Members of the public may
submit a written question to the Leader, Portfolio Holder, or Chairman of the
Shadow Council or committee. Questions
or statements must have been submitted to the Monitoring Officer by 10.00 am on
Monday 18th February 2019.
Minutes:
Ms
Siobhan Lennon-Patience, from the Dorset Parents Campaign Group for SEND
Children and a mother of a child with additional needs, addressed the Shadow
Council in relation to the funding of SEND in Dorset. She noted that Dorset County Council was struggling to
meet its legal obligations to SEND children and having to dip into reserves.
She also noted that the Dorset SEND strategy stated the Children’s Services
Directorate remained committed to a savings programme and whilst the government
had offered £250 million to councils over the next two years this was a drop in
the ocean. She considered that it was
not enough for local authorities to focus solely on their statutory duties and
that this had resulted in assessment delays, poorly planned Education, Health
and Care Plans (EHCPs), inappropriate use of the EHCP banding system, school
exclusions and parents home educating their children. She sought urgent assurance that SEND
children would not continue to bear the brunt of swingeing cuts, to the
detriment of their health and education, and requested that the Council
confront Government on this issue to make a case for significant financial
boost for the benefit of SEND children.
The
Shadow Executive Lead Member for Education and Skills explained that the decision for expansion of SEND provision in D –
particularly the 0 -25 agenda, would be the responsibility of the members of
the new Dorset Council. He accepted that
demand for EHCPs had dramatically increased over the past few years and
continued to rise. He assured Ms
Lennon-Patience that Dorset County Council was working with the Schools Forum
to tackle pressure in both mainstream and specialist provision. He explained that Dorset County Council
currently held reserves of £12.5M against the Higher Needs Block deficit; these
would be transferred to Dorset Council and it would be for that authority to
decide how to address these pressures going forward. He acknowledged the importance of the new
Council working with schools and other significant partnerships to improve the
way that children and young people with additional needs were supported.
Ms
Jewels Evans addressed the Shadow Council explaining that her child Zara, who
was 5, had extensive additional needs including Global Learning Delay and had
been waiting for a diagnosis of autism since 2016. She explained that all 1:1 classroom support
had been withdrawn in 2017. Of the 30
students in Zara's class at a mainstream school, 10 had Special Educational
Needs, but Zara was the only child with an EHCP. The classroom had a teacher
and a part-time teaching assistant. Due
to the cuts in SEND funding, Zara was now not receiving the intensive teaching,
intervention and occupation therapy teaching support she required to make
progress. Zara had a legal right to an
education at her point of need which could help her to live independently and
work in the future. She asked that
Members reflect on the fact that society would judge Dorset on how it treated
those who could not advocate for themselves.
The
Shadow Executive Lead Member for Education and Skills reassured Ms Evans that
he would raise the issues that she had raised with officers and arrange to meet
with her separately. He explained that
there had been a considerable growth in the number of ECHPs across Dorset and
considerable resources put into assessing these within a twenty week
period. A Quality Assurance Manager was
in place as it was recognised that the detail of any plan should not be
compromised by focus on delivery of the target.
94% of ECHPs were now delivered within the twenty week period.
The
following questions were put by Mr John Calvert:-
(a) Since
the Shadow Dorset Council is currently retaining responsibility for the public
toilets in its area, is there provision in the budget for drastic revision of
the public toilets in Dorchester, Weymouth and all its towns?
(b) Is
there provision in the budget to provide effective tourist information centres
that are located where people arrive in all the towns in the area and are
available when people arrive?
(c) Does
the budget include provision for consultants to provide the basis of the Dorset
Council Local Plan for April 2023 rather than use the expertise of the new
authority's staff or the vision of the shortly to be elected councillors?
(d) Once
the balanced budget is approved will the shadow authority move on
to deal with current
pressing issues around social care, mental health, affordable housing, traffic
management and bus subsidies?
The Shadow Executive
Lead Member for Finance provided the following responses:-
(a)
The toilets in Weymouth and Portland will not be the responsibility of
Dorset Council as they are transferring to either Weymouth Town Council or
Portland Town Council. North Dorset DC does not provide public toilets as where
they exist they are provided by the Town Councils. Elsewhere provision for
toilets as part of the 2019/20 budgetary proposals are the same as in the
current year.
(b)
The budgets for Tourist Information Centre
provision across the area will remain the same for the 2019/20 financial year.
Going forwards, the new council will review this provision to ensure that
information for visitors is being provided in the most cost effective way.
(c) The
Shadow Executive at its meeting in February considered a report on resources
for preparing the new Dorset Council Local Plan by April 2023. Members
recognised the importance of ensuring appropriate staffing levels, and referred
to the need for a report to the Dorset Council Cabinet in future to consider
the costs and resources in more detail. As such the funding already allocated
in the individual district budgets to support local plan work has been carried
forward into the Dorset Council budget.
(d) One
of the key purposes of the council reorganisation was to allow us to spend more
money on front line services, which is exactly what we have done in this
budget. We have addressed five priority
areas for spend, they are:
·
An additional £5.8m for the care and
education of children.
·
An additional £900k to increase the number of
foster carers.
·
An additional £1.372m for rubbish collection,
recycling and street cleaning services delivered by Dorset Waste Partnership.
·
An additional £1.5m for social care services
for vulnerable disabled and elderly adults.
·
An additional £150k towards tackling
homelessness.
There is never enough
money to do everything but this is a solid list of priorities and the new
administration will have more money to invest more in these areas or others in
the future.
We can still move more
money to the front line. Bigger, better
contracts can be negotiated with fewer suppliers and rationalising the use of
property are just a couple of examples where we can make available more money
in future which will allow us to address more of Dorset’s priorities.