Agenda item

To undertake the pre-decision scrutiny of the Cabinet proposals in relation to Greenhill and ALN paper.

Councillor Phillips advised that he had a personal interest in this item as he has a family member in receipt of ALN provision.

The Chair welcomed Councillor Sarah Merry (Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Education, Employment & Skills), Melanie Godfrey (Director of Education & Lifelong Learning), Richard Portas (Programme Director, School Organisation Planning (SOP)), and Michele Duddrige-Friedl (Operational Manager, Planning and Provision) to the meeting.

Councillor Merry was invited to make a statement, during which she drew attention to the principles underlying the proposals and reminded Members of the Council’s commitment to inclusive education. Nevertheless there is an issue in regard to specialist provision and SRB. It is desirable that children should have access to the right provision for the level of need they have.

Members were advised that there are strong processes in place to continue the Council’s inclusive approach. These projects were in place to ensure the Council is expanding its specialist provision because there are  a high number of children and young people who need to access the more specialist environments.

Members were asked to comment or raise questions on the information received.  Those discussions are summarised as follows:

·         Members sought clarification on whether the combined proposals would account for the entire deficit of places or whether there would be need for further expansion in due course. Members were advised that there would be need for further provision in the future. The proposals in the current paper require a statutory consultation process.  There may be others that could be progressed without a statutory consultation process. The Council will continue to work to ensure balanced provision across the city.

·         Members noted the out of county provision budget for 2021-22 and sought clarification on the extent of any reduction in the out of county provision budget. Members were advised that it was possible the extra provision would reduce a further escalation in the budget or reduce the budget provision. No conclusion could be drawn as of yet.

·         Members enquired as to the timelines surrounding the consultation. Members were advised that the proposals would not all be brought under the same consultation. How they would be divided up had not yet been finalised, but the intention was to bring forward the consultations as soon as possible. It is necessary to balance the desire to progress the consultations in a short timescale with the resource available. It is not possible to run a number of consultations simultaneously.

RESOLVED:

That the Chairperson writes to the Cabinet Member on behalf of the Committee expressing their comments and observations during the way forward.