. New documentation explaining the SEND funding mechanisms has been created for schools and a guide for SENCOs is being developed also. Early Support Funding and funding for SRPs and Designated Units (DUs), as well as for Further Education (FE) settings, will be considered next to ensure there is a clear, fair and transparent funding approach to all elements of the Hillingdon SEND system. This piece of work has been significant, and the partnership are grateful to the local schools who have been instrumental in developing this new, up to date system for schools across Hillingdon. Develop new Specialist Resource Provisions (SRP), Designated Units (DU) and Assessment Centres with appropriate quality assurance The projects to deliver four new SRPs and Designated units completed this year. We now have new units at Wood End Park Academy (24 place DU), Ruislip Gardens (16 place SRP), Charville Academy (16 place SRP) and Harlington (16 place DU). This has created 56 new places for children in primary schools and 16 places for secondary school children. Alongside the development of the SRPs and DUs, new Assessment Centre was also created at Ruislip Gardens primary school. This offers a 16 place (16 full time places or 32 part time places) centre for children aged 2- 5 years old (recently extended for 2-year-olds). This provision offers specialist teaching to children with severe needs awaiting an EHCP and further assessments to support the EHCNA process. The Specialist Assessment Centre will allow the Council to identify needs much earlier and, therefore, provide the appropriate support so that children are able to progress in line with their ability and their families receive the support from multi agencies as appropriate. The next steps are to secure more Specialist Resource Provisions or Designated Units in secondary schools. We currently have more capacity for SRPs/ DUs in primary schools than secondary schools so it is vital that we can develop more provisions to enable children to access mainstream secondary schools once they complete their journey in primary. Discussions are ongoing with secondary schools and feasibility studies are being undertaken before moving to the next stage of proposals. Moreover, there is an ongoing work to quality assure existing SRP/DU provisions through regular reviews to create a consistent approach to supporting children with SEND. The quality assurance process, which has been developed and co-produced with schools and Hillingdon Parent Carer Forum, was piloted with three schools initially and feedback was used to evolve the approach to the review to ensure a manageable QA process and share good practice across all SRPs/DUs. Create additional places in local Special School provision Developments are underway for the expansion of Meadow High School. There are two projects taking place – one at Northwood Road where a satellite provision of Meadow High School is being constructed to expand placements. The other project is developing a two-story teaching block on Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 13 Part I – Public the existing site at Royal Lane to meet demand. Both projects have recently become delayed as a result of the construction company going into administration. Alternative options are being progressed to complete the works as soon as possible. Temporary modular classrooms will be extended to ensure the maximum number of places can be maintained whilst the works are completed. The Council is also waiting to hear an update on the new ASD free school that was agreed for Hillingdon. It is likely this will be completed later than originally anticipated, however, we wait to hear from the DfE on expected timelines for completion. The analysis of the cohorts has been completed to understand demands and trends in specialist provision, informing sufficiency and place planning. A new SEND Sufficiency Strategy has been created using the latest projections and will be published in early 2025. New videos of our local maintained special schools were commissioned by the Council to further support the local understanding of specialist provision and its offer. The Council is aware that parents often find it challenging to visit special schools due to the disruption it can cause to attending children, therefore, the videos were created to showcase the types of settings Hillingdon has on offer and the facilities and support available. Develop a SEND school outreach offer SEND school outreach and in reach offer will be developed over time. This is part of the partnership work around inclusion and support around workforce development. The CAAS transition project mentioned above helps to strengthen knowledge and daily practice when it comes to ASD SEND specific interventions in mainstream secondary settings. The new SRPs and DUs have been asked to share success stories and best practices with wider schools’ community to encourage mainstream school staff to effectively support students with SEND. Some special schools invite mainstream school professionals to their settings to allow observations and discussions about inclusive strategies. Ambition Group 4 - Children and young people live happy and fulfilled lives where they are included in the community Develop further opportunities for children with SEND to take part in clubs & activities There has been significant progress in updating information on activities and accessible opportunities for young people with SEND. The directory now includes a wide range of activities and is continuously being developed further. The Local Offer is also being revamped and updated with input from young people to make it more accessible to all children and young people (CYP). Additionally, ongoing efforts are focused on creating effective ways to capture young people's views to support this initiative. The goal is to ensure that CYP have more opportunities to express their opinions on various topics, feel supported and included, and become more active in their local communities. Development of Preparation for Adulthood (PfA) outcomes This scope of work focuses on strengthening ‘Preparing for Adulthood’ offer to ensure young people with SEND are healthy, integrated within their communities, continue their education or employment, and achieve greater independence. A new ‘PfA from Early Years’ project is in Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 14 Part I – Public progress, collaborating with eight schools. There is also new guidance on PfA being created via coproduction to ensure services are working more closely together to focus on PfA. The other part of this work focuses on ensuring that families and children are supported in Year 9 to consider options for post 16 choices and to report smooth transitions between services. New guidance has been created by our Project Search interns for Year 9 students. The Post 16 brochure has also been updated to support young people with SEND in understanding their choices and what local settings in Hillingdon offer for their post 16 options. The next steps are to update the annual review process in collaboration with schools to further support them effectively. Further develop options for Post 16 through supported internships, provision, work and employment Transitions, pathways to adulthood, and raising aspirations for all young people including those with SEND are high on the priority agenda for all services. The Supported Employment Forum and Supported Internship (SI) work continue to function very effectively, with promising initiatives. Opportunities have been created through collaborative efforts to support further pathways. The vocational Carousel has provided more options for young people and will be offered again with even more choices. As a result of these initiatives, there has been a significant decrease in the percentage of NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) to 3% as of December 2024 in comparison to 6% in FY 2022/23. The continual reduction in our NEET rate brings us closer to the national average of 2.7% of all young people with an EHCP being recorded NEET. A current challenge is the uncertainty of the SI Work initiative continuing beyond March 2025. This depends on the DfE continuing the small grant the LA receives. This will be reviewed once we have clarity on the DfE SI Work initiative's future. The partnership's focus is to align SENCO and careers leads with Education Development Trust (EDT) support to provide more effective Careers Information, Education and Guidance (CIEG), and to continue creating new opportunities for young people with SEND to support future pathways. Regularly gather feedback from SEND children to understand what is working and what isn’t The Co-production Charter, co-produced by young people, is designed for professionals. A new SEND youth forum, Aim High, was created to amplify the voices of young people. Processes have been implemented to better capture the voices of young people during annual reviews. The Coproduction Charter outlines the values that young people expect from services. Additionally, parents/carers have a voice on strategic SEND boards, and young people with SEND will start attending SOG and SEPB from January 2025.The Hillingdon SEND Youth Forum ‘Aim High’ remains proactive and involved in many initiatives, expressing their own views and those of other young people with SEND. The aim is for the forum to grow and attract more members. There is ongoing work to further promote the Aim High youth forum to grow its capacity and impact in supporting the voices of young people with SEND. Improve support for children with Social, Emotional and Mental Health support Many parts of the SEMH support system were already in place, including the development of the SEMH Inclusion Commitment, the referral protocol for SEMH in SAS, the Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance (EBSNA) training, emotional regulation training, and behaviour training. Feedback on the SEMH Inclusion Commitment, trainings, and outreach was positive. While we lack quantitative data on the impact, some case studies showed very positive results: numerous Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 15 Part I – Public children at risk of PEX are still attending mainstream schools, and some children who were not leaving home are now attending a setting full-time. In the next coming months, the focus will be on integrating the SEMH and EBSNA training and inclusion commitment into one offer. It is also important to deliver internal ongoing upskilling opportunities to various professionals across SAS so that they can provide more enhanced support to schools around SEMH. There is now closer collaboration between EPS, SAS and CAMHS. CAMHS are supporting the production of the EBSNA and Exclusion protocols and are attending the Early Intervention and Inclusion Panel, offering their advice and insights in this forum. The other initiative under this priority is the ELSA intervention, which will run again in Spring 2025, supporting the integration of therapeutic support into school settings. A new Alternative Provision provider with promising practices in exclusions and EBSNA has been recently added to the DPS, and some schools are already exploring their support for high-needs individuals. The THRIVE Network continues to develop and distribute early intervention There has been significant work across the LA and Health to support schools with SEMH needs, from increased commissioning of The Skills Hub to universal staff training and increased direct advice/guidance for individual cases. Schools have expressed appreciation for the SEMH support provided for specific cases. However, given the ever-growing needs, we must continue developing protocols for areas with the highest levels of need/demand, such as EBSNA and exclusions. Ambition Group 5 - There is a flexible offer and range of interventions available for children to access alternative provision Create a three-tiered alternative provision system Infographic and visual guides are in progress, with a communication campaign planned and LEAP updates completed. Vulnerable Learners Support Clinics have been established, and resources have been shared with schools through LEAP and LBH updates. Schools now have access to a broader range of support for pupils struggling in mainstream settings. The clinics allow schools to discuss emerging needs earlier, promoting early intervention and reducing the demand for AP services. However, challenges remain in ensuring all schools are aware of the available providers, making information easier to find on the LEAP portal, maintaining consistent communication, ensuring all schools use the provided resources consistently, and providing ongoing support. Next steps include completing the infographic, holding a Task and Finish Group meeting, implementing the communication campaign, continuing to promote resources, and collecting feedback to refine support. Reduce the number of exclusions and suspensions from and within schools The Exclusion and Suspension Guidance has been reviewed and updated, and the Early Intervention and Inclusion Panel (EIIP) is now operational. Schools now have clear guidelines to manage exclusions and suspensions more effectively. Efforts to support schools in accessing early intervention, such as attending a Vulnerable Learners Clinic or requesting a Team Around the Child (TAC) meeting, are beginning to show positive results. In the 2023/24 academic year in Hillingdon, 40 permanent exclusions were upheld and 13 were retracted. Among the upheld exclusions, 11 (27.5%) were pupils with SEND (1 with an EHCP and 10 with SEN Support). Of the retracted exclusions, 8 (61.5%) had SEND ( 2 with EHCPs, 4 with Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 16 Part I – Public SEN Support, and 2 undergoing EHCNA). Overall, the 11 exclusions that were upheld this represents a 21% reduction in permanent exclusions for pupils with SEND compared to the previous year. Regarding suspensions in 2023/24, 952 suspensions were issued to children with SEND. Of these, 36% were for children with an EHCP, 59% for those receiving SEN Support, and 5% for those undergoing an EHCNA. Notably, 83% of suspensions for children undergoing an EHCNA were for primary -aged pupils. Only 29% of the suspended children had been known to SAS beforehand, indicating that many were not receiving early support for behavioural challenges. The Terms of Reference (TOR) for the Early Intervention and Inclusion Panel will be reviewed again to include representation from schools, ensuring clarity regarding expectations and criteria for pupil referrals. Ongoing work to support collaborative efforts also continues. Increase the number of children successfully reintegrated into mainstream Team Around the Child meetings have been implemented for children with a social worker (CWSW), Hospital, Pupil Support Team (PST) Learners, and Primary Alternative Provision Learners. These efforts have improved reintegration pathways for children, which should lead to better long-term outcomes. However, challenges remain with bringing CYP back to school as there are no structured reintegration frameworks for pupils with SEND that educational settings could adhere to. The next step is to explore reintegration frameworks for these pupils. Improve commissioning of independent providers to have a more flexible approach Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are in the progress of being updated, and the Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) is in place. The DPS is a procurement mechanism that operates on an open market, allowing pre-approved suppliers to present their service offer to the Local Authority. This helps to choose the best provider for an alternative provision in line with CYP’s individual needs. The Information sessions for internal teams regarding the DPS are being provided to ensure services are aware of this new framework and the benefits. This has enhanced flexibility in provision, enabling tailored support for diverse pupil needs. However, there is a need to ensure there is a consistent implementation of Quality Assurance (QA) processes. The next step is to begin QA planning and implementation from Spring 2025. All AP providers now comply with a baseline QA and compliance checks as part of onboarding process DPS. Reduce the number of children requiring tuition A plan is underway to develop a monitoring system for all children and young people (CYP) accessing alternative provision. This includes analysing data on the usage, outcomes, and impact of these provisions. By reducing dependency on one-to -one home tuition, we can free up resources for broader educational initiatives and reduce isolation. To achieve this, we need a clear strategy and baseline data to measure progress. The next step is to develop and implement this strategy, focusing on widening the range of alternative provisions available. This will involve working closely with partners to enhance the offer and ensure it meets diverse needs By broadening the scope of alternative provision, we aim to create a more inclusive and supportive educational environment that reduces the need for one-to -one tuition and promotes better outcomes for all students. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 17 Part I – Public Challenges • There is currently a delay in progressing our new free school project for children with Autism. We are awaiting news on this from the DfE following the change in administration as to when this project is likely to move forward. Summary of achievements During the Local Area Partnership SEND inspection it was acknowledged that: • More children and young people now stay in Hillingdon for their education. Leaders have successfully worked with schools and multi-academy trusts to expand the number of places available in special schools, resourced provision and designated units. Parents and carers speak highly of the quality of specialist education in the local area. However, some parents state that their children are not as well supported in mainstream schools. Leaders know this and are working with schools as part of their improvement work to develop more inclusive approaches. • Vulnerable children and young people, including new arrivals into Hillingdon, such as Ukrainian families and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, are well supported by the local area partnership. This includes training for schools and practitioners in health and social care who work with families in identifying and supporting their SEND or health needs. Most children in care who live in residential special schools, receive regular and planned visits by their social workers. These children settle into the provision quickly and go on to achieve well. • The dynamic support register (DSR) is well established in Hillingdon. There is careful transition as young people move through to the adult DSR. Collectively, the approach to the management of the DSR means that children and young people get the right support at the right time. • There are strengths in how well leaders work with children and young people, including where co production has been effective. For example, there are different groups such as talkers and step up and strong evidence of the you said, we did approach. Young people are particularly proud of their walking in our shoes training that they create and deliver. This project helps services to make positive changes to their work because practitioners develop a better understanding of SEND. • Leaders across the partnership are highly ambitious. They work collaboratively with a range of stakeholders, including children and young people to inform their work. This includes the creation of the 2023 to 2028 five year SEND and alternative provision strategy and their approach to joint commissioning. • Leaders have built very positive working relationships with the Hillingdon parent carer forum (PCF). The PCF speaks highly of communication with the local area and their involvement in moving the SEND agenda forward. The Hillingdon SEND information, advice and support service (SENDIASS) is also well regarded by the PCF. • Children and young people typically achieve well at the end of their primary secondary or further education. Young people benefit from a range of strategies to effectively prepare them for adulthood. For example, the local area has worked with its partners to develop a Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 18 Part I – Public strong approach to supported internships. Many young people go on to paid employment. More recent projects include working with a further education provider to offer high numbers of young people access to a six -week course of vocational carousels and bespoke careers guidance. Leaders’ work is helping more young people to stay in education, training, or employment. • Children with more complex needs are well supported by those working in the children with disabilities team. Many receive comprehensive and detailed packages of support that help parents and carers continue caring for children at home. This support helps prevent family breakdown. Children known to the youth justice service, also receive early and appropriate intervention from youth justice officers. They are also well supported by therapy teams. • CAMHS learning disability team offers effective support to children and young people, for example through positive behaviour support plans. • There is lots of positive work going on to help identify SEND in young children including the role of the early years advisers in supporting nurseries and childminders. Children who receive speech and language therapy pre-school are successfully supported with transition into Reception through a summer holiday play session. Further speech and language support is provided where needed. • Leaders have invested in making early support funding (available to specifically focus on helping children with SEN support. The success of the use of the ESF can be seen in the significant reduction in those children or young people who go on to need an education, health and care needs assessment. • The designated clinical offer (DCO) role in Hillingdon is jointly commissioned by the ICB and Hillingdon Borough Council. This approach enables the DCO to work strategically across the partnership. The child development centre provides an effective multiagency and needs led approach when children are referred with undiagnosed health conditions. Children and young people are assessed using a multidisciplinary approach by paediatrician s and therapists. is an example where parents telling the story once works well. • Every special school in the local authority has an allocated school nurse who provide health interventions to support children, such as promoting oral hygiene and continence. Next steps Significant progress has been made in the first year of the strategy implementation. The new improvement plan, with detailed timescales and initiatives, has been developed and will now be implemented according to the plan. The local area partnership will c ontinue to monitor progress and outcomes through the governance model. The partnership will be providing regular updates to the DfE to detail the progress of the implementation plan moving forwards. PERFORMANCE DATA Increase in mainstream provision Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 19 Part I – Public There has been an 8.5% increase in the proportion of EHCP caseloads in mainstream provision, rising from 44% in the 2022/23 baseline to 52.5% in October 2024. This progress is the result of collaborative efforts across all education services and schools to support more children with EHCPs, including those with more complex needs, in mainstream settings. At the same time, special schools are being realigned to focus on children with the most complex needs. To promote transparency and inclusion, SEND census data is shared with schools on a termly basis. Additionally, consultations with local mainstream schools during phase transfers and inyear placements help ensure that CYP have their needs met within their local communities. Lowering the demand for EHCPs Currently there is a total of 3,425 EHCPs open as of October 2024, this is a 0.4% reduction on the number open at the end of year 2023/24 and a 1.9% reduction when compared to EHCPs open in January 2024. The lower growth of EHCPs is a result of the following: • Improved early intervention pathways to support children and schools • Increased governance of decision-making processes • Improved EHCP outcomes achieved at Annual Reviews • More training, guidance and support to empower schools to support children within their notional budgets while using the graduated approach Reduce dependency on Independent, Non-Maintained Special Schools (INMSS) 9.5% of CYP with EHCPs are currently placed in INMSS provision which is a 1.5% decrease from March 2024, where there were 11% of all EHCPs placed in high cost INMSS provision. These is a result of the following: • New maintained special school videos being created to help families understand the high quality provision on offer in local maintained schools, reducing reliance on INMSS. • Local specialist places have increased by 14% since 2022/23, exceeding 2024/25 projections and on track for 2027/28, despite some at-risk projects due to external factors. This has enabled more children to attend their local schools in line with the object ives of the strategy. • Increased SRP and DU places in local mainstream schools • Increased placements in mainstream schools, enabling more capacity for special schools to support the most complex children. RESIDENT BENEFIT The benefit or impact upon Hillingdon residents, service users and communities Through the consultation process Hillingdon residents and particularly those with children and young people with SEND and who access AP were given the opportunity to share their views on the identified key priorities and approach. We listened to residents and the Parent Carer Forums and shaped the Local Area SEND & AP Strategy in light of their comments and views. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 20 Part I – Public The strategy outlines the Local Area’s commitment to improving the outcomes for children and young people with SEND and those who access AP and will encourage active engagement and participation from parents, carers, and young people in strategic developments. FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS Key priorities outlined in the strategy are aligned with the aims of the updated draft DSG Safety Valve Agreement with the DfE, and with the actions outlined in the deficit recovery plan. Hillingdon has also invested in early intervention and SEND Support delivery model to promote early identification of needs and to provide proportionate support to children and families. The aim of this model is twofold. One is to support families and children at the earliest opportunity and the second is to ensure that the request for Education Health and Care Plans are made for the right children who require statutory intervention. For those children who require Education Health and Care Plans, the SEND School Place Planning details how we build capacity in borough and reduce the reliance on Independent Non Maintained Provision. Additional capital funding has also been secured for sc hool expansion works and this, along with Hillingdon’s capital funding, will be used to develop additional school places in the borough as part of the strategic objectives. LEGAL IMPLICATIONS There are no legal impediments to the recommendation set out at the beginning of the report. The strategy assists the local authority with complying with its duty under s27 Children and Families Act 2014. Local authorities must keep their educational and training provision and social care provision for children and young people with SEN or disabilities under review. Local authorities must place children, young people and families at the centre of their planning, and work with them to develop co-ordinated approaches to securing better outcomes. BACKGROUND PAPERS Hillingdon Local Area Partnership SEND & AP Strategy 2023-28 Hillingdon Local Area Partnership Improvement Plan 2024

Children, Families & Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 1 Part I – Public SEND SUFFICIENCY STRATEGY – JANUARY 2025 Committee name Children, Families & Education Select Committee Officer reporting Abi Preston – Director of Education & SEND Dominika Michalik – Assistant Director of SEND & Inclusion Papers with report Appendix 1 - Draft SEND and AP Sufficiency Strategy 2025-2030 Ward All HEADLINES This report presents a draft SEND Sufficiency Strategy for Hillingdon which ‘sets out how the London Borough of Hillingdon and our partners within the SEND Local Area Partnership, intend to ensure that there is sufficient high-quality specialist provision, in both mainstream and special school settings, to meet the future needs of children and young people with SEND in Hillingdon.’ This strategy will complement the Hillingdon Local Area SEND and Alternative Provision Strategy 2023-28 for children and young people with SEND which sets out key priorities for the next 5 years in developing further new, ambitious, and innovative specialist provision that meets the need of Hillingdon children and young people locally. RECOMMENDATIONS That the Children, Families and Education Select Committee: 1. Review the draft SEND Sufficiency Strategy; 2. Note the 13 responses from the consultation in response to the proposed strategy; and 3. Provide comments to be included in the Cabinet Member report. SUPPORTING INFORMATION Background The draft SEND Sufficiency Strategy sets out very clearly the LA’s vision: In Hillingdon, we are committed to meeting the needs of our children and young people. We do this by placing them at the centre of all that we do and by ensuring they and their families are part of the decision-making processes. Central to our vision is continuing to strengthen our relationships with children and their families, with a clear focus on co-production. We want Hillingdon to be a place where children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities and their families lead happy and fulfilled lives from early years through adolescence to adulthood, in communities that accept and understand them. Children, Families & Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 2 Part I – Public We are committed to creating an environment where all our children and young people can reach their potential in education and have the support and guidance they need to prepare for adulthood. The draft SEND Sufficiency Strategy is presented with the following 13 sections: 1. Introduction 2. Our Vision ‘All children and young people are entitled to an appropriate education, one that is appropriate to their needs, promotes high standards and the fulfilment of potential. This should enable them to: • achieve their best potential, • become confident individuals living fulfilling lives, and • make a successful transition into adulthood, whether into employment, further or higher education or training. The draft SEND Sufficiency Strategy is underpinned by Hillingdon Local Area SEND and Alternative Provision Strategy 2023-2028 with clearly defined ambitions: • Ambition 1: The right support, at the right time, in the right place • Ambition 2: Fully inclusive education for all • Ambition 3: Provision meets the needs of Hillingdon s children and young people • Ambition 4: Children and young people live happy and fulfilled lives where they are included in the community • Ambition 5: There is a flexible offer and range of interventions available for children to access Alternative Provision These ambitions highlight the importance of ensuring that we create provision that meets the needs of Hillingdon’s children and young people and enables them to receive excellent education in their local community. 