Transcript

webcast live to the internet, and may be recorded by any member of the public or press present. If anyone wishes to avoid being filmed, please let the clock know immediately. For anyone speaking at the meeting, support to speak clearly into the microphone, so viewers of the webcast and others in the room can hear you. If you have a mobile phone or other device, please turn it onto silent, move it away from the microphone as it may affect the audio system and distract speakers. Around the room are exit signs. Should the fire alarm sound during the meeting, please make your way to the nearest and safest exit. Would members please note that item 15 will be considered immediately following item 9. So James, two apologies and substitutes, this could be a bit tricky because we have some online members as well. Okay, thank you, Chair. So we have apologies from Ms McArthur, Mr Beanie and Mrs Gain, for whom Ms Pink's is substitute, and we also have Mr Ross and Mr Manian attending online at the moment. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Alistair. Thanks, Chair. Lauren is coming. She's just a meeting just over on. She will be in here soon. Okay. Thanks. Rory. Chairman, Sue Chandler, my Cabinet colleague, has asked me to present her apologies for the start of the meeting. She will be joining as soon as possible. She's tied up with another committee meeting. Okay. Right. Three declarations of interest by members on any of the items on the agenda. All clear. Okay. Thank you very much, members. Item four, minutes of the meeting held on 6th of March. Alistair. Yeah. Yet again. So the item 14, so extended early years in title and wraparound child care review and capital criteria, I am abstained because I will be directly affected because I've got a two-year-old and that's not in this installation. Okay. James got that. Thank you. Members. Can we all agree? Agreed. Great. Thanks very much. All right. Item five, verbal update by Cabinet member. Rory. Thank you, Chairman. Update on a number of items since the last Cabinet committee meeting, first of all, primary school off a day, Friday the 16th of April was primary school off a day with children being off of placements for this September. Out of over 16,500 Kent applicants, nearly 99% received one of their three named schools with over 91% offered their first preference, a slight increase over last year. Parents and Carres were given until Tuesday the 30th of April to accept or refuse the offer given and asked to join a waiting list for an alternative school in the unlikely event that they were unhappy with their allocation. The deadline for appeals closed on 14th of May. The admissions team is currently in the process of reallocating places from schools waiting lists and will be sending out a second round of offers next Thursday, 23rd of May. My thanks go to all the officers within the KCC admissions team who have ensured that over 16,500 pupils received the school place offered by the deadline and I recognise that is no mean feat. The Department for Education recently published its latest statistics on school attendance while the levels of attendance are still below pre-COVID levels, there are improvements in Kent, primary and secondary combined overall absence decreased year on year by 1.1% in autumn 2023, persistent absence fell by 5.1%, for special schools overall absence fell by 5.4% and persistent absence fell by 3.8% and I would like to pay tribute to the ongoing work being done by KCC's attendance team in tackling this issue and I hope we will continue to see further improvements in the levels of engagement with education. But I don't want my comments of support for this work to create a false narrative that school attendance is primarily the responsibility of this council, it's not. Our role is to have a strategic approach to improving attendance for our area. Academy trustees, governing bodies, schools and academies themselves all have a role and of course it is parents who are legally responsible for making sure their child gets a suitable full-time education usually from the age of 5 to 16. I want to update you on the success of our SCND information road shows, four have taken place to date, all of which have been fully booked, 180 families have attended so far and going to the popularity of the road shows, the SCND service is exploring digitising the content to enable a wider audience to benefit from it. There are also further road shows planned for the future, details of which will be made available to subscribers of the Kent SCND newsletter. At the beginning of April 2023, we launched the Send Inquiry Hub as one of the measures to help improve communication with our SCND service. By the end of March 24 after one year of operations, the Send Inquiry Hub supported 11,554 families with their queries with 99.8% resolved by the hub within five working days. Following analysis, the service are now working on enhancing database accuracy to increase further the capability of the hub. And finally Chairman, since the last CYP cabinet committee, there have been significant developments in respect of secondary school proposals on the Isle of Sheppy. After a period of extensive and detailed dialogue involving the DFE, the trusts and Kent County Council, I was pleased to learn late on Friday the 22nd of March that the DFE issued to OASIS Community Learning the formal closure letter for OASIS Academy Isle of Sheppy. This allowed for Lee Academy's Trust and EKC's Schools Trust to proceed with the next stages of establishing two new academies on the Isle for this September, an outcome for which colleagues will know I have worked ever since my appointment as the cabinet member 18 months ago. Parents of families who will be affected by this change were contacted on the 25th of March to begin a process of identifying a place at one of the new academies, and this is in line with previous communications to parents and it's part of the support for families from the trusts and KCC during the transition period. I'm sure all colleagues will wish to join me in welcoming the news of this groundbreaking next step for education on the Isle of Sheppy. Thank you Chairman. Any questions to the cabinet member after? Thank you very much. Can I say very, very good update? I just had one item which I just needed more clarification on, and again I'm going to pick on Dartford area. Number of children missing education, and this is according to the LCP early dashboard. Christmas last year effectively was 100 missing, sorry, Christmas before 2022, and 2023 is showing 186. I know that hasn't been updated, but that's an 86% increase, and you're saying that the numbers are going down, sir, could I just have some clarification? I don't know whether, obviously, you may have more data than what this is because this was obviously updated back in December. Rory? Yeah, can I thank my colleague for raising the matter in that local area. I don't have the answer to that particular query here and now. What I've just quoted are the figures over across the whole of Kent, but what I will do, Chairman, is take away Mr Sandhu's particular comment on the Dartford area, and we'll get a response to him. I may, I thank him for raising it. Okay, thanks very much. I think what I'll do is I'll hold over Sue Chandler's report, and then we'll come in when she arrives between items. So the long awaited, an overview of post-16 education, good to see Mike Rainer here, he's been with us for a number of years leading on this, and there's some very important changes. I thought this committee should be aware of, and also Avatar being the Chairman of another Cabinet Committee, Economic Development, then there should be links between the two Cabinet committees, and this is our part today, and then Avatar can pick up what links should he bring up at his Cabinet Committee. This is really important, so Mike, over to you, what's the story? Okay, thanks for having me, and those of you that were here early in the week for the Economic Development Committee, you've heard quite a lot of what I've got to say today. So I apologise for that in advance, and I apologise for not being here last time. You wouldn't have been able to understand me, I was, I had the 100 day cough. So anyway, so what are we going to do today, is, is this going to work? No, okay, James, the lights are on, I pressed the button. Just to say, Sarah Hammond, our Director of Education, is online today. She has a meet with EKC down in Thanet, and there's been some clearly important links on Sheppy that she felt she had to attend, but would we accept the fact she's online? Absolutely, and we're geared up to do it, so not a problem. Okay, let down, we're going to do it manually. Before I actually get into the detail of what post-16 education looks like at the moment, I'm going to talk about pathways for all. Pathways for all was our review in '16 to '19 education. It was there to hold a mirror up to the sector, to identify gaps, identify strengths and weaknesses, and to bring together the sector, to try and come up with a collaborative approach to moving forward in post-16. So these were the eight recommendations, they are now etched on my brain. So improving outcomes through benchmarking, that's looking at data post-16. We've not always done a lot with the data post-16, but we've felt we need to improve that. Implementing life skills curriculum and improved CEIAG, that's career's education. Because whatever we felt we needed to do, we needed to support the young people in their decision making and moving forward, because the options post-16 are ever-increasing. So that was felt to be essential. Implement local collaborative planning for 16+ provision. Some of you might have been around in the early 2000s when we had the diploma, and we had collaborative planning groups for the areas. We haven't had that really since then. So we're looking at re-instituting those collaborative planning areas, so we can, since, take joint responsibility for moving post-16 forward. No one organization's got either the resources or the authority to make it all happen, so we're looking at building collaboration to actually start them things moving. We need to improve provisioning below level two, that's below GCSEs. So that's for our young people that didn't get five fours at GCSE. There are some quite considerable gaps in there. Support learners and mental health, that's a bit ubiquitous now. That's came through that loud and clear, particularly post-COVID. Improving access to provision, that's largely around travel, but that's becoming increasingly an issue. We're going to be looking at specific issues, not county-wide issues around that one. Learning from lockdown, the worst and positives that came out of it pedagogically. The worst and new methods of teaching young people, which we don't want to lose. And improving strategic leadership at 16+, since 2010. Most of the bodies that had that strategic responsibility for post-16 haven't been there. So we're looking to re-establish some kind of strategic leadership at post-16. And we now have a strategic board, and we've just appointed a new chair. And they are getting hold of the issues now, and they're coming up with new priorities to drive things forward. Next slide, please. This is just to let you know, these are the areas that we're going to be working in. Collaboratively, and the heads. We've got head teachers, senior managers from colleges. We've got a range of people taking responsibility for this. Next slide, please. So our statutory duties around post-16, and I take this, my Bible for this, is there's a document called Participation of Young People in Education, Employment and Training, post-16. It's available online, it's a whopping great book. But the bottom line is, we are responsible for sufficient provision, and I've highlighted a bit in red there, to fulfil this. Local authorities need to have a strategic overview of the provision available in their area, and identify and resolve the gaps in provision. So it's leadership, and resolving those gaps. It's not using a command and control methodology, it's providing strong leadership and an understanding of the system. And also, to enable young people to participate, the words that can come up again and again are encourage, enable and assist. They're the words that go through the guidance that we have to work with, and that is as clear as it gets in that area. Encourage, enable and assist. But what we do around that, a lot of it, is providing support for young people who become neat, not in education, employment or training, identifying those who might have difficulty, and make sure the pathways are there, so young people can participate, and if they drop out, we help them bring them back in again. Next slide. OK, I was asked just to contextualise this. So this is, in a sense, our education in total, going from early years, Key Stage 1, for that year, 1, 2, ages 5 to 7, Key Stage 2, the end of Primary School, Key Stage 3, pre-GCSC, in secondary school, Key Stage 4, the years they do, they're just GCSE, 10 and 11. And then we're talking about post-GCSC. Next slide. Also, I just thought I would put this in, because this sometimes causes a little bit of confusion. Qualifications come in levels. They're not just about learning a set of skills, but we pitched them. So entry is pre-GCSC for those generally working with special needs or very low levels of attainment in mainstream skills. Level 1 is a low level GCSE, so level 1 to 3. So a pass is considered to be a 4. So it's those young people that get that level 1 to 3. Level 2 is an equivalent of a level 4 or higher GCSE, such as BTECS, apprenticeships, not a whole range of qualifications at that level stage. And then level 3 is the A-level equivalents. So in this county, we've got A-levels, applied generals, which is the general term for BTECS. T-levels, international baccalaureate, we're on the biggest concentrations of that in Europe and apprenticeships. So apprenticeships can happen at a whole range of levels from 2 up to 7 there. So those are the levels of qualifications, just to -- so I'm not talking rubbish later. Next slide, please. So, again, this is what the Ken cohort looks like. The Ken cohort is on the left, and I think I can't see this. England is on the right, and statistical neighbours are in the middle. Our cohorts, post-16, look somewhat different. So if you'll see the blue is by far the largest in Kent, that's six forms. And the red is colleges. Now, if you look in the other two, there's a green chunk that we don't have. That's six form colleges. We don't have six form colleges in the county, but even if you were to divide those students out across schools and colleges, we still end up with a much higher percentage than the rest of the county going to six form than doing other forms of education. So our system is a little bit different. Next slide. That's just a detail. For those of you who are interested, that's a snapshot of -- on the beginning of January each year of where our students have ended up. So you can look at that one afterwards for those who either want to delve into the detail. Right, now this is something else I wanted to talk about, the cohort. So the left-hand column is the average grade attained by our students, and then moving across to the right is where they end up post-16. So what you'll see is on the whole, those middle to lower grades, there's a concentration of young people going to college. And then by the time you get to the very top grade, average grades of around about nine, we've got 96, 97 percent staying in six forms. So you can see that transition as they go towards the higher grades. So our six forms retain the highest achieving young people on average. And if you look, there's a couple other things that are worth picking out there. If you've got an average grade of level one, you're much more likely to be unemployed or in some form of informal training, or even employment, rather than education. So you can see there's quite a stark difference of where young people end up according to the levels of attainment they achieve post-16. Next slide. OK, one of the big issues, again, I'm doing this before I get on to the different strands of education, because this is going to affect everybody, is qualification reform. There's a lot of that going on for post-16 at the moment. So I talked about those applied general qualifications, BTEX, and the like. The government is phasing those out, they're being defunded starting this year, and they're supposed to be gone within two or three years. There's an issue around that. Those courses are generally done by those who pass their GCSEs, but not with very high grades. So it's by young people who get fours and fives, and maybe some sixes. A lot of those young people will be doing those courses. That's a generalisation, but it's a key component and the offer. And that's going to be going. Tea levels are the new flagship vocational qualifications. They've been in a couple of years again now. The colleges have invested very heavily in them, particularly East Kent. They are three A-level equivalent qualifications. A young person will go to college, and that'll be all they'll do. And they're very high, they're supposed to be as academically challenging as an A-level with a skills component, and they're great qualifications. At the moment, they're still a minority of what the young people are studying, but that is growing year on year. Additional academic qualifications. Now, these are what's coming in to replace the applied generals. We still haven't seen a lot of them about them yet. We're still waiting to see what they look like. So these are only for where there is no A-level or tea-level equivalent, but the students will only be able to take one of these as part of a programme. So they will still expect us to do two A-levels