Transcript

Transcript

Hi, welcome everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful summer break. Welcome to the Children's Education Overview and Scrutiny Subcommittee. A special welcome to our new member, Councillor Sue Baco, who comes with a wealth of relevant experience and we're very lucky to have you. Also, a special welcome to my new Vice Chair, Councillor Longstaff. Thank you. As always, a bit of housekeeping, that meetings may be recorded and broadcast by people present as allowed for in-law or by the Council. So by attending either online or in person, you may be picked up on the recordings. Council recordings are covered by a privacy notice, which can be found at www.barnit.gov.uk. A quick reminder for members and new members that to talk, you click the little speaker icon when it turns red. You can speak and when you no longer want to speak, if you just tap it again. So we will go straight into the minutes of the last meeting. So do members have any comments they would like to make? Yes, Councillor Hutton. Only that there's some words like 'to' and 'left out'. I think if anybody reads through that they would find them. OK, thank you, Stella's making a note of that. Does anyone have any other comments? Yes, Councillor Longstaff. Thank you, Chair. I wasn't actually at the meeting, but I did ask for it to be passed on. The reason I was missing the meeting was because the dates kept getting changed. And they were changed from one date to the date and then changed back again later on at short notice. Otherwise, I would have been in attendance and I was asked for that to be noted in the minutes because in Council language, if you're missing because you're on Council business, it is noted that you're on other Council business rather than just absent. And I think it should be noted that I was absent because of changes to the dates. OK, thank you. Perfect. OK, just checking. Right. Other than that, are we happy to agree the minutes from the last meeting? OK, we'll take that as agreed. So we move on to absence of members. So I've received apologies from Councillor Woodstock-Vellaman and we have Councillor Naranthira sitting in on his behalf. Councillor Conaway, please. Councillor Myers just parking. OK, thank you. Yeah, that's fine with me. So we will move to agenda item four. We don't have any. Sorry. Agenda item three. Do members have any declarations to make in relation to any of the agenda items? Councillor Conaway. As a local headteacher of 9th room primary school, Jewish independent school in Henson, in regard to agenda six. If there's any discussion or anything further from the committee, then I'll pardon myself. Thank you. That's been noted. OK, so we'll move on to agenda item six. So the members of the the purpose of this members item is to allow the subcommittee to consider. We're deferring the items, so we'll move on to agenda item seven. We're going to whiz through this today. We had a question from a co-opted member, so we're just going to wait till she's here. OK, so we are now going to consider the special education needs and disability. I'm sure we are aware this is a challenge faced by councils across the country and is one of the biggest concerns in children's services. Finding ways to improve services within a context of rising demand and diminishing resources can be incredibly difficult. Whilst these problems cannot be solved overnight. Welcome. We need to satisfy ourselves that we are doing all we can to address this issue, to bring about solutions in the short, medium and long term. So I'd like to invite Karen to present some key highlights from the. Thank you. And so every year we have we have the statistics in relation to S.E.N. published in July. And so we bring a summary of those statistics to this and share it more widely as well. I, if any of you are involved in S.E.N. you represent, you will know that S.E.N. is an area of concern, I think, for many people, many families. Since the introduction of the Children and Families Act in 2014, we have seen year on year increases in the number of students being supported either through an education, health and care plan and S.E.N. support. And so the HCPs in Barnet last year, for example, increased by 10 percent. So as of January, we had three thousand eight hundred and nine children and young people being supported with the HCPs. Already this year, that has increased to four thousand one hundred and eighty. So it's likely we'll see another 10 percent increase, if not higher at the end of this year as well. So I think it's important to note that the increase in the children and young people being supported who have S.E.N. has increased year on year, and that is disproportionate to the increase in the pupil population. So the increase in Barnet, for example, since 2016, in terms of the S.E.N. population has increased by 120 percent compared to 10, just over 10 percent in terms of the pupil population. Barnet is a very inclusive mother. It has a high percentage of children in mainstream, which we're very proud of. The number of children, the percentage of children at S.E.N. support is lower than the national average at eleven point five percent. And this is of the pupil population, a whole cohort of children and young people with S.E.N. And the percentage of children in our schools with the HCPs has increased to three point nine percent. So our rate of increase of children and young people with a faster rate than that of the national level. We have 19.5 percent of our pupils are in Barnet's special schools. In terms of need types, the largest cohort is for children with speech, language and communication needs, followed by social, emotional and mental health, and then autism. And that's reflected by evident S.E.N. support. You know that our Bala is wonderfully diverse, which we welcome, and that's reflected in our S.E.N. statistics. Nationally, people are pupils with S.E.N. are more likely to be in the national average. One of the areas we are concerned about is appeals to the special educational needs and disability tribunal. So we do have high rates. They did come down from last year from three point seven percent to three point six percent. But that's still significantly higher than the national average at two point five percent. Although the national average did increase last year by 24 percent. I think you will all know that our children in this bar do very well in terms of attainment, and that is reflected in both our S.E.N. cohort and those pupils with the HCP as well. So at every stage from early years to key stage five pupils with S.E.N. in Barnet had higher levels of attainment. And the progress of S.E.M. pupils is also greater than England and also Barnet S.E.M. pupils attend schools more consistently as well. So there is there are challenges within the system as we'll come on to. But there's a lot to be proud of in Barnet as well. And that is thanks to our education providers here and the wider services. We so in terms of destinations, we have high rates of pupils remaining in sick form. And that's particularly the over 30 percent compared to 20 percent at the national average. The proportion. So in terms of a third, 31 percent of the HCP to sixth form or sixth form college compared to eleven point six percent nationally. Our rates of exclusions and suspensions are lower than both the national and our statistical neighbors as well. But they are increasing and that's we're seeing that reflected at a national level. So that's something where their children are experiencing challenges. And we're also reviewing alternative provision offers over the next year as well to make sure we're really clear, as well as outreach support where children can have short term placements in a PRU and all longer term placements where they prepare them to go on to their next phase of education. Employment rates for for young people with a learning disability are higher in Barnet than nationally. And that's something that we're really proud of. So that eight point two percent versus four point eight percent nationally. That's. We do have challenges around the number of special school places, and that's something that we need to work to those in ARPs by 40 percent since 2000 and 18. But we know that with the increase in SEND, particularly those coming through under fives, that's something that is is a priority area for us. So before we just go into questions, we also have Lisa Hoffman, so I was going to invite her over. Lisa is a representative from the Barnet parent carers forum and is attempting to give us a perspective on services from the organization supporting children, supporting parents with children have SEND. So welcome. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to come along this evening. I'll just explain a little bit about the Barnet parent care forum, because I'm not sure that all of you will necessarily have come across it before. But we are a group of volunteers primarily who work with Barnet in order to represent the parenting carers of children, young people with special educational needs and disabilities in Barnet. We survey and speak to our members to find out what the issues that they are facing are. And then we collectively represent those voices with the local authority and we work very closely with them to try and improve services as best we can. Hopefully you see my note and I don't propose to go through it in a huge amount of detail. But I just wanted to highlight a few things, if that's OK. Firstly, I think it's really important to say that the work that we've done with Barnet over the last few years has been, in my mind, really quite incredible. Our levels of co-production are really high compared to other local authorities. And the Barnet parent care forum is part of the national network of parent care forums that we liaise a lot with other forums and other local authorities. And we understand the kind of problems that they have, the difficulties they have with co-production. And we in the forum and Barnet have worked really hard to increase our co-working over the last few years. And I really think that it shows. I'm not saying that we get it right all the time. Of course we don't. And there are so many areas that we need to focus on. But I think it's important to understand the backdrop of that. There are so many things that we do really well and I'm grateful for the time and the support that we get from the professionals in Barnet. And the fact that we are included in so many of the discussions at an early point, which is really important. And I've listed in my notes some areas where we have worked really closely with the local authority and in some ways have been trendsetters. There's some things that we do that are not common among other local authorities. And we have set standards in that respect, which is really encouraging. That said, obviously, there are issues that are still a struggle for families in Barnet. And the backdrop, of course, as Karen has said, is increasing demand and pressures on funding. And parents and families are really feeling that and are really struggling in a lot of ways to get the support that they feel their children and young people are entitled to. And in many cases are written into educational health care plans and therefore they are entitled to under law. So just to highlight a few areas. We feel and this is something that most parent carer forums agree with, that early intervention is key. If we can find a way to support children and young people at the earliest possibility, where they are showing signs of difficulty, then so many of them will not need greater support later on. And that's important for the young people, for parents and for the local authority, who will, I hope, in some cases, need to find less funding for them later on. And so many young people reach a crisis point because they don't get timely intervention and timely support. And I'm not saying that teachers don't try. Of course they do. But there is, in my mind, not enough training in certain areas and not enough funding in school to be able to support these young people. So I feel that we are firefighting so much of the time and we need to just kind of reverse some of those decisions and get the support in school earlier. It is happening. And I know so many people are working to do that, but I just feel that there is so much more to do. There is such an impact on families when children are unsupported. And there was a survey that was done to support a special women's hour feature this week, where they surveyed a thousand mothers of children who have sent. And one in three of them said that they give up work in order to look after their children who were not being supported in school. So either there was no place for them or they were out of school because they weren't receiving the support they needed. And of those mothers who hadn't given up work entirely, over 50 percent said that they had to reduce their hours. And that's hugely significant. I mean, I am one of those mothers. I'm a lawyer by profession and had to give up my career to look after my daughter who was able to attend school. And so I can speak from the heart in that respect. But that has an effect on the whole community. So it's not just the child. It's it's families suffering. And, you know, it goes well beyond that, that families are not able to earn the money that they would otherwise have done. They're relying on benefits to the extent that they wouldn't have done otherwise. So it has such ramifications that that shouldn't be ignored. Very closely connected with that, obviously, is the mental health of the young people and the mental health of parents and siblings, which which can be affected when the situations are so difficult. Diagnostic assessments is remains a really difficult area. If children can't get the assessments they need in a timely fashion, then the support can't be put in place. And the wait times for those assessments are too high. We know work is being done to reduce them. But the pressures on specialist services fashion and that then has an effect that I've had before. I wanted to mention about. Appeals and tribunals and in Barnet, I feel strongly that the amount of appeals and tribunals is too high and we need to address that. And I know as part of the change program, that's something that's being looked at. And I know there's been recruitment in the area to try and mediate with families. Appeals, but families don't have enough trust in the system. They don't believe that that will work. So they're skipping any form of mediation and alternative dispute resolution and going to tribunal. That's a waste of resource for the local authority. It's a terrible strain on families. And I feel that we really need to concentrate on that to try and resolve these disputes before they get to that stage. Elective home education, which I know is on your agenda and it's something that I have spoken about before. And I really just wanted to say thank you for giving me a voice in that piece of work and for. Understanding the concerns that parents have in terms of the pressure put on them when their children are unable to attend school. And we use we often use the term episode, emotionally based school avoidance. It's not avoidance. So many children want to be in school. So many parents want their children to be in school. They're not bunking off. They're not taking them on holidays. Yes, of course, there are some that do. But on the whole, that is not the case at all. Children want to be in school with their friends. Parents want their children to be in school so that they can work or. Do whatever else they they need to. And it's it's really important to understand that. Penalizing parents, putting pressure on families, blaming children and young people and families is never going to work. What we need to do is make sure that the barriers for them to be in school are reduced and that their needs are met. Port reflect that, you know, and it is a case of support first. And I hope that as a result of those recommendations, more parents will feel supported. And we are working really closely with the educational psychology team in Bonnet on guidance around episode four. Families, the schools, nationals in the hope that we can increase the levels of said levels of non-dependence children. So lots of work being done on that. But a way to go. Therapies remains a difficulty in Bonnet, even children who have. Levels of therapeutic support written into that. Always getting that. And parents are incredibly frustrated. It comes straight back to the point that before, if we're not giving the support to the children at the time they need it, then they will need more support. Later on, they will fall further and further behind. Potentially it can affect their attendance. So it's something that needs to be addressed. And of course, I appreciate it comes down to funding, but it is such a priority for so many families and shouldn't be ignored. So I think that that's the only issues that I really wanted to highlight, and I'm more than happy to answer any questions if anybody has anything they want to ask. Yes, does anyone have any questions? Councillor Meyer. Thank you. It's pretty much Karen, actually. I know in the report we mentioned as a significant part about VAT and funding. Can I ask, have we got any modeling on how many additional school places we may need? And should the VAT tax that's been spoken about by the government be implemented? Because I'm probably quite concerned that parents won't be able to afford that and will need to make places and provisions in existing schools. If I can respond. I think we're going to have a further discussion about that when Paper 6 is going to be discussed. But for children with special education needs, there is no VAT charge. That's one of the exemptions that has been. Thank you, Nigel. Thank you very much, Chair. It's not so much a question, but a vote of thanks. I'm a member of the task group you spoke to, and we were all deeply impressed with what you had to tell us, your recommendations and your thoughts. And we're very impressed with what you're doing for that area. So thank you very much indeed. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thank you very much. And, you know, as I said before, most of the people I work with in the forum give up their time voluntarily. We all feel really passionate about what we do, and it's so important that parents are encouraged to speak out. And we are grateful when people listen. So thank you for your experiences and the key issues. Thank you for the wonderful work you do. Does anyone, Councillor Longstaff? Thank you. Both Karen and Lisa spoke about demand for places, the amount of places available. Just out of interest, is this because we provide less than the rest of London and the country? Or is this because more people are actually moving to Barnet? Because in my opinion, the provision is very good. People work very hard. When there's a good provision about, there's a lot of people interested in moving into the area. So I think there's a variety of reasons. It's not it's not unique to Barnet. So across the country, people are struggling with the efficiency of special school places originally anticipated. I think there are things about the barnet itself that make it a very attractive borough. And we know across, you know, across London, there's high, you know, there's high levels of movement of families. So we do have a high number of families moving into the area, but also a borough of sanctuary. And so, you know, with that, whilst we welcome every single one of those families, we know there's a higher proportion of children, not just that have experienced trauma, but you know, who have other complex needs as well. Talking about the cost of placing barnet residents in independent mainstream schools, I wondered how that worked. I could understand that the ECHP part of it would be paid, but if parents wish to send their child to that school, why would that extra cost, if there is, fall on the local council and not on the family if they wish to send their children to an independent school? I'm not quite sure how that works, if you could clarify that. If you place a child into, if a school has been deemed appropriate, then the tribunal for those cases or, you know, everything is such a case by case basis, it's difficult to give a specific answer for, you know, for individual cases, but that's generally what happens. So, if it's been deemed appropriate for that child, then the local authority is responsible for the fees. As an independent school? Yes. If that's what's named on the plan, it's been deemed appropriate. Okay. Councillor Longstaff? Thank you. There was something as well that was raised from Lisa about how it would help in order that disputes between what a parent or carer wants and what the council is able to provide, willing to provide, and they should try and resolve that long before it goes to an appeal court or wherever it goes to beyond. So, what is the council's, how can the council actually square that circle where there are finite resources but the parent knows that their child, and of course it's emotional and they want the very best for their child, how are you intending to square that circle to resolve things and get them done quicker? So, we've just taken on two associated to disagreement resolution. We have mediation arrangements in place, but quite often families, as Lisa referred to, want to skip straight to that because their understanding is that they will have a better chance really to get what they feel is needed for their child. So, we really want to build that trust with families in terms of conversations and trying to agree those disagreements, even if we can agree them partially. So, you know, there will be always times where it's right that it goes to tribunal because there isn't agreement and it's up to the judge then to make a decision, but I think the more we can do with families, the better. Thank you. Sorry, I don't know what they have to get, but I just wanted to make a point on that, which is a concern of mine, and this is absolutely in support of mediation pre-tribunal. Many families do not have the resources to get legal support for tribunals and are too overwhelmed to work out what their rights are in that respect. And therefore, it is often, not always, but often the case that those that do go to tribunal are cases where families can afford legal support and have the highest level of help. And that creates such an injustice that you've got families who perhaps have exactly the same similar needs, and their cases should be considered in the same way, but they don't actually have the ability to push it that far. And my concern is that those children will lose out. If we have a system by which there is faith in dispute, alternative dispute resolution and mediation pre-tribunal, you don't need legal representation. You just need to sit around a table and have a conversation to try and understand what the issues are. And in my opinion, that system will be fairer as well as better for all. I think the drive to improve mediation, and we certainly need to work together to improve perceptions of the benefits of mediation, I think is really important. But I can find out for you. I know that in, I think, anything that goes to a hearing is not, you know, we hear, you hear language such as, oh, it's a win for the parent, it's a win for the local authority. I don't think anyone wins when they go to tribunal. We are aware that of those that do go to a hearing in Barnet, then there is, there is a higher number than the national average that are upheld in favour of the local authority, but still, you know, there's still a lot more that are upheld. Yeah, I think the, over the last few years, the team have worked really hard to understand, you know, the legal positions and so on. So they've really tried hard to improve that position. Hopefully, you know, last, the improvement, albeit not good enough, last year to this is the start of a trend, and that's certainly what we're hoping for, but it will require everyone to work together and everyone to have a bit more trust. Thanks. Councillor Lemmon. Thanks, Chair. Just like to first of all thank the Speaker and obviously all the officers who contributed not only to the report, especially when you compare Barnet to other boroughs and how well we're doing. I don't want to be rude, but let's start talking about money. One of the appendices refers to the schools grant and the by-needs block area where there's projected, I assume that's projected to F6 million this year, so that's fast at the moment. Yes. And then it talks about a few examples about how you might just touching around the edges. Yeah, and I think perhaps I didn't make this clear in the report. I think there is a difference. It's certainly not about cuts. It's about reviewing things to see how we can use that, that amount of funding more effectively to meet the needs of more children. So we are undergoing an alternative provision, so approved review, for example, because we know there is some crossover. So how can we improve the system? How can we make it clearer for parents, the pathways around that? How can we be how can we support our schools more? We have an increasing number of children. So one area has been on home tuition, for example. So can we look at that and think about how we do it in house rather than using external providers? We think there'd be more control, improved quality and probably a saving in costs in terms of that. So these aren't these are not looking at cuts. They're really looking at ways of doing it more effectively. Thanks for that reassurance. And just a quick follow up on that as well. And I presume when you're talking about more higher mainstream inclusion, that's all evidence based. And that's something new, substantial savings, but based on clear evidence. And I think it is certainly about doing things more effectively, but in terms of the savings, it's trying to slow the increase in the deficit by investing more in early prevention and different matters like that. OK, thank you. Yeah, we have to do returns that started last year in terms of returning annual reviews. You're right. They do. They do have to be done every year. Annual reviews are currently of the whole cohort. We're about 63 percent in terms of those that are processed on time within the time scales. That is clearly not as high as where we'd like it to be. But we know that that is a better rate than many other local authorities. And it's an improving picture as well. Within that cohort, though, we do focus annual reviews on what we call early annual reviews, you know, where there are there are real concerns and on our vulnerable children cohort as well. So looked after. So the way the completion rates for that cohort is much higher, it's 84 percent. Separately, they're tracked within FE. So we do have, you know, we do have high rates of participation in FE as well. But I think one of our strengths is the number of children with the HCPs that go on to sixth forms and stay in their school. Thank you for those questions. So a massive thank you to Lisa and Karen for speaking and presenting to us today. Can I ask the committee if the recommendations in the report have been agreed? Great. As Rizal Friedman has joined us, we're going to go back to agenda item six, and that's our members items. So the purpose of this member's item is essentially to allow the subcommittee to consider the issue raised and decide if you wish to get a course of action. Rizal Friedman, would you like to read your question for us? Thank you so much. Also, just to declare an interest. I work, I work for pages, partnerships with Jewish schools. We support Jewish schools across the UK. I don't know if you need anything else about the interest or if that's sufficient. That's sufficient. Thank you. I wanted to ask whether there will be an opportunity to ask the professionals essentially how much time and thought have been given to the impact of the imposition of VAT on school fees, obviously, as well as the planned removal of the relief for business rates after the after the budget on October 30th. Given the high number of Jewish independent schools in Barnet, should there be an influx of students into the state sector? I think there needs to be some assessment of the availability of appropriate educational provision. I'm more broadly wondering if it's been considered outside of the Jewish lens. And I'd just like to thank Neil Marlowe for his time earlier this week. I think we've already begun a discussion about this, but was hoping to bring it to the table here so that the committee can also hear about the impact of this. Thank you. I'll pass over to Neil Marlowe, who can advise us on suggested calls of action. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Reisel, for your question. And yes, as Reisel says, she is Assistant Director of PAGES, the national organization that works to support Jewish schools, state and independent. And so it's really important that Barnet have a close relationship with PAGES, which we do, because we work cooperatively and co-produce ways forward. And I think it's really critical that with regards to this VAT exemption on independent schools, that we work very closely with PAGES and other relevant organizations to help co-produce the future. Just giving a background to the situation. But before I do that, I hope Reisel sees after we've met on Wednesday, Reisel, that we have given some real time and thought to the question. So it wasn't a surprise to get this question. As you know, we've been working already on that, Reisel, as you saw. Absolutely. And it's technology that in this space as well. So thank you very much. Yes. When this was mentioned in the Labour Manifesto, we obviously thought about what would be the potential implications for us in Barnet. If we look at non-faith independent schools and faith independent schools separately, if I just deal with non-faith independent schools first. In non-faith independent schools, if there was a movement of parents from children, from schools into the state system, our capacity within our state schools and non-faith state schools could easily manage that movement from independent to state. In fact, I'm sure state schools would openly welcome them to come into their schools to help with the falling role situation we have across Barnet, across some areas of Barnet. So that would be no issue at all. Interesting that hasn't happened so far. We had a Headteacher meeting this morning and I was asking, has there been already any interest from parents about moving their children from independent to state? And that hasn't happened as yet. But clearly, this is due to coming in January next year, and so we may get an influx then. But the non-faith state schools within Barnet would be easily able to meet any need that comes from children moving over from independent to state. So probably the greatest area of need would be if there was issues with regards to faith independent schools and particularly with regards to our Jewish faith independent schools. So just to give you some data of the Jewish school landscape in Barnet, we've got 21 Jewish state schools in Barnet, 16 primary, four secondary and one special. So approximately 7,400 pupils attend Jewish state schools in Barnet. So 16% of state schools in Barnet are Jewish schools, which is obviously very high comparatively, and obviously is high comparatively because we need to meet the need of the high Jewish population in Barnet. So 11.8% of pupils in Barnet state schools attend a Jewish state school. In addition to those 21 state Jewish schools, we've got 17 independent Jewish schools in Barnet. Now that's out of a total of 36 independent schools we have. So 17 of the 36 independent schools we have in Barnet are Jewish independent schools. So 47% of independent schools are Jewish schools. And so approximately 3,200 pupils attend those independent Jewish schools in Barnet. 