v  Committee asked for clarity around savings 6 and 7 and raised concern about young population being more vulnerable to Covid because of the gaps in their education and situation in the family and if the Council was dampening demand and whether it was setting itself up for a bigger crisis and further spending needed in the future.

v  The Council had outlined that they built capacity within the system including restorative practice model, investment in staffing through Social Work Academy, reducing duplication by restructuring early help services, the other area is external partnership including safeguarding children and working intensively with troubled families programme to deliver results.

v  The Council is looking to use some of the schools funding to part fund some of the capacity for educational psychologists but acknowledged that some of the issue is to make sure that the resources are in the right place.

v  Committee asked if the Council has enough capacity to deal with future demand and how much can be expected from the partners to serve children.

v  The Council outlined that for safeguarding it is the statutory partners such as how the children services is working with health and police. In terms of capacity depends on demand but are confident that they have the resources to support.

v  Council outlined that they are in the process of conducting a review on the proposals to make sure they are delivering against it including increased demand in new assessments and how that measures against the financial assumptions made.

v  Support for Learning Service (SLS) 46% cut is across whole service not just one area, the Council outlined that the provision can be supported by other services who are more suitably qualified but have just concluded the consultation for SLS and Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) so have not yet reached or finalised conclusion. 

v  The Committee felt that savings was small compared that what is being delivered by SLS and requested to understand the mapping for other services that will be stepping in.

v  The Committee questioned the level of certainty that there will be a provision akin to what was previously provided.

v  From the changes made previously on the Children's centres it has resulted in a in a much wider reach to parents and is an example of where LBTH are using schools funding to part fund increased capacity for educational psychologists. In addition, on the SEND improvement work LBTH are working with health partners to look at faster diagnosis of a special educational need or disability such as dyslexia or Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)that turns into increased capacity.

v  In terms of Children's Social Care capacity LBTH have endeavoured to utilise part of the Government's social care grant of which there's an Adults' and Children's element that that has not yet been allocated to a specific area of spend within Children's Social Care.  This will be maintained as a buffer as it is not possible to accurately predict what that amount will look like but it will provide LBTH with an element of making sure we can meet that need for SEND and the SLS.

v  Scrutiny should have access assumptions that upon which a budget for each department is agreed.  Therefore, going forward, it would be helpful to have a sense of what the capacity is within service areas to understand any risks associated with the savings being put forward.

v  Directorate plan to use Dedicated schools grant (DSG) early years funding to provide for a more focussed offer of educational psychology consultation through children centres. This will provide a level of certainty that there is going to be provision akin to what is currently was being provided up until the start of the pandemic.

v  The Committee asked if the long-term recovery plan can be shared with Scrutiny which went to Department of Education (DfE) because that provided the context for a lot of the savings.

v  The Committee wants to understand the savings framework for Support for Learning Service (SLS) and raised concerns about the impact for SEND children if the savings are agreed and the Committee requested clarification if the proposal was updated as the original went to the DfE pre Covid and whether or not that is the basis for the savings proposals.

v  Children

v  The Directorate are confident that they will be able to secure some of the early years block from the DSG to maintain this service although it would more of a consultation model that empowers; trains and supports the children's centre workers to deliver the work as part of LBTH in-house educational psychology service.