and alongside an additional academic qualification. Again, this might be tricky for some of our young people, because a lot of A-levels have higher entry requirements than the grade four. So you might have got your five GCSEs, but if you want to study maths, you're going to need a seven, a minimum, to study maths. So we don't know what that's going to look like yet. So that's going to be, that's going to force some of the six ones to rethink the way they offer them, their qualifications and their offer. The Advanced British Standard, which has been announced potentially five subjects in a basket with a sort of big skills component. We still don't know a lot about it, and even in the documentation that has come out, it says that's 10 years away. So I think we've parked that for the moment, looked at the future for it, but it's not going to help us in the here and now. Level two and below qualifications, these are being simplified, reduced in numbers and focused on employment and progression. But the lower you go, some of them are disappearing in certain subjects. So I know that some providers are struggling to find a level one to offer in agriculture and things like this, so there are certain subjects which seem to be disappearing in this reorganisation. It's too early to say what the final outcome will be that, but the aim is to simplify, make it all focused on progression, so we don't have these qualifications in abstract. Compulsory maths in English, this is going to be tricky. The colleges are somewhat concerned about this. Training fides are quite concerned about this. Before I'd been able to come in, maybe do some functional skills, which are different qualifications from the GCSEs, but now if they've not got a GCSE, they've got to keep going on GCSEs. That's quite a barrier for some young people who've come, you know, had issues with maths in English particularly. They've now got to do it, but they want to or not. And there's also going to be an issue we think around tutor availability. We're going to need a lot more maths in English tutors. And they say some subjects just seem to be disappearing. Gaming is on there, I know, for some people think, Why do you need to do a qualification in gaming? It's one of the fastest growing industries in the country, and we've got, you know, we've actually got a major gaming company in Medway, Dufftail Games. But other things, legal sector qualification is disappearing. North Kent has specialised in that for many years. Cabin crew, several of our colleges have done that. I know mid-Kent was one of the places, if you were two or one of the airlines, they would ring mid-Kent each year and say, Can we have your cabin crew, of course, please? But there was always work for that. So we've seen quite a lot of them qualifications disappearing at the moment. So, it's all changed. OK. Moving on, I'm now going to look at the different pathways available post-16. So sixth form, this is approximately 60% of the cohort. As I've said, that's higher for the country. In our selective schools, that's almost exclusively A-levels. In the non-selective schools, there's a mixture of IBCP, which is the International Baccalaureate Careers Program. Again, we have some of the highest. We have the highest number of schools doing that in Europe, I think. A-levels, yeah, there's still a good A-levels representation there. And the applied generals. A lot of that is what's being affected by qualification form. So they're going to have to look at how six forms are organised and run, moving forward. It's almost exclusively level three. So that's one of the reasons we see that the lower-level students moving to college because they're just, in most schools, that isn't the provision for them on post-16. Mixed career support across the county is definitely improving. Using the Gatsby benchmarks, we're improving year on year, quite strongly at the moment. But it's still a way to go. And students are going to need a lot of support to navigate the plethora of options available to them. They are mainly judged on their outcomes. They're two of them, their qualification outcomes. Moving on to the next slide, colleges. Now, in Kent, it's mainly vocational. That's not necessarily true of the whole country, but in Kent, our colleges have made them the decision to go vocational. Saying that, two of the campuses do now offer A-levels. And Canterbury College's A-level offer is growing very rapidly. I think they had 200 last year. I think they could have as many as 450 this year from conversations I've had with them. It's very varied across the county. The only place you can study plant plastering is down in Folkston. So you've got that kind of dynamic going on, there's different specialism. In Midstone, the college is now looking at green construction. North Kent is looking at agriculture. East Kent, no. They're specialising. Sorry, off the top of my head, that's disappeared. They are the main deliverers of T-levels. Most schools will say they think they're going to struggle to deliver T-levels. So again, moving forward, if you're saying the options are A-levels and T-levels, that means A-levels are largely going to happen in schools and T-levels are largely going to happen in college. So that academic vocational divide may continue depending on how involved in A-levels to colleges get. But they are being forced to look at their qualifications, because they deliver a lot of the qualifications that are being defunded. They are judged on outcomes, but less emphasis on schools. They also judge on how they meet local need, and they're judged more rigorously on their destinations as well. So it's a slightly different accountability measure. Next slide, apprenticeships. Now, I think in the initial slide, I think we're currently about 6% of the cohort doing apprenticeships. So there's a lot of talk about apprenticeships, but the cohort's up to about 18,000 at the moment. And so this year, you can see intermediate, that level two, that's where a young person will start. That number has gone down from 950 in 1920 down to 750 this year. Now, the others have moved up slightly, so the advanced and higher apprenticeships, those numbers have increased, and that increases more pronounced as you go up the age ranges. Now, that is beyond largely because government policies to shift the qualifications available to apprentices upwards. So there are more at level three and above and less at level two. Now, in that sense, it's a good thing. It means that the apprenticeships are more highly valued, but what it is doing is for our needs, now more vulnerable learners, it's taken away a pathway for them. So the entry criteria to get on in apprenticeship have been raised. One of our biggest ones, I think, if you move on to the next slide, it's not this one, sorry, I'm getting confused between today and Tuesday. In Tuesday, I showed that the biggest number of apprenticeships is in business nabbing. It always has been, but the business nabbing level two has disappeared. It used to be that if we had a vulnerable young person, a business nabbing level two was a good place to start. It got them into a company, feet under the table, a chance to experience the world of work and then develop them. And that was a very common progression route for some more vulnerable learners, particularly our needs. That progression route is becoming more challenging. So apprenticeships, good in certain standards, you know, raising. But again, we're also seeing issues around retention and completion. Those levels are low as well. So there's quite an issue, I think, I can't remember the exact figure. But it's, I think, we're talking with the Kenton Mobile ETF. We're going to, there's going to be a group together to look at how we can improve retention and success rates for apprenticeships, looking at what's good and what's not good across the county, because that's a bit of a struggle at the moment. At the next slide, so this is compared to national. Compared to the rest of the country, we're doing well with under the 19th. We're actually up, we're up 5%, we're there up 0.003. We are down on the next range, the 1924s, but not as much as nationally. And we're not quite doing as well as, as national, 25 plus. But my interest is that under 19, and we're doing well in terms of numbers that's certainly improving. But remember, that's from a low baseline. That's still only about 6%. I think looking at three or four years ago, that was about 3.6%. So it's going up, but that's a small number of young people. Next slide. So the issues, we've got lots of opportunities for young people. Not necessarily industries that the young person wants to work in. So we can generally feel a vacancy very quickly in a software company, a leisure centre or something like that. Not so much in a local office or a state agent, that kind of thing. There's a bit of a mismatch between what the young people want and what's available. The way young people are recruiting to apprenticeships is not always clear. There's not a central database anymore, or there is, but it's not compulsory. And young people don't really understand the recruitment process. They're used to progressing every September to their next destination. Apprenticeships don't necessarily work like that. So that's been an issue as well. Small employers have struggled to provide the right type of support to an apprentice. And we've been told that current apprenticeships rules do confuse employers somewhat. The drive around level three, as I say, is positive in its improving standards, but it is disevanting those with low levels of qualifications. So there's lots of issues, pros and cons around the apprenticeships at the moment. Now, training providers, again, others can't see it so clearly on the screen. These are for young people who don't necessarily want to stay in school or college. These are often young people who've been neat and co-accumming back into education, or these are very specialist niche providers. We've seen a dramatic drop in this number over the last few years. And this has caused quite a lot of discussion, I think. Back in, I'm trying to think, 1819, we had about 1450 places, and that's dropped down to about 1,100 at the moment. And the number of training providers dropped from 42 down to 24 that offer this kind of training. This is largely due to changes in funding. Much of this was funded by the European Social Fund. And when that went, that was not necessarily replaced. The money was devolved to the districts as part of the UK SPF. Not all the districts have assigned money to skills and this kind of work. Also, a lot of providers existed on subcontractors from larger providers. The government has been discouraging that now for some time, due to the fact that there were various shenanigans around subcontracting. So there's been a bit of a perfect storm for this group of providers. Their funding has dried up. The level of need of the young people has gone up, but their funding hasn't gone up. They're finding it harder to find premises. So this has been a beleaguered group of firm providers for some time, but they are crucial. Without it, our needs would go through the ceiling. So this is a crucial piece. But if you go next, actually, I've already said that, next slide. Yeah, keep going. Right, this is some good news. We have been working with the DFE for about three and a half years. The only way you can get new provision into a county is by filling in a case called a gaps case saying, we've got a problem, DFE, you need to give us more places. It has taken longer than expected, longer than it should have done, but they have finally agreed, and they've allocated us 450 additional places for next year, which should hopefully take us back up to the levels back in 1819. The problem with this is it's going to take some time to implement. It's not going to go directly subject to contractors. It's got to go to a main contractor and then be given out from there and through subcontracts. That's going to take some time to set up. So it's not an immediate fix, but we can now look in the medium and long term to seeing levels of training returning to what we wanted them to be. So general issues, funding for training providers has been... They can't access all the enhancements that schools and colleges get. So they get the most challenging students, they don't get premises, they don't get capital funding, and we're asking them to do, you know, to work with these students. The shrinking at the lower level offer and raising of entry criteria is causing them some difficulties. Sometimes they're finding difficult to find qualifications, and the ones they do offer, you know, young people are struggling to access because the entry requirements are going up a little bit. There is a perceived hierarchical nature of provision in the county, starting from selective schools and going down to training providers. This has come out from the pathways for all researchers. This is one of some of the feedback we have from just about every group, which does mean that, you know, certain provision are more valued than others, which makes certain people... It affects people's decision making, doesn't it? So it's not always easy for a young person to make a good decision in that scenario. The system doesn't necessarily work well for those that don't go straight through the system. If you pass at every level and keep going from key stage one to key stage two, pass your GCSEs into it, it works nicely. If you have an issue, whether it's health, personal issue, and then you've got to step back and step back in again, it can be tricky, particularly post-16, because post-16... While we had the raising participation aids a few years ago, it was never made legal. So young people don't have to. Also, there aren't the same duties on providers to accept young people post-16. So if we've got a young person with a challenge, they will find it harder to find a place. They represent a higher risk for many providers. So again, we've got issues around that. And then transition. If a young person is expecting maybe to stay on in their own sixth form, things don't go so well. And suddenly they've got to make a decision about what to do next in a matter of weeks flat. That's not the best way of making a decision in order to transition. There's not a lot of support that moves further back than that to prepare young people if they want to explore a wider range of options. That's an issue we need to do. And mental health has become an endemic issue. I think of our needs. I think I was talking to our head of the needs support set. I think he's saying over 40% of the needs population has got some form of mental health problem at the moment. It may be higher than that. It was very high. So those are some of the general issues we're facing. Adult learning, I'm not going to go through this. I've dipped into this because if we get someone who's really dropped out for a couple of years and needs to reengage, they then move into adult learning rather than the 16 to 19 bit. And some of them, yeah, they're on the cusp. So if you've got someone who's 18 and a bit and they become neat, they're going to end up in this system. Now, this is largely funded by loans, by specific, lots of specific programs will come out, you know, so sector-based work academies, all those different little things that come and go. And if a person hasn't got their first full level two, that's their five GCSEs, grade four and above, or a full level three, there are certain courses they can do for three. But it's not a big universal list. It's a much more limited list. It's more vocationally focused. And it's not always a rational choice of qualifications. So you may get a level two in a qualification, but not the level three and vice versa. So there are some issues of moving into adult learning for our young people. So if you're an adult as well, it's not easy at the moment. Yeah, these are there for your, for the detail. So this has come from Jude Farrell, who's head of CLS, I'll get into him. So again, they are struggling with the reduced range of level two and level three of courses available. They're struggling to find things to offer to them. The adult education grant has not increased in 25 years. There we go, that's according to the head of service. Limited rate increases for qualifications. Some of the specific qualifications are getting more expensive to deliver, no extra cash. And the advanced learner loan, which is, yeah, where a person wants to sort of take, you know, a professional qualification or similar, the allocation isn't matching demand. So there's lots of issues there as well. And they're suffering from European social fund ceased as well, because that used to cover a lot of the engagement provision that was run. Next. And that's, that's it. I've given you an awful lot of information. This is my life. That's a download of my world. I hope that is useful. Thanks, Mike. Before we take questions, I just wanted to warn Sue that we're going to do cabinet members update after we've had questions from your side. Okay. Right, any questions, Mike? Paul. Thank you, Chair. And thanks for the presentation. It's very, very interesting. In pathways for all, you mentioned about the difficulties of, of needs and low attainers progressing. So, would it be possible perhaps to categorize them as vulnerable? Yes. Yeah, it's a bit more to ask as well. Because, you know, they'll suffer from social isolation. And as you said, there'll be mental health repercussions as well. So what mechanism is there for chasing up these young people? Right. And secondly, you'd also talk about FE colleges and the spread of, of courses. And you said about plastering, only being available in folks and was it or something like that. So in, in Tumbridge, we have one of the North Kent College campus. And they now only seem