42% of independent pupils in Barnet go to a Jewish independent school. And so just under 3,000 of that 3,200 attend strictly Orthodox or Haredi Orthodox. And apologies if my determinations are incorrect here, Councillor Conway and others, but that's looking at the different levels of Orthodoxy. And so those are the higher levels of Orthodoxy, the strictly Orthodox and the Haredi Orthodox. And thank you, Raizel, for helping me in my determination and classification there and realizing that actually often those two types of schools are very interchangeable. And 3,000 pupils are going to those strictly or Haredi Orthodox schools. We don't have exact numbers because we don't get numbers of independent schools as a council. That's not something that we get hold of. In fact, the way I find out how many pupils are in independent schools is when I read their Ofsted report that says pupils enroll and that's how it updates our information about pupils enrolled in independent schools. So we certainly don't know how many pupils are in each year group either in those independent schools. Of those independent Jewish schools, nine of them are primary and seven of them are secondary. And as with our state schools, which go from Reform schools where we've got four Reform schools up to five strictly Orthodox state schools, the same with independent schools. Although there aren't any Reform independent schools and no modern Orthodox independent schools, we do have two Orthodox independent Jewish schools and 14 of their independent schools are strictly Orthodox or Haredi Orthodox. Hence the 3,000 of those pupils going to those schools that are strictly Orthodox or Haredi Orthodox. Now, a recent history in Barnet over the last 30 years or so, the number of Jewish state schools has risen quite sharply in Barnet due to the opening of new schools, including academies and free schools and independent schools successfully applying to become state maintained rather than being independent. The most recent of those being Menorah High for Girls that used to be an independent school and Noam Primary that used to be an independent school, both now are state schools. So the potential issue would be if a significant number of those children in independent Jewish schools were wanting to get us placed in one of our state Jewish schools. Now, we do have some capacity in our state Jewish school system at the moment, though there are capacity across the board from Reform right up to strictly Orthodox. But in speaking to Rachel earlier in the week, the concern would be that a number of those parents, if they weren't able to afford the fees of the school that they're currently in as independent, none of the state schools that we had would meet their need with regards to their faith. So they would then have to look for another alternative, which potentially would be becoming electively home educated. Now, clearly, we would want to try and avoid that because we want them to be in an educational establishment rather than EHE. So that removal of the VAT exemption in January could have an impact on us with regards to the Jewish state schools and meeting the capacity. Just out of interest, I could give you the figures that we have at the moment. In our primary state schools, we have 195 places available for girls who are strictly Orthodox and we have 59 places for Orthodox, et cetera. But within our secondary schools, all of our secondary schools, Reform, Orthodox and Strictly Orthodox are all full. But what our Jewish secondary schools have managed to do over the past few years to meet the increased demand has been to open bold classes within their schools. So we would obviously be needing to work with our schools to see if they could continue to open up bold classes or expand their provision. So I would suggest that there's a few next steps from this discussion and hope Rachel agrees. One is that the state schools will welcome independent school pupils into our state schools, particularly non-faiths who are going to go into the non-faith state schools where we have a number of vacancies. The tax exemption is due to come in in January 2025, so we do have some time, but these few months will go very wide very quickly. But we obviously need to keep a keen eye on what's going to happen between now and then and assess the number of parents that are looking to find places in our school. I mentioned before the number of independent schools who have now become state schools and there's a clear criteria that we have that the council has for accepting independent schools to be a Barnet State School. One of those criteria is that it's a good or outstanding school currently, and as you're probably aware, that single judgment has now been taken away from state schools and is probably likely to be taken away from independent schools as well. So clearly that criteria needs to be relooked at to make sure it's appropriate, particularly with regards to the changes of off-state judgment. And then we need to concentrate on potentially increasing the capacity in our strictly orthodox schools, particularly with boys at secondary, to meet that possible demand. So that's working with our existing schools to see if they could increase their pan even more. And finally, members may want to lobby to the DFE to exempt independent faith schools from this VAT exemption. So rather than saying every independent school is going to have to now pay VAT, if a school and the community within that school haven't got a state option, as I said, a number of those 3,000 pupils wouldn't want to go into any of our state schools because they don't meet their faith requirements, then it would seem unfair that they said there's a blanket policy across all schools. So I know pages and I know other organizations are lobbying the DFE to say could there be some exceptions for schools when there isn't really a state alternative. Maybe the members might want to do that as well. Thank you, Neil, for that course of action. Can I ask members if they have any comments? Councillor Longstaff? Yeah, I just wondered if you'd done any analysis, both on non-faith schools and on independent private schools, if a few more people decide that they decide to go to private school because of the increase in VAT, sorry, the addition of VAT, what happens when the school decides to close? Do we have any analysis of the school potentially saying, well, actually, we just can't afford to carry on? Then potentially you've got even… Yes, I mean, we've had one school contacting us and saying exactly that, that if this comes in in January, then their school isn't going to be financially sustainable and they may have to look to close. So clearly that would mean to try and find places for those children. But that's a factor. You know, it's not just about parents not being able to afford the fees. It's about schools not being able to be financially sustainable, potentially closing. Nigel? Thank you. Thank you very much, Neil, for your comprehensive explanation of the issues around Jewish schools. I wonder if are there any Muslim schools in Barnet and are there any issues around those situations? We have one Muslim independent school and so if that school closed or the parents were looking for a state option, there isn't a state Muslim school. So I should have said, by the way, I should have mentioned this before, that our statutory responsibility is just to provide places. We don't have to provide faith places. So we meet our responsibility by having enough places for the number of children who want a place. Now, obviously, the moral imperative is to make sure that it's a place that's going to be appropriate for their needs and particularly their faith needs. But our state schools are multicultural, as you know, and so there's quite a high Muslim population in our state schools currently. So we would hope that for state schools that they would be satisfied with the education they're going to get in one of our state schools. Do you know enough about that Muslim school to know whether the parents are strictly orthodox, if I may use the Jewish expression, and therefore perhaps reluctant to go to a multicultural state school? I don't, but we would need to work with that school in the same way we would be working with Jewish schools as well. Have you been working with that school? We have had conversations with that school previously, yeah. Thank you. If a independent school wants to close because the parents can't afford because of the VAT situation, and if they're a good and outstanding school, will there be a consideration to take that into a state sector? So there's a process. Obviously, it needs the willingness of the school to want to be a state school, and some schools wouldn't want to be. But if they did want to be a state school, then they have to follow the criteria I said that maybe the council needs to relook at again, particularly because of Ofsted. But that's how the schools like Noah, Menorah, Grammar, and others previously to that have become state schools because they've followed the process. They've completed the information that we need. And you can understand it's the council's responsibility to be making sure that they're taking on a school that is in a good way, both financially and educationally. And so that's what they need to demonstrate to become a state school. Obviously, there is some financial implications if a school becomes a state school, particularly which part of the financial year they become a state school, because that might have some drains on them. Thank you for that very detailed response to the question, and thank you, Raisal Friedman, for raising that. So the comments from members have been noted. And now we're going to move back over to agenda item eight, which is the the Barnet Young residents perception survey. So for this, we have Ben Thomas and Rosie Evangeli. Excuse me, are we not meant to make a decision on that members item? OK, would members like to agree the recommendations that Neil has put forward? Could Neil just summarize it? Yeah, could you summarize the recommendation? It says in point three one, do nothing, request an officer error report, refer to cabinet, request an report we presented at a future date. Surely we need to select which one we would choose. I think Neil suggested some differing ones. So I mean, some weren't really anything to act on. One is where I said we would welcome independent school pupils into our state schools where appropriate. There's no decision there. We've got time to deal with this. That's not a recommendation. So the ones to think about is looking at the current criteria for independent schools. My personal view on this item is that there's no further action for this committee because we are undertaking all of the actions that we've set out. And they are quite comprehensive unless they're, you know, writing a report would be exactly the same as we've given you. There's nothing to escalate to cabinet because there's nothing apart from when we get to a point of writing a new framework because of the offset changes, not because of the back changes. And we've set out a whole range of things that we put in place. So my personal view, if you, you know, but it's for members to decide, is that there's no further action for this committee because we have debated it and we've given you a very thorough, comprehensive answer to what the council is doing. Could this committee not request, for example, that Barnet lobby the DFE on behalf of Barnet with this report and call for an exemption on faith schools as part of this VAT taxation change? We did, Neil did suggest that there was an opportunity for members to write a letter, whether it would be a letter exempting all faith schools. That's a very different thing to what was proposed. My understanding of what Neil's proposing is that we write a letter where there are no state alternatives that there should be an exemption. And I don't think that we are happy to draft a letter in that in that line. But that's not one of the things that's on that list of things that you read out from the approach. But we are suggesting we write a letter that talks about those faith groups where there are no state alternatives. Perhaps because they're in the consultation open at the moment, I had raised this with Neil and I appreciate that the timeframe is now very short because the consultation closes at midnight on Sunday evening. Perhaps Barnet could submit some form of abbreviated report based on the number that Neil's already kind of pulled together to explain that there is no suitability by other submissions to the consultation. I know that pages and other charities and faith groups and the IFC have pulled together. Neil, would you like to respond to that? I'm not convinced that we would respond to that consultation with that level of detail. We can write a letter that sets out some particular concerns that we have, and I think that's proposing that we do. This is this is not a decision for Barnet as a local authority. The consultation should be directly affected and parents who are directly affected. So my view is that we can write a letter setting out what some of the challenges might be to ministers from council. But I don't think we should do any any more than that at this stage. But happy raisal, if you are having discussions with the department for me to be involved in those discussions, to be able to give a barnet context. Perfect. Even a letter to ministers would be helpful. So I think maybe Neil, we can take it forward. And would that be circulated to this committee members as well? Can we make sure that's added to a follow up recommendation? OK, we just wanted to clarify if the letter is going to come from the committee. It seems there's two things. The consultation is open and anyone can respond to the consultation. I don't think I should be responding to the consultation on behalf of the whole of Barnet. But I'm happy to I'm happy to to contribute to the discussions with the department, with with a letter to say what the barnet context is. Is the committee happy with that course of action? OK, thank you. OK, so we'll move on to agenda item eight, which was the Barnet Young Residence Perceptions Service. We'll pass over to Ben and Rosie online. We've been patiently waiting. Thank you. Thank you, chair. So we're not going to go through all the slides that were in the appendix in the pack in detail, but I'm just going to go through some of the background and then Rosie's going to talk through a couple of slides on the specifics of the data. So the Young Residence Perception Survey happened two years. It's with young residents aged 11 to 18. And it's undertaken by an independent research company called ORS, who also did the previous survey. And this is actually the fifth one that we've done, the fifth wave of the survey. The first was done in autumn 2016, and then there have been subsequent surveys in 2017, 19 and 21, 22. The survey's done alongside the adult survey and is part of the strategic vision to make Barnet a family friendly borough and improve outcomes by listening to the voices of children and young people, listening to what they're concerned about, what's important to them, and then using that to inform strategies and plans going forwards. So 500 Barnet young people were interviewed between December 23 and March 24. And ORS had quotas on age, gender and ethnicity to make sure it was a cross-section of Barnet's young people and is representative of the population. So the survey provides important insight on what young people think about living in the borough, their perception of the council, the services they receive. And it also helps to understand young people's priorities and concerns. There is, of course, also the Bright Spot Survey, which is specifically for children in care and care leavers, which was reported on earlier in the year. So the presentation in the appendix provides a lot of the detail and we'll look at a little bit of that in a moment. But the results show that the majority of indicators are in line with the last survey and the previous findings and in particular satisfaction with the local area. With Barnet being a family friendly borough, young people remain broadly in line with the previous survey. In terms of the demographic breakdown and in particular qualities, there are some clear themes with some groups of young people less likely to be satisfied in specific areas. So that's if they have a disability, if they live in the Burnt Oak, Hendon or Colindale North Ward, if they live in a low deprivation area, if they're of mixed or multiple ethnic backgrounds or if they're female. And a lot of these things are actually similar to what was found in the adult survey. So a joint action plan being worked on and a report began to Cabinet in November about this. So that was all I wanted to say. I just want to hand over to Rosie. Thanks Ben. Should I share my presentation? You can see a presentation there. Can you have a? We do have a screen to view the presentation. Yeah, that's OK. Great. So, yeah, thanks Ben for introducing that. And as Ben says, I'm just going to go through some of the highlights. It's very positive. What I'm just going to go through is some of the key image indicators and that are positive. And then just look at some more negative findings and then we'll look at some concerns and some further segmentation. So the slide you can see now is it's what we see as our core indicators and you can see we're doing. I'm just going to stop you there because we actually can't see any slides. Oh, oh, just let's go back. We're very happy for you to just continue presenting without the slides either way. So please don't fall under any pressure. OK, I'll just try one more time and see what happens. You see the slides now? We've got them now. Thank you. OK, I'll just start where? OK, so these are the core indicators that I was talking about. So you can see the more we've got high satisfaction levels on these. So the majority of our young people are happy with one. It's a place to live. Agree we're a family friendly place. We're doing a good job. Agree young people have their say on things and protect people from harm. The keeping informed is pretty much in line what is still high and pretty much what in line what we normally get on how young people feel they're informed. So just in terms of satisfaction with the low clarity, this is actually in line with the last time, and you can see also in line with the adult survey. In terms of segmentation on this, disabled young people are less likely to be happy with their local area. And in terms of Barnet family friendly, again in line from the last wave and slightly higher than the adult survey. In terms of segmentation, again, we've got disabled young people less likely to say this and then young people living in Burnet Oak, Colindale and the Henford constituency. These are some other image of the council questions. So you can see eight out of ten of our young people think the council is doing a good job, but there has been a slight drop since its peak in 2019. So there's been a slight decline there. Providing service that young people need. This is in line with the last wave, but we did have a peak in 2017 and protecting people from harm. That's pretty much in line with 2021/22. And just to clarify what Ben said earlier, anything that is above plus or minus 4.2%, that's when it's a significant change. But when it's anything below plus or minus 4.2%, that means it's in line with the previous survey, so just to clarify that. And then these are the indicators in terms of image of the council that received the lowest satisfaction levels, but still good. But what we can see is they're back in line with our 2019 findings, and there was a peak just as we're coming out of COVID, but they've returned back to the pre-pandemic levels. So this is an indicator that surprised us a little bit. So satisfaction in the primary and secondary education have seen a decline since the peak in 2021/22. So services for support for children and young people, that's remained in line with previous years. But what I will show you is the satisfaction, it doesn't mean that more young people have got dissatisfied with our primary education, secondary education. And what's happened is young people are now saying they're neutral or they don't know. There hasn't been an increase in dissatisfaction. It's just that they're more indecisive this year. So all the way through, there's quite an interesting data set on young people's concerns, and I've actually brought this one up in terms of personal safety. So young people actually still rate knife crime as their top concern, but you can see that's actually dropped. The number of young people saying it's their top concern has dropped compared to 2021/22. And actually concern for gangs has also remained the concern. But what's happened is that we've added two new options this year. So this has actually shifted where people are saying their top concerns are. So these two new concerns are safety of girls and hate crime, and that they're third and fourth. And I know we're very interested in the hate crime at the moment. It's quite worrying that one in four young people do see that as a concern. So I thought I'd just bring up the segmentation on this particular slide, but throughout the presentation you have, we have done deep dives on everything so we can start to look at who's more concerned. So in terms of our protected characteristics, we can see there's nothing coming up in life crime. But in terms of area, Burntoke and Collingdale North are more concerned about knife crime. So you can see all these different types of concerns from different groups and different wards. And it's very well worth actually reflecting back on this and how this segmentation will help us start to prioritize our resources. And just to add, what we have done across the indicators is looked at the average in terms of segmentation groups across the indicators where those groups showing that they're less happy. So on the right hand side, on the left hand side, we can see that disabled young people are across the board more likely to be unhappy. Those living in areas of low deprivation, which might sound surprising to you, but when you actually look at some of the indicators. So interestingly, those areas, things like being listened to, being aged, young people living in low deprivation areas are more likely not to feel listened to. So there's probably, they might be sort of feeling ignored, but that's an indicator, a very interesting finding that I don't think we've seen before. And then mixed ethnic background, female young people. But those are the top segmentations where they're feeling less happy in terms of the survey. And then we've done the same with wards. So you saw in that concern for safety, Burntoke and Collingdale was coming out. But across the board, the west of the borough are less, lower than the average. So that's a very quick whistle tour of what we've actually already sent to you. Ben touched on the next steps. So yes, we're bringing a combined report of the findings from the adults and the young person survey to the November cabinet, which will, as well as looking at what the Children's Partnership Board might be doing or children's services, looking across the services, what other recommendations our services can bring to this, for example, parks and open spaces and community safety. So that's a very top tour of the presentation that's been shared with you. Thank you, Rosie and Ben. Do members have any questions? Councillor Baker? Thank you very much for that. It was really rich in detail. There were some really positive outcomes there. My thoughts are, where you have, obviously, we often, you know, when we're scrutinising, tend to kind of dive towards the negative, and where there are dips in the results from last year to this year, and where they were quite low last year and they're still low this year. I wonder what kind of, if young people aren't feeling as valued as they did, and if they don't feel the Council, if there's an increase in the amount in any more detail. I mean, in terms of analysis, we are looking at a bit more analysis in terms of across the board, what indicators are driving certain things. So there will be more analysis on that. And there is potential to do more qualitative research. But in terms of what other actions Ben's team is thinking about, if you would like to come in on that, Ben. Yeah, following the last survey, we actually did a lot of qualitative work. We did around a whole series of focus groups. So I think we will do some more qualitative work after this one as well, looking at these specific areas as part of that bringing together the joint action plan. Thank you for that. Will there be a comprehensive action plan as a result of this? Yes. Yeah, that's what's part of the report that's coming in November to Cabinet. Thank you. Councillor Fletcher. Page 81, where it looks at the, where do young people feel most safe, has seen a decline in every area except for local parks since 2016. And that's just their perception of how they feel. But is there any research done to actually. I don't think that there is. I'll ask Tina, actually, because she might have some insights through the work of. They're feeding that back to. We're feeding that feedback back into the safer community partnership against the action plan so that we. Thank you. I could just come back. So if you look at the top one, which is schools and that's gone down four percent. And I assume that this survey is anonymized, but you may be able to work out which schools that they attend. Just think just it would be interesting to know that if that four percent comes from certain schools and then if you average it out, it's a higher drop in those schools and then in others when you average it all out and change it, whether or not you can actually go back to the schools and say you've got a bit of a problem here. We need to answer that. It's interesting you say that, Council Longstaff, because I looked at that we don't know how to identify the schools, but it identifies the ward where the where the school was lowest. And so I looked at all of those wards and those wards have got really good schools in those wards. So it's clear to do with the perception of the schools rather than actually the quality of the schools. I mean, I was expecting it to be in certain areas where maybe there are some some potentially underperforming schools, but they weren't. So they weren't in areas where there was any sort of underperformance of our schools. It's an interesting, interesting one. I mean, I think with regards to the schools, the last time the survey was done was just after children returned to school, after the lockdown. So I think there was a there was a probably an elation of being back to school at that point. Whereas now now things is back to normal, as it were. Thank you, Councillor Hutton. Sorry. Was it the same percentage of young people that did the surveys? The same number of respondents? Yes, it was 500 for both. Thank you, Councillor Naranthiram. My question is also relating to school, but in a different way. So I'm concerned about Collingdale North, Burntoke, Hendon, because those words are on my board and the Hendon constituency. So will there be an opportunity to take it forward? Will there really be an idea to work with the schools to find out why the kids are thinking that way or is that not appropriate? As I said, I'm not concerned about any schools in those areas. If there were schools in those areas that weren't working well with us or were we were concerned with performance, we would already be working with them. We have schools causing concern who we work with and they're across the borough. But there's nothing particularly in those wards that would find why there particularly was a lower score in those wards. About the standards of the school I'm talking about, if you sort of work with the schools and probably you can find out why they are saying that's what I'm saying. Then the schools, I know the schools are in those wards. They are good schools. Yeah, we shared this data with our learning network inspectors. And so each school has got a learning network inspector. And so they were going to be speaking to the schools about that survey. But there's nothing that's come back of any interest really, of any light of why there might be a lower score. We also don't know which school it is in the area. And due to the social status and things like that, because those wards are considered to be poorer wards? Could that be? That's not what we've seen, no. Okay. Nigel? Thank you very much. I'm looking at page 82 of the report which we've just heard spoken about. And it names the personal safety concerns of young people. And the top four are these. Life crime, gangs, safety of girls, hate crime. Now, this is therefore hearing from the young people what concerns them. And therefore, I'm asking myself what can Barnet do about that? Now, one quick response might be, well, it's up to the police. But I'm not sure if that's the right answer. So I wonder what coordinated activity Barnet might consider doing in its action plan, coordinating with other agencies such as the police, to help alleviate these concerns that these young people have. Because we also know that a lot of young men carry, when they carry knives, they carry them because they carry them, quote, for their own safety. And that issue needs to be addressed, obviously. And it's a coordinated approach, I think, that would do it. So please could you consider in your action plan some action to do with those top four concerns that young people have? Nina, did you want to respond? I look forward to your next report showing lower levels of fear. That's the aim, definitely. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ben and Rosie, for joining us online. We understand that there will be a report later on in the year which will have its own set of recommendations. But as for now, does the committee agree the recommendations are set out in the papers? Yes, agreed. Thank you very much. So we will be moving on to agenda item nine, which is our family services quarterly update, which, as many of you know, is our regular report on family services performance data. However, this time it also includes the outcome from the recent Ofsted inspection. I'm sure you'd all agree that we want to take the time out to congratulate Chris and his team for the fabulous results. So I will pass over. And inspections and very satisfied that the outcome is OK, and thanks to all of the staff and leaders within the service bearing with us during that process. We've put in the report an update about our service and how that is progressing. And Tina will be happy to take any questions in relation to that. We've put in in in the report an update of the healthy child program. You'll be aware that we've moved the provision from a previous provider into the Whittington Health Trust. And that's setting out all of the things that have been done, which is significant progress over over the time that they've had the service. We've agreed to begin to implement the MOU for young carers, which is about no wrong doors. And we'll continue to work on delivering that. That memorandum. And finally, within the report, there's a there's an update and a strategy document around tackling child exploitation, which Tina will talk to. But overall, performance remains solid. There's a whole range of data that we've given you for your comment and questions and particular focus on the offset and the work that we're doing on tackling extreme. It's rather what it is, exploitation. So how do you take any questions? Tina, do you want to say a few things about the exploitation? Councillor Hutton. Thank you for the for the report. On page 100 at the top, talking about care leavers, it says care leaver in touch data is currently 100 percent for both 17 and 19, which is very good. And I wondered how how long you might keep in touch with young people. One of the reasons I'm asking you, I was talking to somebody from Live Unlimited the other day, and she was particularly concerned when they reached the age of 25. She felt that some of them keep in touch with them until they're 21. But we carry on until they're 25. We also have pledged a lifelong office. So after 25, we make sure that they know that they can contact us at any point. And we have care experience, young people who are in their 30s that make contact with us for advice or just to tell us about life, life events. So, you know, I think that having it at 100 percent is what we want to make. So that's about emails and WhatsApp and telephone calls and sometimes visits. So it's a whole range of different ways that we keep in touch with our young people. But it doesn't need us. Thank you. The strategy reads really well. It's really clear. And it was really good to see as a governor, I've had responsibility for safeguarding for the last five years. I still have to keep them safe in education policies. It was really actually helpful to see this and to be kind of person to think about this in relation to safeguarding policies that we have in our school as well. I was just wondering what engagement you're having with schools, particularly on this strategy. If I could just add also all of these strategies then go to the designated safeguarding leave a briefing every six weeks for designated safeguarding leaves in schools. And so Tina's team have come along to those briefings to them and introduced new strategies. Thank you. Question from Raisal Friedman. Thank you so much. In 2020, I worked as a child safety operating protocol for the Jewish community because there has been a lack of a focus in terms of plug into all of the excellent support that is available. And I note that in the exploitation strategy in six point two, there is a desire to improve representation with marginalized communities and ensure the unique experiences, cultural and background are considered in terms of support, engagement and awareness raising. And I just wondered whether there might be a place before this is published to perhaps have an appendix or notation where it can be, you know, more specifically referencing the Jewish community. And as you so expertly know, you know, they are part of those ethnic communities where they are quite that much more vulnerable to exploitation, as we've seen with really unfortunate cases. Thank you. Can I ask members if they agree the recommendations? Tamsin, you had a question? Thank you. I'm just conscious that we've still got a few agenda items to get through. So I just want to thank officers for their report, and I'm just going to invite Stella to just summarize what's been agreed as a recommendation. I just want to clarify that it seemed that the construction. Take that as agreed. Thank you. Okay, so we'll move on to the next agenda item which is on elective home education, the task and finish group, as many of you will remember last year this was selected as one of the task and finish groups, which was chaired by Councillor Wakely. So I want to just take the time on behalf of the committee to thank Councillor Wakely and the rest of the members who undertaking this work I know you had lots of meetings and lots of extra work over the year. So thank you very much. So essentially the role of this committee is to consider the findings and determine if we wish to send the report and recommendations to cabinet to be agreed as a council policy. So we have Councillor Hutton, who's going to introduce the report, and we also have Lauren Johnson joining us online, who leads the EHE team. Oh, I have it here as Johnson. So Lauren Jackson. That's no problem, Stella. Councillor Hutton, should I pass over to you first? Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just very briefly. Yes, Councillor Wakely chaired this, but I was also and some of the members of the committee. We had we looked, I think it was timely to look at this because there does seem to have been in the number of children educated at home. That's not specific to Barnet. I think that's overall. The terms of reference were to review changes with the Barnet team, and I would like to thank the officers who are involved in visiting family to include. Because at the moment, they don't have to register. I'll come back to that in a minute because that's going to change. So it's very hard, I think, for officers to strike a balance between. Visiting, trying to include families and offer services whilst at the same time, I think the preferred option is mostly children are better off in school. So that was one thing of looking at changes. The second was the rise in numbers since COVID particularly. And the third thing was what can we do to ensure that all young people have access to the best education and feel included as Barnet citizens. So, as I said, we looked at a range of people, including Lisa who was here earlier, a range of evidence. So we still haven't clarified what a suitable education is. That's what we have to look at to see the families finding a suitable education. During the course of this, looking at this, London councils put forward a proposal that a register of families who want to educate their children at home should be, in fact, they should actually have to register with the local authority. And that's now, I think, going to be taken up at government level, and I think it's likely to become law. We are behind most other European countries, most other European countries at least, I don't know about America or Australia. If families do want to educate their children at home, then they have to register with the local authority and tell them that's what they're going to do. So that was briefly, and I think the recommendations, we have seven recommendations, so I'll pass back to the chair if anyone wants to have any comments. Does anyone have any comments? Yep, Councillor Naranthira. I'm really glad that we are actually getting there and getting a kind of a register of home-educated kids. And then we have got some kind of, the council has got some kind of monitoring process that will be in place in future. That's very good to hear. So thank you for everybody who has worked on that. Here we have Councillor Lemon. Yeah, just a query. So notwithstanding, there's some good stuff that came out as report in terms of the outcomes, and now I believe the recommendation is it goes to the next cabinet meeting in October. But what about any associated costs with any of the recommendations? Should that be included before it goes to cabinet, or is that something that cabinet could say, well, we're not going to approve this until we have those costs? There are some recommendations that do have significant requirements, and we will be notifying cabinet when they make the decisions in regards to this stage, but that will be a decision for the cabinet to make. And if there are, with the resource requirements, finding the resources to enable that to happen, because we don't have the budget to pay for something that's not statutory responsibility. A question from Naomi Phillips, and then to you, Councillor Baker. Thank you, and thank you to everyone who's taken time to be on this task and finish group. It was a really interesting report, and personally supported it. I just have a clarification question, if that's okay, just on, and it may just be my misunderstanding of the figures, but I think my thing is that given that children, parents don't have to register their children as EHE, and then we do have a table with the numbers of EHE children in Barnet, do we have a sense of how many people that doesn't include at all? I mean, is it, no, okay. In terms of the use of AI and teaching, so teachers now have to monitor that work, will be a cost to the exam centre, so you'll have to, you know, things we have to consider here. My concern, our major concern is the proposals around the examinations cost to connect to at this stage. Questions from Councillor Hutton and then Councillor Longstaff. Yeah, it's also a question, I mean, these were the recommendations that came from the group, so I didn't put that at the time, but it's also a question of how we know the child is ready to take an exam, because if they're in the school system, then that's obvious, but otherwise, so I rather agree that I think from that record about, I think that would be quite difficult. Thanks, Councillor Hutton. Can I ask Lauren to answer it, just so that there was a reason for her to attend the meeting, it would be nice if we heard from her. Lauren, do you want to answer that, we wouldn't know whether a child who is home educated is ready to take an exam, would we? No, we wouldn't. Could we just be going on the parents' views? Yeah, because the parents are ultimately responsible, so they would be tracking whether the child is ready to take a GCSE or not. So you're right, Councillor Hutton, the parent could say my child is ready, there's some money spent for her or him to do that exam and actually there's no chance that they're going to pass it. And I think there might be the temptation to say, oh, we'll put him in for it, you know, see how well he does. But simply if it's funded. And, you know, it's that, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I think that's an issue to look at. Lauren just wanted to come in and add to her response. No, I was going to say the only other way is because you have an EHE teacher, but then her time would be taking up reviewing preparations for GCSEs and not reviewing everybody else. So I don't know how manageable that would be in reality for our EHE teacher to be checking whether people are ready. Thank you. We'll finish off with Councillor Longstaff's question. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just it was about best practice in Barnet and the 10 day grace period that's implemented. It's just a number of times, you know, and I appreciate why you'd have a 10 day grace period makes perfect sense. But equally, if it's at the start of September and they're a parent who knows there's a space going and they have to wait at least 10 days before they can get their child into the school. It seems to be that one person's gone off to do that, but probably in the main for that 10 days at least. And yet somebody has to wait 10 days and can't get their child into that school until somebody actually decides, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. In a very strange way, somehow whilst it's best practice for the child who used to go to that school, best practice for parents who may wish their child to get to that school. Yeah, we implemented that, Lauren, didn't we, when we when we revised the policy last time. Do you want to just give the reasoning why that was brought in, the 10 day grace period? Yes, the so it's not a full 10 days, it's up to 10 days and the 10 days are there to really put some safeguarding in for children that are going to be EHE. And it allows us time to have an exit meeting with the family in the school. It allows us time to check with parents that EHE is actually what they chose and not what maybe the school are asking them to do or if they feel under pressure. But it's not always 10 days, sometimes it's two days, sometimes it's five, depending on our checks. Now, parents who are opting for EHE, you know, as a lifestyle choice, don't normally choose to do it on the 1st of September, preventing a place for someone else. That's normally a choice that's made at the end of an academic year in preparation for the child's next year. Those that are suddenly doing it in September, it's normally due to a knee jerk reaction, which is why we need those 10 days. Maybe they've gone back in September, fallen out with the school and we need those 10 days to repair that. And I'd much rather that than them going off to be EHE when they could stay at school. And then also if there is a knee jerk reaction and a parent said, I'd like to be home educating my child, the school then fills that place and then two days later they change. They can't go back. They can't then go back to the school because the school's filled the place. So that's why we're giving them a bit of leeway with regards to their decision making, but also to do the safeguarding check that Lauren mentioned. Thank you. It just seems a bit for those who are waiting. Their anxieties are equally as important as those who have made a choice to leave. There are just a couple of other points that are not questions. It was just that on the page 28, there's a reference to a 13, which I didn't understand. And on page 29. On that basis, does the committee agree to send the report and the recommendations to cabinet? Sorry, Anne. Thank you, Chair. My question is in relation to school or are they going to be considered as a private candidate? I'm enjoying this item because all I'm saying is, Lauren. Well, unfortunately, Anne cut out a lot, so I missed half the question. So the question was, if a child does do an exam at an exam centre, where do those statistics of that child's achievement go? Does it go on to the school's achievement if they do if they do the exam at the pavilion, for example, does that go on pavilion statistics about the GCSE pass rate? So I think historically pavilion have done it as private candidates, but if we've used a school, then it's used on the schools, the school of taking it. But I think with the pavilion, they've been able to do it as private. But don't quote me because we've not had that many. But they're not put on role of that school. No, no, no, no. I don't think they would feature on the school's achievement statistics because they're not a child that's on that role. So they would be on any statistics apart from EHE statistics, which I don't think exist. That's right. Thank you. Before you go ahead with the question, we have just been asked if you can clarify the comments that you had made. We just want to make sure that the numbers you were referring to weren't just the footnotes. Hi, it's the owner of the security manager. So the 13 and 14, I think we can make them more superscript if that helps. But they refer to the references at the bottom of the page. So there's like kind of a reference to where we've used information from other sources. And by taking point, they do look a bit big so we can make them a bit smaller. So they're obviously referring to the footnotes. Is that what you mean? Those ones. It would make sense if they're in order. In the meantime, that has been noted. OK, we have agreed that they're going to make it a little bit smaller just to make it clear that that is a footnote. So can I just get the committee to agree to send this report and the recommendations to cabinet? Right. Thank you. So we'll move on to agenda item 11, which is very short. Essentially, it's just on the task and finish group updates paper. Just asking the committee if you have any comments. Perfect. So we'll move on to agenda item 12, which is the cabinet form plan. Essentially, that's the cabinet for plan for 2024-25. The subcommittee are requested to consider any items that they may wish to request for pre-decision scrutiny during 2024-25. Thank you, chair. So if you're a scrutiny manager, as the chair says, it's just get any in. If people want any of those items on our work program, it's probably good to read it in conjunction with the next item as well, which is the committee's work program. If there's any comments, we can take them now or outside of the committee, if that's helpful. So, as Fiona mentioned, you can raise this now or you can follow up later in writing. Is that correct? OK. We'll be at agenda item 13, which is the scrutiny work program. This report sets out the work program for the children education overview and scrutiny subcommittee. Does the committee have any comments on the work program? No. OK, so I guess that brings us to the end of the meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Transcript

Hi, welcome everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful summer break. Welcome to the Children's Education Overview and Scrutiny Subcommittee. A special welcome to our new member, Councillor Sue Baco, who comes with a wealth of relevant experience and we're very lucky to have you. Also, a special welcome to my new Vice Chair, Councillor Longstaff. Thank you. As always, a bit of housekeeping, that meetings may be recorded and broadcast by people present as allowed for in-law or by the Council. So by attending either online or in person, you may be picked up on the recordings. Council recordings are covered by a privacy notice, which can be found at www.barnit.gov.uk. A quick reminder for members and new members that to talk, you click the little speaker icon when it turns red. You can speak and when you no longer want to speak, if you just tap it again. So we will go straight into the minutes of the last meeting. So do members have any comments they would like to make? Yes, Councillor Hutton. Only that there's some words like 'to' and 'left out'. I think if anybody reads through that they would find them. OK, thank you, Stella's making a note of that. Does anyone have any other comments? Yes, Councillor Longstaff. Thank you, Chair. I wasn't actually at the meeting, but I did ask for it to be passed on. The reason I was missing the meeting was because the dates kept getting changed. And they were changed from one date to the date and then changed back again later on at short notice. Otherwise, I would have been in attendance and I was asked for that to be noted in the minutes because in Council language, if you're missing because you're on Council business, it is noted that you're on other Council business rather than just absent. And I think it should be noted that I was absent because of changes to the dates. OK, thank you. Perfect. OK, just checking. Right. Other than that, are we happy to agree the minutes from the last meeting? OK, we'll take that as agreed. So we move on to absence of members. So I've received apologies from Councillor Woodstock-Vellaman and we have Councillor Naranthira sitting in on his behalf. Councillor Conaway, please. Councillor Myers just parking. OK, thank you. Yeah, that's fine with me. So we will move to agenda item four. We don't have any. Sorry. Agenda item three. Do members have any declarations to make in relation to any of the agenda items? Councillor Conaway. As a local headteacher of 9th room primary school, Jewish independent school in Henson, in regard to agenda six. If there's any discussion or anything further from the committee, then I'll pardon myself. Thank you. That's been noted. OK, so we'll move on to agenda item six. So the members of the the purpose of this members item is to allow the subcommittee to consider. We're deferring the items, so we'll move on to agenda item seven. We're going to whiz through this today. We had a question from a co-opted member, so we're just going to wait till she's here. OK, so we are now going to consider the special education needs and disability. I'm sure we are aware this is a challenge faced by councils across the country and is one of the biggest concerns in children's services. Finding ways to improve services within a context of rising demand and diminishing resources can be incredibly difficult. Whilst these problems cannot be solved overnight. Welcome. We need to satisfy ourselves that we are doing all we can to address this issue, to bring about solutions in the short, medium and long term. So I'd like to invite Karen to present some key highlights from the. Thank you. And so every year we have we have the statistics in relation to S.E.N. published in July. And so we bring a summary of those statistics to this and share it more widely as well. I, if any of you are involved in S.E.N. you represent, you will know that S.E.N. is an area of concern, I think, for many people, many families. Since the introduction of the Children and Families Act in 2014, we have seen year on year increases in the number of students being supported either through an education, health and care plan and S.E.N. support. And so the HCPs in Barnet last year, for example, increased by 10 percent. So as of January, we had three thousand eight hundred and nine children and young people being supported with the HCPs. Already this year, that has increased to four thousand one hundred and eighty. So it's likely we'll see another 10 percent increase, if not higher at the end of this year as well. So I think it's important to note that the increase in the children and young people being supported who have S.E.N. has increased year on year, and that is disproportionate to the increase in the pupil population. So the increase in Barnet, for example, since 2016, in terms of the S.E.N. population has increased by 120 percent compared to 10, just over 10 percent in terms of the pupil population. Barnet is a very inclusive mother. It has a high percentage of children in mainstream, which we're very proud of. The number of children, the percentage of children at S.E.N. support is lower than the national average at eleven point five percent. And this is of the pupil population, a whole cohort of children and young people with S.E.N. And the percentage of children in our schools with the HCPs has increased to three point nine percent. So our rate of increase of children and young people with a faster rate than that of the national level. We have 19.5 percent of our pupils are in Barnet's special schools. In terms of need types, the largest cohort is for children with speech, language and communication needs, followed by social, emotional and mental health, and then autism. And that's reflected by evident S.E.N. support. You know that our Bala is wonderfully diverse, which we welcome, and that's reflected in our S.E.N. statistics. Nationally, people are pupils with S.E.N. are more likely to be in the national average. One of the areas we are concerned about is appeals to the special educational needs and disability tribunal. So we do have high rates. They did come down from last year from three point seven percent to three point six percent. But that's still significantly higher than the national average at two point five percent. Although the national average did increase last year by 24 percent. I think you will all know that our children in this bar do very well in terms of attainment, and that is reflected in both our S.E.N. cohort and those pupils with the HCP as well. So at every stage from early years to key stage five pupils with S.E.N. in Barnet had higher levels of attainment. And the progress of S.E.M. pupils is also greater than England and also Barnet S.E.M. pupils attend schools more consistently as well. So there is there are challenges within the system as we'll come on to. But there's a lot to be proud of in Barnet as well. And that is thanks to our education providers here and the wider services. We so in terms of destinations, we have high rates of pupils remaining in sick form. And that's particularly the over 30 percent compared to 20 percent at the national average. The proportion. So in terms of a third, 31 percent of the HCP to sixth form or sixth form college compared to eleven point six percent nationally. Our rates of exclusions and suspensions are lower than both the national and our statistical neighbors as well. But they are increasing and that's we're seeing that reflected at a national level. So that's something where their children are experiencing challenges. And we're also reviewing alternative provision offers over the next year as well to make sure we're really clear, as well as outreach support where children can have short term placements in a PRU and all longer term placements where they prepare them to go on to their next phase of education. Employment rates for for young people with a learning disability are higher in Barnet than nationally. And that's something that we're really proud of. So that eight point two percent versus four point eight percent nationally. That's. We do have challenges around the number of special school places, and that's something that we need to work to those in ARPs by 40 percent since 2000 and 18. But we know that with the increase in SEND, particularly those coming through under fives, that's something that is is a priority area for us. So before we just go into questions, we also have Lisa Hoffman, so I was going to invite her over. Lisa is a representative from the Barnet parent carers forum and is attempting to give us a perspective on services from the organization supporting children, supporting parents with children have SEND. So welcome. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to come along this evening. I'll just explain a little bit about the Barnet parent care forum, because I'm not sure that all of you will necessarily have come across it before. But we are a group of volunteers primarily who work with Barnet in order to represent the parenting carers of children, young people with special educational needs and disabilities in Barnet. We survey and speak to our members to find out what the issues that they are facing are. And then we collectively represent those voices with the local authority and we work very closely with them to try and improve services as best we can. Hopefully you see my note and I don't propose to go through it in a huge amount of detail. But I just wanted to highlight a few things, if that's OK. Firstly, I think it's really important to say that the work that we've done with Barnet over the last few years has been, in my mind, really quite incredible. Our levels of co-production are really high compared to other local authorities. And the Barnet parent care forum is part of the national network of parent care forums that we liaise a lot with other forums and other local authorities. And we understand the kind of problems that they have, the difficulties they have with co-production. And we in the forum and Barnet have worked really hard to increase our co-working over the last few years. And I really think that it shows. I'm not saying that we get it right all the time. Of course we don't. And there are so many areas that we need to focus on. But I think it's important to understand the backdrop of that. There are so many things that we do really well and I'm grateful for the time and the support that we get from the professionals in Barnet. And the fact that we are included in so many of the discussions at an early point, which is really important. And I've listed in my notes some areas where we have worked really closely with the local authority and in some ways have been trendsetters. There's some things that we do that are not common among other local authorities. And we have set standards in that respect, which is really encouraging. That said, obviously, there are issues that are still a struggle for families in Barnet. And the backdrop, of course, as Karen has said, is increasing demand and pressures on funding. And parents and families are really feeling that and are really struggling in a lot of ways to get the support that they feel their children and young people are entitled to. And in many cases are written into educational health care plans and therefore they are entitled to under law. So just to highlight a few areas. We feel and this is something that most parent carer forums agree with, that early intervention is key. If we can find a way to support children and young people at the earliest possibility, where they are showing signs of difficulty, then so many of them will not need greater support later on. And that's important for the young people, for parents and for the local authority, who will, I hope, in some cases, need to find less funding for them later on. And so many young people reach a crisis point because they don't get timely intervention and timely support. And I'm not saying that teachers don't try. Of course they do. But there is, in my mind, not enough training in certain areas and not enough funding in school to be able to support these young people. So I feel that we are firefighting so much of the time and we need to just kind of reverse some of those decisions and get the support in school earlier. It is happening. And I know so many people are working to do that, but I just feel that there is so much more to do. There is such an impact on families when children are unsupported. And there was a survey that was done to support a special women's hour feature this week, where they surveyed a thousand mothers of children who have sent. And one in three of them said that they give up work in order to look after their children who were not being supported in school. So either there was no place for them or they were out of school because they weren't receiving the support they needed. And of those mothers who hadn't given up work entirely, over 50 percent said that they had to reduce their hours. And that's hugely significant. I mean, I am one of those mothers. I'm a lawyer by profession and had to give up my career to look after my daughter who was able to attend school. And so I can speak from the heart in that respect. But that has an effect on the whole community. So it's not just the child. It's it's families suffering. And, you know, it goes well beyond that, that families are not able to earn the money that they would otherwise have done. They're relying on benefits to the extent that they wouldn't have done otherwise. So it has such ramifications that that shouldn't be ignored. Very closely connected with that, obviously, is the mental health of the young people and the mental health of parents and siblings, which which can be affected when the situations are so difficult. Diagnostic assessments is remains a really difficult area. If children can't get the assessments they need in a timely fashion, then the support can't be put in place. And the wait times for those assessments are too high. We know work is being done to reduce them. But the pressures on specialist services fashion and that then has an effect that I've had before. I wanted to mention about. Appeals and tribunals and in Barnet, I feel strongly that the amount of appeals and tribunals is too high and we need to address that. And I know as part of the change program, that's something that's being looked at. And I know there's been recruitment in the area to try and mediate with families. Appeals, but families don't have enough trust in the system. They don't believe that that will work. So they're skipping any form of mediation and alternative dispute resolution and going to tribunal. That's a waste of resource for the local authority. It's a terrible strain on families. And I feel that we really need to concentrate on that to try and resolve these disputes before they get to that stage. Elective home education, which I know is on your agenda and it's something that I have spoken about before. And I really just wanted to say thank you for giving me a voice in that piece of work and for. Understanding the concerns that parents have in terms of the pressure put on them when their children are unable to attend school. And we use we often use the term episode, emotionally based school avoidance. It's not avoidance. So many children want to be in school. So many parents want their children to be in school. They're not bunking off. They're not taking them on holidays. Yes, of course, there are some that do. But on the whole, that is not the case at all. Children want to be in school with their friends. Parents want their children to be in school so that they can work or. Do whatever else they they need to. And it's it's really important to understand that. Penalizing parents, putting pressure on families, blaming children and young people and families is never going to work. What we need to do is make sure that the barriers for them to be in school are reduced and that their needs are met. Port reflect that, you know, and it is a case of support first. And I hope that as a result of those recommendations, more parents will feel supported. And we are working really closely with the educational psychology team in Bonnet on guidance around episode four. Families, the schools, nationals in the hope that we can increase the levels of said levels of non-dependence children. So lots of work being done on that. But a way to go. Therapies remains a difficulty in Bonnet, even children who have. Levels of therapeutic support written into that. Always getting that. And parents are incredibly frustrated. It comes straight back to the point that before, if we're not giving the support to the children at the time they need it, then they will need more support. Later on, they will fall further and further behind. Potentially it can affect their attendance. So it's something that needs to be addressed. And of course, I appreciate it comes down to funding, but it is such a priority for so many families and shouldn't be ignored. So I think that that's the only issues that I really wanted to highlight, and I'm more than happy to answer any questions if anybody has anything they want to ask. Yes, does anyone have any questions? Councillor Meyer. Thank you. It's pretty much Karen, actually. I know in the report we mentioned as a significant part about VAT and funding. Can I ask, have we got any modeling on how many additional school places we may need? And should the VAT tax that's been spoken about by the government be implemented? Because I'm probably quite concerned that parents won't be able to afford that and will need to make places and provisions in existing schools. If I can respond. I think we're going to have a further discussion about that when Paper 6 is going to be discussed. But for children with special education needs, there is no VAT charge. That's one of the exemptions that has been. Thank you, Nigel. Thank you very much, Chair. It's not so much a question, but a vote of thanks. I'm a member of the task group you spoke to, and we were all deeply impressed with what you had to tell us, your recommendations and your thoughts. And we're very impressed with what you're doing for that area. So thank you very much indeed. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thank you very much. And, you know, as I said before, most of the people I work with in the forum give up their time voluntarily. We all feel really passionate about what we do, and it's so important that parents are encouraged to speak out. And we are grateful when people listen. So thank you for your experiences and the key issues. Thank you for the wonderful work you do. Does anyone, Councillor Longstaff? Thank you. Both Karen and Lisa spoke about demand for places, the amount of places available. Just out of interest, is this because we provide less than the rest of London and the country? Or is this because more people are actually moving to Barnet? Because in my opinion, the provision is very good. People work very hard. When there's a good provision about, there's a lot of people interested in moving into the area. So I think there's a variety of reasons. It's not it's not unique to Barnet. So across the country, people are struggling with the efficiency of special school places originally anticipated. I think there are things about the barnet itself that make it a very attractive borough. And we know across, you know, across London, there's high, you know, there's high levels of movement of families. So we do have a high number of families moving into the area, but also a borough of sanctuary. And so, you know, with that, whilst we welcome every single one of those families, we know there's a higher proportion of children, not just that have experienced trauma, but you know, who have other complex needs as well. Talking about the cost of placing barnet residents in independent mainstream schools, I wondered how that worked. I could understand that the ECHP part of it would be paid, but if parents wish to send their child to that school, why would that extra cost, if there is, fall on the local council and not on the family if they wish to send their children to an independent school? I'm not quite sure how that works, if you could clarify that. If you place a child into, if a school has been deemed appropriate, then the tribunal for those cases or, you know, everything is such a case by case basis, it's difficult to give a specific answer for, you know, for individual cases, but that's generally what happens. So, if it's been deemed appropriate for that child, then the local authority is responsible for the fees. As an independent school? Yes. If that's what's named on the plan, it's been deemed appropriate. Okay. Councillor Longstaff? Thank you. There was something as well that was raised from Lisa about how it would help in order that disputes between what a parent or carer wants and what the council is able to provide, willing to provide, and they should try and resolve that long before it goes to an appeal court or wherever it goes to beyond. So, what is the council's, how can the council actually square that circle where there are finite resources but the parent knows that their child, and of course it's emotional and they want the very best for their child, how are you intending to square that circle to resolve things and get them done quicker? So, we've just taken on two associated to disagreement resolution. We have mediation arrangements in place, but quite often families, as Lisa referred to, want to skip straight to that because their understanding is that they will have a better chance really to get what they feel is needed for their child. So, we really want to build that trust with families in terms of conversations and trying to agree those disagreements, even if we can agree them partially. So, you know, there will be always times where it's right that it goes to tribunal because there isn't agreement and it's up to the judge then to make a decision, but I think the more we can do with families, the better. Thank you. Sorry, I don't know what they have to get, but I just wanted to make a point on that, which is a concern of mine, and this is absolutely in support of mediation pre-tribunal. Many families do not have the resources to get legal support for tribunals and are too overwhelmed to work out what their rights are in that respect. And therefore, it is often, not always, but often the case that those that do go to tribunal are cases where families can afford legal support and have the highest level of help. And that creates such an injustice that you've got families who perhaps have exactly the same similar needs, and their cases should be considered in the same way, but they don't actually have the ability to push it that far. And my concern is that those children will lose out. If we have a system by which there is faith in dispute, alternative dispute resolution and mediation pre-tribunal, you don't need legal representation. You just need to sit around a table and have a conversation to try and understand what the issues are. And in my opinion, that system will be fairer as well as better for all. I think the drive to improve mediation, and we certainly need to work together to improve perceptions of the benefits of mediation, I think is really important. But I can find out for you. I know that in, I think, anything that goes to a hearing is not, you know, we hear, you hear language such as, oh, it's a win for the parent, it's a win for the local authority. I don't think anyone wins when they go to tribunal. We are aware that of those that do go to a hearing in Barnet, then there is, there is a higher number than the national average that are upheld in favour of the local authority, but still, you know, there's still a lot more that are upheld. Yeah, I think the, over the last few years, the team have worked really hard to understand, you know, the legal positions and so on. So they've really tried hard to improve that position. Hopefully, you know, last, the improvement, albeit not good enough, last year to this is the start of a trend, and that's certainly what we're hoping for, but it will require everyone to work together and everyone to have a bit more trust. Thanks. Councillor Lemmon. Thanks, Chair. Just like to first of all thank the Speaker and obviously all the officers who contributed not only to the report, especially when you compare Barnet to other boroughs and how well we're doing. I don't want to be rude, but let's start talking about money. One of the appendices refers to the schools grant and the by-needs block area where there's projected, I assume that's projected to F6 million this year, so that's fast at the moment. Yes. And then it talks about a few examples about how you might just touching around the edges. Yeah, and I think perhaps I didn't make this clear in the report. I think there is a difference. It's certainly not about cuts. It's about reviewing things to see how we can use that, that amount of funding more effectively to meet the needs of more children. So we are undergoing an alternative provision, so approved review, for example, because we know there is some crossover. So how can we improve the system? How can we make it clearer for parents, the pathways around that? How can we be how can we support our schools more? We have an increasing number of children. So one area has been on home tuition, for example. So can we look at that and think about how we do it in house rather than using external providers? We think there'd be more control, improved quality and probably a saving in costs in terms of that. So these aren't these are not looking at cuts. They're really looking at ways of doing it more effectively. Thanks for that reassurance. And just a quick follow up on that as well. And I presume when you're talking about more higher mainstream inclusion, that's all evidence based. And that's something new, substantial savings, but based on clear evidence. And I think it is certainly about doing things more effectively, but in terms of the savings, it's trying to slow the increase in the deficit by investing more in early prevention and different matters like that. OK, thank you. Yeah, we have to do returns that started last year in terms of returning annual reviews. You're right. They do. They do have to be done every year. Annual reviews are currently of the whole cohort. We're about 63 percent in terms of those that are processed on time within the time scales. That is clearly not as high as where we'd like it to be. But we know that that is a better rate than many other local authorities. And it's an improving picture as well. Within that cohort, though, we do focus annual reviews on what we call early annual reviews, you know, where there are there are real concerns and on our vulnerable children cohort as well. So looked after. So the way the completion rates for that cohort is much higher, it's 84 percent. Separately, they're tracked within FE. So we do have, you know, we do have high rates of participation in FE as well. But I think one of our strengths is the number of children with the HCPs that go on to sixth forms and stay in their school. Thank you for those questions. So a massive thank you to Lisa and Karen for speaking and presenting to us today. Can I ask the committee if the recommendations in the report have been agreed? Great. As Rizal Friedman has joined us, we're going to go back to agenda item six, and that's our members items. So the purpose of this member's item is essentially to allow the subcommittee to consider the issue raised and decide if you wish to get a course of action. Rizal Friedman, would you like to read your question for us? Thank you so much. Also, just to declare an interest. I work, I work for pages, partnerships with Jewish schools. We support Jewish schools across the UK. I don't know if you need anything else about the interest or if that's sufficient. That's sufficient. Thank you. I wanted to ask whether there will be an opportunity to ask the professionals essentially how much time and thought have been given to the impact of the imposition of VAT on school fees, obviously, as well as the planned removal of the relief for business rates after the after the budget on October 30th. Given the high number of Jewish independent schools in Barnet, should there be an influx of students into the state sector? I think there needs to be some assessment of the availability of appropriate educational provision. I'm more broadly wondering if it's been considered outside of the Jewish lens. And I'd just like to thank Neil Marlowe for his time earlier this week. I think we've already begun a discussion about this, but was hoping to bring it to the table here so that the committee can also hear about the impact of this. Thank you. I'll pass over to Neil Marlowe, who can advise us on suggested calls of action. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Reisel, for your question. And yes, as Reisel says, she is Assistant Director of PAGES, the national organization that works to support Jewish schools, state and independent. And so it's really important that Barnet have a close relationship with PAGES, which we do, because we work cooperatively and co-produce ways forward. And I think it's really critical that with regards to this VAT exemption on independent schools, that we work very closely with PAGES and other relevant organizations to help co-produce the future. Just giving a background to the situation. But before I do that, I hope Reisel sees after we've met on Wednesday, Reisel, that we have given some real time and thought to the question. So it wasn't a surprise to get this question. As you know, we've been working already on that, Reisel, as you saw. Absolutely. And it's technology that in this space as well. So thank you very much. Yes. When this was mentioned in the Labour Manifesto, we obviously thought about what would be the potential implications for us in Barnet. If we look at non-faith independent schools and faith independent schools separately, if I just deal with non-faith independent schools first. In non-faith independent schools, if there was a movement of parents from children, from schools into the state system, our capacity within our state schools and non-faith state schools could easily manage that movement from independent to state. In fact, I'm sure state schools would openly welcome them to come into their schools to help with the falling role situation we have across Barnet, across some areas of Barnet. So that would be no issue at all. Interesting that hasn't happened so far. We had a Headteacher meeting this morning and I was asking, has there been already any interest from parents about moving their children from independent to state? And that hasn't happened as yet. But clearly, this is due to coming in January next year, and so we may get an influx then. But the non-faith state schools within Barnet would be easily able to meet any need that comes from children moving over from independent to state. So probably the greatest area of need would be if there was issues with regards to faith independent schools and particularly with regards to our Jewish faith independent schools. So just to give you some data of the Jewish school landscape in Barnet, we've got 21 Jewish state schools in Barnet, 16 primary, four secondary and one special. So approximately 7,400 pupils attend Jewish state schools in Barnet. So 16% of state schools in Barnet are Jewish schools, which is obviously very high comparatively, and obviously is high comparatively because we need to meet the need of the high Jewish population in Barnet. So 11.8% of pupils in Barnet state schools attend a Jewish state school. In addition to those 21 state Jewish schools, we've got 17 independent Jewish schools in Barnet. Now that's out of a total of 36 independent schools we have. So 17 of the 36 independent schools we have in Barnet are Jewish independent schools. So 47% of independent schools are Jewish schools. And so approximately 3,200 pupils attend those independent Jewish schools in Barnet. 42% of independent pupils in Barnet go to a Jewish independent school. And so just under 3,000 of that 3,200 attend strictly Orthodox or Haredi Orthodox. And apologies if my determinations are incorrect here, Councillor Conway and others, but that's looking at the different levels of Orthodoxy. And so those are the higher levels of Orthodoxy, the strictly Orthodox and the Haredi Orthodox. And thank you, Raizel, for helping me in my determination and classification there and realizing that actually often those two types of schools are very interchangeable. And 3,000 pupils are going to those strictly or Haredi Orthodox schools. We don't have exact numbers because we don't get numbers of independent schools as a council. That's not something that we get hold of. In fact, the way I find out how many pupils are in independent schools is when I read their Ofsted report that says pupils enroll and that's how it updates our information about pupils enrolled in independent schools. So we certainly don't know how many pupils are in each year group either in those independent schools. Of those independent Jewish schools, nine of them are primary and seven of them are secondary. And as with our state schools, which go from Reform schools where we've got four Reform schools up to five strictly Orthodox state schools, the same with independent schools. Although there aren't any Reform independent schools and no modern Orthodox independent schools, we do have two Orthodox independent Jewish schools and 14 of their independent schools are strictly Orthodox or Haredi Orthodox. Hence the 3,000 of those pupils going to those schools that are strictly Orthodox or Haredi Orthodox. Now, a recent history in Barnet over the last 30 years or so, the number of Jewish state schools has risen quite sharply in Barnet due to the opening of new schools, including academies and free schools and independent schools successfully applying to become state maintained rather than being independent. The most recent of those being Menorah High for Girls that used to be an independent school and Noam Primary that used to be an independent school, both now are state schools. So the potential issue would be if a significant number of those children in independent Jewish schools were wanting to get us placed in one of our state Jewish schools. Now, we do have some capacity in our state Jewish school system at the moment, though there are capacity across the board from Reform right up to strictly Orthodox. But in speaking to Rachel earlier in the week, the concern would be that a number of those parents, if they weren't able to afford the fees of the school that they're currently in as independent, none of the state schools that we had would meet their need with regards to their faith. So they would then have to look for another alternative, which potentially would be becoming electively home educated. Now, clearly, we would want to try and avoid that because we want them to be in an educational establishment rather than EHE. So that removal of the VAT exemption in January could have an impact on us with regards to the Jewish state schools and meeting the capacity. Just out of interest, I could give you the figures that we have at the moment. In our primary state schools, we have 195 places available for girls who are strictly Orthodox and we have 59 places for Orthodox, et cetera. But within our secondary schools, all of our secondary schools, Reform, Orthodox and Strictly Orthodox are all full. But what our Jewish secondary schools have managed to do over the past few years to meet the increased demand has been to open bold classes within their schools. So we would obviously be needing to work with our schools to see if they could continue to open up bold classes or expand their provision. So I would suggest that there's a few next steps from this discussion and hope Rachel agrees. One is that the state schools will welcome independent school pupils into our state schools, particularly non-faiths who are going to go into the non-faith state schools where we have a number of vacancies. The tax exemption is due to come in in January 2025, so we do have some time, but these few months will go very wide very quickly. But we obviously need to keep a keen eye on what's going to happen between now and then and assess the number of parents that are looking to find places in our school. I mentioned before the number of independent schools who have now become state schools and there's a clear criteria that we have that the council has for accepting independent schools to be a Barnet State School. One of those criteria is that it's a good or outstanding school currently, and as you're probably aware, that single judgment has now been taken away from state schools and is probably likely to be taken away from independent schools as well. So clearly that criteria needs to be relooked at to make sure it's appropriate, particularly with regards to the changes of off-state judgment. And then we need to concentrate on potentially increasing the capacity in our strictly orthodox schools, particularly with boys at secondary, to meet that possible demand. So that's working with our existing schools to see if they could increase their pan even more. And finally, members may want to lobby to the DFE to exempt independent faith schools from this VAT exemption. So rather than saying every independent school is going to have to now pay VAT, if a school and the community within that school haven't got a state option, as I said, a number of those 3,000 pupils wouldn't want to go into any of our state schools because they don't meet their faith requirements, then it would seem unfair that they said there's a blanket policy across all schools. So I know pages and I know other organizations are lobbying the DFE to say could there be some exceptions for schools when there isn't really a state alternative. Maybe the members might want to do that as well. Thank you, Neil, for that course of action. Can I ask members if they have any comments? Councillor Longstaff? Yeah, I just wondered if you'd done any analysis, both on non-faith schools and on independent private schools, if a few more people decide that they decide to go to private school because of the increase in VAT, sorry, the addition of VAT, what happens when the school decides to close? Do we have any analysis of the school potentially saying, well, actually, we just can't afford to carry on? Then potentially you've got even… Yes, I mean, we've had one school contacting us and saying exactly that, that if this comes in in January, then their school isn't going to be financially sustainable and they may have to look to close. So clearly that would mean to try and find places for those children. But that's a factor. You know, it's not just about parents not being able to afford the fees. It's about schools not being able to be financially sustainable, potentially closing. Nigel? Thank you. Thank you very much, Neil, for your comprehensive explanation of the issues around Jewish schools. I wonder if are there any Muslim schools in Barnet and are there any issues around those situations? We have one Muslim independent school and so if that school closed or the parents were looking for a state option, there isn't a state Muslim school. So I should have said, by the way, I should have mentioned this before, that our statutory responsibility is just to provide places. We don't have to provide faith places. So we meet our responsibility by having enough places for the number of children who want a place. Now, obviously, the moral imperative is to make sure that it's a place that's going to be appropriate for their needs and particularly their faith needs. But our state schools are multicultural, as you know, and so there's quite a high Muslim population in our state schools currently. So we would hope that for state schools that they would be satisfied with the education they're going to get in one of our state schools. Do you know enough about that Muslim school to know whether the parents are strictly orthodox, if I may use the Jewish expression, and therefore perhaps reluctant to go to a multicultural state school? I don't, but we would need to work with that school in the same way we would be working with Jewish schools as well. Have you been working with that school? We have had conversations with that school previously, yeah. Thank you. If a independent school wants to close because the parents can't afford because of the VAT situation, and if they're a good and outstanding school, will there be a consideration to take that into a state sector? So there's a process. Obviously, it needs the willingness of the school to want to be a state school, and some schools wouldn't want to be. But if they did want to be a state school, then they have to follow the criteria I said that maybe the council needs to relook at again, particularly because of Ofsted. But that's how the schools like Noah, Menorah, Grammar, and others previously to that have become state schools because they've followed the process. They've completed the information that we need. And you can understand it's the council's responsibility to be making sure that they're taking on a school that is in a good way, both financially and educationally. And so that's what they need to demonstrate to become a state school. Obviously, there is some financial implications if a school becomes a state school, particularly which part of the financial year they become a state school, because that might have some drains on them. Thank you for that very detailed response to the question, and thank you, Raisal Friedman, for raising that. So the comments from members have been noted. And now we're going to move back over to agenda item eight, which is the the Barnet Young residents perception survey. So for this, we have Ben Thomas and Rosie Evangeli. Excuse me, are we not meant to make a decision on that members item? OK, would members like to agree the recommendations that Neil has put forward? Could Neil just summarize it? Yeah, could you summarize the recommendation? It says in point three one, do nothing, request an officer error report, refer to cabinet, request an report we presented at a future date. Surely we need to select which one we would choose. I think Neil suggested some differing ones. So I mean, some weren't really anything to act on. One is where I said we would welcome independent school pupils into our state schools where appropriate. There's no decision there. We've got time to deal with this. That's not a recommendation. So the ones to think about is looking at the current criteria for independent schools. My personal view on this item is that there's no further action for this committee because we are undertaking all of the actions that we've set out. And they are quite comprehensive unless they're, you know, writing a report would be exactly the same as we've given you. There's nothing to escalate to cabinet because there's nothing apart from when we get to a point of writing a new framework because of the offset changes, not because of the back changes. And we've set out a whole range of things that we put in place. So my personal view, if you, you know, but it's for members to decide, is that there's no further action for this committee because we have debated it and we've given you a very thorough, comprehensive answer to what the council is doing. Could this committee not request, for example, that Barnet lobby the DFE on behalf of Barnet with this report and call for an exemption on faith schools as part of this VAT taxation change? We did, Neil did suggest that there was an opportunity for members to write a letter, whether it would be a letter exempting all faith schools. That's a very different thing to what was proposed. My understanding of what Neil's proposing is that we write a letter where there are no state alternatives that there should be an exemption. And I don't think that we are happy to draft a letter in that in that line. But that's not one of the things that's on that list of things that you read out from the approach. But we are suggesting we write a letter that talks about those faith groups where there are no state alternatives. Perhaps because they're in the consultation open at the moment, I had raised this with Neil and I appreciate that the timeframe is now very short because the consultation closes at midnight on Sunday evening. Perhaps Barnet could submit some form of abbreviated report based on the number that Neil's already kind of pulled together to explain that there is no suitability by other submissions to the consultation. I know that pages and other charities and faith groups and the IFC have pulled together. Neil, would you like to respond to that? I'm not convinced that we would respond to that consultation with that level of detail. We can write a letter that sets out some particular concerns that we have, and I think that's proposing that we do. This is this is not a decision for Barnet as a local authority. The consultation should be directly affected and parents who are directly affected. So my view is that we can write a letter setting out what some of the challenges might be to ministers from council. But I don't think we should do any any more than that at this stage. But happy raisal, if you are having discussions with the department for me to be involved in those discussions, to be able to give a barnet context. Perfect. Even a letter to ministers would be helpful. So I think maybe Neil, we can take it forward. And would that be circulated to this committee members as well? Can we make sure that's added to a follow up recommendation? OK, we just wanted to clarify if the letter is going to come from the committee. It seems there's two things. The consultation is open and anyone can respond to the consultation. I don't think I should be responding to the consultation on behalf of the whole of Barnet. But I'm happy to I'm happy to to contribute to the discussions with the department, with with a letter to say what the barnet context is. Is the committee happy with that course of action? OK, thank you. OK, so we'll move on to agenda item eight, which was the Barnet Young Residence Perceptions Service. We'll pass over to Ben and Rosie online. We've been patiently waiting. Thank you. Thank you, chair. So we're not going to go through all the slides that were in the appendix in the pack in detail, but I'm just going to go through some of the background and then Rosie's going to talk through a couple of slides on the specifics of the data. So the Young Residence Perception Survey happened two years. It's with young residents aged 11 to 18. And it's undertaken by an independent research company called ORS, who also did the previous survey. And this is actually the fifth one that we've done, the fifth wave of the survey. The first was done in autumn 2016, and then there have been subsequent surveys in 2017, 19 and 21, 22. The survey's done alongside the adult survey and is part of the strategic vision to make Barnet a family friendly borough and improve outcomes by listening to the voices of children and young people, listening to what they're concerned about, what's important to them, and then using that to inform strategies and plans going forwards. So 500 Barnet young people were interviewed between December 23 and March 24. And ORS had quotas on age, gender and ethnicity to make sure it was a cross-section of Barnet's young people and is representative of the population. So the survey provides important insight on what young people think about living in the borough, their perception of the council, the services they receive. And it also helps to understand young people's priorities and concerns. There is, of course, also the Bright Spot Survey, which is specifically for children in care and care leavers, which was reported on earlier in the year. So the presentation in the appendix provides a lot of the detail and we'll look at a little bit of that in a moment. But the results show that the majority of indicators are in line with the last survey and the previous findings and in particular satisfaction with the local area. With Barnet being a family friendly borough, young people remain broadly in line with the previous survey. In terms of the demographic breakdown and in particular qualities, there are some clear themes with some groups of young people less likely to be satisfied in specific areas. So that's if they have a disability, if they live in the Burnt Oak, Hendon or Colindale North Ward, if they live in a low deprivation area, if they're of mixed or multiple ethnic backgrounds or if they're female. And a lot of these things are actually similar to what was found in the adult survey. So a joint action plan being worked on and a report began to Cabinet in November about this. So that was all I wanted to say. I just want to hand over to Rosie. Thanks Ben. Should I share my presentation? You can see a presentation there. Can you have a? We do have a screen to view the presentation. Yeah, that's OK. Great. So, yeah, thanks Ben for introducing that. And as Ben says, I'm just going to go through some of the highlights. It's very positive. What I'm just going to go through is some of the key image indicators and that are positive. And then just look at some more negative findings and then we'll look at some concerns and some further segmentation. So the slide you can see now is it's what we see as our core indicators and you can see we're doing. I'm just going to stop you there because we actually can't see any slides. Oh, oh, just let's go back. We're very happy for you to just continue presenting without the slides either way. So please don't fall under any pressure. OK, I'll just try one more time and see what happens. You see the slides now? We've got them now. Thank you. OK, I'll just start where? OK, so these are the core indicators that I was talking about. So you can see the more we've got high satisfaction levels on these. So the majority of our young people are happy with one. It's a place to live. Agree we're a family friendly place. We're doing a good job. Agree young people have their say on things and protect people from harm. The keeping informed is pretty much in line what is still high and pretty much what in line what we normally get on how young people feel they're informed. So just in terms of satisfaction with the low clarity, this is actually in line with the last time, and you can see also in line with the adult survey. In terms of segmentation on this, disabled young people are less likely to be happy with their local area. And in terms of Barnet family friendly, again in line from the last wave and slightly higher than the adult survey. In terms of segmentation, again, we've got disabled young people less likely to say this and then young people living in Burnet Oak, Colindale and the Henford constituency. These are some other image of the council questions. So you can see eight out of ten of our young people think the council is doing a good job, but there has been a slight drop since its peak in 2019. So there's been a slight decline there. Providing service that young people need. This is in line with the last wave, but we did have a peak in 2017 and protecting people from harm. That's pretty much in line with 2021/22. And just to clarify what Ben said earlier, anything that is above plus or minus 4.2%, that's when it's a significant change. But when it's anything below plus or minus 4.2%, that means it's in line with the previous survey, so just to clarify that. And then these are the indicators in terms of image of the council that received the lowest satisfaction levels, but still good. But what we can see is they're back in line with our 2019 findings, and there was a peak just as we're coming out of COVID, but they've returned back to the pre-pandemic levels. So this is an indicator that surprised us a little bit. So satisfaction in the primary and secondary education have seen a decline since the peak in 2021/22. So services for support for children and young people, that's remained in line with previous years. But what I will show you is the satisfaction, it doesn't mean that more young people have got dissatisfied with our primary education, secondary education. And what's happened is young people are now saying they're neutral or they don't know. There hasn't been an increase in dissatisfaction. It's just that they're more indecisive this year. So all the way through, there's quite an interesting data set on young people's concerns, and I've actually brought this one up in terms of personal safety. So young people actually still rate knife crime as their top concern, but you can see that's actually dropped. The number of young people saying it's their top concern has dropped compared to 2021/22. And actually concern for gangs has also remained the concern. But what's happened is that we've added two new options this year. So this has actually shifted where people are saying their top concerns are. So these two new concerns are safety of girls and hate crime, and that they're third and fourth. And I know we're very interested in the hate crime at the moment. It's quite worrying that one in four young people do see that as a concern. So I thought I'd just bring up the segmentation on this particular slide, but throughout the presentation you have, we have done deep dives on everything so we can start to look at who's more concerned. So in terms of our protected characteristics, we can see there's nothing coming up in life crime. But in terms of area, Burntoke and Collingdale North are more concerned about knife crime. So you can see all these different types of concerns from different groups and different wards. And it's very well worth actually reflecting back on this and how this segmentation will help us start to prioritize our resources. And just to add, what we have done across the indicators is looked at