3. Strategic context This section outlines the primary legislation and guidance that define our duties and govern our practice. The Council has a statutory obligation to ensure there are sufficient places for every child or young person residing in Hillingdon. 4. Local context This section highlights the increasing demand for EHCPs and the ongoing efforts to support pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in Hillingdon: • EHCPs Maintained by Hillingdon: As of October 2024, there are 3,452 EHCPs, a 37% increase since January 2020. This number fluctuates due to various factors, including pupils moving in and out of the borough. • EHCPs in Hillingdon Schools : As of October 2024, there are 2,549 pupils with EHCPs attending Hillingdon schools, a 32.1% increase since October 2020. Of these, 44.1% are in special schools, and 19.6% of pupils in Hillingdon special schools are from other local authorities. Children, Families & Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 3 Part I – Public • SEN Support: As of October 2024, 11.9% of Hillingdon pupils receive SEN support, below the national average of 13.6% (Jan 2024). • EHCP Prevalence: In January 2024, 4.7% of Hillingdon pupils have an EHCP, matching the national average but below the London average of 5.1%. • EHCP Growth: There has been a 40% increase in EHCPs since 2020, with a recent slowdown in year-on-year growth to 4.6% in 2024. • Primary Need of Autism: The number of pupils with autism as their primary need has doubled from 976 in January 2019 to 1,915 in January 2024 and currently remains the highest need in the borough. • Special vs. Mainstream Schools: 34.4% of EHCP pupils attend special schools, higher than the national average of 32.1%. Meanwhile, 56.1% are in mainstream schools, below the national average of 58.4%. 5. Current provision We have shared the different types of special schools within Hillingdon, and the number of pupils by year group. The seven special schools in the Borough are able to meet a range of needs with a mix of both Community and Academy schools. 6. DfE funded capital programmes This section of the report confirms that there are currently 2 separate government funded capital building projects. The DfE funded and managed Priority School Building Projects (PSBP) aims to rebuild and refurbish school buildings in the most need across the country, and the Free School projects, which will create additional places. In Hillingdon, this relates to 5 special schools and one new autism unit within a mainstream school. 7. Predicted future demand This summary highlights the importance of ongoing development and monitoring to meet the needs of children and young people with EHCPs in Hillingdon. In the next seven years the projected number of EHCPs is anticipated to increase only by 16% and slowing down. The aim is to strengthen the use of pre-statutory support through a graduated approach and Ordinarily Available Provision (OAP). 8. Our Key Priorities The three priorities outlined in this section align with the ambitions of the Local Area SEND & AP Strategy for fully inclusive education, addressing the needs of Hillingdon’s children and young people in a comprehensive and measurable manner. It also details how stakeholders can achieve each priority and how success will be measured. Additionally, there is related commissioning work regarding Short Breaks and Tuition to ensure we meet the needs of all children and young people, including primary-aged children who have been excluded from school. 9. Specific areas of development There are 3 specific areas of development that have been identified in this section • Increasing the number of school age children receiving SEND Support • Reducing the reliance on independent non-maintained special school (INMSS) provision • Addressing the demand for EHC plans with a primary need of Autism 10. What we have achieved so far The following 2 key areas of achievement have been noted in this section: Children, Families & Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 4 Part I – Public • Creating new Specialist places in Hillingdon schools. Since September 2023, the following provision has been created in Hillingdon:  24 place primary school Designated Unit  16 place secondary school Designated Unit  Two x 16 place primary school ASD Specialist Resource Provisions  16 place (32 part time) Specialist Assessment Base for Early Years • Strengthening Early identification and access to SEND support  Conducting SEND Reviews as an evidence-based tool to self-evaluation and comprehensive assessment of whole school practices.  Early Support Funding has been reviewed to offer short term funding for children who have additional needs beyond those that might be expected to be funded from the SEND notional budget.  Hillingdon Ordinarily Available Provision was reviewed and collaboratively developed to serve as a tool for enhancing support and promoting consistent practices across educational settings.  Training offer for parents and educational settings has been reviewed to ensure it effectively supports the enhancement of SEND provision. 11. Sufficiency delivery plan This section highlights the Hillingdon SEND School Places Expansion and Development Plans through the development of SRPs and DUs which provide additional specialist facilities in mainstream schools. 12. Funding arrangements This section shares how a framework has been developed to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of high needs block spending. 13. Governance and review arrangements for this strategy This section summarises the decision-making process for the SEND Education Sufficiency Strategy RESIDENT BENEFIT & CONSULTATION The consultation for the draft SEND Sufficiency Strategy was shared by Officers with Headteachers and SENCOs of every school in Hillingdon on 4 th November 2024. The consultation period started on the 4th November 2024 and ended on 4th December 2024. Consultation Responses 13 responses were received in total during the consultation period. The responses are summarised below. Online Questionnaire responses are summarised below: 1. 11 respondents agreed with the shared principles in the strategy. • Yes - 11 • No - 0 • Maybe – 2 2. Of the 2 respondents that answered 'Maybe', comments have been summarised below in the paper Children, Families & Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 5 Part I – Public 3. 12 respondents liked the layout and overall content of the strategy • Yes - 12 • No - 0 • Maybe - 1 4. Of the 1 respondent that answered 'Maybe', comments have been summarised below in the paper 5. 12 respondents agreed with the 3 priorities and how we aim to achieve them • Yes - 12 • No - 0 • Maybe – 1 6. Of the 1 respondent that answered 'Maybe', comments have been summarised below in the paper 7. 9 respondents provided further comments which have been summarised below in the paper. Themes raised in the Consultation Responses 1. General Agreement with the Strategy • Majority Agreement: Most respondents agreed with the shared principles, layout, content, and priorities of the strategy. • Positive Feedback: Many respondents expressed overall support and appreciation for the strategy. 2. Concerns and Suggestions • Ambiguity in Principles : Some respondents found the principles unclear or confused them with ambitions. • Implementation Delays: Concerns were raised about delays in panel decisions, funding, and school placements, which affect timely support for children. • Funding Issues : Multiple comments highlighted the need for increased funding to effectively implement the strategy. 3. Specific Recommendations • Borough Supply Pool : A suggestion to create a borough supply pool of SEN staff to provide immediate support, similar to a past initiative in Tower Hamlets. • Agile Response Framework: Proposals for an agile response framework to scale resources based on real-time data trends, especially for autism support. • Hybrid Interface: Recommendations for a hybrid interface to present the strategy, combining context, vision, and specific actions. 4. Communication and Transparency • Clear Communication: Emphasis on the need for clear, concise communication to avoid information overload and ensure all stakeholders are well-informed. • Transparency: Calls for complete transparency with schools and parents to build mutual understanding and reduce frustrations. 5. Parental and School Involvement • Parental Views: Importance of considering parental views in decision-making processes. • School Involvement: Encouragement for more schools to participate in working groups to foster understanding and empathy. Children, Families & Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 6 Part I – Public 6. Specific Needs and Challenges • Specialist Placements: Issues with the lack of specialist placements affecting pupil progress and draining school resources. • Curriculum Support: Desire for support in delivering an appropriate curriculum, ensuring it aligns with the strategy's priorities. A specific suggestion was made to create a borough supply pool of SEN staff would be a good solution and provide short time immediate help. Conclusion We acknowledge the comment regarding funding arrangements, which is being addressed through the Hillingdon Banded Model review. This new banding framework will ensure there is a fair and transparent approach to funding EHCPs across the borough. Additionally, Ambition Group 1 is working to ensure all partners understand what "right support at the right time" means and when mainstream versus specialist provision is appropriate, as there are varying interpretations that do not always align with needs. The SEND Sufficiency Strategy is supported by the Hillingdon Local Area SEND and Alternative Provision Strategy 2023-2028 and its ambitions. These ambitions emphasise the importance of creating provision that meet the needs of Hillingdon’s children and young people, enabling them to receive excellent education within their local community. The implementation of the SEND Sufficiency Strategy is overseen by Ambition Group 3, which focuses on ensuring provisions meet the needs of Hillingdon’s children and young people, and by Ambition Group 5, which ensures a flexible offer and range of interventions for children to access alternative provision. These groups have detailed action plans that are monitored bi-monthly by the SEND Operational Group and the SEND Executive Partnership Board to ensure timely progress on all priorities from the SEND Sufficiency Strategy. In the comments, there was a suggestion to regularly review the demand for specialist provision, including Specialist Resource Provision (SRP) and Designated Units (DU), to ensure capacity aligns with needs and that there is a continuum of support within the system. We conduct regular reviews of our demand, and our data indicates a need for more secondary SRP provision, so we are collaborating with schools to address this. To ensure that the needs of every student with an EHCP are appropriately met with the right resources and provision, including adequate placement, the Local Area Partnership is working together to strengthen the quality of Annual Reviews and EHCPs. There was also a suggestion to support schools in delivering an appropriate curriculum. This is being addressed through new approaches and support provided by the SEND Advisory Service and the Educational Psychology Service. These efforts are informed by f eedback from school visits, SENCO Forums, and training offer surveys. Next Steps Comments from the Children, Families & Education Select Committee will be included in the recommendations that will go to the relevant Cabinet Member for formal approval. Children, Families & Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Page 7 Part I – Public FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS There are no direct financial implications from this strategy report, the financial implications will be included in later reports that identify the specific actions arising from the strategy. LEGAL IMPLICATIONS There are no legal implications. BACKGROUND PAPERS Hillingdon SEND and AP Strategy 2023-28 APPENDICES Appendix 1 – Draft SEND and AP Sufficiency Strategy 2025-2030 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision Sufficiency Strategy 2025-2030 DRAFT December 2024 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. Our vision 4 3. Strategic context 7 4. Local context 8 5. Current Provision 9 6. Capital programmes 10 DfE Projects 10 Local Authority Projects 11 Post 16 College Provision 12 Alternative Provision 12 7. Predicted future demand 14 8. Our Key Priorities 14 Key Priority 1 15 Key Priority 2 18 Key Priority 3 20 9. Specific areas of development 22 Increasing the number of school age children receiving SEND Support 22 Reducing the reliance on independent non-maintained special school (INMSS) provision 23 Addressing the Demand for EHC plans with a primary need of Autism 24 10. What we have achieved so far 26 Creating new Specialist places in Hillingdon schools (Priority 2) 27 Strengthening Early identification and access to SEND support (Priority 1) 27 11. Sufficiency delivery plan 28 Hillingdon SEND School Places Expansion and Development Plans 28 12. Funding Arrangements 28 13. Governance and review arrangements for this strategy 28 14. Appendix 1: Terminology 29 1. Introduction The SEND Sufficiency Strategy sets out how the London Borough of Hillingdon and our partners across the SEND Local Area Partnership, intend to ensure that there is sufficient high -quality specialist provision, in both mainstream and special school settings, to meet the future needs of children and young people with SEND in Hillingdon. The SEND population has grown significantly since the 2014 SEND reforms with the greatest growth taking place in the statutory EHCP category. Historically, the number of children and young people requiring specialist provision has exceeded the capacity of the provision in Hillingdon, however, 3 there have been a number of developments to address this including a successful bid for a n all through special free school. Our ambitious SEND capital programme developments enabled the area to meet the needs of most of the cohort in recent years and work is still ongoing to further develop our specialist provision. There are plans to expand the special schools offer, develop more Specialist Resources Provisions (SRPs), Designated Units (DU) and potentially further Assessment Centres for nursery age children with complex needs. The London Borough of Hillingdon is the second largest of London's 32 boroughs. There are over 7,700 children and young people aged 0-25 years with SEND in Hillingdon which constitutes approx. 11.9% of our children. During 2023-24 Hillingdon identified 16.6% of students who have either an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) or are receiving SEN Support. This compares to an average of 1 7.4% in London and 18.1% nationally (census data). Hillingdon historically had higher levels of pupils with EHCPs on the school census than the national and London averages, but the gap has closed in recent years with Hillingdon matching the London average of 4.3% in 2021-22, and in 2023-24 Hillingdon’s level of 4.7% fell below London’s 5.1% and matched national 4.7%. Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have recently undertaken a joint inspection of Hillingdon’s Local Area SEND Partnership and identified areas for improvement related to SEND sufficiency. One of them was to ensure that inclusion in mainstream schools improves across the borough by supporting children and young people (CYP) to sustain their education in mainstream school and prevent suspensions and exclusions. Our aspiration outlined in the SEND and AP Strategy 2023 -2028 is that all children in Hillingdon feel included, understood and welcomed regardless of their needs. We understand that the barriers felt by children and young people with SEND are a result of the way society is organised, rather than something intrinsic to the ch ild. It is our role to remove the barriers children face to enable them feel part of their community and ensure inclusion is at the heart of all we do. Please note that this document is based on long term planning forecasting. Data will be reviewed annually, and this plan will undergo minor updates, however, the body of the document will remain the same for the lifespan. 2. Our vision In Hillingdon, we are committed to meeting the needs of our children and young people. We do this by placing them at the centre of all that we do and by ensuring they and their families are part of all decision-making processes. Central to our vision is continuing to strengthen our relationships with children and their families, with a clear focus on co-production. We want Hillingdon to be a place where children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities and their families lead happy and fulfilled lives from early years through adolescence to adulthood, in communities that accept and understand them. We are committed to creat ing an environment where all our children and young people can reach their potential in education and have the support and guidance they need to prepare for adulthood. 4 The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Code of Practice, 0 -25 years (January 2015) is clear that: ‘All children and young people are entitled to an appropriate education, one that is appropriate to their needs, promotes high standards and the fulfilment of potential. This should enable them to: • achieve their best, • become confident individuals living fulfilling lives, and • make a successful transition into adulthood, whether into employment, further or higher education or training. As such, ensuring our children receive the education and support based on their needs is central to our strategies. This SEND Sufficiency Strategy is underpinned by Hillingdon Local Area SEND and Alternative Provision Strategy 2023-2028 with clearly defined ambitions: Ambition 1: The right support, at the right time, in the right place Ambition 2: Fully inclusive education for all Ambition 3: Provision meets the needs of Hillingdon s children and young people Ambition 4: Children and young people live happy and fulfilled lives where they are included in the community Ambition 5: There is a flexible offer and range of interventions available for children to access Alternative Provision These ambitions highlight the importance of ensuring that we create provision that meets the needs of Hillingdon’s children and young people and enables them to receive excellent education in their local community. 5 Governance Each ambition is led by an ambition group with representatives from education, health and social care as well as schools’ community. Clear action plans have been developed to ensure that the objectives related to the sufficiency , special schools' placements and mainstream inclusion are achieved. The Ambition Groups 2 and 3 have a specific focus on strengthening inclusion and overseeing specialist provision. The Ambition Group 2 specifically focuses on promoting Hillingdon’s approach to inclusion by supporting and empowering settings to play their part in fully inclusive system where CYP can access mainstream local provisions, as much as possible. This is achieved by: • Creating a workforce training plan across the local area to share expertise, improve consistency and to ensure all partners work together to improve outcomes for SEND • Working collaboratively with schools, to develop strategies to reduce the numbers of children who are excluded from education • Establishing frameworks to support settings with the identification of SEND and how to best put support in place through Ordinarily Available Provision • Providing all schools with a contextualised overview of inclusion data in mainstream schools to help identify areas for development and measure impact. The Ambition Group 3 focuses on provision and monitors the progress of all new developments and manages any changes required in existing specialist provision to make it sustainable and meet the current and future demand. This is achieved by: 6 • Reviewing current SEND school provision and ensure it meets the current needs of children • Improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND • Reviewed all independent and non -maintained schools to optimise the use of mainstream settings • Reviewing Hillingdon’s banded funding model and create a new banding matrix to better support needs and the provision required to achieve this • Quality assuring existing provision to create a consistent approach to supporting children with SEND • Developing more provision to meet the range of needs locally in the Borough, including additional SRP places and Designated Units • Further developing more SEND school places as required to meet the current and future demand Our SEND Sufficiency Strategy aims to support these objectives by setting up a framework which allows us to provide educational settings in Hillingdon where children and young people’s learning and development is promoted in line with their individual needs and abilities. 3. Strategic context The following primary legislation and guidance specifies our duties and governs our practice: • Education Act 1996, Section 14 • Children’s Family Act 2014 • Equality Act 2010 • SEND Code of Practice (0-25 years) 2015 • Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 • SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan 2023 The SEND and AP Sufficiency Strategy supports Hillingdon Council’s Strategy 2022 -2026 in meeting our 5 commitments to residents: 1. Safe and strong communities Hillingdon is a safe place with resilient, strong communities with access to good quality, affordable housing. 2. Thriving, healthy households Children, young people, their families and vulnerable adults and older people live healthy, active and independent lives. 3. A green and sustainable borough Hillingdon will be a sustainable, carbon-neutral borough, protecting Hillingdon's heritage, 7 built environment and valued green spaces. Residents will live in pleasant neighbourhoods with access to sustainable waste management and transport. 4. A thriving economy We are actively working with local businesses and partners to create a borough where businesses grow within a strong economy and local people can improve their skills and enjoy good quality jobs. 5. A digital-enabled, modern, well-run council We are a well-run, sustainable council with sound financial management, achieving positive outcomes for residents. This SEND and AP Sufficiency Strategy is aligned with various strategies/plans across the local area including the: • Hillingdon Local Area SEND & AP Strategy 2023-2028 • CNWL Strategy for 2022-2025 • Hillingdon Education Strategy (draft) • Hillingdon Council Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-2025 • • Hillingdon Joint Autism Needs Assessment 2022 • • Hillingdon Autism Strategy 2023 • Hillingdon Family Hub Strategy Hillingdon Early Help Strategy 2021-2025 • Hillingdon Safeguarding Children Education Inclusion Toolkit • Hillingdon Safeguarding children and young people with complex needs and disabilities 4. Local context As of October 2024, there are 2,549 pupils with EHCPs, in Hillingdon schools (October 2024 school census). This number has risen by 32.1% since October 2020. Of these, 44.1% are in special schools, and 19.6% of pupils in Hillingdon special schools are from other local authorities. The number of students with an EHCP maintained by Hillingdon is 3,452 as of October 2024, which is a 37% increase since January 2020. This number fluctuates as pupils move in and out of the Borough, pupils gain an EHCP, or others have their EHCP ceased when all of their outcomes have been met, or they become age 25. Graph 1. Hillingdon Residents with EHCPs – Actuals and 23/24-based Projections 8 ➢ 11.9% of Hillingdon pupils are registered to receive SEN support (Jan 2024 school census), which is below with the national average of 13.4% (Jan 2024 school census). Progress has been made over the last year, but there is still more to do to identify and support children and young people with SEND in mainstream settings. ➢ 4.7% of Hillingdon pupils have an EHCP (Jan 2024 school census) which is on par with the national average of 4.7% and below the London average of 5.1% (Jan 2024 school census). All percentages have increased each year since 2016. ➢ There were 350 2 EHC plans maintained by Hillingdon as of Jan uary 2024. Whilst this indicates a net increase of plans since January 2022 (3092 EHCPs). There has been a 40% increase in the number of EHCPs since 2020, compared to 48% nationally. The year-on-year EHCP net growth has decreased from the previous trend of 7% per year to 4.6% this year , which reflects continued work on ceasing plans where appropriate . Since 2020, there has been a consistent level of movers in each year at 3% of the cohort and cessation in the same period has also been fairly consistent with an average of 9% during the 2023 calendar year compared to a national average of 8%. ➢ The number of Hillingdon pupils with EHC plans classified as having a primary need of autism has doubled in the last 5 years from 976 in Jan 2019 to 1915 in Jan 2024. ➢ 34.4% of the children and young people with an EHC P issued by Hillingdon attend special schools (including specialist post 16), which is higher than 3 2.1% nationally. This has however, decreased by 3.8 % from the previous year, compared to a 1.1% decrease nationally, despite growth in number of EHC plans. ➢ 56.1% of Hillingdon children and young people with EHC plans are supported in a mainstream school (including early years and further education) which is below 5 8.4% nationally. There has been a 1% increase in Hillingdon compared to a 1.7% increase nationally when compared to the previous year. Graph 2: breakdown of the EHCP cohort as of SEN2 2024 by type of setting age range (0- 25) 9 Type of educational setting Early Years % Yr 0 (reception) & above % Mainstream 10 0.3% 1828 52% Maintained Special 5 0.1% 947 27% Independent Special (INMSS) 0 0.0% 354 10% Other (includes EOTAS, EHE, NEET, tuition, PVI etc.) 18 0.5% 338 10% Alternative Provision 0 0.0% 2 0% 33 0.9% 3469 99% Total 3502 5. Current Provision Below are several tables to explain the type of special schools within Hillingdon, and the number of pupils by year group. We are able to meet a range of needs across the schools, and there is a mix of Community and Academy schools. There is only 1 special school that can accommodate primary and secondary pupils, the other 6 schools have fixed age ranges. Table 1 - October 2023 – Special School Roll School School Type Designated Need Grangewood School Academy SLD/PMLD/MSI Hedgewood School Community MLD (Complex)/ASD Meadow High School Community MLD (Complex) Moorcroft School Academy SLD/PMLD/MSI Pentland Field School Academy MLD/ASD Willows School Academy Trust Academy SEMH/MLD/ASD The PRIDE Academy Academy SEMH Current total special school rolls are set out in the table below. The total roll is now 1,05 3, a rise of 7.3% on last year (9 81 in January 2023), and an overall rise of 2 5.6% in the past 5 years ( 838 in January 2019). The majority of the pupils are Hillingdon residents although some schools near borough borders take higher levels of out of borough pupils. Table 2. January 2024 – Primary Special School Roll School Name Nursery R 1 2 3 4 5 6 Total Grangewood 2 12 17 27 24 20 17 19 138 Hedgewood - 5 21 30 28 38 36 30 188 Pentland Field - 3 12 4 10 6 10 11 56 The Willows - - - 9 13 12 19 19 72 Primary Total 2 20 50 70 75 76 82 79 454 Table 3. January 2024 – Secondary Special School Roll School Name 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Total Meadow 44 38 35 35 18 37 29 26 262 Moorcroft 16 21 16 17 22 16 14 11 133 10 Pentland Field 12 14 21 14 13 14 10 14 112 The PRIDE Academy 20 14 17 20 19 2 - - 92 Secondary Total 92 87 89 86 72 69 53 51 599 6. Capital programmes DfE Led Projects There are currently 2 separate government funded capital building projects. The DfE funded and managed Priority School Building Programme 2 (PSBP2) aims to rebuild and refurbish school buildings in the most need across the country, and the Free School projects, which will create additional places. In Hillingdon, this relates to 5 special schools and one new autism unit within a mainstream school. All these places will be commissioned for Hillingdon residents and will reduce out of Borough provision and costs, though some cross -borough movement and use of specialist provision will always be needed. Priority School Building Programme 2: • Meadow High School is a complex MLD setting for secondary aged pupils. It was largely rebuilt by DfE Priority Schools Building Programme, with a larger hall and other improved facilities but no extra places, which officially opened in September 2022. • Harlington Secondary School PSBP expansion that included a new Designated Unit for 16 pupils with autism opened in the Autumn Term 2023. Free School Projects One new Free School has opened already, with the construction of two new Free Schools underway and approval for another Special Free School: • The PRIDE Academy opened in January 2023 as a Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) specialist setting for secondary age pupils. The school expanded its previous provision by 45 places, including Key Stage 3 and 4 and post-16 places and has now broadened their designation to also include complex autism with SEMH in order to meet local needs. 