to offer nothing less, nothing lower than T level. So if any of our young people want to go and do plastering, you know, they've got to get the train or they're down to Folkestone. So what could we do about perhaps spreading the, you know, the, the provision more equitably across the county? Right. Two questions. So if I go back to the first question, which is the needs, we actually have quite an infrastructure around that. And so we have a tracking team. We have four people who spend their lives on the phone trying to track down these young people. And at certain times of the year, we'll even go out and bang on doors. So we've got the needs support service. Last year, I personally banged on 20 doors in Canterbury trying to track down young people. So we're, we're quite diligent in doing that. The measure of that is our needs, despite all that we've got going against us this year. Until two months ago, we'd actually held them down below last year's level. And now they've crept up a bit, but they're only 0.2% higher than last year, which is astonishing. I would not have believed that possible at the beginning of the year. Once we found them, we've then got a person per district whose job it is to engage with those young people and actually then provide them support back into education or employment. So there are two sort of groups of young people there. In terms of the next bit, how do we get the provision right? That's come comes back to these local groups. We can't tell people what to do. That's not the way it works. So what we've done, we've brought together these groups. We're providing the data. We're providing them the information about gaps, strengths and weaknesses. And they're doing that piece of assessment themselves. The pope is, they will start to plan to meet those gaps themselves. Because at the moment, there's not even an awareness in some cases of what the gaps are. So that's what that process is there to do. It's not going to be a quick process. But I think over the next couple of years, we will start to see some improvements in that. With the deep specialisms, like the plastering and things like that, that's never going to be an easy one. I mean, like, even if it's going to be a farrier, you've got to go over to Hampshire and things like that. Those very niche things we're always going to struggle with. But most things, we're looking at local planning groups actually starting to plan their own rather than just looking at individual institutions. What does a district need? So that's what we're looking at doing. Okay. Thanks, Lauren. Thank you, Chair. And apologies for being slightly late. I'm missing the start of your presentation. But actually, what I want to ask is the bit I heard. So, interesting that you have to track down young people. I imagine if we had a youth service, but that's byed by. In terms of the government's new frameworks for adult education, can you give me assurance that we are running those courses and those new courses are in line with other courses across the country, and that they are all being done appropriately? I'm afraid I can't speak to that. That would be huge, apparently you'd need to talk about that. And I don't have enough to do with that to answer you confidently. So, we can come back in writing with that one. Okay. Have we dried up on this one? Yeah. Paul. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for a very, very comprehensive overview of where we are at the moment and what we were doing in the past. My professional background was 25 years teaching in HE and FE. So, I know a little bit about this. And my research for my qualifications at Masters and BA on us was focused upon the alternative provision. That are European partners, and I'll go in about 30 years now. Our European partners were providing, compared with what we provide in this country, and that was really stemming from the introduction of vocational water over here in VQs, et cetera. And it was the conclusion of my thesis, which I handed in, was the fact that we had decades, and probably still do, of where people's perceptions of intelligence is, you know, you are deemed intelligent if you've got academic qualifications, you know, which irks me a lot, because if there's somebody, you know, a tree surging up a tree, with a chainsaw hanging on by one hand, and carefully cutting off branches without cutting off its leg, then that to me is extremely intelligent. So, they're obviously very broad ways of expressing intelligence. And it's good to see the increase in the take-up of the International Baccalaureate, as one of the things that I championed way back then, whereby you can have a technical route, you can have an academic route, and you will get that parity of esteem, which I think is important, if we're going to get people on to, I think, being recognized for their skills and talents and their intelligence. And also, the German Meister Award is a good one to look at as well, whereby that is very similar, that when somebody graduates to a Meister Award, that is universally recognized in Germany as being a very, very fine achievement indeed. So, to nail this one down, it's good to see progress here, but 30 years on, are we any nearer to closing this academic vocational divide? I'll be in a, I must give personal opinion there, but I don't know whether stats would bear that out. But it seems a long time, three decades from when I wrote the thesis, and I would like to know whether we're in a position now, we're finally, finally, that people who aren't academic will get recognized for their intelligence. Thank you. Pretty good question there, Paul. I don't know if I can give that a proper answer. What I can say is that apprenticeships, while they are still a small percentage, are now more prominent in the market, there's a made, I'll give an example, there's a made stone apprenticeship fair. That was initiated by a made stone grammar school. So, the schools are now more aware of and more interested in apprenticeships. I think that started with someone from Cranbrook School getting an apprenticeship at Deloitte and walking into 34,000 pounds on their first day, and within two or three years, we're heading up a department or something ridiculous like that. From that moment on, there was definitely an increased interest in apprenticeships. A lot of the work around qualification reforms is focused on the technical side of things, so T levels are meant to do exactly what you say they are. Now, if you've read the reports that have been made, about the implementation of T levels, that brings into question the impact they've had, but again, it's still really too early to say. Is that a reasonable answer? Pretty good. Thanks very much, Rose. Thank you. I don't particularly argue with what Paul has just said about universities, but the actual, it's a misunderstanding anyway because when you went to university, you read a subject to a greater degree. It did not mean you were learning a vocation. Reading history or whatever it was was what you did when you went to university. And that sort of got transformed into it. It's not fair they've gone to university and I want to get a degree, but I can't do that, so I'll do something else. I think the big difference is the culture of if you haven't got a degree, you haven't got a qualification of some kind. And that is something that's particularly British. I will ask the question, which I actually asked already anyway, but we're talking about post-16 here. But if you're looking to guide children, then you have to start at 13, even 14 is too late because by the time they get to the 15, they're already either gearing up for failure in that they're not going to get their GCSEs or whatever. They're already starting to have a mindset that is wrong. So at 13, you have to start throwing these things open to all comers that they have a variety of opportunities, which doesn't necessarily mean university. There are some who are strong enough in themselves to be able to say, I'm not going to university, but I want to do that. And they go their own way, but an awful lot of children don't seem to have that guidance. And it starts actually with parents as well. You know, parents have an obligation to help their children. And well, I thought they had a duty to do it actually. But it is very much something, and I wonder if you agree that we should be starting this process earlier at the 13 age group. Not to tell them they've got to do this or that. Even lower. Even lower. Well, okay, I said 13, because I think once you get to 11, 12, you're probably still bordering on the very, very young, in that respect. But 13, it certainly would be where I'd say we have to start changing the school system. And it's the schools as well that have a duty here. Careers are not, careers advice is not something that you do in addition to teaching English, lip or something. Careers advice is something that you do because you've been out in a career and you've been out in several. You've been in recruitment and you know what you're doing and you know what the problems are. So you've already said you agree with that. I don't know if everybody asked us that we should start this much earlier in the schools. If I can just respond, yes. The Careers and Enterprise Company, which is the national body that's responsible for strategically developing careers, is looking at piloting some even primary pilots. There isn't one in Kent, we're not one of the targeted areas, but there has been a national acknowledgement of that. Also, there's something called the provider access legislation, which came in last year. Yes, total end of last year, which says a school must give a number of encounters with different sorts of training providers, including colleges, friendships. So I think it's two a year throughout their secondary school, so that is being addressed. Again, it's not fully implemented yet, but we're heading in that direction nationally. Thanks, Mike. And then we've got Mike and then we've got Paul, Trudy. Right. Thank you very much, Chairman. Can I say, once again, an excellent presentation? And I'd like to say, you know, we've always said that there's a big crossover between growth economic and the children's board here, or the children's committee. And it is absolutely right, but this actually shows that there is a massive difference between the two, where before we've just been discussing it in one particular cabinet, or one particular committee. This is actually breaking it down. And one of the slides that isn't shared today, that it was on there the day before yesterday, which showed approximately only the companies that were prepared to share, possibly, 204 apprenticeship vacancies in Kent as at the 8th of April, 2024. And I think what the suggestion that come out of our committee was this should actually be shared with the schools so that we can see, or the schools can see, what they require. And through that same committee was discussed because I am in Wilmington Academy. I go there for a network in breakfast club, for the tea club, sorry, for the tea level, for the tea level. And children or youngsters do a presentation to businesses that are supporting the tea level projects and apprenticeships. And I think this is where we need to work collaboratively with the schools. And I would urge every counselor, every member to do exactly the same in their schools to say, right, this is what you need to do so that the children are participating along with the employer, along with the education department. You've got all three working, you've got to catch them early to train them which way they would like to go, which profession they would like. You know, this particular list, it's got business admin, dental health, health service, engineering, customer service, it's got the whole shebang, even as far as fire emergency and security services. So it's whatever somebody's prepared to go towards, that's what we've got to try and push. And I do like the idea that the schools need to do the apprenticeship fairs. I think, you know, I've actually made a note of that because I'm actually going to do it as a bar account, so I'm actually going to do a small survey. And that will be one of my survey questions on that element if businesses are prepared to take apprentices on. Please contact KCC, Borough Council, whatever the case may be, but it's about collecting that data. So once again, you know, I strongly urge every member in this committee room to go back and talk to schools and move forward in this direction. Thank you very much, Jim. No, it's very useful, Mike, I agree. Absolutely. Also, within the schools, there's an organisation, I've already mentioned at the careers and enterprise company. They're there to support and develop exactly the sorts of things you've said. So direct the schools back to their own careers and enterprise company, REP. And it'll give them a bit more clout to do the things they've been talking about with the schools for a good two or three years now. Okay, right. So we've got Mike, Paul, Trudy, Alistair, Mr. Variety. I'm going to slip Paul to the back because you've had one bite, but you will get your chance, Paul. So Mike, over to you, then Trudy, Alistair, Mr. Variety, and then Paul. Thank you, Jim. Yes, I just want to pick up what after I've said about the fairs, and Paul was talking about the apprenticeships. I have a concern I've had for many years, and you mentioned it in your slides. Small employers struggle with providing the right support to take on apprentices. Some figures here. 0.3% of employers in Kent, over 250 staff, 1.4% medium, 50 to 249 out of 60,000 employers. I've come across this many, many times. It takes time to take an apprenticeship on it. It takes people away from their work. They can't get on with their work, so it's very, very difficult for SMEs to take on apprentices. Do you have any thoughts or any ideas how we can overcome that? In the past, we had a national apprenticeship service. The county had an apprenticeship team which went out and offered that direct support, and there was a range of support that was available. We have a fairly good degree of success. That doesn't exist anymore. It's part of the things that couldn't happen with the authority. Those did work into a certain degree. There have also been a number of trials, so we've tried things like shared apprenticeships, games, and all those different things, group training associations. There have been three or four different variations in the last ten years, and they haven't worked either. I think it's a combination between changing the mindset about planning for the future in businesses, but also then looking at some of the things that have worked in the past and seeing how we can fund those. That's all that. Truly. Thank you, Chairman. I wondered if there's anywhere a combined report which puts together the qualifications of schools and colleges. We always see one or the other. We don't see the two put together, and I just wondered if it existed somewhere. You want to see a list of what's on offer in the county? Sorry? Do you want to see a list of what's available in the county? Qualifications that are generated by pupils coming both from the school sector and from the college sector. Yes, I have that data. Brilliant. Can you send me a link to that? If you want to look at it live, we have a website called Ken Choices that has every school and college course. I've got everything else, and I will be publishing my up-to-date gap analysis which has all the alternative on it, so we have that. So you're all on one list? It's on two lists. Schools and colleges is on one list. The training providers are another because a lot of what the training providers do is more informal and harder to categorize in terms of qualifications. So we tend to think of their programs rather than the qualifications, and the schools and colleges we think more in terms of qualifications. Okay, and can I also ask you if the if two levels are accepted now by industry or are they a dying breed? I think it's early to say. I think in some areas they're proving very positive. I know that the engineering one is very well received. I really couldn't tell you about some of the others yet, but again, any qualification early in its cycle struggles with visibility and adoption. I was interested that you have a large international back in Luria sector. What are the pros and cons of that now? Because schools, there are still relatively few schools that do IB against the expectation, maybe a generation ago. If I think if I include the international back of our careers program in the IB, I think we've got 18 to 20 in the county out of about 100 and something schools. So that's an extraordinarily high percentage. Yes, most the rest of the country's got maybe one in a county that offers it. We've got two or three offering the actual full diploma and the others are doing the careers program. So that's good. This challenges the careers program is happening and is part of it is based on those BTECs which are being defunded. And so it's in a bit of a state of a flax at the moment as to what qualifications will form the basis of the careers program moving forward. So that's a challenge for new adoptees, but I think that we're being told it should be okay because the government is very supportive of the international back of Luria. Okay, finally from me you started off your presentation with the responsibility to cater for children with SCND. I wondered if you could just tell us briefly how you work with the special schools now and whether that works well? I don't really. That would be one of my other colleagues who can discuss that so I'm not sure he would be the best person to answer that or I think you're doing that later on here. So I think that will be covered later on the agenda would be the sensible way of dealing with that. Christine. I can give a quick answer now. In terms of careers education that was mentioned earlier, we have a commission staff to go into the special schools for the first time and that is going really, really well. So a number of our special schools have had careers fairs and also events where they have interviewed potential employers. We've already got a strong pathway through into a fee provision and the specialist provisioned in Kent and looking to expand that further. Thanks for that, Christine. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mike, for the presentation. I've got three areas of questioning please. So the young person's voice, how does that fit into the pathways through all program? How do they feed into that and especially gaining trust with children with NEET? Obviously, they're hard to reach. There's a barrier that's already exists. I'm just wondering how that voice is captured. Looking at apprenticeships and post-19, with 7% behind the national average. So do we go and look at other local authorities that are performing post-19 better than us to try and find out what they're doing to increase apprenticeships at that age? And a bit of a hardball question, so grammar school system. Now, is that a barrier or is that a challenge when we want to break down the myth of a hierarchical status between qualifications? Having a grammar school system, does that affect that view in any way? Thank you. That's an easier one, Chair. Young person's voice. Young person's voice at the beginning. There's not much at the moment. We're about to rectify that again. But at the very beginning of class space for all, there was, I think, about 20 focus scripts that we did around the county to capture that as part of the basis of it. I think we're about to look at that again. We work quite closely with CXK, Pauline Smith is on our strategic board, and she makes sure that we hear the student voice loud and clear, particularly through the work that CXK is doing, that she has a number of student voice projects. So, it has been there, in terms of the apprenticeships, I think we're starting to, and part of the ETF, the employment task force, they're looking at putting together a group to do exactly what you've just said. What's working, what's not, what do we need to do, and see if we can do it in a coordinated fashion, because the problem we've had in the past is everyone trying to do their own thing. So, we're trying to bring that together. So, I'm hopeful, time will tell. The last one, I think, I don't think I'm qualified to answer that question. Good trial, is there? Okay. So, thanks Mike. Mr Riley. Thank you Chairman, and you may call me Michael. I have a near interest to declare that I am chairman of the governance at, since I'm in stock, which is part of Kent Catholic School Partnership here. It is an academy. But my question goes back to your slide 10, and the comment you made that, to go into the sixth form, you could have one AAQ, sorry, one AAQ and two AA levels. Does this apply to SCND students as well? Because we understood that this was an acceptable exception, so that these students would not have to transfer to a totally foreign environment to pursue their study. I will need to... Thank you, Mike. Mike. I think I'll have to come back to you on that one. That's slightly outside my expertise. I focus on the mainstream and the vulnerable learners who don't have the HCPs, but we can come back to you on that one. Okay. Good. And finally, Paul. I think there was a misunderstanding of my sign language there, Chairman, so I'm good. Thanks. All right then. So, we'll catch up with, thank you, Mike. Thank you very much indeed. It's a worthy subject. I can see Abz enthusiasts and that heartens me because, obviously, from his committee, we can blend into their mode of work and pick up some good things for our young people in the county. Thanks very much. You can escape now if you want. Oh, this is for a little. Sue, we covered Rawie's cabinet members update, if we could just catch up with yours and then questions on those subjects, then we move on. Okay, thank you, Chairman. So, I just have a very brief update on where we are with family hubs, although members will have had member briefing updates. So, and they'll know that the work on family hubs rollout has been ongoing. And the majority of self appointments have now been made. And where there are vacancies, these are being advertised on the KCC website. My most recent communication with members was around the sites and the names of sites. So, there were a few where the original name of the site was clearly not going to be appropriate for an all-age facility. And so, there has been in a small number of cases some renaming, but that's been done on a geographical basis, which is in common with the majority of the other sites anyway. And there is an interim timetable in place for all the existing sites, but the full transition to family hubs while it takes place. And there'll be a complete revised service timetable from June. And a variety of outreach sessions are being introduced across the county. So, for example, there's outreach sessions piloted at Faversham Library currently, and there are a considerable number of other sites where there are outreach, where there's outreach being either in place or being put in place. And the second update was around unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. So, just to let members know that the total so far this year is 748. And at the time this was written, there was 85 children awaiting dispersal via the National Transfer Scheme, so it's true to say that the National Transfer Scheme has speeded up. Still, perhaps not where we would wish it to be. And you'll see from the numbers that it remains the busiest year on record so far. Currently, our largest proportion of arrivals are from Afghanistan, followed by Iran and Sudan. And the majority of those young people arriving remain 16 and 17, but there is a proportion of under 16-year-olds and a very small number of much younger children. So, members will no doubt be aware of the situation with regard to the proposed reception centre on the Isle of Shepey. And so, whilst this was disappointing, we're continuing to identify other suitable locations because we have to fulfil the requirements placed on us by the courts. And the work on the identified sites is continuing together with the full communication protocol, the most recent one where workers got underway. And a letter, a second letter, was sent out to residents was his high view host in Ash. And so there is frequently asked questions section on the KCC website, which is being updated on a regular basis. So, it might be helpful for members just to re-look at that from time to time to ensure that they are up to date with those responses. And it might be helpful for them when they're talking to residents. Thank you, Chairman. All right, thanks to Lauren. Lovely. Thank you very much. I met with some mums in Grosham yesterday, and they were passing on to me some questions that they would like to understand a little bit about the new family hub set up. They raised concerns about the referral only option, or it is the only option to have referral only. Is that going to be staying while it's in the interim, or is that a thing that is going to be happening all the time? In terms of the referral only, they're concerned about the eligibility, that's the word, criteria. They're concerned about that there may be social work involvement, and they're concerned that as new mums, they may well be suffering from personal depression, from baby blues, whatever it may be, and being particularly vulnerable. And the fear of stigma in that space and not comfortable with wanting to put themselves forward for a referral, or even asking for help. So I'd be very interested here about the referral option going forward. In terms of the kind of how family hubs has got to this stage, they've reported back to me about the communication has been quite messy, and when they've gone to a family hub centre, the timetable has been reduced significantly. They are not happy with the digital platform, and it's a reminder of COVID days, and that's not what they'd like. And as a communication tool, could we please stop using Facebook, because I think there's multiple sites for Facebook, and not all parents are on Facebook, and actually, like you say, on the website would be helpful. The other kind of question that they wanted to raise was the issue about community led sessions. Now, there's a call for parents to be the leaders in these kind of community led sessions, so they have their own child would come along. They're concerned about, and I think there's some that would like to do it, I just want the space to meet, but they're concerned about if they are sick, if their child is sick, they can't make it, they're letting other people down, if it's a bad day, and those expectations being placed upon them. So, and also the liability of them, other people in that group, seeing that them as the facilitator, and actually bad advice being given all that sort of stuff. So, there's a concern that's been raised there. They, I think, and if you say that the new timetable will be coming up post-June, they're really hopeful that there is a summer holiday plan and package. I believe that they used to be able to invite other small children so they can have free activities, but yeah, they would like to have some hope that there will be free activities on during the summer holidays that they can bring their little ones to. Because at the minute where there is been a lot of radio silence on what will happen afterwards, it's not there. So, yeah, some of those answers would be grateful. Thank you. So, thank you Chairman. So, some of those I'm going to pass on to Ingrid, because although I would know some of it, she knows the detail. Just in terms of the last one though, the school holidays. So, I know that there was a series of events that ran through these holidays, for example, and indeed I visited when I toured them. So, and I would hope to, that that will be the case, but Ingrid, perhaps you could answer some of the more detailed questions. Yes, thank you very much, Dr. Sullivan. So, in terms of the referral only option, we've introduced this in recognition that we will now be serving those who are more at risk. And those more vulnerable in the community. And we would need to have a referral option as a way to make sure that we comply with health and safety, that we know who's coming, that we are able to know the numbers of parents and children that are going to use the center. In terms of the timetable being reduced, like Ms. Chanda has explained, this is an interim measure, while we have fully staff, the family hubs teams, and a fuller model will be, and a fuller timetable will be released from June time. We accept that there are different Facebook platforms, and we do want to move away from that. We've been working very, very hard, and in the next couple of weeks, we'll launch the family hubs website, which is going to have 100 additional pages. So hopefully families will find that more easily accessible, and they'll be able to navigate that with some ease. We continue to talk regularly, and if that's not an appropriate way to communicate digitally, we can listen to and make changes and adaptations, that's how we try to reach out. In terms of the community led sessions by parents, there is an ad currently out. We're looking for family coaches on a volunteer basis. The plan is to have a total of 144 family coaches, which is 12 in each district. Initially, we are recruiting a smaller number, so that we can make sure that they are vetted, that they are trained, they are appropriately supported, and that we have arrangements in place to make sure that this is something that works well, and that doesn't put undue pressure on the volunteers, but equally meets the needs of the community where the community has been wanting to be quite active in trying to meet their own needs. Very quickly, thank you. Is the referral due to the family hub framework that that is enforced, or is that a choice that Kent has made? And just to feedback that actually the drop-in sessions, where they don't know, they can just turn up, was definitely something that came out strongly that they were worried about that. If they didn't book and they didn't show up, Oh, well, you didn't come last time, you've let down text players, all that sort of stuff. And the last thing about maternal, ethnic, biodiversity impact is that included in your vulnerability criteria. Thank you, Dr. Salomon. So, yes, in terms of the referral, some of the services in the family hubs are universal, and they are open to everyone in the community, in particular in terms of the start for life. Other parts of the service delivery to the family hubs is more targeted, and it will require a referral on an ongoing basis. It does require a social worker. So, for example, if you're a parent, if you're a new mom who has struggled with your mental health following the birth of your baby, you don't need a social worker to refer. You can talk to the health visitor or the GP, and you'll be able to access the service in this way. You can absolutely also self- playground by turning up and saying, I'm interested in this and I would like to come. It's a way of us, as I said, making sure that we meet those health and safety regulations that the numbers are there. We are not seeking to exclude anyone. This is a service that's open to children in the community, but what we want to make sure is that we respond first and mostly to the needs of those children who are more vulnerable. So, in this regard, we would want to target our service delivery more than maybe what the community has been used to in the past. And we will consider on a level of needs in terms of those children and those families who are best suited to receive the service. I don't envisage to be fair that we will run out and we will turn anyone away. Great. Thanks very much, Ingrid. Thank you, Sir. Thank you, Lauren. Alistair, then, truly. Thank you, Chair. Family Hub Outreach. So, I challenged on numerous occasions when we were talking about the children's centres being closed down mostly in rural areas, and I kept getting a response of W Outreach. So, can I have a list of where and what the outreach looks like now, because that hasn't been delivered to us. I don't know in my area where the outreach will be. And I met recently with a youth charity in my area. Throughout the Family Hub conversations, there was a diagram of an umbrella bringing everybody together, talking about private sector and charities and communication between these. They haven't been approached. They haven't been spoken to. They don't know what the local offer is. They have a concern that because some services have been dropped in the locality, then they're opening their doors. They'll be more demand. They won't. They'll have to turn people away because they cannot fulfill that demand. They have a concern. There's been no communication around that. So, I'm just wondering where the umbrella is and how we've spoken to charities and the private sector about what the youth offer is, because we've had this in scrutiny. We've had this continually. And as yet, those conversations haven't been happening. Sue. So, in terms of the list, with the member briefing, there were some details that were put out then. But I can ensure that that's updated and sent to you in respect of Canterbury. In terms of, Ingraham may wish to add to this, but in terms of the next part of your question, part of it is timing issues. So, what I said at the beginning of my briefing was that the staff are now in place, but that reorganised staff level has only been in place for a very short time. So, I would anticipate that all that work will be continuing until the family hub, the family hub set up is fully in place by, which was always planned by April 25. Okay, Trudy, and then we must... And just as part of my question, and I think I heard that a new children's hub website is about to open. Can you just give me a time frame on that? Not off the top of my head, but I can go back and come back with the phone date when that will be weeks, weeks, weeks. Okay, and so, to Mrs. John, in the meantime, where do members get their information, please, because I'm following information from the name of my local children's hub, but I'm seeing very little on it. So, I'd like to see what, by what system you're keeping members informed on what's going on across the board, please. So, members have had briefings, so I can talk about the most practical way of, until the website is up and running, how I can continually give that information to members. There is, I think there is some information, but I would have to go back and I will let you know. I will make sure that there is a mechanism by which all members can either access the information or be given the information. Okay, members, all the verbal updates noted for our cabinet members agreed. Thank you very much. Moving to item seven, specialist nursery intervention service level agreement extension. So, we've got Christie, Samantha, and Christine. So, who would like, Christie? Thank you. So, as detailed in the report, this brings forward one element of the early years review. In January, we presented a paper on all of the reviews that we've done for the early years education sector, and we have been out to consult as well. We're due to come back to this committee in July to give the full outcome of the public consultation and the recommendations. However, this is just bringing forward that one element to be able to extend the service level agreements for specialist nursery intervention for the reasons outlined in the report. And it's just to tidy up one particular issue on the recommendations on page 