the average in terms of segmentation groups across the indicators where those groups showing that they're less happy. So on the right hand side, on the left hand side, we can see that disabled young people are across the board more likely to be unhappy. Those living in areas of low deprivation, which might sound surprising to you, but when you actually look at some of the indicators. So interestingly, those areas, things like being listened to, being aged, young people living in low deprivation areas are more likely not to feel listened to. So there's probably, they might be sort of feeling ignored, but that's an indicator, a very interesting finding that I don't think we've seen before. And then mixed ethnic background, female young people. But those are the top segmentations where they're feeling less happy in terms of the survey. And then we've done the same with wards. So you saw in that concern for safety, Burntoke and Collingdale was coming out. But across the board, the west of the borough are less, lower than the average. So that's a very quick whistle tour of what we've actually already sent to you. Ben touched on the next steps. So yes, we're bringing a combined report of the findings from the adults and the young person survey to the November cabinet, which will, as well as looking at what the Children's Partnership Board might be doing or children's services, looking across the services, what other recommendations our services can bring to this, for example, parks and open spaces and community safety. So that's a very top tour of the presentation that's been shared with you. Thank you, Rosie and Ben. Do members have any questions? Councillor Baker? Thank you very much for that. It was really rich in detail. There were some really positive outcomes there. My thoughts are, where you have, obviously, we often, you know, when we're scrutinising, tend to kind of dive towards the negative, and where there are dips in the results from last year to this year, and where they were quite low last year and they're still low this year. I wonder what kind of, if young people aren't feeling as valued as they did, and if they don't feel the Council, if there's an increase in the amount in any more detail. I mean, in terms of analysis, we are looking at a bit more analysis in terms of across the board, what indicators are driving certain things. So there will be more analysis on that. And there is potential to do more qualitative research. But in terms of what other actions Ben's team is thinking about, if you would like to come in on that, Ben. Yeah, following the last survey, we actually did a lot of qualitative work. We did around a whole series of focus groups. So I think we will do some more qualitative work after this one as well, looking at these specific areas as part of that bringing together the joint action plan. Thank you for that. Will there be a comprehensive action plan as a result of this? Yes. Yeah, that's what's part of the report that's coming in November to Cabinet. Thank you. Councillor Fletcher. Page 81, where it looks at the, where do young people feel most safe, has seen a decline in every area except for local parks since 2016. And that's just their perception of how they feel. But is there any research done to actually. I don't think that there is. I'll ask Tina, actually, because she might have some insights through the work of. They're feeding that back to. We're feeding that feedback back into the safer community partnership against the action plan so that we. Thank you. I could just come back. So if you look at the top one, which is schools and that's gone down four percent. And I assume that this survey is anonymized, but you may be able to work out which schools that they attend. Just think just it would be interesting to know that if that four percent comes from certain schools and then if you average it out, it's a higher drop in those schools and then in others when you average it all out and change it, whether or not you can actually go back to the schools and say you've got a bit of a problem here. We need to answer that. It's interesting you say that, Council Longstaff, because I looked at that we don't know how to identify the schools, but it identifies the ward where the where the school was lowest. And so I looked at all of those wards and those wards have got really good schools in those wards. So it's clear to do with the perception of the schools rather than actually the quality of the schools. I mean, I was expecting it to be in certain areas where maybe there are some some potentially underperforming schools, but they weren't. So they weren't in areas where there was any sort of underperformance of our schools. It's an interesting, interesting one. I mean, I think with regards to the schools, the last time the survey was done was just after children returned to school, after the lockdown. So I think there was a there was a probably an elation of being back to school at that point. Whereas now now things is back to normal, as it were. Thank you, Councillor Hutton. Sorry. Was it the same percentage of young people that did the surveys? The same number of respondents? Yes, it was 500 for both. Thank you, Councillor Naranthiram. My question is also relating to school, but in a different way. So I'm concerned about Collingdale North, Burntoke, Hendon, because those words are on my board and the Hendon constituency. So will there be an opportunity to take it forward? Will there really be an idea to work with the schools to find out why the kids are thinking that way or is that not appropriate? As I said, I'm not concerned about any schools in those areas. If there were schools in those areas that weren't working well with us or were we were concerned with performance, we would already be working with them. We have schools causing concern who we work with and they're across the borough. But there's nothing particularly in those wards that would find why there particularly was a lower score in those wards. About the standards of the school I'm talking about, if you sort of work with the schools and probably you can find out why they are saying that's what I'm saying. Then the schools, I know the schools are in those wards. They are good schools. Yeah, we shared this data with our learning network inspectors. And so each school has got a learning network inspector. And so they were going to be speaking to the schools about that survey. But there's nothing that's come back of any interest really, of any light of why there might be a lower score. We also don't know which school it is in the area. And due to the social status and things like that, because those wards are considered to be poorer wards? Could that be? That's not what we've seen, no. Okay. Nigel? Thank you very much. I'm looking at page 82 of the report which we've just heard spoken about. And it names the personal safety concerns of young people. And the top four are these. Life crime, gangs, safety of girls, hate crime. Now, this is therefore hearing from the young people what concerns them. And therefore, I'm asking myself what can Barnet do about that? Now, one quick response might be, well, it's up to the police. But I'm not sure if that's the right answer. So I wonder what coordinated activity Barnet might consider doing in its action plan, coordinating with other agencies such as the police, to help alleviate these concerns that these young people have. Because we also know that a lot of young men carry, when they carry knives, they carry them because they carry them, quote, for their own safety. And that issue needs to be addressed, obviously. And it's a coordinated approach, I think, that would do it. So please could you consider in your action plan some action to do with those top four concerns that young people have? Nina, did you want to respond? I look forward to your next report showing lower levels of fear. That's the aim, definitely. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ben and Rosie, for joining us online. We understand that there will be a report later on in the year which will have its own set of recommendations. But as for now, does the committee agree the recommendations are set out in the papers? Yes, agreed. Thank you very much. So we will be moving on to agenda item nine, which is our family services quarterly update, which, as many of you know, is our regular report on family services performance data. However, this time it also includes the outcome from the recent Ofsted inspection. I'm sure you'd all agree that we want to take the time out to congratulate Chris and his team for the fabulous results. So I will pass over. And inspections and very satisfied that the outcome is OK, and thanks to all of the staff and leaders within the service bearing with us during that process. We've put in the report an update about our service and how that is progressing. And Tina will be happy to take any questions in relation to that. We've put in in in the report an update of the healthy child program. You'll be aware that we've moved the provision from a previous provider into the Whittington Health Trust. And that's setting out all of the things that have been done, which is significant progress over over the time that they've had the service. We've agreed to begin to implement the MOU for young carers, which is about no wrong doors. And we'll continue to work on delivering that. That memorandum. And finally, within the report, there's a there's an update and a strategy document around tackling child exploitation, which Tina will talk to. But overall, performance remains solid. There's a whole range of data that we've given you for your comment and questions and particular focus on the offset and the work that we're doing on tackling extreme. It's rather what it is, exploitation. So how do you take any questions? Tina, do you want to say a few things about the exploitation? Councillor Hutton. Thank you for the for the report. On page 100 at the top, talking about care leavers, it says care leaver in touch data is currently 100 percent for both 17 and 19, which is very good. And I wondered how how long you might keep in touch with young people. One of the reasons I'm asking you, I was talking to somebody from Live Unlimited the other day, and she was particularly concerned when they reached the age of 25. She felt that some of them keep in touch with them until they're 21. But we carry on until they're 25. We also have pledged a lifelong office. So after 25, we make sure that they know that they can contact us at any point. And we have care experience, young people who are in their 30s that make contact with us for advice or just to tell us about life, life events. So, you know, I think that having it at 100 percent is what we want to make. So that's about emails and WhatsApp and telephone calls and sometimes visits. So it's a whole range of different ways that we keep in touch with our young people. But it doesn't need us. Thank you. The strategy reads really well. It's really clear. And it was really good to see as a governor, I've had responsibility for safeguarding for the last five years. I still have to keep them safe in education policies. It was really actually helpful to see this and to be kind of person to think about this in relation to safeguarding policies that we have in our school as well. I was just wondering what engagement you're having with schools, particularly on this strategy. If I could just add also all of these strategies then go to the designated safeguarding leave a briefing every six weeks for designated safeguarding leaves in schools. And so Tina's team have come along to those briefings to them and introduced new strategies. Thank you. Question from Raisal Friedman. Thank you so much. In 2020, I worked as a child safety operating protocol for the Jewish community because there has been a lack of a focus in terms of plug into all of the excellent support that is available. And I note that in the exploitation strategy in six point two, there is a desire to improve representation with marginalized communities and ensure the unique experiences, cultural and background are considered in terms of support, engagement and awareness raising. And I just wondered whether there might be a place before this is published to perhaps have an appendix or notation where it can be, you know, more specifically referencing the Jewish community. And as you so expertly know, you know, they are part of those ethnic communities where they are quite that much more vulnerable to exploitation, as we've seen with really unfortunate cases. Thank you. Can I ask members if they agree the recommendations? Tamsin, you had a question? Thank you. I'm just conscious that we've still got a few agenda items to get through. So I just want to thank officers for their report, and I'm just going to invite Stella to just summarize what's been agreed as a recommendation. I just want to clarify that it seemed that the construction. Take that as agreed. Thank you. Okay, so we'll move on to the next agenda item which is on elective home education, the task and finish group, as many of you will remember last year this was selected as one of the task and finish groups, which was chaired by Councillor Wakely. So I want to just take the time on behalf of the committee to thank Councillor Wakely and the rest of the members who undertaking this work I know you had lots of meetings and lots of extra work over the year. So thank you very much. So essentially the role of this committee is to consider the findings and determine if we wish to send the report and recommendations to cabinet to be agreed as a council policy. So we have Councillor Hutton, who's going to introduce the report, and we also have Lauren Johnson joining us online, who leads the EHE team. Oh, I have it here as Johnson. So Lauren Jackson. That's no problem, Stella. Councillor Hutton, should I pass over to you first? Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just very briefly. Yes, Councillor Wakely chaired this, but I was also and some of the members of the committee. We had we looked, I think it was timely to look at this because there does seem to have been in the number of children educated at home. That's not specific to Barnet. I think that's overall. The terms of reference were to review changes with the Barnet team, and I would like to thank the officers who are involved in visiting family to include. Because at the moment, they don't have to register. I'll come back to that in a minute because that's going to change. So it's very hard, I think, for officers to strike a balance between. Visiting, trying to include families and offer services whilst at the same time, I think the preferred option is mostly children are better off in school. So that was one thing of looking at changes. The second was the rise in numbers since COVID particularly. And the third thing was what can we do to ensure that all young people have access to the best education and feel included as Barnet citizens. So, as I said, we looked at a range of people, including Lisa who was here earlier, a range of evidence. So we still haven't clarified what a suitable education is. That's what we have to look at to see the families finding a suitable education. During the course of this, looking at this, London councils put forward a proposal that a register of families who want to educate their children at home should be, in fact, they should actually have to register with the local authority. And that's now, I think, going to be taken up at government level, and I think it's likely to become law. We are behind most other European countries, most other European countries at least, I don't know about America or Australia. If families do want to educate their children at home, then they have to register with the local authority and tell them that's what they're going to do. So that was briefly, and I think the recommendations, we have seven recommendations, so I'll pass back to the chair if anyone wants to have any comments. Does anyone have any comments? Yep, Councillor Naranthira. I'm really glad that we are actually getting there and getting a kind of a register of home-educated kids. And then we have got some kind of, the council has got some kind of monitoring process that will be in place in future. That's very good to hear. So thank you for everybody who has worked on that. Here we have Councillor Lemon. Yeah, just a query. So notwithstanding, there's some good stuff that came out as report in terms of the outcomes, and now I believe the recommendation is it goes to the next cabinet meeting in October. But what about any associated costs with any of the recommendations? Should that be included before it goes to cabinet, or is that something that cabinet could say, well, we're not going to approve this until we have those costs? There are some recommendations that do have significant requirements, and we will be notifying cabinet when they make the decisions in regards to this stage, but that will be a decision for the cabinet to make. And if there are, with the resource requirements, finding the resources to enable that to happen, because we don't have the budget to pay for something that's not statutory responsibility. A question from Naomi Phillips, and then to you, Councillor Baker. Thank you, and thank you to everyone who's taken time to be on this task and finish group. It was a really interesting report, and personally supported it. I just have a clarification question, if that's okay, just on, and it may just be my misunderstanding of the figures, but I think my thing is that given that children, parents don't have to register their children as EHE, and then we do have a table with the numbers of EHE children in Barnet, do we have a sense of how many people that doesn't include at all? I mean, is it, no, okay. In terms of the use of AI and teaching, so teachers now have to monitor that work, will be a cost to the exam centre, so you'll have to, you know, things we have to consider here. My concern, our major concern is the proposals around the examinations cost to connect to at this stage. Questions from Councillor Hutton and then Councillor Longstaff. Yeah, it's also a question, I mean, these were the recommendations that came from the group, so I didn't put that at the time, but it's also a question of how we know the child is ready to take an exam, because if they're in the school system, then that's obvious, but otherwise, so I rather agree that I think from that record about, I think that would be quite difficult. Thanks, Councillor Hutton. Can I ask Lauren to answer it, just so that there was a reason for her to attend the meeting, it would be nice if we heard from her. Lauren, do you want to answer that, we wouldn't know whether a child who is home educated is ready to take an exam, would we? No, we wouldn't. Could we just be going on the parents' views? Yeah, because the parents are ultimately responsible, so they would be tracking whether the child is ready to take a GCSE or not. So you're right, Councillor Hutton, the parent could say my child is ready, there's some money spent for her or him to do that exam and actually there's no chance that they're going to pass it. And I think there might be the temptation to say, oh, we'll put him in for it, you know, see how well he does. But simply if it's funded. And, you know, it's that, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I think that's an issue to look at. Lauren just wanted to come in and add to her response. No, I was going to say the only other way is because you have an EHE teacher, but then her time would be taking up reviewing preparations for GCSEs and not reviewing everybody else. So I don't know how manageable that would be in reality for our EHE teacher to be checking whether people are ready. Thank you. We'll finish off with Councillor Longstaff's question. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just it was about best practice in Barnet and the 10 day grace period that's implemented. It's just a number of times, you know, and I appreciate why you'd have a 10 day grace period makes perfect sense. But equally, if it's at the start of September and they're a parent who knows there's a space going and they have to wait at least 10 days before they can get their child into the school. It seems to be that one person's gone off to do that, but probably in the main for that 10 days at least. And yet somebody has to wait 10 days and can't get their child into that school until somebody actually decides, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. In a very strange way, somehow whilst it's best practice for the child who used to go to that school, best practice for parents who may wish their child to get to that school. Yeah, we implemented that, Lauren, didn't we, when we when we revised the policy last time. Do you want to just give the reasoning why that was brought in, the 10 day grace period? Yes, the so it's not a full 10 days, it's up to 10 days and the 10 days are there to really put some safeguarding in for children that are going to be EHE. And it allows us time to have an exit meeting with the family in the school. It allows us time to check with parents that EHE is actually what they chose and not what maybe the school are asking them to do or if they feel under pressure. But it's not always 10 days, sometimes it's two days, sometimes it's five, depending on our checks. Now, parents who are opting for EHE, you know, as a lifestyle choice, don't normally choose to do it on the 1st of September, preventing a place for someone else. That's normally a choice that's made at the end of an academic year in preparation for the child's next year. Those that are suddenly doing it in September, it's normally due to a knee jerk reaction, which is why we need those 10 days. Maybe they've gone back in September, fallen out with the school and we need those 10 days to repair that. And I'd much rather that than them going off to be EHE when they could stay at school. And then also if there is a knee jerk reaction and a parent said, I'd like to be home educating my child, the school then fills that place and then two days later they change. They can't go back. They can't then go back to the school because the school's filled the place. So that's why we're giving them a bit of leeway with regards to their decision making, but also to do the safeguarding check that Lauren mentioned. Thank you. It just seems a bit for those who are waiting. Their anxieties are equally as important as those who have made a choice to leave. There are just a couple of other points that are not questions. It was just that on the page 28, there's a reference to a 13, which I didn't understand. And on page 29. On that basis, does the committee agree to send the report and the recommendations to cabinet? Sorry, Anne. Thank you, Chair. My question is in relation to school or are they going to be considered as a private candidate? I'm enjoying this item because all I'm saying is, Lauren. Well, unfortunately, Anne cut out a lot, so I missed half the question. So the question was, if a child does do an exam at an exam centre, where do those statistics of that child's achievement go? Does it go on to the school's achievement if they do if they do the exam at the pavilion, for example, does that go on pavilion statistics about the GCSE pass rate? So I think historically pavilion have done it as private candidates, but if we've used a school, then it's used on the schools, the school of taking it. But I think with the pavilion, they've been able to do it as private. But don't quote me because we've not had that many. But they're not put on role of that school. No, no, no, no. I don't think they would feature on the school's achievement statistics because they're not a child that's on that role. So they would be on any statistics apart from EHE statistics, which I don't think exist. That's right. Thank you. Before you go ahead with the question, we have just been asked if you can clarify the comments that you had made. We just want to make sure that the numbers you were referring to weren't just the footnotes. Hi, it's the owner of the security manager. So the 13 and 14, I think we can make them more superscript if that helps. But they refer to the references at the bottom of the page. So there's like kind of a reference to where we've used information from other sources. And by taking point, they do look a bit big so we can make them a bit smaller. So they're obviously referring to the footnotes. Is that what you mean? Those ones. It would make sense if they're in order. In the meantime, that has been noted. OK, we have agreed that they're going to make it a little bit smaller just to make it clear that that is a footnote. So can I just get the committee to agree to send this report and the recommendations to cabinet? Right. Thank you. So we'll move on to agenda item 11, which is very short. Essentially, it's just on the task and finish group updates paper. Just asking the committee if you have any comments. Perfect. So we'll move on to agenda item 12, which is the cabinet form plan. Essentially, that's the cabinet for plan for 2024-25. The subcommittee are requested to consider any items that they may wish to request for pre-decision scrutiny during 2024-25. Thank you, chair. So if you're a scrutiny manager, as the chair says, it's just get any in. If people want any of those items on our work program, it's probably good to read it in conjunction with the next item as well, which is the committee's work program. If there's any comments, we can take them now or outside of the committee, if that's helpful. So, as Fiona mentioned, you can raise this now or you can follow up later in writing. Is that correct? OK. We'll be at agenda item 13, which is the scrutiny work program. This report sets out the work program for the children education overview and scrutiny subcommittee. Does the committee have any comments on the work program? No. OK, so I guess that brings us to the end of the meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Transcript

Hi, welcome everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful summer break. Welcome to the Children's Education Overview and Scrutiny Subcommittee. A special welcome to our new member, Councillor Sue Baco, who comes with a wealth of relevant experience and we're very lucky to have you. Also, a special welcome to my new Vice Chair, Councillor Longstaff. Thank you. As always, a bit of housekeeping, that meetings may be recorded and broadcast by people present as allowed for in-law or by the Council. So by attending either online or in person, you may be picked up on the recordings. Council recordings are covered by a privacy notice, which can be found at www.barnit.gov.uk. A quick reminder for members and new members that to talk, you click the little speaker icon when it turns red. You can speak and when you no longer want to speak, if you just tap it again. So we will go straight into the minutes of the last meeting. So do members have any comments they would like to make? Yes, Councillor Hutton. Only that there's some words like 'to' and 'left out'. I think if anybody reads through that they would find them. OK, thank you, Stella's making a note of that. Does anyone have any other comments? Yes, Councillor Longstaff. Thank you, Chair. I wasn't actually at the meeting, but I did ask for it to be passed on. The reason I was missing the meeting was because the dates kept getting changed. And they were changed from one date to the date and then changed back again later on at short notice. Otherwise, I would have been in attendance and I was asked for that to be noted in the minutes because in Council language, if you're missing because you're on Council business, it is noted that you're on other Council business rather than just absent. And I think it should be noted that I was absent because of changes to the dates. OK, thank you. Perfect. OK, just checking. Right. Other than that, are we happy to agree the minutes from the last meeting? OK, we'll take that as agreed. So we move on to absence of members. So I've received apologies from Councillor Woodstock-Vellaman and we have Councillor Naranthira sitting in on his behalf. Councillor Conaway, please. Councillor Myers just parking. OK, thank you. Yeah, that's fine with me. So we will move to agenda item four. We don't have any. Sorry. Agenda item three. Do members have any declarations to make in relation to any of the agenda items? Councillor Conaway. As a local headteacher of 9th room primary school, Jewish independent school in Henson, in regard to agenda six. If there's any discussion or anything further from the committee, then I'll pardon myself. Thank you. That's been noted. OK, so we'll move on to agenda item six. So the members of the the purpose of this members item is to allow the subcommittee to consider. We're deferring the items, so we'll move on to agenda item seven. We're going to whiz through this today. We had a question from a co-opted member, so we're just going to wait till she's here. OK, so we are now going to consider the special education needs and disability. I'm sure we are aware this is a challenge faced by councils across the country and is one of the biggest concerns in children's services. Finding ways to improve services within a context of rising demand and diminishing resources can be incredibly difficult. Whilst these problems cannot be solved overnight. Welcome. We need to satisfy ourselves that we are doing all we can to address this issue, to bring about solutions in the short, medium and long term. So I'd like to invite Karen to present some key highlights from the. Thank you. And so every year we have we have the statistics in relation to S.E.N. published in July. And so we bring a summary of those statistics to this and share it more widely as well. I, if any of you are involved in S.E.N. you represent, you will know that S.E.N. is an area of concern, I think, for many people, many families. Since the introduction of the Children and Families Act in 2014, we have seen year on year increases in the number of students being supported either through an education, health and care plan and S.E.N. support. And so the HCPs in Barnet last year, for example, increased by 10 percent. So as of January, we had three thousand eight hundred and nine children and young people being supported with the HCPs. Already this year, that has increased to four thousand one hundred and eighty. So it's likely we'll see another 10 percent increase, if not higher at the end of this year as well. So I think it's important to note that the increase in the children and young people being supported who have S.E.N. has increased year on year, and that is disproportionate to the increase in the pupil population. So the increase in Barnet, for example, since 2016, in terms of the S.E.N. population has increased by 120 percent compared to 10, just over 10 percent in terms of the pupil population. Barnet is a very inclusive mother. It has a high percentage of children in mainstream, which we're very proud of. The number of children, the percentage of children at S.E.N. support is lower than the national average at eleven point five percent. And this is of the pupil population, a whole cohort of children and young people with S.E.N. And the percentage of children in our schools with the HCPs has increased to three point nine percent. So our rate of increase of children and young people with a faster rate than that of the national level. We have 19.5 percent of our pupils are in Barnet's special schools. In terms of need types, the largest cohort is for children with speech, language and communication needs, followed by social, emotional and mental health, and then autism. And that's reflected by evident S.E.N. support. You know that our Bala is wonderfully diverse, which we welcome, and that's reflected in our S.E.N. statistics. Nationally, people are pupils with S.E.N. are more likely to be in the national average. One of the areas we are concerned about is appeals to the special educational needs and disability tribunal. So we do have high rates. They did come down from last year from three point seven percent to three point six percent. But that's still significantly higher than the national average at two point five percent. Although the national average did increase last year by 24 percent. I think you will all know that our children in this bar do very well in terms of attainment, and that is reflected in both our S.E.N. cohort and those pupils with the HCP as well. So at every stage from early years to key stage five pupils with S.E.N. in Barnet had higher levels of attainment. And the progress of S.E.M. pupils is also greater than England and also Barnet S.E.M. pupils attend schools more consistently as well. So there is there are challenges within the system as we'll come on to. But there's a lot to be proud of in Barnet as well. And that is thanks to our education providers here and the wider services. We so in terms of destinations, we have high rates of pupils remaining in sick form. And that's particularly the over 30 percent compared to 20 percent at the national average. The proportion. So in terms of a third, 31 percent of the HCP to sixth form or sixth form college compared to eleven point six percent nationally. Our rates of exclusions and suspensions are lower than both the national and our statistical neighbors as well. But they are increasing and that's we're seeing that reflected at a national level. So that's something where their children are experiencing challenges. And we're also reviewing alternative provision offers over the next year as well to make sure we're really clear, as well as outreach support where children can have short term placements in a PRU and all longer term placements where they prepare them to go on to their next phase of education. Employment rates for for young people with a learning disability are higher in Barnet than nationally. And that's something that we're really proud of. So that eight point two percent versus four point eight percent nationally. That's. We do have challenges around the number of special school places, and that's something that we need to work to those in ARPs by 40 percent since 2000 and 18. But we know that with the increase in SEND, particularly those coming through under fives, that's something that is is a priority area for us. So before we just go into questions, we also have Lisa Hoffman, so I was going to invite her over. Lisa is a representative from the Barnet parent carers forum and is attempting to give us a perspective on services from the organization supporting children, supporting parents with children have SEND. So welcome. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to come along this evening. I'll just explain a little bit about the Barnet parent care forum, because I'm not sure that all of you will necessarily have come across it before. But we are a group of volunteers primarily who work with Barnet in order to represent the parenting carers of children, young people with special educational needs and disabilities in Barnet. We survey and speak to our members to find out what the issues that they are facing are. And then we collectively represent those voices with the local authority and we work very closely with them to try and improve services as best we can. Hopefully you see my note and I don't propose to go through it in a huge amount of detail. But I just wanted to highlight a few things, if that's OK. Firstly, I think it's really important to say that the work that we've done with Barnet over the last few years has been, in my mind, really quite incredible. Our levels of co-production are really high compared to other local authorities. And the Barnet parent care forum is part of the national network of parent care forums that we liaise a lot with other forums and other local authorities. And we understand the kind of problems that they have, the difficulties they have with co-production. And we in the forum and Barnet have worked really hard to increase our co-working over the last few years. And I really think that it shows. I'm not saying that we get it right all the time. Of course we don't. And there are so many areas that we need to focus on. But I think it's important to understand the backdrop of that. There are so many things that we do really well and I'm grateful for the time and the support that we get from the professionals in Barnet. And the fact that we are included in so many of the discussions at an early point, which is really important. And I've listed in my notes some areas where we have worked really closely with the local authority and in some ways have been trendsetters. There's some things that we do that are not common among other local authorities. And we have set standards in that respect, which is really encouraging. That said, obviously, there are issues that are still a struggle for families in Barnet. And the backdrop, of course, as Karen has said, is increasing demand and pressures on funding. And parents and families are really feeling that and are really struggling in a lot of ways to get the support that they feel their children and young people are entitled to. And in many cases are written into educational health care plans and therefore they are entitled to under law. So just to highlight a few areas. We feel and this is something that most parent carer forums agree with, that early intervention is key. If we can find a way to support children and young people at the earliest possibility, where they are showing signs of difficulty, then so many of them will not need greater support later on. And that's important for the young people, for parents and for the local authority, who will, I hope, in some cases, need to find less funding for them later on. And so many young people reach a crisis point because they don't get timely intervention and timely support. And I'm not saying that teachers don't try. Of course they do. But there is, in my mind, not enough training in certain areas and not enough funding in school to be able to support these young people. So I feel that we are firefighting so much of the time and we need to just kind of reverse some of those decisions and get the support in school earlier. It is happening. And I know so many people are working to do that, but I just feel that there is so much more to do. There is such an impact on families when children are unsupported. And there was a survey that was done to support a special women's hour feature this week, where they surveyed a thousand mothers of children who have sent. And one in three of them said that they give up work in order to look after their children who were not being supported in school. So either there was no place for them or they were out of school because they weren't receiving the support they needed. And of those mothers who hadn't given up work entirely, over 50 percent said that they had to reduce their hours. And that's hugely significant. I mean, I am one of those mothers. I'm a lawyer by profession and had to give up my career to look after my daughter who was able to attend school. And so I can speak from the heart in that respect. But that has an effect on the whole community. So it's not just the child. It's it's families suffering. And, you know, it goes well beyond that, that families are not able to earn the money that they would otherwise have done. They're relying on benefits to the extent that they wouldn't have done otherwise. So it has such ramifications that that shouldn't be ignored. Very closely connected with that, obviously, is the mental health of the young people and the mental health of parents and siblings, which which can be affected when the situations are so difficult. Diagnostic assessments is remains a really difficult area. If children can't get the assessments they need in a timely fashion, then the support can't be put in place. And the wait times for those assessments are too high. We know work is being done to reduce them. But the pressures on specialist services fashion and that then has an effect that I've had before. I wanted to mention about. Appeals and tribunals and in Barnet, I feel strongly that the amount of appeals and tribunals is too high and we need to address that. And I know as part of the change program, that's something that's being looked at. And I know there's been recruitment in the area to try and mediate with families. Appeals, but families don't have enough trust in the system. They don't believe that that will work. So they're skipping any form of mediation and alternative dispute resolution and going to tribunal. That's a waste of resource for the local authority. It's a terrible strain on families. And I feel that we really need to concentrate on that to try and resolve these disputes before they get to that stage. Elective home education, which I know is on your agenda and it's something that I have spoken about before. And I really just wanted to say thank you for giving me a voice in that piece of work and for. Understanding the concerns that parents have in terms of the pressure put on them when their children are unable to attend school. And we use we often use the term episode, emotionally based school avoidance. It's not avoidance. So many children want to be in school. So many parents want their children to be in school. They're not bunking off. They're not taking them on holidays. Yes, of course, there are some that do. But on the whole, that is not the case at all. Children want to be in school with their friends. Parents want their children to be in school so that they can work or. Do whatever else they they need to. And it's it's really important to understand that. Penalizing parents, putting pressure on families, blaming children and young people and families is never going to work. What we need to do is make sure that the barriers for them to be in school are reduced and that their needs are met. Port reflect that, you know, and it is a case of support first. And I hope that as a result of those recommendations, more parents will feel supported. And we are working really closely with the educational psychology team in Bonnet on guidance around episode four. Families, the schools, nationals in the hope that we can increase the levels of said levels of non-dependence children. So lots of work being done on that. But a way to go. Therapies remains a difficulty in Bonnet, even children who have. Levels of therapeutic support written into that. Always getting that. And parents are incredibly frustrated. It comes straight back to the point that before, if we're not giving the support to the children at the time they need it, then they will need more support. Later on, they will fall further and further behind. Potentially it can affect their attendance. So it's something that needs to be addressed. And of course, I appreciate it comes down to funding, but it is such a priority for so many families and shouldn't be ignored. So I think that that's the only issues that I really wanted to highlight, and I'm more than happy to answer any questions if anybody has anything they want to ask. Yes, does anyone have any questions? Councillor Meyer. Thank you. It's pretty much Karen, actually. I know in the report we mentioned as a significant part about VAT and funding. Can I ask, have we got any modeling on how many additional school places we may need? And should the VAT tax that's been spoken about by the government be implemented? Because I'm probably quite concerned that parents won't be able to afford that and will need to make places and provisions in existing schools. If I can respond. I think we're going to have a further discussion about that when Paper 6 is going to be discussed. But for children with special education needs, there is no VAT charge. That's one of the exemptions that has been. Thank you, Nigel. Thank you very much, Chair. It's not so much a question, but a vote of thanks. I'm a member of the task group you spoke to, and we were all deeply impressed with what you had to tell us, your recommendations and your thoughts. And we're very impressed with what you're doing for that area. So thank you very much indeed. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thank you very much. And, you know, as I said before, most of the people I work with in the forum give up their time voluntarily. We all feel really passionate about what we do, and it's so important that parents are encouraged to speak out. And we are grateful when people listen. So thank you for your experiences and the key issues. Thank you for the wonderful work you do. Does anyone, Councillor Longstaff? Thank you. Both Karen and Lisa spoke about demand for places, the amount of places available. Just out of interest, is this because we provide less than the rest of London and the country? Or is this because more people are actually moving to Barnet? Because in my opinion, the provision is very good. People work very hard. When there's a good provision about, there's a lot of people interested in moving into the area. So I think there's a variety of reasons. It's not it's not unique to Barnet. So across the country, people are struggling with the efficiency of special school places originally anticipated. I think there are things about the barnet itself that make it a very attractive borough. And we know across, you know, across London, there's high, you know, there's high levels of movement of families. So we do have a high number of families moving into the area, but also a borough of sanctuary. And so, you know, with that, whilst we welcome every single one of those families, we know there's a higher proportion of children, not just that have experienced trauma, but you know, who have other complex needs as well. Talking about the cost of placing barnet residents in independent mainstream schools, I wondered how that worked. I could understand that the ECHP part of it would be paid, but if parents wish to send their child to that school, why would that extra cost, if there is, fall on the local council and not on the family if they wish to send their children to an independent school? I'm not quite sure how that works, if you could clarify that. If you place a child into, if a school has been deemed appropriate, then the tribunal for those cases or, you know, everything is such a case by case basis, it's difficult to give a specific answer for, you know, for individual cases, but that's generally what happens. So, if it's been deemed appropriate for that child, then the local authority is responsible for the fees. As an independent school? Yes. If that's what's named on the plan, it's been deemed appropriate. Okay. Councillor Longstaff? Thank you. There was something as well that was raised from Lisa about how it would help in order that disputes between what a parent or carer wants and what the council is able to provide, willing to provide, and they should try and resolve that long before it goes to an appeal court or wherever it goes to beyond. So, what is the council's, how can the council actually square that circle where there are finite resources but the parent knows that their child, and of course it's emotional and they want the very best for their child, how are you intending to square that circle to resolve things and get them done quicker? So, we've just taken on two associated to disagreement resolution. We have mediation arrangements in place, but quite often families, as Lisa referred to, want to skip straight to that because their understanding is that they will have a better chance really to get what they feel is needed for their child. So, we really want to build that trust with families in terms of conversations and trying to agree those disagreements, even if we can agree them partially. So, you know, there will be always times where it's right that it goes to tribunal because there isn't agreement and it's up to the judge then to make a decision, but I think the more we can do with families, the better. Thank you. Sorry, I don't know what they have to get, but I just wanted to make a point on that, which is a concern of mine, and this is absolutely in support of mediation pre-tribunal. Many families do not have the resources to get legal support for tribunals and are too overwhelmed to work out what their rights are in that respect. And therefore, it is often, not always, but often the case that those that do go to tribunal are cases where families can afford legal support and have the highest level of help. And that creates such an injustice that you've got families who perhaps have exactly the same similar needs, and their cases should be considered in the same way, but they don't actually have the ability to push it that far. And my concern is that those children will lose out. If we have a system by which there is faith in dispute, alternative dispute resolution and mediation pre-tribunal, you don't need legal representation. You just need to sit around a table and have a conversation to try and understand what the issues are. And in my opinion, that system will be fairer as well as better for all. I think the drive to improve mediation, and we certainly need to work together to improve perceptions of the benefits of mediation, I think is really important. But I can find out for you. I know that in, I think, anything that goes to a hearing is not, you know, we hear, you hear language such as, oh, it's a win for the parent, it's a win for the local authority. I don't think anyone wins when they go to tribunal. We are aware that of those that do go to a hearing in Barnet, then there is, there is a higher number than the national average that are upheld in favour of the local authority, but still, you know, there's still a lot more that are upheld. Yeah, I think the, over the last few years, the team have worked really hard to understand, you know, the legal positions and so on. So they've really tried hard to improve that position. Hopefully, you know, last, the improvement, albeit not good enough, last year to this is the start of a trend, and that's certainly what we're hoping for, but it will require everyone to work together and everyone to have a bit more trust. Thanks. Councillor Lemmon. Thanks, Chair. Just like to first of all thank the Speaker and obviously all the officers who contributed not only to the report, especially when you compare Barnet to other boroughs and how well we're doing. I don't want to be rude, but let's start talking about money. One of the appendices refers to the schools grant and the by-needs block area where there's projected, I assume that's projected to F6 million this year, so that's fast at the moment. Yes. And then it talks about a few examples about how you might just touching around the edges. Yeah, and I think perhaps I didn't make this clear in the report. I think there is a difference. It's certainly not about cuts. It's about reviewing things to see how we can use that, that amount of funding more effectively to meet the needs of more children. So we are undergoing an alternative provision, so approved review, for example, because we know there is some crossover. So how can we improve the system? How can we make it clearer for parents, the pathways around that? How can we be how can we support our schools more? We have an increasing number of children. So one area has been on home tuition, for example. So can we look at that and think about how we do it in house rather than using external providers? We think there'd be more control, improved quality and probably a saving in costs in terms of that. So these aren't these are not looking at cuts. They're really looking at ways of doing it more effectively. Thanks for that reassurance. And just a quick follow up on that as well. And I presume when you're talking about more higher mainstream inclusion, that's all evidence based. And that's something new, substantial savings, but based on clear evidence. And I think it is certainly about doing things more effectively, but in terms of the savings, it's trying to slow the increase in the deficit by investing more in early prevention and different matters like that. OK, thank you. Yeah, we have to do returns that started last year in terms of returning annual reviews. You're right. They do. They do have to be done every year. Annual reviews are currently of the whole cohort. We're about 63 percent in terms of those that are processed on time within the time scales. That is clearly not as high as where we'd like it to be. But we know that that is a better rate than many other local authorities. And it's an improving picture as well. Within that cohort, though, we do focus annual reviews on what we call early annual reviews, you know, where there are there are real concerns and on our vulnerable children cohort as well. So looked after. So the way the completion rates for that cohort is much higher, it's 84 percent. Separately, they're tracked within FE. So we do have, you know, we do have high rates of participation in FE as well. But I think one of our strengths is the number of children with the HCPs that go on to sixth forms and stay in their school. Thank you for those questions. So a massive thank you to Lisa and Karen for speaking and presenting to us today. Can I ask the committee if the recommendations in the report have been agreed? Great. As Rizal Friedman has joined us, we're going to go back to agenda item six, and that's our members items. So the purpose of this member's item is essentially to allow the subcommittee to consider the issue raised and decide if you wish to get a course of action. Rizal Friedman, would you like to read your question for us? Thank you so much. Also, just to declare an interest. I work, I work for pages, partnerships with Jewish schools. We support Jewish schools across the UK. I don't know if you need anything else about the interest or if that's sufficient. That's sufficient. Thank you. I wanted to ask whether there will be an opportunity to ask the professionals essentially how much time and thought have been given to the impact of the imposition of VAT on school fees, obviously, as well as the planned removal of the relief for business rates after the after the budget on October 30th. Given the high number of Jewish independent schools in Barnet, should there be an influx of students into the state sector? I think there needs to be some assessment of the availability of appropriate educational provision. I'm more broadly wondering if it's been considered outside of the Jewish lens. And I'd just like to thank Neil Marlowe for his time earlier this week. I think we've already begun a discussion about this, but was hoping to bring it to the table here so that the committee can also hear about the impact of this. Thank you. I'll pass over to Neil Marlowe, who can advise us on suggested calls of action. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Reisel, for your question. And yes, as Reisel says, she is Assistant Director of PAGES, the national organization that works to support Jewish schools, state and independent. And so it's really important that Barnet have a close relationship with PAGES, which we do, because we work cooperatively and co-produce ways forward. And I think it's really critical that with regards to this VAT exemption on independent schools, that we work very closely with PAGES and other relevant organizations to help co-produce the future. Just giving a background to the situation. But before I do that, I hope Reisel sees after we've met on Wednesday, Reisel, that we have given some real time and thought to the question. So it wasn't a surprise to get this question. As you know, we've been working already on that, Reisel, as you saw. Absolutely. And it's technology that in this space as well. So thank you very much. Yes. When this was mentioned in the Labour Manifesto, we obviously thought about what would be the potential implications for us in Barnet. If we look at non-faith independent schools and faith independent schools separately, if I just deal with non-faith independent schools first. In non-faith independent schools, if there was a movement of parents from children, from schools into the state system, our capacity within our state schools and non-faith state schools could easily manage that movement from independent to state. In fact, I'm sure state schools would openly welcome them to come into their schools to help with the falling role situation we have across Barnet, across some areas of Barnet. So that would be no issue at all. Interesting that hasn't happened so far. We had a Headteacher meeting this morning and I was asking, has there been already any interest from parents about moving their children from independent to state? And that hasn't happened as yet. But clearly, this is due to coming in January next year, and so we may get an influx then. But the non-faith state schools within Barnet would be easily able to meet any need that comes from children moving over from independent to state. So probably the greatest area of need would be if there was issues with regards to faith independent schools and particularly with regards to our Jewish faith independent schools. So just to give you some data of the Jewish school landscape in Barnet, we've got 21 Jewish state schools in Barnet, 16 primary, four secondary and one special. So approximately 7,400 pupils attend Jewish state schools in Barnet. So 16% of state schools in Barnet are Jewish schools, which is obviously very high comparatively, and obviously is high comparatively because we need to meet the need of the high Jewish population in Barnet. So 11.8% of pupils in Barnet state schools attend a Jewish state school. In addition to those 21 state Jewish schools, we've got 17 independent Jewish schools in Barnet. Now that's out of a total of 36 independent schools we have. So 17 of the 36 independent schools we have in Barnet are Jewish independent schools. So 47% of independent schools are Jewish schools. And so approximately 3,200 pupils attend those independent Jewish schools in Barnet. 42% of independent pupils in Barnet go to a Jewish independent school. And so just under 3,000 of that 3,200 attend strictly Orthodox or Haredi Orthodox. And apologies if my determinations are incorrect here, Councillor Conway and others, but that's looking at the different levels of Orthodoxy. And so those are the higher levels of Orthodoxy, the strictly Orthodox and the Haredi Orthodox. And thank you, Raizel, for helping me in my determination and classification there and realizing that actually often those two types of schools are very interchangeable. And 3,000 pupils are going to those strictly or Haredi Orthodox schools. We don't have exact numbers because we don't get numbers of independent schools as a council. That's not something that we get hold of. In fact, the way I find out how many pupils are in independent schools is when I read their Ofsted report that says pupils enroll and that's how it updates our information about pupils enrolled in independent schools. So we certainly don't know how many pupils are in each year group either in those independent schools. Of those independent Jewish schools, nine of them are primary and seven of them are secondary. And as with our state schools, which go from Reform schools where we've got four Reform schools up to five strictly Orthodox state schools, the same with independent schools. Although there aren't any Reform independent schools and no modern Orthodox independent schools, we do have two Orthodox independent Jewish schools and 14 of their independent schools are strictly Orthodox or Haredi Orthodox. Hence the 3,000 of those pupils going to those schools that are strictly Orthodox or Haredi Orthodox. Now, a recent history in Barnet over the last 30 years or so, the number of Jewish state schools has risen quite sharply in Barnet due to the opening of new schools, including academies and free schools and independent schools successfully applying to become state maintained rather than being independent. The most recent of those being Menorah High for Girls that used to be an independent school and Noam Primary that used to be an independent school, both now are state schools. So the potential issue would be if a significant number of those children in independent Jewish schools were wanting to get us placed in one of our state Jewish schools. Now, we do have some capacity in our state Jewish school system at the moment, though there are capacity across the board from Reform right up to strictly Orthodox. But in speaking to Rachel earlier in the week, the concern would be that a number of those parents, if they weren't able to afford the fees of the school that they're currently in as independent, none of the state schools that we had would meet their need with regards to their faith. So they would then have to look for another alternative, which potentially would be becoming electively home educated. Now, clearly, we would want to try and avoid that because we want them to be in an educational establishment rather than EHE. So that removal of the VAT exemption in January could have an impact on us with regards to the Jewish state schools and meeting the capacity. Just out of interest, I could give you the figures that we have at the moment. In our primary state schools, we have 195 places available for girls who are strictly Orthodox and we have 59 places for Orthodox, et cetera. But within our secondary schools, all of our secondary schools, Reform, Orthodox and Strictly Orthodox are all full. But what our Jewish secondary schools have managed to do over the past few years to meet the increased demand has been to open bold classes within their schools. So we would obviously be needing to work with our schools to see if they could continue to open up bold classes or expand their provision. So I would suggest that there's a few next steps from this discussion and hope Rachel agrees. One is that the state schools will welcome independent school pupils into our state schools, particularly non-faiths who are going to go into the non-faith state schools where we have a number of vacancies. The tax exemption is due to come in in January 2025, so we do have some time, but these few months will go very wide very quickly. But we obviously need to keep a keen eye on what's going to happen between now and then and assess the number of parents that are looking to find places in our school. I mentioned before the number of independent schools who have now become state schools and there's a clear criteria that we have that the council has for accepting independent schools to be a Barnet State School. One of those criteria is that it's a good or outstanding school currently, and as you're probably aware, that single judgment has now been taken away from state schools and is probably likely to be taken away from independent schools as well. So clearly that criteria needs to be relooked at to make sure it's appropriate, particularly with regards to the changes of off-state judgment. And then we need to concentrate on potentially increasing the capacity in our strictly orthodox schools, particularly with boys at secondary, to meet that possible demand. So that's working with our existing schools to see if they could increase their pan even more. And finally, members may want to lobby to the DFE to exempt independent faith schools from this VAT exemption. So rather than saying every independent school is going to have to now pay VAT, if a school and the community within that school haven't got a state option, as I said, a number of those 3,000 pupils wouldn't want to go into any of our state schools because they don't meet their faith requirements, then it would seem unfair that they said there's a blanket policy across all schools. So I know pages and I know other organizations are lobbying the DFE to say could there be some exceptions for schools when there isn't really a state alternative. Maybe the members might want to do that as well. Thank you, Neil, for that course of action. Can I ask members if they have any comments? Councillor Longstaff? Yeah, I just wondered if you'd done any analysis, both on non-faith schools and on independent private schools, if a few more people decide that they decide to go to private school because of the increase in VAT, sorry, the addition of VAT, what happens when the school decides to close? Do we have any analysis of the school potentially saying, well, actually, we just can't afford to carry on? Then potentially you've got even… Yes, I mean, we've had one school contacting us and saying exactly that, that if this comes in in January, then their school isn't going to be financially sustainable and they may have to look to close. So clearly that would mean to try and find places for those children. But that's a factor. You know, it's not just about parents not being able to afford the fees. It's about schools not being able to be financially sustainable, potentially closing. Nigel? Thank you. Thank you very much, Neil, for your comprehensive explanation of the issues around Jewish schools. I wonder if are there any Muslim schools in Barnet and are there any issues around those situations? We have one Muslim independent school and so if that school closed or the parents were looking for a state option, there isn't a state Muslim school. So I should have said, by the way, I should have mentioned this before, that our statutory responsibility is just to provide places. We don't have to provide faith places. So we meet our responsibility by having enough places for the number of children who want a place. Now, obviously, the moral imperative is to make sure that it's a place that's going to be appropriate for their needs and particularly their faith needs. But our state schools are multicultural, as you know, and so there's quite a high Muslim population in our state schools currently. So we would hope that for state schools that they would be satisfied with the education they're going to get in one of our state schools. Do you know enough about that Muslim school to know whether the parents are strictly orthodox, if I may use the Jewish expression, and therefore perhaps reluctant to go to a multicultural state school? I don't, but we would need to work with that school in the same way we would be working with Jewish schools as well. Have you been working with that school? We have had conversations with that school previously, yeah. Thank you. If a independent school wants to close because the parents can't afford because of the VAT situation, and if they're a good and outstanding school, will there be a consideration to take that into a state sector? So there's a process. Obviously, it needs the willingness of the school to want to be a state school, and some schools wouldn't want to be. But if they did want to be a state school, then they have to follow the criteria I said that maybe the council needs to relook at again, particularly because of