11 • Grand Union Village is a new primary Severe Learning Difficulties /Profound Multiple Learning difficulties (SLD/PMLD) school with 80 new places. The build was completed in the Autumn Term 2023 but is being used to decant pupils from Grangewood to allow for the building of the new Pinn River school. • New Pinn River Free School with 80 additional places that include expanded SLD/ PMLD/ Multi -Sensory Impairment MSI provision which is due to open in 2026. This all through school will provide places for pupils currently in satellite provisions at Pinkwell Primary School and RNIB Sunshine House within the Eden Trust. • New Special Free School – to create 180 place all through school for pupils with autism and complex needs. Eden Trust was successful in its application for the free school. Local Authority Led Projects The following table details the LA led projects that have been completed in the last academic year: Table 4. Completed LA led projects Provider Project type - expansion, suitability, accessibility Provider Type Phase Type of SEND need Number of additional places to be created Charville Primary Academy SRP for pupils with autism Academy Primary Primary Autism 16 Ruislip Gardens Primary School Specialist Assessment Base Community Primary School Primary All 16 Ruislip Gardens Primary School SRP for pupils with autism Community Primary School Primary Autism 16 Wood End Park Primary Academy (south) Designated Unit Academy Primary Primary Autism with Complex Needs 24 The following table provides details of current LA led projects to provide additional SEND places: Table 5. Current LA led projects Provider Project type Expansion, suitability, accessibility Provider Type Phase Type of SEND need Number of additional places to be created Meadow High School Expansion by adaptions and small extension to create new 2nd site, and Community Special School Secondary MLD 98 12 demolish/rebuild on main site Pinkwell School (Elliot Trust) Agree permanent status beyond 2024 of the temporary Unit used by Eden Trust 2022-24. Academy Primary SLD TBC Post 16 College Provision Harrow, Richmond, Uxbridge College (HRUC) is a local Further Education (FE) setting which provides education for children and young people post 1 6. The college accommodates a large cohort of Hilling don residents with SEND. In response to the growing demand for more specialist provision within mainstream FE, HRUC were recently successful in their bid for purchasing Barra Hall and are planning to create over 70 places post 16 and post 19 students with MLD/SLD from September 2025. This will offer our local residents more options for young people with EHCPs to be educated within Hillingdon. Alternative Provision The definition provided by the Department for Education (DfE) for Alternative Provision is ‘education arranged by local authorities for pupils who, because of exclusion, illness or other reasons, would not otherwise receive suitable education; education arranged by schools for pupils on a fixed period exclusion; and pupils being directed by schools to off-site provision to improve their behaviour’. This is the definition which Hillingdon adopts. Alternative Provision can take many different forms, and in all cases, the provision should be both efficient in its delivery of education and suitable to the child’s age, ability, and aptitude; and to any special educational needs they may have. Hillingdon sees the use of Alternative Provision as a time- limited intervention for a child to address specific needs which cannot be done through their mainstream se tting. The aim for all packages of Alternative Provision is to support successful reintegration. The needs of most children and young people can be met through mainstream education provision, but a small proportion with the most complex needs require specialist support. This enables them to progress in their learning, going onto their next step towards adulthood. Some children and young people, however, need education or training arranged outside a mainstream or specialist setting in order to receive suitable education or training. This can be for a number of reasons: • Children and young people who have been permanently excluded from their school. • Children and young people who have medical and mental health needs preventing them from attending a school. • Children and young people at risk of suspension, on a fixed period suspension, or directed by schools to off-site provision to support behavioural and emotional challenges. • Young people aged 16 - 25 with an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) or other vulnerabilities needing additional support to progress to adulthood. • Children and young people unable to cope with a full -time curriculum, missing out on 13 education, or who find themselves isolated in mainstream schools because of behavioural or other challenges. The number of children requiring access to an Alternative Provision in Hillingdon fluctuates throughout the year. There are on average at any time approximately 100 children accessing Alternative Provision commissioned by the Council. The majority of these places are commissioned by the SEND EHCP Team or the Exclusions and Reintegration team. In many cases, this is because a mainstream or specialist setting cannot meet the child’s current SEND needs, or they have been permanently excluded. Some children’s needs are being met in a group setting and others require 1 -1 support. Hillingdon commissions from a range of providers, including Alternative Provision Free Schools, Further Education Colleges and Sixth Form Centres, Tuition Centres and Personal Tutors. Hillingdon launched a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) for commissioning Alternative Provision in May 2024. This allows Officers to create and maintain an approved pool of Alternative Provision providers to ensure market availability and best value to meet the needs of the children in the borough who require access to Alternative Provision. Approved providers are invited to bid for individual placements or for block placements through mini competitions (a ‘call off’), thus offering assurance on compliance and value for money. Use of the DPS creates a competitive environment for suppliers whilst also ensuring a breadth of provision will be available to best meet the needs of a diverse and fluid cohort of children and young people. There are four lots providers can apply for: • Lot 1: Full time education provision • Lot 2: Part time education provision • Lot 3: Bespoke provision • Lot 4: Support for post-16 Education and Preparation for Adulthood There are currently 23 providers listed on Hillingdon’s Alternative Provision DPS. Following a trend in recent years of permanent exclusions issued to primary -aged students, Hillingdon has identified a need for alternative provision places which are tailored to this age group. This type of provision is required to provide day-6 education to those students who are in receipt of a permanent exclusion, as well as short term places which can cater to children who require shorter term interventions to address specific concerns within their mainstream setting. 7. Predicted future demand There were 3503 EHC plans maintained by Hillingdon as of January 2024 (SEN2 data). Whilst this indicates a net increase since January 2023, we have seen a decrease in year-on-year net growth which reflects the impact of new initiatives in meeting needs earlier and the cessation of plans. Based on current trends, in the next seven years the projected number of EHCPs is anticipated to increase by 16% whereas in the last 5 years the percentage change in the number of EHCPs was 50%. 14 The growth rate is monitored and review ed regularly to ensure we can respond to the demand variation in a timely way. In order to promote a positive response to the predicted increase, there is a need for ongoing development of our specialist provision offer. We already know that the number of children and young people attending school out of the borough and/ or Independent Non - Maintained Special Schools (INMSS) is too high, and this has implications for their family lives, friendships, and future expectations and is often not best value. 8. Our Key Priorities Our key priorities link to the ambitions from the Local Area SEND & AP Strategy especially Ambitions 2 and 3 – fully inclusive education for all and provision meets the needs of Hillingdon’s children and young people so that our approach is holistic, and outcomes are measurable. • Priority 1: We will support all schools and settings in Hillingdon to be inclusive and welcome children and young people with SEND , whilst promoting the uptake of early help and intervention pathways. • Priority 2: We will deliver new, ambitious and innovative provision that enables children and young people with SEND to receive excellent education in their local community, with sufficient places at all stages planned to meet the current and future demands. • Priority 3: We will ensure children and young people with SEND are supported to access a curriculum which is appropriate for their learning needs, and which enables their transition at key stages and into adulthood. Linked to our key priorities outlined above is additional commissioning work in relat ion to Short Breaks and Tuition in order to ensure we are able to meet the needs of all children and young people, including those of primary age who have been excluded from school. Short Breaks for disabled children Short Break opportunities (Short breaks - Hillingdon Council) are currently delivered through a range of ways, including: • Universal services Available to all children and young people with a disability, sometimes at an additional cost • Targeted services Accessed through a light touch early help assessment, and includes signposting and a range of services, sometimes at an additional cost • Specialist services Access is through a referral to our Stronger Families Hub , requesting a child and family assessment The Council is in the process of reviewing this offer and will be recommissioning services jointly with the ICB during 2025. Tuition 15 Tuition services are provided through a DPS arrangement, which will continue to develop during the lifetime of the contract. Commissioners are working with partners and Providers to extend provision to meet the needs of children of all ages and needs, so that they have access to appropriate tuition where required. The group tuition offer is in the process of being recommissioned, and a new model is expected to be in place for September 2025. Travel Assistance In Hillingdon we are constantly evolving the way in which our school travel assistance services operate, to better suit the needs of our children and young people with SEND. Our principles include ensuring the safety of the children and young people sustainably and promoting the independence and life skills of children and young people. A key focus within strengthening our travel assistance offer is to promote independent travel, and support preparation for adulthood. In line with the other priorities in this strategy, the school transport sufficiency approach will help to reduce the amount of transport required by children and young people with SEND. The development of greater advisory and inclusion support for mainstream schools, increased resourced provisions, and increased special school places, coupled with a reduction in the number of children and young people accessing education in out of borough independent places, will all contribute to a reduction in the amount of travel assistance required. The School Travel Assistance Policies will reflect any developments in order to provide suitable and safe travel assistance to learners in Hillingdon. Key Priority 1 We will support all mainstream schools, SRRs and early years settings in Hillingdon to be inclusive and welcome children and young people with SEND, whilst promoting the uptake of early help and intervention pathways. The current context As part of Hillingdon’s SEND and AP Strategy, we are committed to encouraging greater inclusion in our mainstream educational settings. We are ambitious about increasing the uptake of the early help and intervention pathways which will lead to children and young people’s needs being met, as far as possible, within mainstream provision where they are settled and are close to their home and local communities. To support this ambition , we launched Hillingdon’s SEND Advisory Service (SAS) in 2020 and continue to develop the team further to ensure it meets the current needs. This team, together with Educational Psychology Service and Education Improvement Team, is integral to supporting our schools in accessing the support needed to appropriately identify needs and develop strategies to enable schools to meet he needs of children who are not ordinarily able to access the curriculum through quality first teaching and in-house expertise. We recognise that, in order to meet children’s needs early, additional needs need to be appropriately identified in a timely way. Data tells us that the number of ch ildren accessing SEN Support in Hillingdon is lower tha n the London and national averages. This gives us an opportunity to work closely with our schools to ensure they have the right tools and resources to identify children who require SEN support as early as possible and, in time, achieving a decrease in reliance on EHCPs as needs will be met earlier . Developments such as the Early Identification Toolkit, Early Support 16 Funding, SENDEX, Ordinarily Available Provision Document with OAP checklists, the Stronger Families Hub and others are all part of the continuum of support available in the borough to support children, parents and schools alike to identify and meet needs early. We will achieve this priority by: • Continuing to deliver the ‘SEND Review and Inclusion Commitment’ to schools to standardise good practice and inclusivity across mainstream settings by promoting the use of SEND self- reviews. • Full implementation of the co-produced SEND Early Identification Toolkit which supports early identification of needs. • Embedding the effective use of ‘Early Support Funding’ which allows for more flexible funding arrangements for children and young people with SEND in mainstream provision to promote early intervention, without the need for an EHC plan. • Embedding the Early Years Tracking Panel w ith Early Health Notification s and referrals to the new Assessment Centre for nursery children, to improve the identification of SEND from an earlier age to ensure appropriate services and support are provided in a timely manner. The panel oversees the 2-year-old tracking of all pupils with an Early Health Notification or known to a service such as Portage. • Continue to expand the traded offer from the Educational Psychology service to offer more pre-statutory support to settings. • Further develop the Early Years Assessment Centre to support nursery age children with complex needs where very specialist support may be required. • Develop and pilot a new school's transition programme with a local 3rd sector organisation to support students with ASD/ ADHD and their families when transitioning from their primary mainstream to secondary mainstream phase of education. • Support schools to deliver effective SEN D Support as set out in Hillingdon’s ‘Ordinary Available Provision’ Document. • Creating a small new EHCP+ team who are highly skilled to support the most complex cases where children attend local mainstream schools to upskill schools and provide the right support for children and young people with additional complex needs. • Review the current banding model for children with EHCPs to create a needs and provision matrices with clear distinction between mainstream settings and specialist provision to enable transparent and fair funding allocation to meet the needs of CYP with SEND. This will also support the local area in planning for needs more appropriately by having clear bands for children with SEND needs that can be used to ensure suitable provision is available to meet those needs. • Reviewing the current training offer to schools and further developing the offer to ensure courses meet the needs of local schools to further improve the impact. Consider developing a traded offer for SAS for schools to buy into to offer a greater range of tailored support to empower schools. 