31. It refers to my good colleague, the cabinet member for integrated children's services. The demarcation between the portfolios can sometimes become a little blurred. And to the best of our understanding for complete transparency for colleagues on the committee, this is most likely to be one of mine. So, it should be my title that's within there. So, I just wanted to propose so that members know what they're actually agreeing to at the end of the day. It'll be cabinet member for education skills. But can I reassure all colleagues that Councillor Chandel and I work very closely on those items that are close to the boundary between our portfolios? Thanks for that, Rory. I like the word 'our'. Sue, over to you. No, Rory has... I don't need to add any more to that. Rory has made that point. But sometimes, constitutionally, those definitions are difficult. But we'll make sure that this is the right way, but in any case, we both discuss those issues that relate to early years as they go forward. Lauren. Lovely, thank you, Chairman. So, this amount of money, and it's a years extension, essentially, to change and other bits and broms. So, this money for specialist nursery intervention, is that money that is given directly to nurseries, for nursery places, for children's special educational needs? Or is this a different package which is providing support to nurseries to help support children with special educational needs? It's a commissioned service, so the money is given to 11 of the special schools in Kent, 10 special schools and one mainstream school in Kent, and they provide the service that is delivered to mainstream early settings. Does that make sense? So, the children who receive the services are in our mainstream, earliest nurseries, child minders, portage service, but the service is actually delivered by staff who are employed by some of our mainstream schools and the funding goes to them. Staff who are employed by our special schools and the funding goes to the special schools. Right, and that is then given, they then go out and help support the nurseries in helping them with their special educational needs journey. Yes, so at the moment, the current model at the moment is that the children actually go to the nursery which is on site of the special school. The proposal which we've been consulting on is that the special school staff would go into the mainstream nurseries to support the children in their primary nursery setting. Okay, well on that, is that enough? Because that looks just sort of £2 million across all of Kent to help support that. Is there enough to support the places and the need for all the youngsters in nursery? What I would say is at the moment, the current financial position and especially the amount of places that are commissioned are very historical arrangements. So, they're based on discussions that were had quite a few years ago about how many children do you think you can support. We have a lot more information now about the number of children that are coming through and one of the things that we recognise is that within our current models, where we have a different model, which is one of the reasons why we've proposed a slightly different model, is that they are able to work with more children and they work with those children sooner because they're not restricted by a timely intake process. So, the goal of one of the aims of moving to a different model is that they will be able to support more children. Can I just add that this is funded from the High Needs Block funding? Thank you. So, the point is that next year, when this will be changed around, is there the anticipation that there will be a greater amount of money spent in this space because we know the impact of early intervention in early years to then at cost-based relationship? Not at this moment. One of the things that we have looked at within the earlier review and when you look at all the consultation proposals put together is that it will. The goal is that it frees up capacity. So, actually, what we want to do first is focus on how do we free up capacity? How do we reduce bureaucracy? How do we enable more of our professionals to be able to go into settings and be actively working with children? Rather than saying that enables us to kind of determine whether we can work more effectively within the existing budget? Not bad, Lauren. That's four times. Rory? Always welcome, however, any times. But that's a question for next year. That's a question for the review. This is simply about extending the current contract while all of those very important questions are considered and how we look to see how we can get more effective use of the funding that's available as part of that wider review. Okay. We've got Trudy. And I've got slight concern. I have adopted the point in which to, well, at 745, I could be late. Trudy. Sorry, just a straightforward question. Are you happy that what you're proposing will happen in the future does not conflict with the designation of special schools that we're considering later on this agenda in about five minutes time? I feel very confident that it is all aligning. Yeah. And one of the focuses of the earliest review is about how we address issues that came up in the review around things like settings, struggling to understand how they could support children with and not feeling very confident about it. And therefore, not necessarily driving children down into a specialist school educational group, but we really recognize part of the review was around that children with and weren't taking up mainstream school cases in nursery settings. Some of the existing practice was, you know, hindering and creating barriers for children getting the support that they needed. And we did have settings really saying to us, we've got some really outstanding settings that can really, really inclusive nurseries, really, really inclusive child minders, but it's not consistent. And so, you know, one of the key focuses is on how do we improve inclusive practice in mainstream, right from the beginning. So, yeah, from my perspective, it all aligns. Okay, members, page 31, we've got the recommendations. A and B. Can we agree? Extension agreed? Thank you, members. All right. Item eight. Can SEND transformation projects, pages 45 to 62, the recommendations are in page 50, who would like to move on. Thank you, Chair. And thank you to the committee members have received three reports with certain appendices. And we're asking that the proposed, the proposed proposal to progress across the three reports. And across three strands of our SEND transformation and improvement work. The intention is to align all of the three projects across localities, across mainstream, SRP and special. And the, by bringing all three reports to this form together is to ensure that there is that cohesion around a system wide change, which is, which aims to develop a continuum of provision right across the sector and to coordinate efforts and coordinate resource and plan and plan effectively. The first of those recommendations is around the localities model for mainstream, for SE and inclusion into mainstream. And this is in response to a significant public consultation on a series of proposals. The proposals were developed with school leaders between January and April 2023, and the public consultation took place between November 23 and April 24, which had a significant response with which has given us a significant evidence based on where we can provide. And the proposal is to develop that county wide structure to support local collective responsibility for children with SCN. So that is the first proposal. The second is regarding specialist resource provision in mainstream schools, and to look at the viability of that type of provision, again, to ensure pathways from children from primary into secondary, so that there is a clear pathway across the continuum, and to ensure that we have sufficient pathways for the future to support our planning for the future, but also to improve and support the confidence of parents. And then thirdly, the proposals for public consultation following an extensive review of special school provision, which I'll hand over to Alison to give further detail. Okay, that is an overview. So we've really got an 8A now, and I've had some comments over the breakdown. So let's just pick through this. So we're looking at the locality model for special educational needs inclusion pages 53 to 80. So if we could keep our discussions to that, then we can keep on the subject. But thanks to the overview, we've got the drift, I think. Questions on this? Paul? Lauren Trudy? Paul? Thank you, Chair. I've had an email from a parent of a S/S/N child who has participated in the consultation, so be okay if I read out their comments. Yeah. They say, I know that under the safety valve agreement with DFE changes have to be made, but I don't think that going into it with this level of uncertainty over definitions, which I think relates to paragraph 2.28. Forming the allocation plans, et cetera, as set out, is the only way to go about making the changes. I'm very keen for there to be a short pause in the plan proposals to iron out this detail before it's adopted as policy. My role is only as a parent in this consultation, but I feel strongly enough about the risks KCC will be taking in absence of concrete definitions, such as what is predictable and exceptional need, how this will actually work, et cetera. But I feel I have no option but to raise it. The KCC response is that the consultation is only on the principle of a locality model. I can't see how this can be the case given that if the proposal is implemented, the only steps to then be taken will be within the locality framework. Trying to iron out the significant uncertainty in terms of how the model will work while stop rating within the model and while implementing the savings that are required in this year's budget is unworkable. And to me, poses a significant risk not just to children who will inevitably see changes to their support. In some cases, cuts as identified by KCC themselves, but also to KCC. I appreciate changes must be made, but I do feel there's another way to go about this proposal in terms of pausing the plans for a period of four to six weeks pending clarification on these issues. OK, Paul, thanks for that, Chavon. Yeah, thank you. We have had, during the consultation, the public consultation, we had over 1,400 individual text responses to, from parents and from other providers, many of whom raised a very similar theme. So, we have actually started to work, KCC has started to work with sector, with schools, on a series of workshops to define just that continuum of provision. It is being led by an inclusion leader, who is a, she works for Multicademy Trust within Kent, but she's also nationally published, and she's going to lead on those, on those workshops in the first of those start next week, and they will continue until the second week in June, because that is, it is perfectly, it has come back as a, as a response to the consultation that, that clarity is needed, yes, before any further decision, before we can make any further progress. So, yes, that is already in hand. OK, Lauren, then Trudy, Lauren. Yeah, thank you, just, just on that point there. The tariff-based model was rejected based on these very inflexible kind of definitions, which I think was set out quite clearly. The definitions, yeah, I think that, whether that be based on location and maybe each different location, I don't know, would, would they have their own different definition of what is exception, what's hard? No, so it's kind of tariff-based, but not, not necessarily, if I can answer that, is that, yeah. It is complicated, because in our first round of evidence gathering for exactly this piece of work, what we found that what is exceptional in one part of the county is perfectly predictable in another. And we have taken the view that we want to move away from those words, because actually the terminology is unhelpful, and we want to work more on the idea of a continuum of provision, so that there is flexibility, because that flexibility is important, especially if children move, and as children move from one phase of education to another, so from earlier its primary, primary, secondary, secondary into post-16, that flexibility has to be built into the system. So it is quite a significant piece of work, yes, and it's not a straightforward, and it will not be putting children into boxes, that will not be the intention. All right, OK, thank you. Trudy. A question that I've had just on the last bit about... Trudy, I'm sorry, come back to you Lauren. Yeah, Trudy. OK, we have permission for Lauren to carry on. Lauren, carry on. Thank you, nobody wants to shut me up. So the impact, negative impact on care is a sense of, would you? What are you like over there? Negative impacts on care is responsibilities. It's page 80, and it's about mitigating actions for care responsibilities. So often children with special education need to have siblings, which will have a caring responsibility. In it it says we don't collect that information, but then there's something about, we will collect the information. So I'll just get that clarified that we will collect and then obviously do something important with it. She won't. Schools already do collect the information under the young carers information so they know where that information is coming from. One of the other issues that was addressed by, I was raised by one of the parent groups is the balance of that confidentiality of that information. So we do have to consider that in the future, in the operating model as to how we address that. OK, Trudy. Thank you, Chairman. I think in encouraging us just to go on to the paper about locality, you're sort of skipping over some basic principles that certainly I have concerns about that relate to all three of the papers that we're looking at today. There's a huge amount about what we're doing with regard to children with SCND that I approve of and I welcome. So we're all, I think, on site when we're talking about increasing the capacity to meet the need. We're all agreeing that there should be consistency of provision across the county, that we need to ensure that schools work together, that we improve transition, that we're putting funding where it's most needed, especially with the development of special resource centres and a provision for child near home as possible. All that stuff, everybody's on side with. My problem is, and it has been since the beginning and all members have struggled with this, that what we are looking at here is two different things happening at the same time. One is that we have to meet the agreement which this county council assigned with government on the safety valve. And for people who are watching, that means that the county council has signed up to an agreement which requires the county council to reduce in terms of the proportion of children with SCND, the number of children who attend mainstream provision and those who go into special school provision. And one of the questions is how far is that being driven or even dictated by the safety valve? How much of it is actually being done to achieve better standards? And that conflict is coming out in these papers, I think. For instance, the locality issue paper suggests in a number of pages that this is a fixture within the safety valve agreement, the actual signed agreement that we've made. Is that the case? If it is, then the principle of the locality scheme is already decided, and we haven't got anything to decide here, you've already signed up to it. So the principle is already agreed, and I agreed with what was said earlier by the parent who suggested that all of the consultation responses in the sense can be set aside because we're not talking about the detail, we're not talking about the high and the where and who's going to pay for it, we're just talking about the principle here, and it's very difficult to talk about just the principle when you actually want to know the how and the who, where and the why and who's doing it. What we are looking at here today, it seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, is a complete reorganization, reclassification of special schools. To a system which nobody else uses, as I understand it, I can't find any other authority in the country that follows this classification, and that it involves complete, I won't say complete, but significant change to nine of our special schools, and probably the most fundamental example of that is valence school, which we've all received a letter from yesterday. The designation of physical SCND has just completely disappeared as a classification for provision, and so we're looking at completely revising the criteria for all of our special schools, and that will be implemented as I understand it between 27 to 28, but as I also understood the earlier conversations that we had, these changes would impact particularly on children at the transition stage, so children who are going from primary into secondary can indeed lose, if that's the right word, their ability to stay within special school provision, but may very well see that they will have to transition into mainstream school in secondary provision. So we're looking at classification of children, we're also looking at complete revision of the, if you like the administrative and support structure that we use to support children. So we're doing two things at the same time, complete revision of the structure, the infrastructure that we have of our officers, and the way in which schools cooperate with one another, and so on, at the same time as we're looking at redesignation. And, Chairman, this feels to me as though it's trying to take too much on at the same time. And I question, fundamentally