Summary of the March 2025 Board Meeting

This is the 12th meeting of the Local Area SEND Partnership Board

Before this months Board meeting, the Assistant Director - SEND & Inclusion, gave Board members a presentation on the work taking place to improve the annual review process for Education, Health and Care plans.

1. Update from the Strategic Performance Group

Progress made since the last meeting:

• The group continue to track the performance of SEND services.

• The group agreed a review of the score cards. They also agreed to develop a work plan.

Next steps for the month ahead:

• Improve the timeliness and accuracy of SEND sufficiency data sets.

• Carry out the review of the score cards.

Speech and Language Service

The January data from this service shows that average waiting times have reduced to 29 weeks. This significant continuous improvement will help the service to achieve its 18-week target.

Neurodevelopmental Pathway

There were 272 new referrals to this service from schools in January. This is a significant increase on the December, but it was noted that this spike often happens after schools holidays.

Children & Young People Mental Health Services

There was a small increase in waiting time to four weeks.

There is a reduction in the number of children waiting for assessment. This may be because of the launch of Branch, the online wellbeing hub.

2. Participation & Engagement Subgroup Update

Progress made since the last meeting:

• The Easy Read component for the SEND Annual Survey are complete.

• The SEND Youth Conference was evaluated. This report will come to the Board in April 2025.

• An audit of compliance is taking place for the Local Offer website, SENDLO.

• A cohort of parents have completed Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) training. They gave positive feedback on the involvement of the Educational Psychology Team.

Next steps for the month ahead:

• A coproduction toolkit is being developed.

• The group are developing LASPB branding.

• The group are developing metrics to measure communications. 

3. Working Statement of Action Group Update

The group asked the Board for approval to agree new arrangements to track SEND improvement. These will be agreed by the LASPB Exec Group, in partnership with Department for Education and NHS England Advisors.

 4. Delivering Better Value Quarter 3 Update

The report shows the actions taken in quarter three for the Delivering Better Value programme. The report also includes the plan for the programme up to the end of the academic year.

Updates for quarter 3 include:

• The cohort of Graduates are ready to offer support to schools with embedding the Graduated Approach.

• Advance Solutions have been commissioned to provide:

  • a community network group for parents and carers.

  • advice and guidance to parents and carers

  • courses for three neurodevelopmental conditions

  • neurodevelopmental training for professionals and neurodevelopment pathway support.

• Capacity have been commissioned to carry out engagement with stakeholders. The workshops will identify strengths and weaknesses with current system in schools. Lived experience and opportunities for change were also discussed.

• The plan for delivering 100 addition resources provision places is on track. There are also 32 extra across Birkenhead and South Wirral.

• The development of post 16 provision is being discussed.

• Work is continuing on key phase transition points.

The report recommended to the Board that:

• A business case will come to the Board in April. This should show the number of plans that include speech and language provision. It should also outline the resources needed to deliver this provision and timescales.

• A performance measure in the dashboard will track the progress of this work.

• It is now in the risk register.

5. High Needs Funding Agreement Review

This report outlines of the development of new high needs funding arrangements.

The agreement will be coproduced with school leaders.

The new funding agreement will then be rolled out. This change will not affect the provision that young people are currently receiving.