17 • Conducting a review of the Local Authority’s use of Alternative Provision (AP) and its impact on outcomes for children and young people with SEND. This includes the realignment of support relating to Exclusions, Reintegration and Alternative Provision into one service, with a focus on early identification of needs and supporting schools in how to address these unmet needs early and through their Ordinarily Available Provision. • Developing an outreach model from special schools to support local mainstream schools to apply a variety of approaches to support children with a range of needs. We will know we are successful when • There is an increase in the number of schools engaging with the Annual Review process and demonstrating more inclusive practice resulting in an increase in the number of children who receive SEN Support and make appropriate progress. • There is a measurable impact of SEND exceptional needs funding (SENDEX) which supports children and young people with SEND who do not yet have EHCPs and cannot access support through regular pathways. • There is an increase in early identification of children 0-5 years old with SEND needs through the Early Years Assessment Centre, Early Years Tracking Panel and Early Identification Toolkit. • There is an increase in schools buying into the Education Psychology Service for support to identify needs early and put suitable provision in place to close the gap without delay. • More schools sign up for training delivered by SEND Advisory Team with clear evidence of staff being successfully upskilled and having increased confidence to support a range of SEND needs. • There is a decrease in the use of part time timetables for children and young people with SEND, as needs can be met by applying a range of interventions and support. • More early year's settings attend workshops and training sessions with SEND Advisory Team to strengthen their knowledge and skills to identify and meet the need of children with SEND early. • There is a robust commissioning and quality assurance framework in place with Alternative Provision providers to ensure that any provision is improving outcomes, is cost effective and contracted appropriately. Provisions will meet the needs of pupils and enable them to achieve good educational outcomes based on their starting points. Providers will be quality assured and audited to ensure they meet due diligence and safeguarding thresholds. • There is a decrease in the number of children being permanently excluded from school who are undergoing Education Health and Care Needs Assessment (EHCNA) or who go on to attend an AP and undergo an EHCNA within the first three months. • There is a decrease in the number of children with SEND receiving multiple suspensions for Persistent Disruptive Behaviour. • There is an increase in the number of children with SEND who successfully reintegrate into a mainstream setting after attending an AP for an identified, time-limited intervention. 18 Key Priority 2 We will deliver new, ambitious and innovative specialist provision that enables children and young people with SEND to receive excellent education in their local community, with sufficient places at all stages planned to meet the current and future demands The current context We are committed to increasing the provision available for children with SEND in Hillingdon . The journey of increasing the number of places available has already begun with the creation of almost 700 new school places in 14 local schools across the borough. Expansion of Uxbridge College to provide bespoke provision for young people with SEND will provide additional 70 places for student with MLD/SLD. Further work is planned to focus on developing more resourced provisions within secondary schools to further support children transitioning from primary provision. We will achieve this priority by: • Analysis of available data to enable us to accurately project demographic changes and projections of demand for high-quality school places. • Ensuring that students with moderate (MLD) or specific learning difficulties (SpLD) needs are supported to attend mainstream schools, as far as possible. • Continuing to reduce the reliance on Independent Non-Maintained Special Schools (INMSS) placements for our children by developing good quality, in -borough local provision to meet their needs. • Promoting and supporting rapid delivery of free special schools to increase the capacity in the borough, particularly for pupils with Severe Learning Difficulties (SLD) and Profound Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD). • Creating an effective pathway from primary to secondary school for children attending special schools, with sufficient places available to meet their needs. • Creating more Specialist Resource Provisions (SRP) and Designated Units in mainstream secondary schools across the borough to meet a range of needs. This will enable more children to attend their local schools within their local communities whilst also benefitting from more specialist support. • Review current Specialist Resource Provisions (SRPs) to ensure there is a consistent approach to quality assurance and to ensure all Service Level Agreements (SLA) reflect the correct designation for children and young people with SEND. This will in turn ensure children are placed in an educational setting which appropriately meets their needs. • Create new admissions guidance for special schools in order to ensure that the spectrum of provision offered matches the needs of children and young people in Hillingdon and to ensure schools support broadly similar needs to make best use of resources. 19 • Providing suitable support to ensure that, where possible, students with social, emotional and mental health difficulties (SEMH) remain in mainstream schools without the need for an EHC Plan. Where an EHCP is required, we will support a mainstream school in meeting the child’s needs with the resources identified through the plan. • Develop more provision locally for time limited AP placements to support the reintegration of children into mainstream, following appropriate interventions and support. To attract more providers to deliver AP support for primary aged children. • Conducting a review of the Local Authority’s use of Alternative Provision and the needs of the children and young people who access it. We will also work with the main AP providers to further develop relationships with mainstream schools to improve communication and ensure children do not slip through the net when they transition to AP settings. We will know we are successful when: • The provision in the local area is sufficient to meet the needs of all children and young people in Hillingdon. • There is a sustainable increase in the number of children being able to attend placements in Hillingdon maintained schools and academies. • There is a reduction in the percentage of children and young people attending independent placements and in the number of pupils with SEND travelling for more than one hour to attend their school. • We maintain and improve the high level of special schools and mainstream schools with resource provisions being rated as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ (86%). • There is improved resident satisfaction regarding school placements as measured through feedback from children, young people and their families. • The length of time children and young people require access to an Alternative Provision is reduced in a sustainable way. Key Priority 3 We will develop a continuum of support, including outreach and local Alternative Provision to enable those young people to be successful in mainstream schools. The current context Hillingdon Alternative provision aims to be a collective system in which educational settings, community services, health and education support services all play a crucial part in responding to vulnerable children and assisting with reintegration to school ; this moves away from viewing alternative provision as a ‘market’ with a selection of services, or a number of places to be commissioned.

Children, Families and Education Select Committee – January 2025 Part I – Public UPDATED SELECT COMMITTEE REMITS Committee name Children, Families & Select Committee Officer reporting Ryan Dell, Democratic Services Papers with report Updated Select Committee remits Ward All HEADLINES Following the recent Council meeting, approval was given to update the Select Committees' remits to reflect the new Cabinet portfolios and Directorates. The service areas previously scrutinised remain the same, but their descriptions have been updated for improved clarity and accountability. RECOMMENDATION That the Committee note its updated remit SUPPORTING INFORMATION Following the amendments to the Cabinet portfolios and Directorates, the remits of the Select Committees have been updated for improved clarity and accountability. PERFORMANCE DATA N/A. RESIDENT BENEFIT This change will allow improved oversight by each of the Select Committees of services within their areas. FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS There are no direct financial implications for this matter. LEGAL IMPLICATIONS Changes to the Constitution to update the committee's terms of reference were delegated to the Head of Democratic Services by the Council meeting on 28 November. BACKGROUND PAPERS NIL. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – January 2025 Part I – Public APPENDIX Updated Select Committee remits Corporate Resources & Infrastructure Select Committee Portfolio(s) Directorate Service Areas Leader of the Council Corporate Services Communications & Engagement Governance Cabinet Member for Corporate Services & Property Corporate Services Democratic Services Human Resources, including Health & Safety Legal Services Place Capital Programme & Major Construction Projects Property (incl. estates, new housing supply (acquisitions and new build), disposals and maximising income from holdings) Building Safety Facilities Management Repairs & Engineering of Corporate Property, Housing & Assets (contractual & delivery), including the delivery of the planned capital programme for housing Civic Centre, Property and built assets (cross- cutting brief) Highways (operational maintenance delivery) Utility companies in the Borough (cross- cutting) Cabinet Member for Planning, Housing & Growth Place Highways (incl. Highways strategic assessment & safety, Highways Policy and infrastructure including EV) Transportation (incl. road safety, traffic management and parking management schemes) Cabinet Member for Finance & Transformation Finance All Finance (inc. school budgets, revenues and benefits, HRA) Statutory Accounting, Investments and Pensions Procurement and Commissioning (incl. fleet and energy) Counter Fraud Internal Audit & Risk Assurance (incl. risk management) Corporate Services Directorate Council transformation & Hillingdon Improvement Programme Technology, Digital, Information Governance, Business Intelligence, Customer Experience and Business Support (incl. implementation of automation software) Complaints – “Member Responsible for Complaints” under Ombudsman Codes Cabinet Member for Community & Environment Homes & Communities Emergency Response All portfolios Resident Experience (cross-cutting brief) Strategic Partnerships (cross-cutting brief) Children, Families & Education Select Committee Portfolio(s) Directorate Service Areas Cabinet Member for Children, Families & Education Children’s Services Children's Social Care (incl. safeguarding & corporate parenting) Corporate Parenting Panel Prevention & Youth Justice (incl. youth services, stronger families and adolescent mental health) Education & SEND (incl. Adult & Community Learning, Skills, Lifelong Learning, Music Services and School Travel) Adult Services & Health Children and Families Support Services (incl. Early Years and Children's Centres) Health & Social Care Select Committee Portfolio(s) Directorate Service Areas Cabinet Member for Health & Social Care Adult Services & Health Adult Social Work (incl. Direct Care and Business Delivery, Provider & Commissioned Care) Adult Safeguarding Hospital & Localities Adult Learning Disabilities & Mental Health Adult Social Services transport and travel Health & Public Health (incl. health partnerships, health inequalities & Health Control Unit at Heathrow) Health integration / Voluntary Sector Homes & Communities The Council’s Domestic Abuse services and support (cross-cutting) Services to asylum seekers STATUTORY COMMITTEE Statutory Healthy Scrutiny This Committee will also undertake the powers of health scrutiny conferred by the Local Authority (Public Health, Health and Wellbeing Boards and Health Scrutiny) Regulations 2013. It will: • Work closely with the Health & Wellbeing Board & Local HealthWatch in respect of reviewing and scrutinising local health priorities and inequalities. • Respond to any relevant NHS consultations. Duty of partners to attend and provide information The Local Authority (Public Health, Health and Wellbeing Boards and Health Scrutiny) Regulations 2013, imposes duties on ‘responsible persons’ to provide a local authority with such information about the planning, provision and operation of health services in the area of the authority as it may reasonably require to discharge its health scrutiny functions through the Health & Social Care Select Committee. All relevant NHS bodies and health service providers (including GP practices and other primary care provide rs and any private, independent or third sector providers delivering services under arrangements made by clinical commissioning groups, NHS England or the local authority) have a duty to provide such information. Additionally, Members and employees of a re levant NHS body or relevant health service provider have a duty to attend before a local authority when required by it (provided reasonable notice has been given) to answer questions the local authority believes are necessary to carry out its health scruti ny functions. Further guidance is available from the Department of Health on information requests and attendance of individuals at meetings considering health scrutiny. Residents’ Services Select Committee Portfolio(s) Directorate Service Areas Cabinet Member for Community & Environment Place Green Spaces (incl. Woodlands, Colne Valley) Crematorium Services Waste Services Flooding & watercourses Environmental Projects (incl. Chrysalis, Street Champions, Alleygating & Ward Budgets) Climate Change (incl. air quality) – cross- cutting brief Homes and Communities Library Services Theatres, Museums & Cultural Services Leisure Services and Centres Community Safety & Community Cohesion (incl. CCTV) Trading Standards, Environmental Health & Licensing (incl. Safety of Sports Grounds) Imported Food Office Anti-Social Behaviour and Localities Street Scene Enforcement Parking & Parking Enforcement Emergency Response Adult Services & Health Mortuary Cabinet Member for Planning, Housing & Growth Place Planning Services (incl. planning policy, building control, planning enforcement, specialist planning & conservation areas) Regeneration (incl. town centres, master planning) Economic Development (incl. growth strategy, business engagement, inward investment & worklessness) Local Impacts of Heathrow Expansion (cross cutting brief) Local Impacts of High Speed 2 (cross-cutting brief) Homes & Communities Housing Strategy & Commissioning (incl. housing policies & standards, assessment of housing stock size & condition and the commissioning of housing stock repairs and housing stock acquisitions) HRA Strategy and delivery plan (operational delivery in Place and Cabinet Member for Corporate Services & Property) Housing Management (incl. tenancy management) Housing Options and Homeless Prevention Private Sector Housing STATUTORY COMMITTEE Statutory Crime and Disorder Scrutiny This Committee will act as a Crime and Disorder Committee as defined in the Crime and Disorder (Overview and Scrutiny) Regulations 2009 and carry out the bi-annual scrutiny of decisions made, or other action taken, in connection with the discharge by the responsible authorities of their crime and disorder functions. Duty of partners to attend and provide information The Crime and Disorder (Overview and Scrutiny) Regulations 2009 permits this Select Committee to make a request in writing for information to bodies who form the local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (Safer Hillingdon Partnership), which includes the Police. The Committee should scrutinise the work of the partnership at least once a year and may also require the attendance before it of an officer or employee of a responsible authority or of a co-operating person or body in order to answer questions. The Committee may not require a person to attend unless reasonable notice of the intended date of attendance has been given to that person.

Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Part I – Public CABINET FORWARD PLAN Committee name Children, Families and Education Select Committee Officer reporting Ryan Dell, Democratic Services Papers with report Appendix A – Latest Forward Plan Ward As shown on the Forward Plan HEADLINES To monitor the Cabinet’s latest Forward Plan which sets out key decisions and other decisions to be taken by the Cabinet collectively and Cabinet Members individually over the coming year. The report sets out the actions available to the Committee. RECOMMENDATION That the Children, Families and Education Select Committee notes the Cabinet Forward Plan. SUPPORTING INFORMATION The Cabinet Forward Plan is published monthly, usually around the first or second week of each month. It is a rolling document giving the required public notice of future key decisions to be taken. Should a later edition of the Forward Plan be published after this agenda has been circulated, Democratic Services will update the Committee on any new items or changes at the meeting. As part of its Terms of Reference, each Select Committee should consider the Forward Plan and, if it deems necessary, comment as appropriate to the decision-maker on the items listed which relate to services within its remit. For reference, the Forward Plan helpfully details which Select Committee’s remit covers the relevant future decision item listed. The Select Committee’s monitoring role of the Forward Plan can be undertaken in a variety of ways, including both pre-decision and post-decision scrutiny of the items listed. The provision of advance information on future items listed (potentially also draft reports) to the Committee in advance will often depend upon a variety of factors including timing or feasibility, and ultimately any such request would rest with the relevant Cabinet Member to decide. However, the 2019 Protocol on Overview & Scrutiny and Cabinet Relations (part of the Hillingdon Constitution) does provide guidance to Cabinet Members to: • Actively support the provision of relevant Council information and other requests from the Committee as part of their work programme; • Where feasible, provide opportunities for committees to provide their input on forthcoming executive reports as set out in the Forward Plan to enable wider pre-decision scrutiny (in addition to those statutorily required to come before committees , i.e. policy framework documents – see para. below). As mentioned above, there is both a constitutional and statutory requirement for Select Committees to provide comments on the Cabinet’s draft budget and policy framework proposals after publication. These are automatically scheduled in advance to multi-year work programmes. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Part I – Public Therefore, in general, the Committee may consider the following actions on specific items listed on the Forward Plan: Committee action When How 1 To provide specific comments to be included in a future Cabinet or Cabinet Member report on matters within its remit. As part of its pre-decision scrutiny role, t his would be where the Committee wishes to provide its influence and views on a particular matter within the formal report to the Cabinet or Cabinet Member before the decision is made. This would usually be where the Committee has previously considered a draft report or the topic in detail, or where it considers it has sufficient information already to provide relevant comments to the decision-maker. These would go within the standard section in every Cabinet or Cabinet Member report called “Select Committee comments”. The Cabinet or Cabinet Member would then consider these as part of any decision they make. 2 To request further information on future reports listed under its remit. As part of its pre-decision scrutiny role, this would be where the Committee wishes to discover more about a matter within its remit that is listed on the Forward Plan. Whilst such advance i nformation can be requested from officers, the Committee should note that information may or may not be available in advance due to various factors, including timescales or the status of the drafting of the report itself and the formulation of final recommendation(s). Ultimately, the provision of any information in advance would be a matter for the Cabinet Member to decide. This would be considered at a subsequent Select Committee meeting . Alternatively, information could be circulated outside the meeting if reporting timescales require this. Upon the provision of any information, the Select Committee may then decide to provide specific comments (as per 1 above). 3 To request the Cabinet Member considers providing a draft of the report, if feasible, for the Select Committee to consider prior to it being considered formally for decision. As part of its pre -decision scrutiny role, t his would be where the Committee wishes to provide an early steer or help shape a future report to Cabinet, e.g., on a policy matter. Whilst not the default position, Select Committees do occasionally receive draft versions of Cabinet reports prior to their formal consideration. The provision of such draft reports in advance may depend upon different factors, e.g., the timings required for that decision. Ultimately any request to see a draft report early would need the approval of the relevant Cabinet Member. Democratic Services would contact the relevant Cabinet Member and Officer upon any such request. If agreed, the draft report would be considered at a subsequent Select Committee meeting to provide views and feedback to officers before they finalise it for the Cabinet or Cabinet Member. An opportunity to provide specific comments (as per 1 above) is also possible. 4 To identify a forthcoming report that may merit a post - decision review at a later Select Committee meeting. As part of its post -decision scrutiny and broader reviewing role, this would be where the Select Committee may wish to monitor the implementation of a certain Cabinet or Cabinet Member decision listed/taken at a later stage, i.e., to review its effectiveness after a period of 6 months. The Committee should note that this is different to the use of the post -decision scrutiny ‘call-in’ power which seeks to ask the Cabinet or Cabinet Member to formally re-consider a decision up to 5 working days after the decision notice has been issued. This is undertaken via the new Scrutiny Call-in App members of the relevant Select Committee. The Committee would add the matter to its multi-year work programme after a suitable time has elapsed upon the decision expected to be made by the Cabinet or Cabinet Member. Relevant service areas may be best to advise on the most appropriate time to review the matter once the decision is made. BACKGROUND PAPERS • Protocol on Overview & Scrutiny and Cabinet relations adopted by Council 12 September 2019 • Scrutiny Call-in App Ref Scheduled Upcoming Decisions Further details Ward(s) Final decision by Full Council Cabinet Member(s) Responsible Relevant Select Committee Report Author Corporate Director Responsibl e Consultation related to the decision NEW ITEM Public or Private (with reason) 203 Hillingdon Adoption Services Cabinet will consider a report regarding an extension of the services provided by the Regional Adoption Agency. N/A Cllr Susan O'Brien - Children, Families & Education Children, Families & Education Tehseen Kauser / Poppy Reddy / Sally Offin Julie Kelly Private (3) SI Public Preview of matters to be considered in private A report to Cabinet to provide maximum transparency to residents on the private and confidential matters to be considered later in Part 2 of the Cabinet meeting and agenda. TBC All Cabinet Members All Democratic Services N/A Public SI Reports from Select Committees Reports, findings and recommendations for consideration by the Cabinet, when referred from the appropriate Committee. All All TBC Democratic Services TBC TBC Public SI Standard Items taken each month by the Cabinet Member Cabinet Members make a number of non-key decisions each month on standard items - details of these are listed at the end of the Forward Plan. Various All TBC Democratic Services TBC Various Public SI 2025/26 Budget and Future Medium-Term Financial Strategy (BUDGET FRAMEWORK) Following consultation, this report will set out the Medium Term Financial Forecast (MTFF), which includes the draft General Fund reserve budget and capital programme for 2025/26 for consultation, along with indicative projections for the following four years. This will also include the HRA rents for consideration. All Proposed Full Council adoption - 20 February 2025 Cllr Ian Edwards - Leader of the Council / Cllr Martin Goddard - Finance & Transformation All Andy Goodwin Richard Ennis Public consultation through the Select Committee process and statutory consultation with businesses & ratepayers Public SI Public Preview of matters to be considered in private A report to Cabinet to provide maximum transparency to residents on the private and confidential matters to be considered later in Part 2 of the Cabinet meeting and agenda. TBC All Cabinet Members All Democratic Services N/A Public SI Reports from Select Committees Reports, findings and recommendations for consideration by the Cabinet, when referred from the appropriate Committee. All All TBC Democratic Services TBC TBC Public SI = Standard Item each month/regularly Cabinet meeting - Thursday 13 February 2025 (report deadline 22 January 2025) Cabinet meeting - Thursday 9 January 2025 (report deadline 4 December 2024) Cabinet Member Decisions expected - January 2025 1 Ref Scheduled Upcoming Decisions Further details Ward(s) Final decision by Full Council Cabinet Member(s) Responsible Relevant Select Committee Report Author Corporate Director Responsibl e Consultation related to the decision NEW ITEM Public or Private (with reason) SI = Standard Item each month/regularly 236 SEND Sufficiency Strategy The Cabinet Member will consider approval of the Council's SEND Sufficiency Strategy that compliments the SEND & Alternative Provision Strategy 2023-2028 to ensure that there is provision that meets the needs of Hillingdon's children and young people. N/A Cllr Susan O'Brien - Children, Families & Education Children, Families & Education Dominika Michalik / Navpreet Minhas Julie Kelly Select Committee Public SI Standard Items taken each month by the Cabinet Member Cabinet Members make a number of non-key decisions each month on standard items - details of these are listed at the end of the Forward Plan. Various All TBC Democratic Services TBC Various Public SI Public Preview of matters to be considered in private A report to Cabinet to provide maximum transparency to residents on the private and confidential matters to be considered later in Part 2 of the Cabinet meeting and agenda. TBC All Cabinet Members All Democratic Services N/A Public SI Reports from Select Committees Reports, findings and recommendations for consideration by the Cabinet, when referred from the appropriate Committee. All All TBC Democratic Services TBC TBC Public 263 Post 16 Home to School Transport Policy Change The Cabinet Member will consider amendments to the policy relating to post-16 students and travel support following consultation with parents, carers and service users. The main proposed change is to offer a personal travel budget (PTB) as the default method of travel support instead of more expensive traditional transport options like minibuses or taxis. Exceptions will be made if alternative travel arrangements prove to be cost-effective or if the applicant can prove exceptional circumstances. N/A Cllr Susan O'Brien - Children, Families & Education Children, Families & Education Jan Major / Lee Moses Sandra Taylor Parent/Carers and Service users NEW ITEM Public SI Standard Items taken each month by the Cabinet Member Cabinet Members make a number of non-key decisions each month on standard items - details of these are listed at the end of the Forward Plan. Various All TBC Democratic Services Various Public Cabinet Member Decisions expected - February 2025 Cabinet meeting - Thursday 13 March 2025 (report deadline 19 February) Cabinet Member Decisions expected - March 2025 2 Ref Scheduled Upcoming Decisions Further details Ward(s) Final decision by Full Council Cabinet Member(s) Responsible Relevant Select Committee Report Author Corporate Director Responsibl e Consultation related to the decision NEW ITEM Public or Private (with reason) SI = Standard Item each month/regularly SI Public Preview of matters to be considered in private A report to Cabinet to provide maximum transparency to residents on the private and confidential matters to be considered later in Part 2 of the Cabinet meeting and agenda. TBC All Cabinet Members All Democratic Services N/A Public SI Reports from Select Committees Reports, findings and recommendations for consideration by the Cabinet, when referred from the appropriate Committee. All All TBC Democratic Services TBC TBC Public SI School Organisation Plan annual update