question, whether the county council has a capacity to do this, even if it was a good idea in the first place. And I don't see my concerns are in the papers that we have in front of us, that there is so little basic data that we're given to make the decisions that you're asking us to make. And I note that in the paper with regard to the locality model, that that is one of the main criticisms of the consultees, that they were not given sufficient information to make the decision about whether what we are proposing in the locality model will actually deliver what we say it will, i.e. better services to children. So if we go on to the locality model page, we have got a consultation process which has been very thorough and has been gone through, and 59% of people don't think it's going to work. That's what the paper says. And if you go into the detail behind that and the analysis which requires another two links, only 25% of people who responded to the consultation, which is professionals and parents, think that it will work. And that's a problem for us because we're struggling with an off-stead comment, the main recommendation, that we have to meet the expectation of parents better. And what we're doing here is doing something that parents actually don't like, don't think will work. And I'm having great difficulty reconciling that chairman, and I see that, and Chivolle made a comment earlier, that we're going to go back and have a series of workshops. We're going to go back to those people who have made those comments. And we've got a whole plethora of the comments that we've made back to the people who've responded. But are we going to, as a result of those workshops, re-consult? In other words, are we going to be saying to these 59% of people, are you now convinced as a result of the comments that we've made back, and as a result of all of these workshops, are you now convinced that this will work? Because if they're not, then we have to think again, do we not? It seems to me, on the locality model. I've got other comments about the restructuring of schools. But for instance, some of the data that we don't have is, we have schools who are going to require very large capital investment as a result of the change of their designation, because they're dealing with one sets of designations at the moment, and they'll be required to deal with others later. We haven't got any costings here as to how much that's going to cost. We don't know how long it's going to take to achieve that. So we don't know how we're actually going to put that in on the ground, but we don't have any data about it anyway. So I have really, really grave concerns about the package that we've been received today. I'm welcoming that we have had a lot more information that we've had before, but I think that there is a lack of detail. I think that there is a lack of clarity on a number of issues. For instance, the word continuum is used to describe a system that is coordinating the whole continuum through Kent in terms of going from primary to secondary and through special resource if you're a child with a CND. However, it's described as setting the threshold. Now, is the continuum a threshold or is the continuum the continual delivery of services throughout Kent, cradle to grave, if I can put it that way? I'd like some clarity about that. As I understand it, and this is a very, very basic point, the papers that we have in front of us say that no one will get a, no one, will be in a special school without an EHCP. But an EHCP is not enough. You have to have an EHCP plus, it says in several points, you have to be designated with severe and complex need. What is the actual criteria? How do you describe severe and complex need? And who is going to be setting that criteria? Who's going to be setting who qualifies for both of those? Who will be doing that diagnosis? When they do that diagnosis, will they be doing that? With the background of, we've got X places in X capacity within our schools and therefore you can only designate X number of pupils as having both an EHCP and a severe and complex need. Is that what's going to be going on? Because that's what the paper suggests in the Equality and Impact assessments. They all say this is being done against the background of the safety of our money that you can spend. And therefore the expectation is there will be fewer such children as a proportion of the cohort. But we don't have any trajectory for that here. We don't have any forward figures about what numbers are going to fall out of all of that. But parents will have no understanding of what the expectation is for the future. We're trying to convince them all the time that what we're proposing is good, but we're not giving anybody the information that backs that up. We're told in the papers that independent schools and our provision, our funding of children in independent schools is vastly overspent. We're also told that we have a huge problem with transportation costs. Neither of those were focuses for the SCND subcommittee. And I wonder why they weren't. They weren't even mentioned. And the SCND subcommittee wasn't even allowed to look at transport. So we have a disconnect between what the committee has been looking at, or is being allowed to look at. And somebody somewhere who I am praying has got all of this information who thinks that they can make these decisions with confidence. I can't sit in this chamber and agree any of this with any confidence at all. I don't understand why we are pursuing a change in school designation, which I am told was opposed by every single head teacher of a special school who was consulted either last week or the week before. Certainly the one head teacher has written to us does not approve it. So we're going forward with a redesignation system that nobody else uses that affects all of our schools that none of our special school heads agree with. And we're going forward with an administrative change that 59% of the people we've consulted on don't agree with. Chairman members will possibly have got their agenda for the full council meeting on Thursday next week. And you will have seen that one of my colleagues has put down a motion for a time-limited debate, which asks for the county council to create a special focused inquiry to look into what we are proposing across the SCND provision. I'm going to say that my experience in this authority leads me to suspect that that will fail. I think it will be shot down in flames. But Chairman, what we have got in front of us now is not enough. It really falls far short of what we as a committee need to say, okay, this is fine, go ahead. Far, far short of what we need. And therefore, I think the only other opportunity, the only other option that we have would be to ask the Chairman of the SCND committee to look into this subject because that would effectively stop any further progress until SCND and he had had an opportunity to look again at this subject. And Chairman, I feel strongly enough about that to suggest that this committee ought to accept or propose to the SCND chairman that he should take on board all of these papers and have a further inquiry into them to ensure that members' concerns, or these mind concerns, I'm assuming that others may share them, can be looked at before this progresses any further. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Chair. I mean, this is an absolutely get the whole story. And I will come back to an Ate, but let's hear what the Cabinet Member has to say. And it's some really good comments there. Let's hear the thoughts and the actions of the Cabinet Member. Thank you, Chairman. Mr Dean has asked for some clarity, so I'll bring some clarity, including some clarity to one or two of the issues that I think she's misunderstood, relating to the safety valve, for example. But then I'll ask for any further detail comments from officers. First of all, let's be quite clear. Mr Dean has talked about education, health and care plans. Those are for children and young people with the more complex needs. She suggested that that's something additional over and above having an education, health and care plan, but actually that's precisely what those plans are for. They are not for every other child who has a special educational need. They are for those with the more complex needs. And I'm using the language that Mr Brady has asked me to use in the past to straight out of the SCND code of practice. She's also said that the safety valve is about this council making savings. The safety valve is about the Department for Education assisting this council in paying off over £140 million of the overspending that this council has previously made. That's what it's about, it's £142 million if you want to be precise. That's what it's about. What do we need to do? We need to continue to bring our own spending back in line with the level for which we're funded. And that is also part of our commitment under the safety valve, it's something which had we done in past years. We wouldn't have had to go to the Department for Education and ask it for a debt to be written off. And by doing that, sparing that debt eventually falling on the council taxpayer, because once the special arrangements, once funding has moved on from the special arrangements, that's what would special dispensations, that's what would happen. And so we've got to get our spending under control quite clearly and that's not just us, that's every authority across the country. Some actually have kept their spending under control and that's why we take time to go and visit and go and listen to what other councils are doing. It's hearing Kent that we've allowed it in the past to go out of control. Mr Dean has also referred to the special school review and I know you're wanting to do them one item at a time, quite rightly Mr Chairman, but as the matter has been raised and there's, she has spoken about a letter from one special school. It's right that I address that. The item on today's agenda, and if I sound like a broken record here, so be it, the item on today's agenda is on special school reviews to go out to public consultation on the changes that we're proposing. The item on the agenda, it is not about what that future consultation, what those future consultation results will yield, it's not about the review as a result of that future consultation, it is simply to go out to consultation. It is simply not right for anyone who is an interested party to try to prevent us from going out to consultation. However valued a partner they might be, they will have their say, that particular special school, during the consultation, they've no doubt had a say already and they'll continue to work with us as a valued partner. But nobody should think that they can stop a public consultation on a proposal, that is stifling debate, that's not encouraging debate and it's certainly not encouraging us to move forward in a constructive way. So yes, all of those points will be taken into account, but it mustn't be one that stops the debate. I don't think we're taking on too much at the same time, I think all of these things complement each other and the report that Chavon has put forward, the reports that Chavon's brought forward and other officers are involved with other parts of this series of reports that demonstrate to me the complementarity of all of the activity that we're undertaking, not only to fulfil our part of the safety valve agreement and to make sure that we do indeed stop overspending, but also to ensure better outcomes for children and young people. That's the key thing that drives all of us in the administration to make sure that we've got the right kind of services fit for purpose, fit for today, not fit for yesterday, and able to be responsive to the needs of children, young people and their families as we go forward. And I'm also confident – I note, Mrs. Dean's concerns, that there will not be sufficient information to make the relevant decisions. I am very confident that I will have the relevant information in order to make the decisions that I need to make as cabinet member as we go forward. The last officers to pick up on some of the detailed issues, but I hope that's just brought a degree of clarity to some of the stories that have been circulating. Christine. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to make a couple of points. One around the localities. The paper that you have in front of you is actually the culmination of four years of work. That's four years of consultation with head teachers and Senko's. Four years of looking at what the evidence says nationally through a whole range of different sources, through having an expert working with us to facilitate that process. We've actually brought reports to this committee and other committees about the development and progression of this project. So this isn't new, and the contents of the report should not come as a surprise to the committee. It does come to the point where there has to be leadership and boldness, and I'm saying that from the position of being regularly held to account by members, quite rightly so, and by parents, around what I'm doing to improve the system. The system isn't working. We know that. We're under an improvement notice. So I would ask members to consider the history and development of this, the number of experts that have been involved in it, and we can provide that information. There are dozens of schools, our biggest mats and smallest mats have been involved in it. It's been a narrative process, but it does come to the point where one has to make a decision around improvement. This is a proposal that we're bringing. It's got a very strong evidence base behind it, and we are confident that we can make it work. In terms of the consultation, we were very, very pleased at the level of engagement and that, but I would remind members that consultation is not a referendum. It is to get views from the public, and we were very hard to get views. We wanted a detailed consultation because we wanted to understand what people's anxieties were about this. It is a big change. And of course, people are going to be anxious about it. It helps us to build in mitigation as we move to implementation. With regard to the special school review, so one head teacher has written in, and these are all issues that can be addressed through the public consultation. Unfortunately, we don't have a crystal ball, so there are things that we can't provide cost for at the moment, but we are talking about work that would be taking place in quite a few years' time. I would like to draw members' attention to paragraph 2.11, and paragraph 2.13 in the report about the special school review. So, paragraph 2.11 in Kent, the over-reliance on special schools has led to placement of some children in a special school whose attainment is similar to or above. Above that of children in mainstream schools. If you go and read the admissions criteria for some of our special schools, it says we will not admit children who are more than 2 years behind their chronological age and have behavioral challenges. Well, I can tell you, our mainstream schools are full of children that are more than 2 years behind their chronological age and do have behavioral challenges, and they are being managed in a mainstream setting. And those head teachers come to me and say, I don't understand why we're funding special schools who can pick and choose the children that they take, and will say no to complex children because they're too complex, and they end up back in mainstream. So, what is the answer to that, other than to change the admissions criteria for the special schools to ensure that they are serving the children that most need that specialist intervention. Special schools are expensive because they provide specialist support, and we want the most complex children to be benefiting from that. That is not happening at the moment, and if you speak to special school to mainstream head teachers, they will confirm that position. So again, this is something that has to change. Of course, people don't like to change, and of course, people are going to say we don't like it. This is a piece of work, and again, you know, very thorough report here that outlines the process that has been gone through. There's a strong evidence base to this around why we need to change our special schools. So, I'm going to stop there and hand over to Chavon, who will answer some of the other points. Thank you, Christine. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, just to pick up on some of the detail of the questions that were raised, that the concept of who is going to make the decision. And I think that is actually the absolute crux of where the difficulty is in the system, because at the moment, decisions are being made ad hoc, and the question also raised about profound. Everybody's perception of profound is very, very different. Now, what we have learned and the purpose of the consultation around localities, as Christine said, the purpose of consultation is to find out what is happening in the sector, what people's anxieties are. So, the statistics that were raised by Councillor Dean is absolutely correct, which is why we have gone back to the sector to work with to put those workshops together. And actually, we have been, and that is with mainstream and special together. I'm going to make that clear that mainstream and special are all involved, and it's also important to note that we are struggling to find venues big enough to hold these workshops because of the level of engagement. So, we're having to do, so the 12th of June are two extra workshops because they are all full to bursting, because everybody wants that clarity over what children over what does profound mean, what does that continue mean, and again, around those thresholds. We do need some element of threshold, of course we do, but it has to be flexible and the entire sector, schools, and indeed KCC officers and parents are really crying out for that clarity. So, we have listened to the consultation, we have put that in our response, which is one of the appendices, and the workshops, I think the engagement with the workshops speak for themselves, and we will also need to have extra workshops for health colleagues, because it's not just schools, it is health colleagues, social care, and so on and so forth to understand what that actually means. This also includes the grammar schools and the grammar schools have written to me separately to ask what this means for them, they are included, they would like a follow up meeting separately again for that cohort of schools also. So it is system-wide change, but it is very, very necessary, and I think the fact that we are struggling to find venues big enough to host them will indicate exactly how important this is to the entire sector. OK, thanks very much, I want to go to a show of hands on A to A, and then we move to A to B, and we will still get the intermingling of effects of other areas. We are still just on A to A, when did we move to A to A, because there are different sections of recommendations for A and then we moved to A to A, so I have questions to ask on A to A, but we have been on A to A for the last 20 minutes. But we would vote on A to progress, and then A to A would be implemented adoption. So that's fine, we will now have a show of hands on A. Members, all those in favour on A, members against. Five against, and I'm assuming no abstentions. That's carried. OK, thanks, and now we're on to A, where we have had a discussion. Yeah, sure, Alistair. Thank you, Chair. So, Rory mentioned the distinction between more complex and most complex. So what happens to the children with more complex needs who cannot be supported in a mainstream setting? So it's 261 respondents raised this concern, and it's stated that there will be a development of a threshold, which would provide guidance on the level of support and type of provision a child is most likely to require. How can we vote on carrying this through when we don't know what the threshold is, when we haven't seen the guidance on this, whether this has been independently verified? I don't know how members can sit here and do that. It's important to hear how we are distinguishing between children with more complex needs. So that's the National Guidance, which states that children need an integrated assessment and where appropriate any HC plan for their support. And as mentioned previously to today, so that's the first time I've had the cabinet member say more complex instead of most complex, but which is littered throughout this document as stated as most complex. So how are we determining between more and most? Because if you're now saying more complex, then great, because that's in the guidance. But in this document it says most complex, and that is narrowing the criteria and the support criteria if you're talking about children with the most complex needs instead of more complex. What happens if one school in a cluster needs more funding than the others? It said, I'm trying to find, I know the numbers in here, it was above eight schools, I can't remember the top number, I tried to find it. But how do we know that the fund is going to be distributed fairly within that cluster? What happens if it comes to the funding threshold due to the safety valve? So then what happens there to support children within that school cluster? And one of the consultation responses highlighted the concern regarding children in specialist settings. And the reply stated that it's not the intention to move children from a specialist setting into a mainstream setting. And I think there is information in here where it says that when children move from primary to secondary, it isn't the intention to move them from a specialist setting in primary through to a mainstream setting. But I have a couple of children, a couple of families who have contacted me where that's what's happening, real life, that's what's happening. And they are scared with this, that their child will not be able to cope moving from a specialist setting to a mainstream setting. So what happens there? We don't have a threshold, so we can't vote on this because we don't know what is going to be affecting the children in Kent. We don't have funding numbers. We don't have information on the cluster sizes in whichever area. And we don't have information on the transition between primary and secondary. Massive concerns, Chair. Thank you. Thanks, Adam. Thank you. Well, again, Chairman, if I might, I'll kick off and then ask officers to pick up some of the more detailed points. Let me start with this phone need debate about more almost. Yes, needs, and that is set amongst the needs of any children or young people with special educational needs. So quite clearly, those with more complex special educational needs amongst the cohort of children with special educational needs will by definition be those with most complex needs amongst the wider population. Now, that's absolutely clear to me. That's the basis on which I've used all of the language that I've used on this in the past. Those who have a requirement for an educational health and care plan are amongst the wide population, those children with the most complex needs. And we're simply focusing down on those with special educational needs. They're the ones with the more complex needs. That, I think, should be pretty straightforward. The funding threshold that Mr Brady's talked about being due to the safety valve, it isn't. The funding, the limit on funding, is just that. It's the limit on the high needs block of the dedicated schools grant. If the money's not there, you can't spend it. Unfortunately, in the past, this authority has managed to spend money that isn't there. And that's what's causing the difficulties for many of the children today. That's what's causing the delays that children and young people have in getting their needs assessed and in getting placement decisions and so on. Because we've taken our eye off the ball in the past. But let's have less of this, frankly nonsense, that the safety valve is somehow limiting funding. It isn't. The safety valve has enabled us to get on with the task without having to worry about the £142 million that we will otherwise have had to find to repay the money that we overspent in the past. This report today is about the principle of empowering local clusters of schools to make decisions in their localities. And I think that's a noble aim rather than trying to centralise everything and having Kent County Council make all of the decisions without the specialist local knowledge without the ability for local schools actually to share good practice, which is what this enables them to do. This enables some of those questions that Christine talked about earlier, where there are slightly different practices in different areas. Some of those questions will be resolved by having schools able to talk with each other and work out how one handles a particular issue, whereas another one has in the past struggled with it. That's the principle of the locality model, and that's what's being brought forward today. We've said that there are some further work to continue, those further details to be resolved. That will take place as part of the process. And certainly, while he's absolutely clear, none of that work will take place if the process is halted. And we need to make progress here, because otherwise, it'll be all of those children who have more or less any kind of special or alternative need, who will suffer if we're not able to get the appropriate resources in the appropriate places and for local decision-making to take place. Now, that's the principle. Let me, again, hand over to officers to pick up some of the more detail if that's required. So to respond to the questions around, it's very difficult to say, do you and I and anyone think that this child has the most severe and complex, or does this child have the most severe and complex? But the way in which this proposal sets out the continuum is that there's greater local collective responsibility and there hasn't been. And that has been, I've carried out the special score review and led on that with my colleagues and with meeting with special school heads and going to visit special schools. And I think they would say themselves that they haven't had as much knowledge as they might have done about the provision that's in the SRPs, for example, and then in mainstream. And without knowing that, if you're within, let's say you're within East Kent, you don't know what the continuum provision is, so you don't know what the continuum of provision should be for those children with the most severe and complex needs. So the fundamental principles of these three papers is to establish better closer working together, better understanding of the young people and the provision that should be in place and could be in place. And to avoid children traveling long distances, which they currently do when I have an SNK officer phoning and saying, well, the only place that the child can go, and they're a four year old is an hour and 10 minutes away by by taxi. Those things are, the principles of the approaches that are put forward in these papers proposal as it is for special schools are intended to change that being an only option, and that there are options close to where a young person lives, and there is better collective responsibility across the education providers. I wanted to just answer a particular question that came earlier in the post-16 paper that relates to what we've been talking about, if that's, and it relates to the questions that have been raised around the continuum, and how these proposals are intended to address that. And it relates to the question of the link between special school and the FE sector and that pathway for post-16 we were talking about earlier, and to draw an attention to one of the recommendations around funding, because the principles of the funding are that there is a tariff model that reflects the national direction of travel. But another principle is that there is a way of being able to support the working between the special school sector and the FE sector in particular through a funding model that enables that pathway to be one that is eased and enables there to be aspiration for the young person and for those who are working with them. And that is starting, there's an example of that that's happening with Goldwin students currently, where there is a funding model that's been put in place as a pilot over a three year period to support young people who are in school, which is a special school for young people with social mental health, for whom outcomes are notoriously not good, but in having a pathway which is supported by the special school staff through into FE in order that they are most likely to be able to achieve a positive outcome, independence and in adulthood. So there are proposals in here that are intended to address issues that have been, have arisen as, and overall support that full continuum and the working towards independence for children with severe and complex needs. Okay. So just quickly for clarity. For the question is, whereas the threshold guidance, it's being worked on, we don't have that yet. For the, when I mentioned about the clusters, and how's that going to be distributed fairly, that's going to be worked on further. And the last bit about the content about the lifespan of a child, who may need extra support in primary but moving to secretary secondary sorry. That's going to be the last bit that you said with the intention isn't to, as it is, move children to secondary if it isn't their best opportunity for educational attainment. So you're going to be looking at that child individually to see if that is the correct approach. But at the moment I'm seeing a couple of cases where children, it's being proposed to move to mainstream from specialist school and, and their parents are quite scared that that's not the right approach of the child because they moved from mainstream into specialist because they weren't coping for many, many reasons. So the last bit, the first two questions you've, you will be coming back later, but the last one would like a little bit more clarity. So on the second transfer question, I can't answer specific cases of course, but the intention is if a child is in a special school, which is the example that you're giving I believe. And with the changes that are proposed, the intention is that children remain in special school, but as they are now when they have an annual review that consideration is given to whether or not the child's needs have changed, whether or not their provision should change and whether or not their placement should be changed. That is what you would consider in any annual review. And so for the cases that you've given, I don't know the reasons that the decision was made to change placement. The local authority has to have due regard to parental preference around placement, but overall their decision has to be made based on whether or not suitable education can be provided, whether it's an efficient use resource, and whether that affects the efficient education of others. That's the basis, the legal basis for the decision. So in those specific cases, I don't know what the which of those issues the decision was made on, but that is the basis for decision making, if that helps. Truly. Thank you. I'm now just briefly to come back on a few points. Rory suggested that we were trying, I was trying to stop consultation on maybe the head teacher of certain balance was of balance school rather. My principle has always been that I won't consult on something that I don't propose to do, and my position today is that I would not want to do what we are suggesting in these papers, and therefore I would not approve of consultation. It's fairly simple, and I think that the head teacher of balance is saying the same thing. There are a number of things actually where both what I'm saying and what Rory is saying are both right. One of the points that I continually make is that the signing of the safety valve agreement specifically says that the number of pupils in within Kent's provision, who are getting EHCP's special school provision, will reduce. It actually says that in the document, so it's no good suggesting that the document doesn't imply that. It does, and some of the equality impact assessment papers that we have in front of us today say quite clearly that it does. Secondly, on consultation, not only do I not want to consult on something that I don't want to do, when we get the results of consultation back, which we have on localities, and 59% of people tell us it won't work, then I get worried. What I want to know is what are we going to do in the meantime to decide whether we are still on the right path? One of the things I would like to say is that if we got further workshops, can we as members know about those workshops? Can we attend them? So we can, we as members can actually get a better understanding of why people are responding in the way that they are, because I don't think that people are responding in the way that the papers suggest. Not all of the complaints, not all of the responses were about the fact that more children would be going to mainstream provision rather than special schools. For instance, one of the main problems that people have suggested about the locality model is that there aren't enough specialists in the profession, intent or anywhere else, to actually manage. And that worries me if people are saying that. And so if we could go to the workshops, that might be helpful. Rory also said that one of the objectives of what we're proposing to do is to enable such special schools to talk to one another. I mean, do you not think they do that now? I mean, the special schools that I go into now are continually talking to one another, because they are all very well aware, as they clearly must be, that the lines across SCND specialisms are very grey. There is no threshold that you can make that actually divides in reality. It's a point where you have to make a decision across a spectrum of grey. And I asked a meeting of specialists only the day before yesterday, if there were a hundred of you, a hundred cases of children who needed classification into four different classifications, and you all and 20 of you, as specialists, had to make the decision about who went into what classification would you agree with one another. And to a man, one woman, they said, no, we wouldn't agree with one another. This is not a cut and dried issue, which is why people feel so strongly about it. And wherever you are actually put down the boundaries, there will be children who don't fit into those gussifications. And special schools are totally and all the time trying to make sure that every pupil in their school gets the best they have, and that means that they do consult with one another. Now. And so we don't need a locality model to make sure that happens. We might need a different model to make sure it happens better, but this is not the principle. Thank you, Jen. OK. This is going to be some very short answers because we are going to go into the vote. After 8B and 8C, we are going to have a break. So short answers, Rory. Thank you. What we've committed to in the safety valve is to review the system of education, health and care plan assessments and annual reviews to ensure robustness, transparency and consistency through use of consistent criteria and practice framework. That's what's in the safety valve. I've just read it from the safety valve agreement. That's what's in it. That's something incidentally that I would want us to do irrespective