This is a discussion item.
Minutes:
The Chair introduced this item and welcomed Councillor Georgiou as Cabinet Member for Children’s Services and Tony Theodoulou, Executive Director, People. He asked Councillor Georgiou to give a brief overview of what he considers to be the key objectives and priorities in respect of the portfolio.
Councillor Georgiou thanked Members for the opportunity to attend the meeting. He spoke of the difficult decisions that would have to be made over the forthcoming years because of government financial savings. (£18m savings for LB Enfield by 2019/20).
He highlighted the following:
· The key priority was around how we continue to safeguard our children and providing services that children and their parents need.
· Continuing to meet the different situations of schools in the borough as well as managing the conflicting demands between primary and secondary schools.
· The challenge is how to achieve all of this whilst continually trying to provide a better service in an environment where there is a departmental deficit as well as a council deficit.
· There is a lack of opportunity for further significant savings from children’s services due to rising demand and cost pressures.
· Relatively modest savings are planned in future years either from deleting posts that had been vacant for a while or substituting base budget expenditure with grant funding as the only realistic options for reducing expenditure in children’s services without compromising the Council’s ability to meet its legal duties to children, young people and families in the borough.
· At the O&SC Budget meeting in December 2016 £10m of savings from children’s services was proposed by conducting a zero-based budget exercise which ceased all discretionary expenditure on children’s services. These savings have now been delivered, as far as possible, so any significant further reductions are likely to impact on the department’s ability to meet its statutory requirements.
· Children’s Services regularly talk to schools and their Governors and it is becoming increasingly clear that several schools are trying to set a budget that won’t balance. The Local Authority does its very best to support schools with this, but the challenges faced are increasing.
· The LA prides itself on its good relationship with schools in the borough and everyone is pulling together to address the issues and challenges faced. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult, but schools continue to look to the Local Authority to assist them going forward.
· Crucially there is a growing demand on SEN (Special Educational Needs) in the borough. 700 children with SEN in the borough use transport of which 400 of these are transported out of borough.
· There is currently a £1.9m overspend in the transport budget. This overspend has slightly reduced by implementing various measures such as fewer transport routes and more children and young people on each bus. However, this overspend will not significantly reduce whilst SEN demand continues to grow in the borough.
· To address this issue, the strategy going forward is to cater for our pupils in borough as sending them out of borough has a significant impact on transport costs.
· Plans are in place to provide more SEN provision in borough either in existing or new schools. Some secondary schools currently have space, and this is being utilised by a few of the SEN schools setting up units within these schools.
· Within the next 18-24 months new SEN provision will be implemented in the borough. The Minchenden site will provide 70 additional SEN places and is due to open in September 2019. Edmonton County School has also won the tender to provide provision for approximately 70 SEN children and young people with social, emotional and mental health needs. The borough is actively building provision, but it does take time for this to come into play.
The following issues/ questions were raised:
· SEN units within secondary school will be run and managed by the Special Schools themselves and all staff will be SN staff, so the children and young people who attend these units will benefit from mainstream integration but with specialised SEN support.
· Enfield Council has a school place planning service, the predictions of which have been fairly accurate to date. The current projection is that in two years’ time there will be pressure on secondary school places. However, plans are in place to open a new school on the Chase Farm Hospital site and conversations are taking place regarding what provision is needed.
· Clarification was sought on the number of families arriving in the borough from overseas that haven’t been planned for and the impact of this on pupil place numbers. Members were advised that the LA are currently looking after 60 unaccompanied asylum seekers as well as approximately 50 young people over the age of 18 who have care leavers’ rights. There have been a large number of families looking for places for their children which the LA had not planned for.
· How can we improve the ability to predict these inflows and can we find school places for them?
· This is certainly a challenge. Due to the churn across London families who were living in other parts of London have now been moved into London. Not every Enfield resident chooses to be educated in the borough though with many preferring for their children to attend schools in Haringey/Hertfordshire therefore the numbers often balance out.
· A certain number of casual admissions are anticipated each year. This is a challenge but one that has been faced and dealt with for the past ten years.
· Over the past few years substantial savings have been made in children’s services. A good example where savings have been made whilst protecting services is the Youth Services. The use of youth centres has been maximised by hiring them out during the day and volunteers are also used to operate the centres.
· Another example highlighted as good practice was Children’s Centres. 60/70% of the budget has been taken out of this service and there is now only one hub in operation. However due to streamlining and focusing the services provided by the centre it is still reaching and targeting the people who most need it.
Councillor Levy thanked Councillor Georgiou and Tony Theodoulou for attending the meeting and for giving an overview of the Children’s Services portfolio area.