The School Organisation Plan, originally approved by Cabinet in 2024, sets out how the London Borough of Hillingdon in accordance with its statutory duty, seeks to ensure there are sufficient primary, The Cabinet Member will consider the annual update to the Plan. N/A Cllr Susan O'Brien - Children, Families & Education Children, Families & Education Nav Minas / Abi Preston Julie Kelly Children, Families and Education Select Committee Public SI Standards and quality of education in Hillingdon during 2023/24 The Cabinet Member will receive the Annual Report regarding children and young people's educational performance across Hillingdon schools, for publication. N/A Cllr Susan O'Brien - Children, Families & Education Children, Families & Education Abi Preston / Michael Hawkins Julie Kelly Children, Families and Education Select Committee Public SI Standard Items taken each month by the Cabinet Member Cabinet Members make a number of decisions each month on standard items - details of these standard items are listed at the end of the Forward Plan. Various All TBC Democratic Services TBC Various Public SI Reports from Select Committees Reports, findings and recommendations for consideration by the Cabinet, when referred from the appropriate Committee. Various All TBC Democratic Services N/A Various Public SI Public Preview of matters to be considered in private A report to Cabinet to provide maximum transparency to residents on the private and confidential matters to be considered later in Part 2 of the Cabinet meeting and agenda. TBC All Cabinet Members All Democratic Services TBC Public SI Standard Items taken each month by the Cabinet Member Cabinet Members make a number of decisions each month on standard items - details of these standard items are listed at the end of the Forward Plan. Various All TBC Democratic Services TBC Various Public Cabinet meeting - Thursday 10 April 2025 (report deadline 19 March) Cabinet Member Decisions expected - April 2025 Cabinet meeting - Thursday 22 May 2025 (report deadline 30 April) Cabinet Member Decisions expected - May 2025 3 Ref Scheduled Upcoming Decisions Further details Ward(s) Final decision by Full Council Cabinet Member(s) Responsible Relevant Select Committee Report Author Corporate Director Responsibl e Consultation related to the decision NEW ITEM Public or Private (with reason) SI = Standard Item each month/regularly SI Reports from Select Committees Reports, findings and recommendations for consideration by the Cabinet, when referred from the appropriate Committee. All All TBC Democratic Services N/A TBC Public SI Public Preview of matters to be considered in private A report to Cabinet to provide maximum transparency to residents on the private matters to be considered later in Part 2 of the Cabinet meeting and agenda. TBC All Cabinet Members All Democratic Services TBC Public SI Standard Items taken each month by the Cabinet Member Cabinet Members make a number of non-key decisions each month on standard items - details of these are listed at the end of the Forward Plan. Various All C - Democratic Services TBC Various Public SI Reports from Select Committees Reports, findings and recommendations for consideration by the Cabinet, when referred from the appropriate Committee. All All TBC Democratic Services N/A TBC Public SI Public Preview of matters to be considered in private A report to Cabinet to provide maximum transparency to residents on the private matters to be considered later in Part 2 of the Cabinet meeting and agenda. TBC All Cabinet Members All Democratic Services TBC Public SI Standard Items taken each month by the Cabinet Member Cabinet Members make a number of non-key decisions each month on standard items - details of these are listed at the end of the Forward Plan. Various All Democratic Services TBC Various Public SI Standard Items taken each month by the Cabinet Member Cabinet Members make a number of non-key decisions each month on standard items - details of these are listed at the end of the Forward Plan. Various All TBC Democratic Services TBC Various Public Cabinet Member Decisions expected - July 2025 AUGUST 2025 - NO CABINET MEETING Cabinet meeting - June 2025 (date TBC) Cabinet Member Decisions expected - June 2025 Cabinet meeting - July 2025 (date TBC) 4 Ref Scheduled Upcoming Decisions Further details Ward(s) Final decision by Full Council Cabinet Member(s) Responsible Relevant Select Committee Report Author Corporate Director Responsibl e Consultation related to the decision NEW ITEM Public or Private (with reason) SI = Standard Item each month/regularly SI Urgent Cabinet-level decisions & interim decision-making (including emergency decisions) The Leader of the Council has the necessary authority to make decisions that would otherwise be reserved to the Cabinet, in the absence of a Cabinet meeting or in urgent circumstances. Any such decisions will be published in the usual way and reported to a subsequent Cabinet meeting for ratification. The Leader may also take emergency decisions without notice, in particular in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, which will be ratified at a later Cabinet meeting. Various Cllr Ian Edwards - Leader of the Council TBC TBC TBC Public / Private SI School Governing Bodies, Instruments of Government and Governors / Authorising Academy Appointments To approve appointments, nominate appointments and make reappointments of local authority governors and to approve any changes to school governing body constitutions. To also authorise any Member to be a Governor or Director of an Academy. N/A Cllr Susan O'Brien - Children, Families & Education Children, Families & Education Nicki O’Flanagan Public SI Release of Capital Funds The release of all capital monies requires formal Member approval, unless otherwise determined either by the Cabinet or the Leader. Batches of monthly reports (as well as occasional individual reports) to determine the release of capital for any schemes already agreed in the capital budget and previously approved by Cabinet or Cabinet Members TBC Cllr Martin Goddard - Finance & Transformation (in conjunction with relevant Cabinet Member) All - TBC by decision made various Corporate Finance Public but some Private (1,2,3) SI Petitions about matters under the control of the Cabinet Cabinet Members will consider a number of petitions received by local residents and organisations and decide on future action. These will be arranged as Petition Hearings. TBC All TBC Democratic Services Public CABINET MEMBER DECISIONS: Standard Items (SI) that may be considered each month 5 Ref Scheduled Upcoming Decisions Further details Ward(s) Final decision by Full Council Cabinet Member(s) Responsible Relevant Select Committee Report Author Corporate Director Responsibl e Consultation related to the decision NEW ITEM Public or Private (with reason) SI = Standard Item each month/regularly SI To approve compensation payments To approve compensation payments in relation to any complaint to the Council in excess of £1000. n/a All TBC various Private (1,2,3) SI Acceptance of Tenders To accept quotations, tenders, contract extensions and contract variations valued between £50k and £500k in their Portfolio Area where funding is previously included in Council budgets. n/a Cllr Ian Edwards - Leader of the Council OR Cllr Martin Goddard - Finance & Transformation / in conjunction with relevant Cabinet Member TBC various Private (3) SI All Delegated Decisions by Cabinet to Cabinet Members, including tender and property decisions Where previously delegated by Cabinet, to make any necessary decisions, accept tenders, bids and authorise property decisions / transactions in accordance with the Procurement and Contract Standing Orders. TBC All TBC various Public / Private (1,2,3) SI School Redundancy Payments To consider requests for School Redundancy Payments and decide whether to approve them on behalf of the Local Authority TBC Cllr Susan O'Brien - Children, Families & Education Children, Families & Education Abi Preston Private (1,3,4) SI External funding bids To authorise the making of bids for external funding where there is no requirement for a financial commitment from the Council. n/a All TBC various Public SI Response to key consultations that may impact upon the Borough A standard item to capture any emerging consultations from Government, the GLA or other public bodies and institutions that will impact upon the Borough. Where the deadline to respond cannot be met by the date of the Cabinet meeting, the Constitution allows the Cabinet Member to sign-off the response. TBC All TBC various Public The Cabinet's Forward Plan is an official document by the London Borough of Hillingdon, UK 6

Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Part I – Public WORK PROGRAMME Committee name Children, Families and Education Select Committee Officer reporting Ryan Dell, Democratic Services Papers with report Appendix A – Work Programme Ward All HEADLINES To enable the Committee to note future meeting dates and to forward plan its work for the current municipal year. RECOMMENDATION That the Children, Families and Education Select Committee considers the re port and agrees any amendments. SUPPORTING INFORMATION 1. The Committee's meetings will start at 7pm and the witnesses attending each of the meetings may include representatives from external organisations, some of whom travel from outside of the Borough. Forthcoming meeting dates are as follows: Meeting Date Room 04 February 2025 CR5 11 March 2025 CR5 15 April 2025 CR5 Implications on related Council policies The role of the Select Committees is to make recommendations on service changes and improvements to the Cabinet, who are responsible for the Council’s policy and direction. RESIDENT BENEFIT Select Committees directly engage residents in shaping policy and recommendations and the Committees seek to improve the way the Council provides services to residents. FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS There are no financial implications arising from this report. LEGAL IMPLICATIONS There are no legal implications arising from this report. Children, Families and Education Select Committee – 07 January 2025 Part I – Public BACKGROUND PAPERS NIL.

MULTI-YEAR WORK PROGRAMME 2022 - 2026 January February March April 7 4 20 15 Review: Persistent Absenteeism Policy Review Discussion & Guidance Topic selection/ scoping stage Witness/ evidence/ consultation stage Findings, conclusions and recommendations X Final review report agreement X Target Cabinet reporting X Regular service & performance monitoring Children's Social Care Reports/ minutes from the Corporate Parenting Panel X X Learn Hillingdon Self-Assessment Review (annual) 23-24 School Organisation Plan inc. School Places Planning update X Annual Education Standards report (prior to Cabinet Member) 23-24 Hillingdon Music Hub Annual Report X Children and Families Support Services Children's Safeguarding Partnership Annual Report - Quarterly Performance Monitoring Provisional - Mid-year budget/ budget planning report X Minutes of the AGM Cabinet Forward Plan Monthly Monitoring X X X X One-off information items Children's Centres delivery model and Early Years Nurseries - review of implementation of Cabinet's decisions Sept. 2023 Hillingdon's Youth Offer & Delivery Model - review of implementation of Cabinet decisions from Sept. 2023 X Overview of Corporate Parenting Responsibilities Corporate Parenting Panel Membership to agree + subs Corporate Parenting Panel - update to Terms of Reference Hillingdon Local Area SEND and Alternative Provision Strategy for Children and Young Pople 0-25 Years 2023-2028 (& update) X SEND Sufficiency Strategy X School Admissions Arrangements - Whitehall Infant/ Junior Update on School Admissions X Move-ins to the Borough (in-year admissions) Ukrainian Children - how funding from Central Govt. has been delivered to schools/ "Ukraine Education support update" DPS for Alternative Provision – Education and SEND Outcomes of consultations regarding: (i) Proposed closures of the Physical Disability (PD) Special Resourced Provision (SRP) at Coteford Infant School (ii) Proposed increasing of the age range for the Assessment Base at Ruislip Gardens Primary School (iii) Proposal for some community schools to lower their age range to take two year olds. Draft Hillingdon Education Strategy 2024-2029 Prevention and Youth Justice Youth Justice Service Strategy 2024-2029 Children and Families Support Services Early help/ support available to young people | Services available to low-income families Witness session on Higher Education Provisional - Council Strategy 2022-2026 consultation Democratic Services Scrutiny Introduction (Democratic Services) Past review delivery Children's Social Care Stronger Families Hub 2022/23 - 2023/24 X Adult & Community Learning Review 2021/22 Persistent Absenteeism Education and SEND Education and SEND Children's Social Care Education and SEND Children, Families & Education Select CommitteeService Areas Education and SEND Democratic Services