Agenda and minutes

To consider and approve the minutes of the previous meeting held on 16 September 2025, as a true and correct record of the proceedings and to be signed by the Chair.

Resolved: - That the Minutes of the meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission, held on 4 November 2025, be approved as a correct record of proceedings.

To receive declarations of interest from Members in respect of items listed on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest.

To consider whether the press and public should be excluded from the meeting during consideration of any part of the agenda.

There were no items of business on the agenda that required the exclusion of the press and public from the meeting.

To receive questions relating to items of business on the agenda from members of the public or press who are present at the meeting.

There were no questions from members of the public or press.

The Looked After Children’s Sufficiency Strategy 2023-2027 focuses on what is known about looked after children and young people, including their voices, and the information about local homes for children. The strategy also provides the latest data trends, what the priorities are and the delivery plan to achieve those.

This item will provide an update on the delivery of the new strategy over the past twelve months.

This item provided an update on the delivery of the Looked After Children’s Sufficiency Strategy 2023-2027, over the past twelve months.

The Chair welcomed to the meeting Councillor Cusworth, the Cabinet Member for Children’s and Young Peoples Services, Helen Sweaton, Joint Assistant Director for Commissioning and Performance and Mark Cummins, SEND Transformation Project Lead.

The Chair invited the Cabinet Member to introduce the report, during which the following was noted:

·       The Looked After Children's Sufficiency Strategy focused on what was known about Rotherham’s children and young people, including their voices and information about local homes for children.

·       The strategy provided the latest data trends and what the priorities were on the delivery plan. The strategy set out how Children and Young People Services would fulfil its role as a corporate parent and meet its Statutory Sufficiency Duty, by providing good quality care, effective parenting, and supporting children and young people in care and when they left care.

·       The report and presentation would provide an update on the delivery of the strategy over the past 12 months, including the transformation programmes, such as foster care recruitment and residential children's homes.

The Chair invited the SEND Transformation Project Lead to present the PowerPoint, during which the following was noted:

Strategy Overview and Priorities-

·       The Looked After Children’s Sufficiency Strategy 2023-2027, was approved at Cabinet in October 2022.

·       The Looked After Children Sufficiency Strategy was developed in-line with the duty to provide or procure placements for children looked after by the Local Authority. The duty of ‘sufficiency’ required Local Authorities and Children’s Trust Partners to ensure that there was a range of sufficient placements which would meet the needs of children and young people in care. This included fostering placements, residential placements and accomodation for care leavers.

Key Priorities 2023-2027-

·       More young people would be able to be cared for safely in their families and communities within Rotherham and achieve independence successfully.

·       Children and young people would have access to a range of homes, both internal and external options, that would meet their needs and improve their outcomes.

·       All services would take the Rotherham Family Approach to ensure all Rotherham children and young people would be “resilient, successful and safe”, this would be evidenced by quality assurance activity.

·       Children and young people would be able to access the support they needed when they needed it, because Health, Education and Care Services would share a joint understanding of the needs of children and young people in Rotherham and would use this to inform commissioning and service delivery.

·       Children, Young People, their families and carers would be able to access Child Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) assessments and interventions when needed.

·       Children, young people, families and carers would benefit from additional social value in Rotherham, for example more employment opportunities.

·       More children, young people and families would benefit from additional support to improve outcomes and to access employment.

Children In Care Trends-

·       The numbers of children in care had reduced from 505 to 464. This  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

This item will provide a high-level overview of the Draft SEND Sufficiency Strategy 2026-2029 via a PowerPoint presentation. The update will include aspects which are likely to be included within the draft strategy and the key headlines, ahead of the presentation to Cabinet in November 2025.

This item provided a high-level overview of the draft Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Strategy via a PowerPoint presentation, for pre-decision, ahead of it being presented to Cabinet.

The Chair welcomed to the meeting Councillor Cusworth, the Cabinet Member for Children’s and Young Peoples Services, Helen Sweaton, Joint Assistant Director for Commissioning and Performance, Cary- Anne Sykes, Head of Service for SEND, Mark Cummins, SEND Transformation Project Lead and Jayne Fitzgerald, Strategic Director of Rotherham Parent Carers Forum, who was in attendance to represent and share the voice of Rotherham Parent Carers.

The Chair invited the Cabinet Member to introduce the report, during which the following was noted:

·      The update would share the progress made on the planning for a new SEND Sufficiency Strategy and would include the current position, future needs analysis and the outcome of stakeholder engagement. The current SEND Sufficiency Strategy was detailed as part of the Safety Valve Agreement and Implementation Plan, and had been in operation since 2021.

·      The new SEND Sufficiency Strategy would be presented to Cabinet for consideration and/or approval in February 2026, ahead of a proposed implementation from April 2026 onwards. The proposed Strategy was underpinned by the Four Cornerstones of Co-production, which were welcome and care, value and include, communicate and work in partnership.

·      Through seven core aspirations, the strategy would seek to ensure more pupils could be educated within Rotherham beside their peers, utilising a range of locally available education provision.

·      Local authorities were waiting for the outcome of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which had been delayed until 2026. It was recognised nationally that the SEND system required improvement, however, it was noted that Rotherham were doing well in the area of SEND.

The Chair invited the SEND Transformation Project Lead to present the PowerPoint, during which the following was noted:

Background-

·      The current SEND Sufficiency Strategy which was detailed as part of the Safety Valve Agreement and Implementation Plan, had been in operation since 2021 and would run until the end of 2025-2026.

·      A longer-term strategy was required to identify sufficiency requirements beyond the Safety Valve from April 2026.

Engagement-

• As part of the preparation of the SEND Sufficiency Strategy, stakeholder discussion and feedback was completed with mainstream schools, special schools, post 16 providers, health colleagues, parents and carers and young people.
• SEND Sufficiency discussion’s took place with education leaders at the Schools Forum, wider education and school improvement partners and at SENCO network events.
• Discussions focused on what was working well and on areas for improvement across core areas including SEND provision, graduated approach and Outreach Services.
• Alongside engagement completed specifically for the development of the new SEND Sufficiency Strategy, young people’s and parent and/or carers views were captured as part of established quality assurance processes across all the SEND provision.
• The Rotherham Parent Carers Forum were heavily involved in the stakeholder discussions and had led on some of the engagement in this area.
• The aim of the engagement was to understand the progress that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.

To consider and approve the Commission’s Work Programme.

The Commission considered its Work Programme, and the following was noted:

·       The work programme was included within the agenda pack, for information and discussions.

·       There was the following suggested changes to the work programme for members consideration:

o   Children’s and Young People’s Services requested that the Response to the Prevention of Future Deaths Report be delayed from today’s meeting and be presented to December’s meeting.

o   It was requested that the Rotherham Safeguarding Children’s Partnership Annual Assurance Report be presented to December’s meeting.

o   As a result, it was suggested that the Community Cohesion Projects Update scheduled for December’s meeting, be moved to March 2026.

Resolved: - That the Work Programme for 2025/2026 be approved.

For the Chair/Project Group Leads to provide an update on the activity regarding sub and project groups of the Improving Lives Select Commission.

The Chair provided a progress report on sub and project group activity.

Resolved: - That the update be noted.

To consider any item(s) the Chair is of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency.

There was no urgent business.