A report was then shared by Rachael with members on the work of the Safety Valve., which has been provided to the ESFA, containing overall and a position statement against each of the grant conditions, This was the first report to the ESFA submitted on the 16th of June, Rachael explained that the LA is yet to have any feedback from the ESFA.

What we are seeing in this report is quite a positive trajectory for our first quarter. The ESFA will be most interested in the overall picture of the number of education, health and care plans and our projected budget position. For the first time ever in Torbay we had now have the number of education, health and child plans reducing on a significant downward trend for the local area.

The next vital piece of information that the ESFA required was for them to understand that our outturn position was aligned to our anticipated outturn position. So we anticipated that we're at £2.7 million deficit last year and we came out at £2.732 million. It is felt that the ESFA will be assured that we were aligned to our original planning.

Rachael then gave an update in relation to each of the agreements and conditions to the grant. The first condition of the grant was to maintain our existing special school numbers and really think about parental confidence with mainstream provision. We gave them detailed information in this report on the number of special school placements compared to our commissioned number. Members were pleased to see we've got control on the number of placements, although it remains significantly challenging.

Members noted that we're getting tribunal orders for special school placements as well and they may not always be within our Torbay Tribunal process. It could be Devon tribunal process that is then directing young people to be able to access our Special Schools as well. So we are acutely aware that that is still a risk area but trying to manage that as best we can. Hannah explained that the majority of our appeals and tribunals that are in place at the moment are decisions not to issue a plan as opposed to not to assess a young person, and sometimes once you've got that full robust assessment, the tribunals find in favour of the LA because they've made a decision based on that evidence.

In terms of then request for specialist placements, we still see a really, really high rate of requests for specialist placements in the area and the team members will do a fantastic job of only making sure that children attend that where needed and then doing work to look at what alternative provisions can be provided.

Alex asked  whether we are sticking rigidly to these Commission numbers and especially places, for example, like Burton and Brunel, and what additional use is being made of other providers, YMCA, Riviera tuition etc. and the financial impact of this. Rachael agreed to look into this with officers and report back to Forum at the next meeting.

The second condition was around the SEND agenda and workforce development. Rachael thanked the  multiple colleagues that were part of Co-production of the SEND strategy, listing all of the workforce development opportunities that have been provided and have been well taken up by schools and others in the area as well.

The next one is rated as red. The reason it is rated as red as this is the area that includes the Health funding contributions. So if we were looking at this from a graduated response point of view, we would be rating this amber as we've actually brought forward the launch of the graduated response to earlier in the year, recognising that that takes time still to embed, but actually the work has been conducted on the graduated response, but we have rated this
as red because of the issues we've already discussed around Health, that's not just about a financial contribution, but that's also about their contribution and all multi agency contributions into EHCPs. An EHCP can only be as robust as the information that is received and the assessments that are undertaken and we know there still is significant delays in children having access to some of those assessments required as well.

The next condition discussed was Independent Placement Overview Panel (known as Ipop) making sure that we are being really robust in and our decision making processes, and that Ipop doesn't make the decision on the awarding any ACP that sits in normal processes. Members noted that last year we were able to report an end of financial year position below target.

The next agreement, around Building confidence within the parental community, was then discussed. Rachael explained that there was never in our safety valve plan any indication that parents weren't confident in the Enhanced Resource bases or special schools, and that they actually really demonstrate a lot of confidence in this. So you'll see there are a list of things that have happened jointly with SEND family voice Torbay around trying to gain parental confidence across the whole of the system as well.

The next part was around Post 16 and transition panel and Post 16 early planning. Rachael thanked colleagues in the Post 16 sector, acknowledging their absolute focus on the safety valve work. Members noted that this part of the report provides information on the level of ceasing activity that has taken place and that wasn't something the local authority was routinely. There's been a 132% increase in cessation across the local area and a significant number of plans have been ceased.

Alex asked a question around ceasing a EHCP of a child with a lifelong condition, noting that if they're successful in school, and their annual review shows they’re thriving, will the Plan be ceased regardless? Hannah acknowledged that the annual review process needs to really reflect multi agency input to a child with a lifelong disability, and a revision of the system to be able to ensure we're making the right decisions in the right places is needed.

Hannah stressed that what we don't want to do is be taking away any provision that may lead to further provision being required in the future as well. So it's absolutely got to be the right provision and right decisions and it's about the work between schools, SENCOs and our monitoring team in making those decisions, and trying to be as open and transparent around some of those aspects as well.

The next condition was around The Early Years Outreach team as part of the family hubs. The report provides an overview of work that we are doing with health visitors around their checks and balances, and the onboarding of our family hubs and the models around speech, language and communication, and targeted interventions. The ESFA has been notified about the work that has been progressed and will be progressed through the hub as well.

The  final section discussed was around the graduated response, but with a focus on Social and Emotional and Mental Health. The DSG management plan showed us that SEMH was a significant outlier for Torbay at the point of writing the document,  and what you will see there is the numbers of social, emotional, mental health plans have significantly reduced. Rachael explained that has been quite a focus within our work.

Rachael identified at the end of the report the emerging risks that are happening across the system as well, noting that the top risk is the current gap in the Health funding, also noting another risk related to Health contribution into our SENDIASS service. Also included here as an emerging risk is the new unfunded attendance duties that are now going to be in place from September this year. And what this could lead to is a greater identification of children that have SEMH and section 19 requests that obviously all come through to the higher needs budget. So quite a lot of risks identified, but we're working to mitigate those, but we need the mitigations across the system as well.

Members thanked Rachael for the report, noting that it seems like for the first time we've got a really clear equitable strategic approach to SEND across Torbay.