Agenda item

Report from the Strategic Director of Children and Young People’s Services.

Recommendations:

Cabinet is asked to:

1.    Note the delegated decision taken by the Strategic Director as agreed by Cabinet in December 2021 to enter into the ‘Safety Valve’ Intervention Programme Agreement.

2.    Agree as part of the involvement in ‘Safety Valve’ intervention programme to submit a capital request to the DfE to develop SEND provision in the Borough to aid delivery of the programme.

3.    Agree that all associated information incorporated in this report and appendices be noted including key risks and areas subject to review within the DfE finalised document.

4.    Agree that an annual progress report is presented to Cabinet.

Consideration was given to report which explained that, as part of the Department of Education (DfE) work to address long term challenges in the High Needs funding within the Dedicated Schools Grant, a small number of identified local authorities, including Rotherham, had been invited to have a financial agreement known as a ‘Safety Valve.’ The key emphasis for the Rotherham involvement in the programme was ensuring that more children with special needs could be supported to stay in mainstream education in the Borough. Rotherham involvement also allowed appropriate SEND provision mapping in the Borough to meet the Council’s needs to continue to be developed and improve SEND outcomes.

Following the December budget report, progress had been made in negotiations with the DfE. The budget report also included a delegation for officers to progress the Safety Valve Agreement with DfE and this report back to Cabinet provided the final agreement reached. The final agreement was attached to the report at Appendix 2. The finalised agreement set out an investment of £20.528m to be received from the DfE across the lifespan of the agreement (2021/22 to 2025/26), and this would remove the DSG deficit based on the Council’s revenue assumptions as detailed in paragraph 1.4 of the report.

In agreeing to the financial investment from the DfE, Rotherham was agreeing to implement the following strategies as set out in the Council’s DSG management plan. This included actions to:

(1)    Reduce the use of independent specialist provision outside of the Local Authority by creating appropriate capacity within Rotherham’s high needs system, with a focus on ensuring provision was high quality and value for money.

(2)    Improve Rotherham’s Early Intervention Strategy, including through investment in outreach work.

(3)    Ensure appropriate use of provision and avoid escalation of children and young people’s needs by, among other things, improving the governance around placement decisions.

(4)    Review support services in Rotherham to ensure value for money was achieved.

(5)    Increase the outreach offer for Social Emotional and Mental Health Needs at primary and secondary.

(6)    Increase the outreach offer for specialist SEND.

(7)    Develop local sufficiency arrangements, including for Rotherham’s Looked After Children.

(8)    Drive mainstream schools to adopt inclusive practice to enable more children and young people to remain in mainstream settings where appropriate.

(9)    Maintain engagement with stakeholders through strong and collaborative governance arrangements, such as ISOS partnership work, Schools Forum High Needs sub-group, primary and secondary head teachers.

Ongoing monitoring would be in place across the lifespan of the plan, and this would involve regular meetings between the DfE and RMBC on a quarterly basis to both support delivery and hold accountability of the agreement.

As part of the process, the Council had also been invited to submit a capital investment plan to support the Strategy. This was submitted to DfE on the 18th March, 2022. The capital schemes were factored in to the DfE application for capital investment as part of the Safety Valve Agreement.

This report was considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board as part of the pre-decision scrutiny process. The Board was fully supportive of the recommendations and requested that the Audit Committee be provided with further updates on the implementation of the programme. The Leader confirmed that Cabinet could not recommend what the Audit Committee looked at as they set their own work programme but confirmed they were more than welcome to review the Safety Valve Programme if they wished.

Resolved:-

That Cabinet:

1.    Note the delegated decision taken by the Strategic Director as agreed by Cabinet in December 2021 to enter into the ‘Safety Valve’ Intervention Programme Agreement.

2.    Agree as part of the involvement in ‘Safety Valve’ intervention programme to submit a capital request to the DfE to develop SEND provision in the Borough to aid delivery of the programme.

3.    Agree that all associated information incorporated in the report and appendices be noted including key risks and areas subject to review within the DfE finalised document.

4.    Agree that an annual progress report is presented to Cabinet.

5.    Note that the Audit Committee would receive, if it so wished, updates on the implementation of the Safety Valve Intervention Programme via their regular reports on the Risk Register.