Agenda item

To consider the report of the Cabinet Member for Education  (attached).

*10.55am – 11.40am

Submitted - the report of the Cabinet Member for Education, giving an outline of the Additional Learning Needs and Inclusion Service that came into force in September 2017, detailing the main successes of the service and the fields that required further development to ensure an effective and efficient service to the Gwynedd and Anglesey Education Authority partnership.

During the discussion, the following main points were highlighted:

·         The Other Net programme, which supported parents where there was uncertainty or lack of understanding of the implications of home education, was praised and it was noted that individuals who had been outside the education system for years had moved back into mainstream education with the input of this programme and Comic Relief.  Councillor Cemlyn Williams declared a personal interest, as he was a director of Cwmni Sylfaen which had links with this programme in the past.  He was not of the view that it was a prejudicial interest and did not leave the meeting.

·         Schools were central to the success of the new system and it was important that the teachers / assistants received the necessary training to move this forward.

·         The support of the Health Board was also central to the success of the service.

·         Concern was expressed that the Counselling Service currently had a waiting list of almost 100, but collaboration with CAMHS was welcomed.  It was noted that this work bisected the remits of several scrutiny committees and that preventive philosophy was also becoming more prevalent in schools.  It was noted that there was a need to look at the reasons for the increase in anxiety among young people.

·         The report did not refer to able and talented children, who were also children with additional learning needs.

·         the service was very much appreciated in the main stream.

·         the individual development plans were long-winded documents that generated an additional workload for schools.

The Area Education Officer was asked to give his impressions of how things had progressed so far and of any problems he anticipated in future.  He noted that:

·         the changes had been substantial and significant, not only to include the provision for schools and the way of working with schools, but also in terms of the work across two counties.

·         That an important element of the success of Phase 1 of the statutory review was that, as a whole, the process had responded to any changes as it progressed.  Nevertheless, some things had already changed, in response to the observations made by schools and in order to make the service even more efficient. 

·         Since it was a very broad field and that questions often arose, the user group was set up so that the improvement process could continue indefinitely.

·         Phase 2 of the review would mean more changes again, and that lessons learnt in Phase 1 would be incorporated in Phase 2 so that it could be considered as part of the brief for the next steps.

·         the plan to rationalise the team, etc., had addressed half the anticipated financial savings and the remainder had come from reducing the integration budget and that this had already been modelled at the schools in the budgets they had received.

The Cabinet Member noted the intention to report back to the committee on the progress of the plan on an annual basis, or more often, and suggested that the best time to do so would be at the end of October/November as this would allow for any backlog from pupil absences over the summer holidays to be addressed before the assessments took place.  The changes to the services would also be clearer by this time.

The committee accepted that the plan had so far been successful and looked forward to seeing the results of the next stages.