Minutes

Proposed venue: Council Chamber, The Council House, Freet Street, Oldbury, B69 3DB

Contact: Democratic Services 

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors E A Giles, Hinchliff, Hughesand Smith; K Kujawa-Sogbesan (Co-opted Member Secondary School Governor representative) C Ward-Lewis (Co-opted Member Church of England Diocese representative)

2.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

There were no declartions of interest made.

3.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 436 KB

Minutes:

Minutes of the meeting held on the 15 March were agreed as a correct record.

4.

Additional Items of Business

Minutes:

There were no additional items of business to consider.

5.

Scrutiny Review - SEND Transport Models pdf icon PDF 310 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Executive Director of Children’s Services delivered a presentation on the Council’s statutory duties in relation to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Transport, and how they are met in Sandwell.

 

The Local Authority had a duty and powers to make particular travel arrangements for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and to facilitate their attendance at an appropriate educational setting, as set out in the Education Act 1996, and amended by the Education and Inspections Act 2006. It was noted that the 2006 Act referred to travel rather than transport, and therefore there was a range of options available, depending on the pupil need.

 

Those pupils who were eligible to receive assistance with travel were those of statutory school age with SEND, whose needs or disabilities meant that they could not be expected to walk to school.  All applications for Travel Assistance were considered in line with the Travel Assistance Policy 2020/21.

 

The travel assistance currently provided to eligible children and young people consisted of:-

 

-        courses in independent travel training;

-        travel passes for the child or young person and an accompanying adult;

-        reimbursement of mileage costs to a parent/carer;

-        provision of a place in a vehicle which would transport the child or young person to school.

 

The Council was also required to produce a Local Offer which set out the support that families and children and young people with SEND could expect in Sandwell.

 

Since February 2018, the provision of passenger transport services had been arranged via a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) Framework process that was due to end on 31 July 2021. In total 122 different contracts had been delivered by 18 different operators. There were 659 pupils who currently accessed SEND transport, attending 82 Sandwell schools and 47 out of borough schools.

 

The overall cost of providing travel assistance (including parent mileage, travel passes and personal budgets) had increased by 45% from £3,528,000 in 2018/19 to a projected cost of £6,452,000 in 2021/22.  Over the same period the number of SEND pupils who required travel assistance had increased from 680 to 850 with the average cost per pupil increasing from £5,188pa to £7,591pa.  It was highlighted that this was not unique to Sandwell.

 

The Board received a brief presentation on the use of personal budgets. The use of personal budgets within Sandwell had begun in the summer of 2020 and was designed to help parents make their own travel arrangements. The amount of funding the parents received was based on the distance between their home and school. 140 families were currently receiving personal budgets.

 

The Board noted that there were currently 180 children attending 48 different settings out of borough. Children normally attended out of borough settings if their needs where such that they could only be met by that setting.

 

At its meeting on 16 June 2021 the Cabinet had deferred a decision to award transport contracts for 2021-2025, to be effective from 1 September 2021, pending a review (Minute  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.