UPDATE NO 215 30 September 2016

East Midlands Regional Sector Led Improvement Programme

Pete Chilvers, Programme Manager from East Midlands SLI has written

Please find at this link newsletter 15 of the regional joint-work in the East Midlands to establish sector-led improvement in children’s services. It contains an update of regional peer challenge plus a summary of some current activities and forthcoming events.

In particular you will note two forthcoming seminars with information and circulation on these links

Friday 11^th Nov – A workforce seminar looking at apprenticeships and frameworks

Tuesday 22^nd Nov – CSE Regional Standards and Victim Support

The East Midlands group of CSE Leads meets to review standards and to share practice.  In particular they have helped to create a set of Regional CSE Standards that have been agreed across the East Midlands to underpin and benchmark effective practice.

ADCS Home-to-school transport survey

Dave Hill, ADCS President has written,

ADCS would like to discover how much local authorities are spending on home-to-school transport. We are keen to establish a top-line figure of total expenditure, how much of that expenditure is in respect of transporting SEND pupils and the main issues affecting cost and demand in your local authority. Ministers are specifically looking at this issue, and a picture from local authorities will assist in our ongoing dialogue with government.

We are aware this is a complex issue, however, in order to maximise returns we are requesting simple, top-line figures and do not want to be burdensome to you and your teams.

Please respond to president@adcs.org.uk by Friday 7 October.

Thank you.

As an example of the top-line figures, Rotherham Council has provided us with their figures from last year (2015/16): the total expenditure on home-to-school transport was £2.959m, of which £2.325m (78.6%) related to spend on pupils with SEND.

Below are three simple questions. Your assistance with this request is greatly appreciated.

Questions:

1. How much did your LA spend in total on home-to-school transport last year (April 2015 – March 2016)? 

2. Of that total expenditure, how much was in respect of transporting SEND pupils? 

3. Please share the key 2 -3 issues driving demand/cost to your local area?

• (e.g. increased number of children with SEND;
• geography – pupils live long distance from school;
• school places pressures;
• placements;
• place planning pressures such as schools opening in wrong areas or refusing to open in areas of need;
• different term times;
• academies ability to set own school day start/end times)

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Topical Peer Challenge Round 9

Dates have now been set for the visit to Kent (Adolescent Support Teams and Edge-of-Care Work) on 9&10 November, and invitations to nominate a team to accompany Kim Drake have gone out this week.

Other visits are as follows: Bracknell Forest (LSCB) 26&27 January 2017; Medway (CiN) November tbc; Portsmouth (CSE) 28&29 November 2016; Southampton (tbc); West Sussex (MASH) dates tba; Windsor and Maidenhead (Corporate Parenting) 14&15 November 2016.

The planning grid is begining to fill up with confirmed names and dates. I look forward to receiving further confirmations from colleagues involved.

I am also recruiting volunteers (thanks to Julie Davies, Hampshire) who would like to go on my “reserve list” of potential Peer Challenge visitors that I can call on to fill vacancies on the planned grid. If you would like to be considered for this list, please contact Richard Tyndall (details below).

Self Evaluation Framework 2016

The South East ADCS meeting approved a Self Evaluation Framework including a strong element of Peer Challenge.

The SEF process is open to all local authorities/children’s services trusts in the south east who choose to sign the Memorandum of Understanding. 

The training/orientation sessions are in November, please reserve either 2 or 11 November (at Easthampstead Park Conference Centre). More details about who should attend which day at the Self Evaluation Framework 2016 page. 

Brighton and Hove and Southampton have joined Portsmouth as volunteers to undertake the self-evaluation. West Berkshire have offered themselves as visitors, and Milton Keynes, West Sussex and Windsor and Maidenhead have offered themselves as observers this year. I am in discussion with Oxfordshire, East Sussex, Hampshire/IoW and Surrey. I look forward to receiving further responses very soon – see table below.

We have now closed this process with three Triads only proceeding. I am very close to finalising all the arrangements. Please get in touch if you think you have been missed out.

The template for the Self Evaluation Framework 2016 is available here. Thanks to Southampton, Surrey and West Berkshire for returning signed versions.

To be assigned: East Sussex, Oxfordshire, Surrey

The training/orientation sessions are in November, please reserve either 2 or 11 November (at Easthampstead Park Conference Centre). More details about who should attend which day at the Self Evaluation Framework 2016 page. 

For a further discussion about the programme please contact Richard Tyndall (details below) in the first instance.

Leadership Development

Last week saw the conclusion of two days of Step up to Leadership training delivered in Southampton. Feedback quotes included: 

“Training was excellent extremely practical with ideas to take forward with teams.”; “Very many helpful tools.”; “Useful to assist in my own time management and for my staff.”

We continue to offer our successful portfolio ofLeadership Development Courses all of which have been positively evaluated by delegates.

This year we have added a new course recently piloted in Hampshire and IoW. The senior team attended a one-day Coaching to Improve Performance workshop to ensure the Directorate were fully conversant with the training undertaken by their three cohorts of managers on two-day programme and to develop their own coaching skills to use in their own performance management roles.

We are also offering LAs the opportunity to train their own trainers for all our courses. Our aim is to increase the capacity and capability across the region  to ensure future sustainability within LAs.

A new departure for us has been running these training courses for adult services and for schools so please contact Di Smith, details below, if this is of interest to you. 

All courses are run in-house in the LA who provides the venue. Each course is accompanied by a range of training resources for the delegates including a comprehensive handbook. The current courses on offer are as follows and details of each course and the costs for each can be found by downloading the April 2016 Leadership Development Prospectus. 

Coaching to Improve Performance

Embedding a Coaching Culture

Leading Change in Times of Austerity

Step Up to Leadership   

We can also arrange one-to-one coaching, especially to support newly appointed 2nd and 3rd tier managers

If you require further details or wish to book a course please get in touch with Di Smith (contact details below)