Agenda and minutes

1.1   Apologies for absence were received from the following members of the Commission:

Cllr Anya Sizer

Cllr Suso Runge;

Cllr Laudat Scott;

Cllr Caroline Selman;

Diane Benjamin, Director of Children’s Social Care.

1.2  To note a correction from minutes of the previous meeting of 11th July 2022, that Cllr Binnie Lubbock and Cllr Suso Runge attended virtually.  This has been noted in the approved minutes of that meeting.

2.1   There were no urgent items and the agenda was as had been published. 

3.1    The following declarations were received by members of the Commission:

- Jo McLeod was a Governor at a primary school in Hackney and a parent of a child with SEND.

To review progress on the Commission’s recommendations from its review of Recruitment and Retention of Foster Carers and assess local support offer to in-house foster carers.

(75 minutes)

4.1  The Commission completed a review of the recruitment and retention of foster carers in 2018 which contained 10 recommendations to the Council.  The Commission has received a number of updates before this meeting, the last being in October 2019. 

4.2  Having been approached by Hackney Foster Carers Council, the Commission agreed to revisit this review to reassess the Hackney Foster Carer offer and to ensure that there has been sustained progress in the recruitment and retention of in-house foster carers.

4.3  To support this session, the Commission undertook a local consultation with local in-house foster carers supported by Hackney Foster Carers Council.  The Commission held a consultation evening on 31st August 2022 where members met 10 local foster carers.  This event was supported by a survey conducted by the Commission for which 48 responses were received from foster carers.

4.4  The Commission would produce a report with recommendations based on the consultation focus group, the survey and the discussions that take place at this meeting. This will be submitted to Cabinet for approval.

  Corporate Parenting

4.5  The Corporate Parenting team (CPT)  believes that the in-house foster care team remains the best option for children in care and is committed to recruiting and retaining foster carers..  There have been challenges to the recruitment of foster carers due to national conditions (i.e. impact of Covid), which has been felt in Hackney and across North London boroughs.  Despite this, the department has maintained a strong track record of recruitment of foster carers and has in excess of 170 fostering households in Hackney. 

4.6  Supporting in-house foster carers does present a number of challenges including how increasing numbers of carers are supported.  The CPT was always keen to develop the local support offer to carers including through developing links with national care bodies (e.g. Fostering Network) and by setting up additional support groups for carers (e.g. male carers group). The service is aware that it needs to develop its out of hours and emergency response support offer to carers which was challenging within a small team of social workers.  There was also a good training and support offer for foster carers.

4.7  The team was supported by experienced managers who not only knew and understood how to support staff, but also had good connections with foster carers themselves and understood the issues that they faced.  For example, local foster carers were interested in developing a trauma informed approach and were keen to work with service leaders in implementing this across the service.

4.8  Around 75% of all children are placed in foster care, of which 44% are with the in-house foster carer team.  The CPT would like to increase the number of looked after children who are cared for by the in-house foster carer team.  The matching service within the CPT were also working hard to make the most of the in-house foster carer team and to ensure that the right child was placed with the right foster carer.  CPT have also  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

A short verbal update will be provided by the Director of Education on GCSE and A Level results taken in June 2022.

(20 minutes)

5.1  The Commission requested a short verbal update on the GCSE and A Level results of Hackney students from 2022.  As this is the first year that students have sat public examinations since 2019 this was an opportunity for the Commission to reflect on how well students have performed and to ensure that there has been appropriate support mechanisms in place for students.

Hackney Education

5.2  Public examinations resumed in 2022, as these were replaced by teacher assessments in both 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.  Hackney schools and students have performed comparatively better than national averages for both GCSE and A Level results.  Full data would not be available until February of next year, and today’s summary represented an on the day snapshot of performance.

5.3  Key areas to highlight from local performance included:

At GCSE level:

75% of students achieved a standard pass in mathematics and English which is substantially higher than results in 2019 (69%);

57%  of students achieved a strong pass in mathematics and English which is substantially higher than results in 2019 (48%);

At A Level:

 32% of students gained an A* and an A;

59% of students gained an A* and a B;

81% of students gained an A* and a C.

The range of courses at post 16 has also diversified with some schools offering up to 27 different pathways.