of the safety valve because it's clearly not fair when there's inconsistency and a lack of robustness in all of those processes. And I'd want us to get to grips with that. And it's a fact that we haven't done that in the past that's led us to the position where we are today. So that's our commitment under the safety valve. There are a couple of other things too. Where we're not for the time, Mr. Chairman, I could be tempted to run through. But now having said that, in terms of whether we ought as a society in Kent to reduce the numbers of children who are marked out as having the more complex needs, given that we've got 5.2%, and that's 21% over the national average, and it's significant 70 or 80% or something over the long-term national and Kent averages, then actually I think there is a need to do something to fix the broken system. But I'm very pleased that Mrs. Dean has said that she's not going to vote for this because she's not going to want to bring about the changes or the consultation that may ensue from the consultation, because actually there's a degree of transparency there. She doesn't want to change. That's fine. She doesn't have to change. But I'll tell you what, we've got to change because Mrs. Dean and Mr. Brady and many others have constantly been telling me that the system is broken. And here's the surprise. I agree with them. The system is broken. And that's why we have to change. And that's why we're taking some bold initiatives to bring forward proposals, to empower people who actually know what's happening there. It's not just whether the special schools talk to each other, I've no doubt the special schools talk with each other. This is actually about getting all the schools in the locality to talk with each other. Academies and maintain schools, getting all of them to work together and see it as a common cause. So that's what these proposals are about. That's why we brought them forward as part of a suite of proposals to make the kind of radical change that we need to make. That we need to make within SCND. If some want to make no change, well, then the vote will demonstrate that. Thank you. Christine, then we vote. Thank you. I just wanted to draw members attention to paragraph 2.10 in the special school report. So that is page 85. It's 85 on mine, 86. So the bullet points. So in Kent, 17.7 children per 1,000 are placed in a state funded special school compared to an England average of 12.5. In Kent, 5.2 per 1,000 children were placed in a private special school compared with the England average of 2.8. And I'll say that over 100 of those children, not even in a private special school, they're in a mainstream private school. High needs funding spent on state funded special school places increased year on year. So for state funded special schools, over five years, it's been a 75% increase in costs. And for private schools, 116% increase in costs. So we need to have change. I agree with Mrs. Dean's point around, there are grey areas here. Of course there are, but that is not a reason to change, not to change the current grey areas. We need to change the current grey areas. We're never going to get a cut and dried agreement. And I would say that quite clearly to the committee. Whatever proposal we bring, not everybody will agree with it. We're never going to get to a point where we're going to have total agreement. And so those are the parameters within which that we are working. That's not a reason not to make a decision. Members, hey, recommendations on page 11, show of hands, all those in favour? You counting, James? All those against? That's current. Members, item 8, 8B, is there any additional information on 8B before we go to the recommendations? Anyone like to say anything about 8B? Mr? Yes, when I'm looking at the proposed designation and admission criteria changes, I'm seeing generally that there's a change from communication and interaction support to neurodiversity and learning needs. Now, that's quite a big change. That's enhancing the level of support, which means that it's narrowing the number of children that will be needing that support. So I just need a little bit of clarification, what that change actually means. So moving from communication and interaction support to neurodiversity and learning needs. Thank you. Okay, who would like to respond? Alison? It means that the children who are achieving, so in some of those C&I schools now, well in the C&I schools, you will find children that you'll also find a mainstream, and those children would not be the children that you would find in the special schools in five years' time if this were applied. So some of those schools have started to admit children with lower levels of learning and more challenging behaviours, but it's not consistent, and it's not within the admission criteria as things stand. The children that we have greatest difficulty with in supporting their pathway into adulthood are those young people who we are working with health on a neurodiversity pathway for children who are neurodiverse, and so we're introducing that term here. But the children currently for whom there are greatest challenges are those children with autism learning difficulties and challenging behaviours, those children are currently quite often ending up in independent sector placements which are less regulated and don't provide a really, it's much harder for us to enable a really clear oversight and a pathway for those young people. And the intention is to make sure that they do have a pathway within the state funded sector. And the process that is intended through having the proposals on that option is to explore further any unintended consequences because there are young people who have a gap in their learning, i.e. they've got a big gap between where they are and where their peers are. So it's not within a two year age gap which all mainstream schools are providing for currently, but there's a much bigger gap than that, but it's due to presentation that have led to severe social anxiety. So that's also considered within that pathway. So in essence, the task is to identify children for whom they need a greater adaptation of the curriculum than you could provide with an efficient use of resource in a mainstream, because that's the criteria on which decisions are made by the local authority, and they're required to make decisions. Thank you. Can I just come back really quickly? I mean, that's really clear. So then that means that so the communication interaction support will be looked to be taught in mainstream. But then that moves me back to my cluster question of the level of funding with the schools within the cluster, because maybe some schools will have more children which need greater communication and interaction support within that school. And if there's more of those schools in a cluster, then more funding will be needed and how what support is going to be given to that and training within that school, and that's educational setting. Thank you. So what I didn't add, which perhaps would have been helpful and I will now add, is that's why the whole continuum is so important, because what we're also proposing is increasing secondary SRP provision in areas where that is we've identified a gap. And some of the children who currently are provided for in special school might well be provided with suitable education within that part of our continuum. So that's one of the part of my answer. Your second part of your question was around what training. In can we have have been awarded an grant through the, it's a long title, sorry, partnership for the inclusion of children who are neuro diverse in schools program that has been put forward by NHS England, and we've been awarded an grant to establish an approach within a pilot group of schools of 20. We've been awarded that with Medway, Medway also have the opportunity to pilot an approach which brings together the interventions and provisions and training and parents working with a group of schools to support children who are neuro diverse in a more coherent and cohesive way. It's a national program where one of a number of local authorities and the approach that's being adopted is to bring together a whole school system approach is to speech language and communication development through the balance system. It's called its well evidence approach to support the schools in having autism education trust training, which again is an evidence formed approach and has an autism education trust standard framework, which is associated with it. And then the third element is an element which we've piloted in the Tumbitch Wells area called This Is Me, it's been piloted in Portsmouth and has had very good effect. It's an approach to individual facilitated work on a profile for children who are more neuro diverse and are having more difficulty in making progress in school. And our pilot, it was facilitated by NHS practitioners. We're going to pilot with a range of practitioners facilitating that. So we're piloting that in the main stone area to try and endeavor to apply approach which is being adopted nationally to better secure education progress which are in her neuro diverse within the mainstream sector. So that hopefully answers a little bit and the intention would be at the heart of that school to school support as a model of approach to providing confidence for parents but also effective education progress for children. The intention would be after the pilot would be to extend that to other parts of Kent in a similar model. We've got some of the elements of that already happening but we haven't combined them all together. Right, I give Trudy and then we go into the vote. Trudy. Thank you Chairman. Is it the case that there is any other authority which is going for this type, this classification of schools? Is there any other authority that does this? Secondly, we don't have a designation any further proposed for physical how are we proposing to classify those children? How will they be dealt with? Thirdly, do we have any work on the cost of adaptation to the buildings and the timetable that will need to be gone through? And finally, a point that was just raised with me yesterday and I just checked up and I'm not sure whether it's right or wrong. When we use the term neurodiversity as distinct from neurodivergent, is there a difference? My understanding from looking up on wiki, of course, everybody knows that wiki knows everything is that neurodiversity applies to the whole classification of more than one person, whereas we ought to use the word neurodivergent if we're talking about an individual. If that's the case, then perhaps we could change some of the wording that's in this report. Thank you. I was just going to respond to the first. Oh, short, sorry, sorry. Ken already has a designation which nowhere else has, which I noticed when I first came in. Pardon? Well, the designation we currently have, which prevents the own complex needs which other authorities don't have, it does provide four children in an effective way. So, if it works and it does provide, then that's a good way of going forward and clearly we have said we need to evolve and develop. But I think it is worth considering and we've managed it before and in that regard, in my experience, well, sure, if you want to be sure, but the PCSN schools which aren't anywhere else are doing a very good job and they are meeting the needs of children that we have called something that other people haven't, but we seem to be doing it well. So, I've forgotten the second question, but physical disabilities, yes, yes. So, we haven't included that because the Equality Act some time ago in 2010 required that all schools are making plans for reasonable adjustment. And by having one physical disability school in one part of the county, that means that, you know, are we precluding children who are in the Far East? When I say the Far East, I mean the East of Kent, of course, you know, not being able to go there because it's a long distance. We also have one school that is currently communication, interaction and learning in the Far East of the county. So, there are children with physical disabilities having their needs met very well in schools that are profound and complex and severe needs children. And that's the sort of main response, the other responses that currently, by having a special school without designation, there are some examples where children have not been included in mainstream when actually that was a preference for parents because, you know, it ended up that that was the outcome that happened. That wouldn't have happened if we hadn't had a school without designation. So, yes, we haven't made that recommendation with that to continue. Members, recommendations on page 94, the show of hands, all those in favour? All those against? I've got you done, Ms. James. Eight C, then we'll have a break. Especially this resource provision review. They eight C, any additions by anybody? Before we go to the vote, everyone happy to go to the vote? Recommendations on page 135, members, show of hands, all those in favour? All those against? Thank you very much. Six four, that's through. Let's have a break. Let's have a break. What are we now? Let's come back up five, ten minutes. No, not yet. Great. I was expecting you to be online as well. Where's Jude? I think St Fitch is. Do we have anyone in the room or the office of Canada who can cover this subject so we can agree it? If not, shall we agree it? Anyway. Yeah. Christine, are you going to crack at it? Sorry. It's just formal agreement of the statement which is required. Members, can we agree? Agreed. Thank you. Right. Item ten a, expansion in North Fleet Technology, Ian and Christine, Ian. Thank you, Chair. This report just sets out the proposed expansion of North Fleet Technology College. By what we would say is just under one form of entry. It's by production of a new standalone block on site. Just members to the cost that's in there, it's estimated at this point. So the formal decision might be taken until we've gone further through the planning process. So we've got more definitive cost. Any questions? Lauren. Thank you. Yep. I just want to say that I'm fully supportive of this because this was the school that won the COP 28 prize for diversity. And I've been to see it. The bees are really busy. It's brilliant. And the young people are fantastic. And yeah, just great. Thank you. Okay. Members, can we agree? Agreed. Right. Thank you very much. Now we move to expansion of Lee Academy David. N.B. Ian. Thanks again, Chair. This is an expansion of Lee Academy by two forms of entry with the main part of the expansion being the introduction of a new standalone block as well, which will accommodate the current sixth form. So all of the year seven to 11 learners will be in the main school build. There is a decision needed here and now which is for the earlier costs because they exceed a million pounds. So we're asking for 1.4 million, part of which will go to the school to do internal modifications to allow them to continue with the a bulge year that they're already taking. And the rest is for our infrastructure colleagues to enter into the appropriate contracts and do the appropriate feasibility studies, et cetera. The formal cost for the full build will be subject to a further decision further down the road. Members, can we agree? Yes. I just want to pick up on 8.2, the member for the bulge, Penny Cole, Councillor Colle, and she's obviously made in the minutes, the comment regarding the traffic and the volume of, obviously, extra students, extra vehicles, if that could just be noticed. And we could look into something for the future if there's any funding. A big school transport plan or similar. Sorry, Chair. If I could just come in there. That would all be part of the main feasibility because we don't just look at the building and how the site is configured in order to get through planning. We have to satisfy the requirements of all of our colleagues, including highways. So that will all be taken care of as part of the scheme. On that basis, members, we agree? Great. Thank you. Right. 10C. We've got David with us proposed to add four classrooms to Whitfield Aspen. David. Thank you, Chairman. The paper is seeking the allocation of funding. So it is a formal decision in that sense for us to move forward. Nothing to add to the paper, so happy to take any questions. Thank you. OK. Everyone happy on this? Can we agree? Agreed. Thank you. And we're on 10D, David, replacement temporary classrooms at Langdon. Yep. So this is a modernisation programme rather than a basic need expansion. So it is about replacing unsuitable, fairly old accommodation. Again, it is for the capital to be allocated for more decisions that we can move into contracts. Again, nothing further to add. Thank you. Members, happy? Can we agree? Agreed. Thank you. Right. A mobile replacement scheme at Gleen Primary School. No, this school well. Robert. Thank you, Chair. Very similar to the previous project. It's under the modernisation programme. It needs a million pounds. So it is essentially to modernise two mobile classroom blocks or something more related. OK. Members, happy when I agree? Agreed. Thanks very much. Thank you, David. Thank you, Robert. All right. James, your famous work programme, The Revolving Door. That's what it is. Yep. Thank you very much. This is a standard item we have on the agenda work programme, now including 24/25 as well in the papers there. Yeah. Just to note that we dropped two regular items today because I looked at the timing and thought we may run over. So we have already omitted two items. Lauren. Can I make a request for staff survey results to go on that piece? OK. Thank you. All right. Now we are moving to item 12. Motion to exclude the press and public for exempt items. You ready to close down?