5.4  All secondary schools are involved in WAMHS, therefore every school has a wholesale school framework to support emotional wellbeing and support for students.  Some schools also provide access to counsellors and mentors as additional to pastoral support.  A number of case studies were used to illustrate how additional support was provided to vulnerable students to achieve.  Schools have become trauma aware, trauma informed and practitioners in supporting children.

Questions from the Commission

5.5  The Commission is aware of the profound impact that Covid and school closures has had on a number of pupils and in this context, percentages reveal one aspect of performance. Is there any additional data on the numbers of children which have taken exams or the number  of children who have dropped out of exams?

5.6  As there is no resource for children to need to be assisted for exam retakes?

- More secondary settings are now offering resit exams at post 16.  This was less of an issue for post 18, as many students who were not going to achieve the required standard would be guided to different examination paths at the end of year 12.  It was noted that the failure rate for children taking the same exam was very high which meant that this was not a viable option for schools to support.  It was important to intervene before the end of year 12 so that additional measures could be put in place.

5.7  What are the future plans for ‘grade downs’ as schools will be graded to 2019 levels?

- The aim of the assessment bodies is to gradually return to 2019 standards which  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To review data on the demographic profile of EHCPs in Hackney (age group, ethnicity, originating setting, those not in education):

- The number of EHCPs in Hackney;

- New EHCPs granted in Hackney;

- Number of EHCP requests / Number of requests for assessments refused/ request for assessments which did not result in EHCP being issued.

(30 mins)

6.1  Following the Commission’s work programme discussions in June and July, it was evident that SEND services would figure prominently within Commissions work programme for 2022/23 with a number of key developments in the service:

Changes in relation to the SEND Green Paper;

The emerging local SEND Strategy and Action Plan, SEND restructure and Better Value review.

6.2  To inform possible scrutiny of the above, and in recognition of the wider context of increasing demands for the SEND services, the Commission requested a short report from Hackney Education setting out the current demographic profile of children with and EHCP and new EHCP applications.  This request also relates to ongoing disproportionality work undertaken by the Commission which suggests that the identification of additional needs of some groups of children and young people remain unidentified until much later in their education.

Hackney Education

6.3  It was widely recognised that demand for EHCPs was growing with around 400 EHCPS being approved each year.  This was creating significant pressures on local specialists and mainstream schools, and had resulted in rising numbers of children being supported in non-maintained settings outside of the borough.  This issue was being addressed by the School Estates Strategy which was not only aiming to increase local specialist provision but was also seeking to increase the number of children supported in local schools through Additional Resource Provisions (ARP).

6.4  Other highlights from the report included:

-Hackney had the 12th highest rate of EHCPs in England and 1 in 20 children had an EHCP.

-Higher proportion of children with SEND  in Hackney are supported in mainstream schools compared to other boroughs.

-Hackney is rejecting a higher number of EHCP requests than other boroughs.

Questions from the Commission

6.5   At page 50, the report indicates that 153 initial requests for an EHCP were refused - which was 30% of all requests.  Is there any data on the age and ethnicity of those requests for an EHCP which were refused?  What proportion of these were challenged by  parents and how many of these challenges were successful?  Is there any tracking of students which were rejected?

- There were around 50 appeals last year, additional data was not available at the meeting, but could be supplied at a later date.

In relation to graduated response, a new system has been put in place to help track pupils.  Each school will now hold a multidisciplinary team meeting on a termly basis to review all pupils with a vulnerability.  This team will assess progress and whether a further review of needs is required.

6.6  The EHCP review process should be that schools should conduct an annual review which is submitted to the LA who then reassess the EHCP as necessary, which the school will then deliver upon. Locally, the last part of this process is not happening as the LA is not updating the EHCP.  When is progress going to be made in this area?

- This was covered in the SEND review which was recently completed.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.1  The main updates for the Commission included:

School exclusions and school moves would be presented at the next meeting in October 2022;

Also at the next meeting in October, the Commission would assess schools' role in addressing food poverty and insecurity

Access to CAMHS would be included within the April agenda and would involve site visits to local providers and young people's groups.

7.2  The Commission noted and agreed on the work programme.

To review and agree the minutes and actions of the previus meeting from 11^th Jul 2022.

8.1  The minutes of 13th July were noted and agreed.

9.1  The date of the next meeting was 31st October 2022. There were no other items of business.

  Meeting closed at 9.50pm