Ofsted. But that's how the schools like Noah, Menorah, Grammar, and others previously to that have become state schools because they've followed the process. They've completed the information that we need. And you can understand it's the council's responsibility to be making sure that they're taking on a school that is in a good way, both financially and educationally. And so that's what they need to demonstrate to become a state school. Obviously, there is some financial implications if a school becomes a state school, particularly which part of the financial year they become a state school, because that might have some drains on them. Thank you for that very detailed response to the question, and thank you, Raisal Friedman, for raising that. So the comments from members have been noted. And now we're going to move back over to agenda item eight, which is the the Barnet Young residents perception survey. So for this, we have Ben Thomas and Rosie Evangeli. Excuse me, are we not meant to make a decision on that members item? OK, would members like to agree the recommendations that Neil has put forward? Could Neil just summarize it? Yeah, could you summarize the recommendation? It says in point three one, do nothing, request an officer error report, refer to cabinet, request an report we presented at a future date. Surely we need to select which one we would choose. I think Neil suggested some differing ones. So I mean, some weren't really anything to act on. One is where I said we would welcome independent school pupils into our state schools where appropriate. There's no decision there. We've got time to deal with this. That's not a recommendation. So the ones to think about is looking at the current criteria for independent schools. My personal view on this item is that there's no further action for this committee because we are undertaking all of the actions that we've set out. And they are quite comprehensive unless they're, you know, writing a report would be exactly the same as we've given you. There's nothing to escalate to cabinet because there's nothing apart from when we get to a point of writing a new framework because of the offset changes, not because of the back changes. And we've set out a whole range of things that we put in place. So my personal view, if you, you know, but it's for members to decide, is that there's no further action for this committee because we have debated it and we've given you a very thorough, comprehensive answer to what the council is doing. Could this committee not request, for example, that Barnet lobby the DFE on behalf of Barnet with this report and call for an exemption on faith schools as part of this VAT taxation change? We did, Neil did suggest that there was an opportunity for members to write a letter, whether it would be a letter exempting all faith schools. That's a very different thing to what was proposed. My understanding of what Neil's proposing is that we write a letter where there are no state alternatives that there should be an exemption. And I don't think that we are happy to draft a letter in that in that line. But that's not one of the things that's on that list of things that you read out from the approach. But we are suggesting we write a letter that talks about those faith groups where there are no state alternatives. Perhaps because they're in the consultation open at the moment, I had raised this with Neil and I appreciate that the timeframe is now very short because the consultation closes at midnight on Sunday evening. Perhaps Barnet could submit some form of abbreviated report based on the number that Neil's already kind of pulled together to explain that there is no suitability by other submissions to the consultation. I know that pages and other charities and faith groups and the IFC have pulled together. Neil, would you like to respond to that? I'm not convinced that we would respond to that consultation with that level of detail. We can write a letter that sets out some particular concerns that we have, and I think that's proposing that we do. This is this is not a decision for Barnet as a local authority. The consultation should be directly affected and parents who are directly affected. So my view is that we can write a letter setting out what some of the challenges might be to ministers from council. But I don't think we should do any any more than that at this stage. But happy raisal, if you are having discussions with the department for me to be involved in those discussions, to be able to give a barnet context. Perfect. Even a letter to ministers would be helpful. So I think maybe Neil, we can take it forward. And would that be circulated to this committee members as well? Can we make sure that's added to a follow up recommendation? OK, we just wanted to clarify if the letter is going to come from the committee. It seems there's two things. The consultation is open and anyone can respond to the consultation. I don't think I should be responding to the consultation on behalf of the whole of Barnet. But I'm happy to I'm happy to to contribute to the discussions with the department, with with a letter to say what the barnet context is. Is the committee happy with that course of action? OK, thank you. OK, so we'll move on to agenda item eight, which was the Barnet Young Residence Perceptions Service. We'll pass over to Ben and Rosie online. We've been patiently waiting. Thank you. Thank you, chair. So we're not going to go through all the slides that were in the appendix in the pack in detail, but I'm just going to go through some of the background and then Rosie's going to talk through a couple of slides on the specifics of the data. So the Young Residence Perception Survey happened two years. It's with young residents aged 11 to 18. And it's undertaken by an independent research company called ORS, who also did the previous survey. And this is actually the fifth one that we've done, the fifth wave of the survey. The first was done in autumn 2016, and then there have been subsequent surveys in 2017, 19 and 21, 22. The survey's done alongside the adult survey and is part of the strategic vision to make Barnet a family friendly borough and improve outcomes by listening to the voices of children and young people, listening to what they're concerned about, what's important to them, and then using that to inform strategies and plans going forwards. So 500 Barnet young people were interviewed between December 23 and March 24. And ORS had quotas on age, gender and ethnicity to make sure it was a cross-section of Barnet's young people and is representative of the population. So the survey provides important insight on what young people think about living in the borough, their perception of the council, the services they receive. And it also helps to understand young people's priorities and concerns. There is, of course, also the Bright Spot Survey, which is specifically for children in care and care leavers, which was reported on earlier in the year. So the presentation in the appendix provides a lot of the detail and we'll look at a little bit of that in a moment. But the results show that the majority of indicators are in line with the last survey and the previous findings and in particular satisfaction with the local area. With Barnet being a family friendly borough, young people remain broadly in line with the previous survey. In terms of the demographic breakdown and in particular qualities, there are some clear themes with some groups of young people less likely to be satisfied in specific areas. So that's if they have a disability, if they live in the Burnt Oak, Hendon or Colindale North Ward, if they live in a low deprivation area, if they're of mixed or multiple ethnic backgrounds or if they're female. And a lot of these things are actually similar to what was found in the adult survey. So a joint action plan being worked on and a report began to Cabinet in November about this. So that was all I wanted to say. I just want to hand over to Rosie. Thanks Ben. Should I share my presentation? You can see a presentation there. Can you have a? We do have a screen to view the presentation. Yeah, that's OK. Great. So, yeah, thanks Ben for introducing that. And as Ben says, I'm just going to go through some of the highlights. It's very positive. What I'm just going to go through is some of the key image indicators and that are positive. And then just look at some more negative findings and then we'll look at some concerns and some further segmentation. So the slide you can see now is it's what we see as our core indicators and you can see we're doing. I'm just going to stop you there because we actually can't see any slides. Oh, oh, just let's go back. We're very happy for you to just continue presenting without the slides either way. So please don't fall under any pressure. OK, I'll just try one more time and see what happens. You see the slides now? We've got them now. Thank you. OK, I'll just start where? OK, so these are the core indicators that I was talking about. So you can see the more we've got high satisfaction levels on these. So the majority of our young people are happy with one. It's a place to live. Agree we're a family friendly place. We're doing a good job. Agree young people have their say on things and protect people from harm. The keeping informed is pretty much in line what is still high and pretty much what in line what we normally get on how young people feel they're informed. So just in terms of satisfaction with the low clarity, this is actually in line with the last time, and you can see also in line with the adult survey. In terms of segmentation on this, disabled young people are less likely to be happy with their local area. And in terms of Barnet family friendly, again in line from the last wave and slightly higher than the adult survey. In terms of segmentation, again, we've got disabled young people less likely to say this and then young people living in Burnet Oak, Colindale and the Henford constituency. These are some other image of the council questions. So you can see eight out of ten of our young people think the council is doing a good job, but there has been a slight drop since its peak in 2019. So there's been a slight decline there. Providing service that young people need. This is in line with the last wave, but we did have a peak in 2017 and protecting people from harm. That's pretty much in line with 2021/22. And just to clarify what Ben said earlier, anything that is above plus or minus 4.2%, that's when it's a significant change. But when it's anything below plus or minus 4.2%, that means it's in line with the previous survey, so just to clarify that. And then these are the indicators in terms of image of the council that received the lowest satisfaction levels, but still good. But what we can see is they're back in line with our 2019 findings, and there was a peak just as we're coming out of COVID, but they've returned back to the pre-pandemic levels. So this is an indicator that surprised us a little bit. So satisfaction in the primary and secondary education have seen a decline since the peak in 2021/22. So services for support for children and young people, that's remained in line with previous years. But what I will show you is the satisfaction, it doesn't mean that more young people have got dissatisfied with our primary education, secondary education. And what's happened is young people are now saying they're neutral or they don't know. There hasn't been an increase in dissatisfaction. It's just that they're more indecisive this year. So all the way through, there's quite an interesting data set on young people's concerns, and I've actually brought this one up in terms of personal safety. So young people actually still rate knife crime as their top concern, but you can see that's actually dropped. The number of young people saying it's their top concern has dropped compared to 2021/22. And actually concern for gangs has also remained the concern. But what's happened is that we've added two new options this year. So this has actually shifted where people are saying their top concerns are. So these two new concerns are safety of girls and hate crime, and that they're third and fourth. And I know we're very interested in the hate crime at the moment. It's quite worrying that one in four young people do see that as a concern. So I thought I'd just bring up the segmentation on this particular slide, but throughout the presentation you have, we have done deep dives on everything so we can start to look at who's more concerned. So in terms of our protected characteristics, we can see there's nothing coming up in life crime. But in terms of area, Burntoke and Collingdale North are more concerned about knife crime. So you can see all these different types of concerns from different groups and different wards. And it's very well worth actually reflecting back on this and how this segmentation will help us start to prioritize our resources. And just to add, what we have done across the indicators is looked at the average in terms of segmentation groups across the indicators where those groups showing that they're less happy. So on the right hand side, on the left hand side, we can see that disabled young people are across the board more likely to be unhappy. Those living in areas of low deprivation, which might sound surprising to you, but when you actually look at some of the indicators. So interestingly, those areas, things like being listened to, being aged, young people living in low deprivation areas are more likely not to feel listened to. So there's probably, they might be sort of feeling ignored, but that's an indicator, a very interesting finding that I don't think we've seen before. And then mixed ethnic background, female young people. But those are the top segmentations where they're feeling less happy in terms of the survey. And then we've done the same with wards. So you saw in that concern for safety, Burntoke and Collingdale was coming out. But across the board, the west of the borough are less, lower than the average. So that's a very quick whistle tour of what we've actually already sent to you. Ben touched on the next steps. So yes, we're bringing a combined report of the findings from the adults and the young person survey to the November cabinet, which will, as well as looking at what the Children's Partnership Board might be doing or children's services, looking across the services, what other recommendations our services can bring to this, for example, parks and open spaces and community safety. So that's a very top tour of the presentation that's been shared with you. Thank you, Rosie and Ben. Do members have any questions? Councillor Baker? Thank you very much for that. It was really rich in detail. There were some really positive outcomes there. My thoughts are, where you have, obviously, we often, you know, when we're scrutinising, tend to kind of dive towards the negative, and where there are dips in the results from last year to this year, and where they were quite low last year and they're still low this year. I wonder what kind of, if young people aren't feeling as valued as they did, and if they don't feel the Council, if there's an increase in the amount in any more detail. I mean, in terms of analysis, we are looking at a bit more analysis in terms of across the board, what indicators are driving certain things. So there will be more analysis on that. And there is potential to do more qualitative research. But in terms of what other actions Ben's team is thinking about, if you would like to come in on that, Ben. Yeah, following the last survey, we actually did a lot of qualitative work. We did around a whole series of focus groups. So I think we will do some more qualitative work after this one as well, looking at these specific areas as part of that bringing together the joint action plan. Thank you for that. Will there be a comprehensive action plan as a result of this? Yes. Yeah, that's what's part of the report that's coming in November to Cabinet. Thank you. Councillor Fletcher. Page 81, where it looks at the, where do young people feel most safe, has seen a decline in every area except for local parks since 2016. And that's just their perception of how they feel. But is there any research done to actually. I don't think that there is. I'll ask Tina, actually, because she might have some insights through the work of. They're feeding that back to. We're feeding that feedback back into the safer community partnership against the action plan so that we. Thank you. I could just come back. So if you look at the top one, which is schools and that's gone down four percent. And I assume that this survey is anonymized, but you may be able to work out which schools that they attend. Just think just it would be interesting to know that if that four percent comes from certain schools and then if you average it out, it's a higher drop in those schools and then in others when you average it all out and change it, whether or not you can actually go back to the schools and say you've got a bit of a problem here. We need to answer that. It's interesting you say that, Council Longstaff, because I looked at that we don't know how to identify the schools, but it identifies the ward where the where the school was lowest. And so I looked at all of those wards and those wards have got really good schools in those wards. So it's clear to do with the perception of the schools rather than actually the quality of the schools. I mean, I was expecting it to be in certain areas where maybe there are some some potentially underperforming schools, but they weren't. So they weren't in areas where there was any sort of underperformance of our schools. It's an interesting, interesting one. I mean, I think with regards to the schools, the last time the survey was done was just after children returned to school, after the lockdown. So I think there was a there was a probably an elation of being back to school at that point. Whereas now now things is back to normal, as it were. Thank you, Councillor Hutton. Sorry. Was it the same percentage of young people that did the surveys? The same number of respondents? Yes, it was 500 for both. Thank you, Councillor Naranthiram. My question is also relating to school, but in a different way. So I'm concerned about Collingdale North, Burntoke, Hendon, because those words are on my board and the Hendon constituency. So will there be an opportunity to take it forward? Will there really be an idea to work with the schools to find out why the kids are thinking that way or is that not appropriate? As I said, I'm not concerned about any schools in those areas. If there were schools in those areas that weren't working well with us or were we were concerned with performance, we would already be working with them. We have schools causing concern who we work with and they're across the borough. But there's nothing particularly in those wards that would find why there particularly was a lower score in those wards. About the standards of the school I'm talking about, if you sort of work with the schools and probably you can find out why they are saying that's what I'm saying. Then the schools, I know the schools are in those wards. They are good schools. Yeah, we shared this data with our learning network inspectors. And so each school has got a learning network inspector. And so they were going to be speaking to the schools about that survey. But there's nothing that's come back of any interest really, of any light of why there might be a lower score. We also don't know which school it is in the area. And due to the social status and things like that, because those wards are considered to be poorer wards? Could that be? That's not what we've seen, no. Okay. Nigel? Thank you very much. I'm looking at page 82 of the report which we've just heard spoken about. And it names the personal safety concerns of young people. And the top four are these. Life crime, gangs, safety of girls, hate crime. Now, this is therefore hearing from the young people what concerns them. And therefore, I'm asking myself what can Barnet do about that? Now, one quick response might be, well, it's up to the police. But I'm not sure if that's the right answer. So I wonder what coordinated activity Barnet might consider doing in its action plan, coordinating with other agencies such as the police, to help alleviate these concerns that these young people have. Because we also know that a lot of young men carry, when they carry knives, they carry them because they carry them, quote, for their own safety. And that issue needs to be addressed, obviously. And it's a coordinated approach, I think, that would do it. So please could you consider in your action plan some action to do with those top four concerns that young people have? Nina, did you want to respond? I look forward to your next report showing lower levels of fear. That's the aim, definitely. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ben and Rosie, for joining us online. We understand that there will be a report later on in the year which will have its own set of recommendations. But as for now, does the committee agree the recommendations are set out in the papers? Yes, agreed. Thank you very much. So we will be moving on to agenda item nine, which is our family services quarterly update, which, as many of you know, is our regular report on family services performance data. However, this time it also includes the outcome from the recent Ofsted inspection. I'm sure you'd all agree that we want to take the time out to congratulate Chris and his team for the fabulous results. So I will pass over. And inspections and very satisfied that the outcome is OK, and thanks to all of the staff and leaders within the service bearing with us during that process. We've put in the report an update about our service and how that is progressing. And Tina will be happy to take any questions in relation to that. We've put in in in the report an update of the healthy child program. You'll be aware that we've moved the provision from a previous provider into the Whittington Health Trust. And that's setting out all of the things that have been done, which is significant progress over over the time that they've had the service. We've agreed to begin to implement the MOU for young carers, which is about no wrong doors. And we'll continue to work on delivering that. That memorandum. And finally, within the report, there's a there's an update and a strategy document around tackling child exploitation, which Tina will talk to. But overall, performance remains solid. There's a whole range of data that we've given you for your comment and questions and particular focus on the offset and the work that we're doing on tackling extreme. It's rather what it is, exploitation. So how do you take any questions? Tina, do you want to say a few things about the exploitation? Councillor Hutton. Thank you for the for the report. On page 100 at the top, talking about care leavers, it says care leaver in touch data is currently 100 percent for both 17 and 19, which is very good. And I wondered how how long you might keep in touch with young people. One of the reasons I'm asking you, I was talking to somebody from Live Unlimited the other day, and she was particularly concerned when they reached the age of 25. She felt that some of them keep in touch with them until they're 21. But we carry on until they're 25. We also have pledged a lifelong office. So after 25, we make sure that they know that they can contact us at any point. And we have care experience, young people who are in their 30s that make contact with us for advice or just to tell us about life, life events. So, you know, I think that having it at 100 percent is what we want to make. So that's about emails and WhatsApp and telephone calls and sometimes visits. So it's a whole range of different ways that we keep in touch with our young people. But it doesn't need us. Thank you. The strategy reads really well. It's really clear. And it was really good to see as a governor, I've had responsibility for safeguarding for the last five years. I still have to keep them safe in education policies. It was really actually helpful to see this and to be kind of person to think about this in relation to safeguarding policies that we have in our school as well. I was just wondering what engagement you're having with schools, particularly on this strategy. If I could just add also all of these strategies then go to the designated safeguarding leave a briefing every six weeks for designated safeguarding leaves in schools. And so Tina's team have come along to those briefings to them and introduced new strategies. Thank you. Question from Raisal Friedman. Thank you so much. In 2020, I worked as a child safety operating protocol for the Jewish community because there has been a lack of a focus in terms of plug into all of the excellent support that is available. And I note that in the exploitation strategy in six point two, there is a desire to improve representation with marginalized communities and ensure the unique experiences, cultural and background are considered in terms of support, engagement and awareness raising. And I just wondered whether there might be a place before this is published to perhaps have an appendix or notation where it can be, you know, more specifically referencing the Jewish community. And as you so expertly know, you know, they are part of those ethnic communities where they are quite that much more vulnerable to exploitation, as we've seen with really unfortunate cases. Thank you. Can I ask members if they agree the recommendations? Tamsin, you had a question? Thank you. I'm just conscious that we've still got a few agenda items to get through. So I just want to thank officers for their report, and I'm just going to invite Stella to just summarize what's been agreed as a recommendation. I just want to clarify that it seemed that the construction. Take that as agreed. Thank you. Okay, so we'll move on to the next agenda item which is on elective home education, the task and finish group, as many of you will remember last year this was selected as one of the task and finish groups, which was chaired by Councillor Wakely. So I want to just take the time on behalf of the committee to thank Councillor Wakely and the rest of the members who undertaking this work I know you had lots of meetings and lots of extra work over the year. So thank you very much. So essentially the role of this committee is to consider the findings and determine if we wish to send the report and recommendations to cabinet to be agreed as a council policy. So we have Councillor Hutton, who's going to introduce the report, and we also have Lauren Johnson joining us online, who leads the EHE team. Oh, I have it here as Johnson. So Lauren Jackson. That's no problem, Stella. Councillor Hutton, should I pass over to you first? Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just very briefly. Yes, Councillor Wakely chaired this, but I was also and some of the members of the committee. We had we looked, I think it was timely to look at this because there does seem to have been in the number of children educated at home. That's not specific to Barnet. I think that's overall. The terms of reference were to review changes with the Barnet team, and I would like to thank the officers who are involved in visiting family to include. Because at the moment, they don't have to register. I'll come back to that in a minute because that's going to change. So it's very hard, I think, for officers to strike a balance between. Visiting, trying to include families and offer services whilst at the same time, I think the preferred option is mostly children are better off in school. So that was one thing of looking at changes. The second was the rise in numbers since COVID particularly. And the third thing was what can we do to ensure that all young people have access to the best education and feel included as Barnet citizens. So, as I said, we looked at a range of people, including Lisa who was here earlier, a range of evidence. So we still haven't clarified what a suitable education is. That's what we have to look at to see the families finding a suitable education. During the course of this, looking at this, London councils put forward a proposal that a register of families who want to educate their children at home should be, in fact, they should actually have to register with the local authority. And that's now, I think, going to be taken up at government level, and I think it's likely to become law. We are behind most other European countries, most other European countries at least, I don't know about America or Australia. If families do want to educate their children at home, then they have to register with the local authority and tell them that's what they're going to do. So that was briefly, and I think the recommendations, we have seven recommendations, so I'll pass back to the chair if anyone wants to have any comments. Does anyone have any comments? Yep, Councillor Naranthira. I'm really glad that we are actually getting there and getting a kind of a register of home-educated kids. And then we have got some kind of, the council has got some kind of monitoring process that will be in place in future. That's very good to hear. So thank you for everybody who has worked on that. Here we have Councillor Lemon. Yeah, just a query. So notwithstanding, there's some good stuff that came out as report in terms of the outcomes, and now I believe the recommendation is it goes to the next cabinet meeting in October. But what about any associated costs with any of the recommendations? Should that be included before it goes to cabinet, or is that something that cabinet could say, well, we're not going to approve this until we have those costs? There are some recommendations that do have significant requirements, and we will be notifying cabinet when they make the decisions in regards to this stage, but that will be a decision for the cabinet to make. And if there are, with the resource requirements, finding the resources to enable that to happen, because we don't have the budget to pay for something that's not statutory responsibility. A question from Naomi Phillips, and then to you, Councillor Baker. Thank you, and thank you to everyone who's taken time to be on this task and finish group. It was a really interesting report, and personally supported it. I just have a clarification question, if that's okay, just on, and it may just be my misunderstanding of the figures, but I think my thing is that given that children, parents don't have to register their children as EHE, and then we do have a table with the numbers of EHE children in Barnet, do we have a sense of how many people that doesn't include at all? I mean, is it, no, okay. In terms of the use of AI and teaching, so teachers now have to monitor that work, will be a cost to the exam centre, so you'll have to, you know, things we have to consider here. My concern, our major concern is the proposals around the examinations cost to connect to at this stage. Questions from Councillor Hutton and then Councillor Longstaff. Yeah, it's also a question, I mean, these were the recommendations that came from the group, so I didn't put that at the time, but it's also a question of how we know the child is ready to take an exam, because if they're in the school system, then that's obvious, but otherwise, so I rather agree that I think from that record about, I think that would be quite difficult. Thanks, Councillor Hutton. Can I ask Lauren to answer it, just so that there was a reason for her to attend the meeting, it would be nice if we heard from her. Lauren, do you want to answer that, we wouldn't know whether a child who is home educated is ready to take an exam, would we? No, we wouldn't. Could we just be going on the parents' views? Yeah, because the parents are ultimately responsible, so they would be tracking whether the child is ready to take a GCSE or not. So you're right, Councillor Hutton, the parent could say my child is ready, there's some money spent for her or him to do that exam and actually there's no chance that they're going to pass it. And I think there might be the temptation to say, oh, we'll put him in for it, you know, see how well he does. But simply if it's funded. And, you know, it's that, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I think that's an issue to look at. Lauren just wanted to come in and add to her response. No, I was going to say the only other way is because you have an EHE teacher, but then her time would be taking up reviewing preparations for GCSEs and not reviewing everybody else. So I don't know how manageable that would be in reality for our EHE teacher to be checking whether people are ready. Thank you. We'll finish off with Councillor Longstaff's question. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just it was about best practice in Barnet and the 10 day grace period that's implemented. It's just a number of times, you know, and I appreciate why you'd have a 10 day grace period makes perfect sense. But equally, if it's at the start of September and they're a parent who knows there's a space going and they have to wait at least 10 days before they can get their child into the school. It seems to be that one person's gone off to do that, but probably in the main for that 10 days at least. And yet somebody has to wait 10 days and can't get their child into that school until somebody actually decides, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. In a very strange way, somehow whilst it's best practice for the child who used to go to that school, best practice for parents who may wish their child to get to that school. Yeah, we implemented that, Lauren, didn't we, when we when we revised the policy last time. Do you want to just give the reasoning why that was brought in, the 10 day grace period? Yes, the so it's not a full 10 days, it's up to 10 days and the 10 days are there to really put some safeguarding in for children that are going to be EHE. And it allows us time to have an exit meeting with the family in the school. It allows us time to check with parents that EHE is actually what they chose and not what maybe the school are asking them to do or if they feel under pressure. But it's not always 10 days, sometimes it's two days, sometimes it's five, depending on our checks. Now, parents who are opting for EHE, you know, as a lifestyle choice, don't normally choose to do it on the 1st of September, preventing a place for someone else. That's normally a choice that's made at the end of an academic year in preparation for the child's next year. Those that are suddenly doing it in September, it's normally due to a knee jerk reaction, which is why we need those 10 days. Maybe they've gone back in September, fallen out with the school and we need those 10 days to repair that. And I'd much rather that than them going off to be EHE when they could stay at school. And then also if there is a knee jerk reaction and a parent said, I'd like to be home educating my child, the school then fills that place and then two days later they change. They can't go back. They can't then go back to the school because the school's filled the place. So that's why we're giving them a bit of leeway with regards to their decision making, but also to do the safeguarding check that Lauren mentioned. Thank you. It just seems a bit for those who are waiting. Their anxieties are equally as important as those who have made a choice to leave. There are just a couple of other points that are not questions. It was just that on the page 28, there's a reference to a 13, which I didn't understand. And on page 29. On that basis, does the committee agree to send the report and the recommendations to cabinet? Sorry, Anne. Thank you, Chair. My question is in relation to school or are they going to be considered as a private candidate? I'm enjoying this item because all I'm saying is, Lauren. Well, unfortunately, Anne cut out a lot, so I missed half the question. So the question was, if a child does do an exam at an exam centre, where do those statistics of that child's achievement go? Does it go on to the school's achievement if they do if they do the exam at the pavilion, for example, does that go on pavilion statistics about the GCSE pass rate? So I think historically pavilion have done it as private candidates, but if we've used a school, then it's used on the schools, the school of taking it. But I think with the pavilion, they've been able to do it as private. But don't quote me because we've not had that many. But they're not put on role of that school. No, no, no, no. I don't think they would feature on the school's achievement statistics because they're not a child that's on that role. So they would be on any statistics apart from EHE statistics, which I don't think exist. That's right. Thank you. Before you go ahead with the question, we have just been asked if you can clarify the comments that you had made. We just want to make sure that the numbers you were referring to weren't just the footnotes. Hi, it's the owner of the security manager. So the 13 and 14, I think we can make them more superscript if that helps. But they refer to the references at the bottom of the page. So there's like kind of a reference to where we've used information from other sources. And by taking point, they do look a bit big so we can make them a bit smaller. So they're obviously referring to the footnotes. Is that what you mean? Those ones. It would make sense if they're in order. In the meantime, that has been noted. OK, we have agreed that they're going to make it a little bit smaller just to make it clear that that is a footnote. So can I just get the committee to agree to send this report and the recommendations to cabinet? Right. Thank you. So we'll move on to agenda item 11, which is very short. Essentially, it's just on the task and finish group updates paper. Just asking the committee if you have any comments. Perfect. So we'll move on to agenda item 12, which is the cabinet form plan. Essentially, that's the cabinet for plan for 2024-25. The subcommittee are requested to consider any items that they may wish to request for pre-decision scrutiny during 2024-25. Thank you, chair. So if you're a scrutiny manager, as the chair says, it's just get any in. If people want any of those items on our work program, it's probably good to read it in conjunction with the next item as well, which is the committee's work program. If there's any comments, we can take them now or outside of the committee, if that's helpful. So, as Fiona mentioned, you can raise this now or you can follow up later in writing. Is that correct? OK. We'll be at agenda item 13, which is the scrutiny work program. This report sets out the work program for the children education overview and scrutiny subcommittee. Does the committee have any comments on the work program? No. OK, so I guess that brings us to the end of the meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Transcript

Hi, welcome everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful summer break. Welcome to the Children's Education Overview and Scrutiny Subcommittee. A special welcome to our new member, Councillor Sue Baco, who comes with a wealth of relevant experience and we're very lucky to have you. Also, a special welcome to my new Vice Chair, Councillor Longstaff. Thank you. As always, a bit of housekeeping. That meetings may be recorded and broadcast by people present as allowed for in-law or by the Council. So by attending either online or in person, you may be picked up on the recordings. Council recordings are covered by a privacy notice, which can be found at www.barnit.gov.uk. A quick reminder for members and new members that to talk, you click the little speaker icon when it turns red. You can speak and when you no longer want to speak, if you just tap it again. So we will go straight into the minutes of the last meeting. So do members have any comments they would like to make? Yes, Councillor Hutton. Only that there's some words like to and left out. I don't want to make a big thing of it. OK, thank you. Anyone have any other comments? Yes, Councillor Longstaff. Thank you, Chair. I wasn't actually at the meeting, but I did ask for it to be passed on. The reason I was missing the meeting was because the dates kept getting changed. And they were changed from one date to the date and then changed back again later on at short notice. Otherwise, I would have been in attendance and I was asked for that to be noted in the minutes because in Council language, if you're missing because you're on Council business, it is noted that you're on other Council business rather than just absent. And I think it should be noted that I was absent because of changes to the dates. OK, thank you. Perfect. Perfect. OK, just checking. Right. Other than that, are we happy to agree the minutes from the last meeting? OK, we'll take that as agreed. So we move on to absence of members. So I received apologies from Councillor Woodstock-Vellaman and we have Councillor Narranthirai sitting in on his behalf. I have a receipt. Yep. Councillor Conway, please. Councillor Meyers just parking. OK, thank you. Yeah, that's fine with me. So we will move to agenda item four. We don't have any. Sorry. Agenda item three. Do members have any declarations to make in relation to any of the agenda items? Councillor Conway. As a local headteacher of a primary school, Jewish Independent School in Henson, in regard to agenda six. If there's any discussion or anything further from the committee, then I'll pardon myself. Thank you. That's been noted. OK, so we'll move on to agenda item six. So the purpose of this members item is to allow the subcommittee to consider. We're deferring the item, so we'll move on to agenda item seven. We're going to whiz through this today. So this is the special educational needs and disabilities agenda items. We had a question from a co-opted member, so we're just going to wait till she's here. OK, so we are now going to consider the special education needs and disability. I'm sure we are aware this is a challenge faced by councils across the country and is one of the biggest concerns in children's services. Finding ways to improve services within a context of rising demand and diminishing resources can be incredibly difficult. Whilst these problems cannot be solved overnight. Welcome. We need to satisfy ourselves that we are doing all we can to address this issue, to bring about solutions in the short, medium and long term. So I'd like to invite Karen to present some key highlights from the. Thank you. And so every year we have we have the statistics in relation to S.E.N. published in July. And so we bring a summary of those statistics to this and share it more widely as well. I if any of you are involved in S.E.N., you represent you will know that S.E.N. is an area of concern, I think, for many people, many families. Since the introduction of the Children and Families Act in 2014, we have seen year on year increases in the number of students being supported either through an education, health and care plan and S.E.N. support. So the HCPs in Barnet last year, for example, increased by 10 percent. So as of January, we had three thousand eight hundred and nine children and young people being supported with the HCPs. Already this year, that has increased to four thousand one hundred and eighty. So it's likely we'll see another 10 percent increase, if not higher, at the end of this year as well. So the I think it's important to note that the increase in the children and young people being supported who have S.E.N. has increased year on year, and that is disproportionate to the increase in the pupil population. So the increase in Barnet, for example, since 2016, in terms of the S.E.N. population has increased by 120 percent compared to 10, just over 10 percent in terms of the pupil population. Barnet is a very inclusive mother. It has a high percentage of children in mainstream, which we're very proud of. The number of children, the percentage of children at S.E.N. support is lower than the national average at eleven point five percent. And this is of the pupil population, a whole cohort of children and young people with S.E.N. And the percentage of children in our schools with the HCPs has increased to three point nine percent. So our rate of increase of children and young people with a faster rate than that of the national level. And we have 19.5 percent of our pupils are in Barnet's special schools. In terms of need types, the largest cohort is for children with speech, language and communication needs, followed by social, emotional and mental health and then autism. And that's reflected by evident S.E.N. support. You know that our bar is wonderfully diverse, which we welcome, and that's reflected in our S.E.N. statistics. Nationally, people are pupils with S.E.N. are more likely to be than the national average. One of the areas we are concerned about is appeals to the special education on linked and disability tribunal. So we do have high rates. They did come down from last year from three point seven percent to three point six percent. But that's still significantly higher than the national average at two point five percent, although the national average did increase last year by 24 percent. I think you will all know that our children in this bar do very well in terms of attainment, and that is reflected in both our S.E.N. cohort and those pupils with the HCP as well. So at every stage from early years to key stage five, pupils with S.E.N. in Barnet had higher levels of attainment. And the progress of S.E.N. pupils is also greater than England and also Barnet S.E.M. pupils attend schools more consistently as well. So there's there is there are challenges within the system as we'll come on to. But there's a lot to be proud of in Barnet as well. And that is thanks to our education providers here and the wider services. We so in terms of destinations, we have high rates of pupils remaining in sixth form, and that's particularly over 30 percent compared to 20 percent at the national average. The proportion, sorry, in terms of a third, 31 percent of the HCP to sixth form or sixth form college compared to 11.6 percent nationally. Our rates of exclusions and suspensions are lower than both the national and our statistical neighbors as well, but they are increasing. And that's we're seeing that reflected at a national level. But that's something that where the children are experiencing challenges. And we're also reviewing alternative provision offers over the next year as well to make sure we're really clear, as well as outreach support where children can have short term placements in a PRU and or longer term placements where they prepare them to go on to their next phase. Education and employment rates for for young people with a learning disability are higher in Barnet than nationally. And that's something that we're really proud of. So that eight point two percent versus four point eight percent nationally. We've we do have challenges around the number of special school places. I know that's something that we need to work to those in ARPs by 40 percent since two thousand and eighteen. But we know that with the increase in SEND, particularly those coming through under fives, that's something that is is a priority area for us. So before we just go into questions, we also have Lisa Hoffman, so I was going to invite her over. Lisa is a representative from the Barnet Parent Carers Forum and is attending to give us a perspective on services from the organization supporting children, supporting parents whose children have SEND. So welcome. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to come along this evening. I'll just explain a little bit about the Barnet Parent Carer Forum, because I'm not sure that all of you will necessarily have come across it before. But we are a group of volunteers primarily who work with Barnet in order to represent the parenting carers of children, young people with special educational needs and disabilities in Barnet. We survey members, we speak to our members to find out what the issues that they are facing are. And then we collectively represent those voices with the local authority and we work very closely with them to try and improve services as best we can. Hopefully you see my note and I don't propose to go through it in a huge amount of detail, but I just wanted to highlight a few things, if that's OK. Firstly, I think it's really important to say that the work that we've done with Barnet over the last few years has been, in my mind, really quite incredible. Our levels of co-production are really high compared to other local authorities and the Barnet Parent Carer Forum is part of the National Network of Parent Carer Forums. So we liaise a lot with other forums and other local authorities and we understand the kind of problems that they have, the difficulties they have with co-production. And we, in the forum and Barnet, have worked really hard to increase our co-working over the last few years and I really think that it shows. I'm not saying that we get it right all the time, of course we don't and there are so many areas that we need to focus on. But I think it's important to understand the backdrop of that. There are so many things that we do really well and I'm grateful for the time and the support that we get from the professionals in Barnet. And the fact that we are included in so many of the discussions at an early point, which is relevant. And I've listed in my notes some areas where we have worked really closely with the local authority and in some ways have been trendsetters. There's some things that we do that are not common among other local authorities and we have set standards in that respect, which is really encouraging. That said, obviously there are issues that are still a struggle for families in Barnet and the backdrop of course, as Karen has said, is increasing demand and pressures on funding. And parents and families are really feeling that and are really struggling in a lot of ways to get the support that they feel their children and young people are entitled to and in many cases are written into educational health care plans and therefore they are entitled to under law. So just to highlight a few areas, we feel, and this is something that most parent carer forums agree with, that early intervention is key. If we can find a way to support children and young people at the earliest possibility where they are showing signs of difficulty, then so many of them will not need greater support later on. And that's important for the young people, for parents and for the local authority, who will, I hope in some cases, need to find less funding for them later on. And so many young people reach a crisis point because they don't get timely intervention and timely support. And I'm not saying that teachers don't try, of course they do, but there is, in my mind, not enough training in certain areas and not enough funding in school to be able to support these young people. So I feel that we are firefighting so much of the time and we need to just kind of reverse some of those decisions and get the support in school earlier. It is happening, and I know so many people are working to do that, but I just feel that there is so much more to do. There is such an impact on families when children are unsupported, and there was a survey that was done to support a special Women's Hour feature this week, where they surveyed a thousand mothers of children who have sent. And one in three of them said that they had to give up work in order to look after their children who were not being supported in school. So either there was no place for them or they were out of school because they weren't receiving the support they needed. And of those mothers who hadn't given up work entirely, over 50 percent said that they had to reduce their hours. And that's hugely significant. I mean, I am one of those mothers. I'm a lawyer by profession and had to give up my career to look after my daughter who wasn't able to attend school. So I can speak from the heart in that respect. But that has a knock on effect on the whole community. So it's not just the child, it's families that are suffering. And, you know, it goes well beyond that, that families are not able to earn the money that they would otherwise have done. They're relying on benefits to the extent that they wouldn't have done otherwise. So it has such ramifications that shouldn't be ignored. Very closely connected with that, obviously, is the mental health of the young people and the mental health of parents and siblings, which can be affected when the situations are so difficult. Diagnostic assessments remains a really difficult area. If children can't get the assessments they need in a timely fashion, then the support can't be put in place and the wait times for those assessments are too high. We know work is being done to reduce them, but the pressures on specialist services fashion and that then has a knock on effect that I've been talking about before. I wanted to mention about appeals and tribunals and in Barnet I feel strongly that the amount of appeals and tribunals is too high and we need to address that. And I know as part of the change programme, that's something that's being looked at. And I know there's been recruitment in the area to try and mediate with families with appeals, but families don't have enough trust in the system. They don't believe that that will work. So they're skipping any form of mediation and alternative dispute resolution and going to a tribunal. That's a waste of resource for the local authority. It's a terrible strain on families. And I feel that we really need to concentrate on that to try and resolve these disputes before they get to that stage. Elective home education, which I know is on your agenda and it's something that I have spoken about before. And I really just wanted to say thank you for giving me a voice in that piece of work and for understanding the concerns that parents have in terms of the pressure put on them when their children are unable to attend school. And we use we often use the term EBSA, Emotionally Based School Avoidance. It's not avoidance. So many children want to be in school. So many parents want their children to be in school. They're not bunking off. They're not taking them on holidays. Yes, of course, there are some that do. But on the whole, that is not the case at all. Children want to be in school with their friends. Parents want their children to be in school so that they can work or do whatever else they need to. And it's really important to understand that penalising parents, putting pressure on families, blaming children and young people and families is never going to work. What we need to do is make sure that the barriers for them to be in school are reduced and that their needs are met. And that supports reflect that, you know, and it is a case of support first. And I hope that as a result of those recommendations, more parents will feel supported. And we are working really closely with the educational psychology team in Barnet on guidance around EBSA for families, schools, professionals in the hope that we can increase the levels of non-dependence children. So lots of work being done on that, but a way to go. Therapies remains a difficulty in Barnet. Even children who have levels of therapeutic support written into their EHCPs are not always getting that. And parents are incredibly frustrated. It comes straight back to the point that I was saying before. If we're not giving the support to the children at the time they need it, then they will need more support later on. They will fall further and further behind. Potentially it can affect their attendance. So it's something that needs to be addressed. And of course, I appreciate it comes down to funding, but it is such a priority for so many families and shouldn't be ignored. So I think that that's the only issues that I really wanted to highlight, but I'm more than happy to answer any questions if anybody has anything they want to ask. I know in the report we mentioned as a significant part about VAT and funding. Can I ask, have we got any modeling on how many additional school places we may need should the VAT tax that's been spoken about by the government be implemented? Because I'm probably quite concerned that parents won't be able to afford that and will need to make places and provisions in existing schools. If I can respond, I think we're going to have a further discussion about that when the paper six is going to be discussed. But for children with special education needs, there is no VAT charge. That's one of the exemptions that has been. Thank you, Nigel. Thank you very much, Chair. It's not so much a question, but a vote of thanks. I'm a member of the task group you spoke to, and we were all deeply impressed with what you had to tell us, your recommendations and your thoughts. And we're very impressed with what you're doing for that era. So thank you very much indeed. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thank you very much. And, you know, as I said before, most of the people I work with in the forum give up their time voluntarily. We all feel really passionate about what we do, and it's so important that parents are encouraged to speak out. And we are grateful when people listen. So thank you for your experiences and the key issues. Thank you for the wonderful work you do. Does anyone? Councillor Longstaff? Thank you. Both Karen and Lisa spoke about demand for places, the amount of places available. Just out of interest, is this because we provide less than the rest of London and the country? Or is this because more people are actually moving to Barnet? Because, in my opinion, the provision is very good. People work very hard. And when there's a good provision about, there's a lot of people interested in moving into the area. So I think there's a variety of reasons. It's not it's not unique to Barnet. So across the country, people are struggling with the efficiency of special school places originally anticipated. I think there are things about that that Barnet itself that make it a very attractive borough. And we know across, you know, across London, there's high, you know, there's high levels of movement of families. So we do have a high number of families moving into the area, but also above sanctuary. And so, you know, with that was we welcome every single one of those families. We know there's a higher proportion of children, not just that have experienced trauma, but you know, who who have other complex needs as well. Talking about the cost of placing Barnet residents in independent mainstream schools, I wondered how that worked. I could understand that the ECHP part of it would be paid, but if parents wish to send their child to that school, why would that necessary set that extra cost if there is fall on the local council and not on the family if they wish to send their children to an independent school? I'm not sure how that works, if you could clarify that. And if you if you place a child into an if a school has been deemed appropriate, then the tribunal for those cases or, you know, everything is such a case by case basis. It's difficult to give a specific answer for, you know, for individual cases, but that's generally what happens. So if it's been deemed appropriate for that child, then the local authority is responsible for the fees. As an independent school? Yes. If that's what's named on the plan, it's been deemed appropriate. OK. Councillor Longstaff. Thank you. There was something as well that was raised from Lisa about how it would help in order that the disputes between what a parent or carer wants and what the council is able to provide, willing to provide. And they should try and resolve that long before it goes to an appeal court or wherever it goes beyond. So what is the council's how can the council actually square that circle where there are finite resources, but the parent knows that their child and of course, it's emotional and they want the very best for their child. How are you intending to square that circle to resolve things and get them done quicker? So we've just taken on two to disagreement resolution. We have mediation arrangements in place, but quite often families, as Lisa referred to, want to skip straight to that because their understanding is that they will have a better chance really to get what they feel is needed for their child. So we really want to build that trust with families in terms of conversations and trying to agree those disagreements, even if we can agree them partially. So there will be always times where it's right that it goes to tribunal because there is an agreement and it's up to the judge then to make a decision. But I think the more we can do with families, the better. Thank you. Sorry, don't know what they have to get is, but I just wanted to make a point on that, which is a concern of mine. And this is absolutely in support of mediation pre tribunal. Many families do not have the resources to get legal support for tribunals and are too overwhelmed to work out what their rights are in that respect. And therefore, it is often not always, but often the case that those that do go to tribunal are cases where families can afford legal support and have the highest level of help, and that creates such an injustice that you've got families who perhaps have exactly the same similar needs. And their cases should be considered in the same way, but they don't actually have the ability to push it that far. And my concern is that those children will lose out. If we have a system by which there is faith in dispute, alternative dispute resolution and mediation pre tribunal, you don't need legal representation. You just need to sit around a table and have a conversation to try and understand what the issues are. And in my opinion, that system will be fairer as well as better for all. So I think the drive to improve mediation, and we certainly need to work together to improve perceptions of the benefits of mediation, I think is really important. But I can find out for you. I know that in, I think anything that goes to a hearing is not, you know, we hear you hear language such as oh it's a win for the parent, it's a win for the local authority. I don't think anyone wins when they go to tribunal. We are aware that of those that do go to a hearing in Barnet, then there is a higher number than the national average that are upheld in favour of the local authority, but still, you know, there's still a lot more that are upheld. Yeah, I think the, over the last few years, the team have worked really hard to understand, you know, the legal positions, and so on so they really try and hard to improve that position and hopefully, you know, last, the improvement, albeit not good enough. Last year to this is the start of a trend, and that's certainly what we're hoping, but it will require everyone to work together and everyone to have a bit more trust. Thanks. Councillor Lemon. Thanks, Chair. Just like to first of all thank the Speaker and obviously all the officers who contributed not only to the report, especially when you compare Barnet to other boroughs and how well we're doing. I don't want to be rude, but let's start talking about money. One of the appendices refers to the schools grant and the finance block area where there's projected, I presume that's projected to have 6 million this year, so that's fast at the moment. Yes. And then it talks about a few examples about how you might just touching around the edges. Yeah, and I think, perhaps I didn't make this clear in the report, I think there is a difference. It's certainly not about cuts. It's about reviewing things to see how we can use that, that amount of funding more effectively to meet the needs of more children. So we are undergoing an alternative provision, so approved review, for example, because we know there is some crossover. So how can we improve the system? How can we make it clearer for parents, the pathways around that? How can we be, how can we support our schools more? We have an increasing number of children, so one area of increased spend has been on home tuition, for example. So can we look at that and think about how we do it in-house? Rather than using external providers, we think there'd be more control, improved quality and probably a saving in costs in terms of that. So these aren't, these are not looking at cuts, they're really looking at ways of doing it more effectively. Thanks for that reassurance. And just a quick follow up on that as well. And I presume when you're talking about more higher mainstream inclusion, that's all evidence-based and that's something new, substantial savings, but based on clear evidence. I think it is certainly about doing things more effectively, but in terms of the savings, it's trying to slow the increase in the deficit by investing more in early prevention and different matters like that. Thank you. And I wonder, is there any tracking? Yeah, we have to do a return, so that started last year in terms of returning annual reviews. You're right, they do have to be done every year. Annual reviews are, currently, of the whole cohort, we're about 63 per cent in terms of those that are processed on time within the time scales. That is clearly not as high as where we'd like it to be, but we know that that is a better rate than many other local authorities. And it's an improving picture as well. Within that cohort, though, we do focus annual reviews on what we call early annual reviews, where there are real concerns and also on our vulnerable children cohort as well, so looked after. So the completion rates for that cohort is much higher, it's 84 per cent. Separately, they're tracked within FE, so we do have high rates of participation in FE as well. But I think one of our strengths is the number of children with EHCPs that go on to sixth forms and stay in their school. Thank you for those questions. So a massive thank you to Lisa and Karen for speaking and presenting to us today. Can I ask the committee if the recommendations in the report have been agreed? Yep. Great. As Raisal Friedman has joined us, we're going to go back to Agenda Item 6, and that's our members' items. So the purpose of this members' item is essentially to allow the subcommittee to consider the issue raised and decide if you wish to agree a course of action. Raisal Friedman, would you like to read your question for us? Thank you so much. Also, just to declare an interest, I work for pages, partnerships with Jewish schools, we support Jewish schools across the UK. I don't know if you need me to say anything else about the interest or if that's sufficient. Is that sufficient? Thank you. I wanted to ask whether there will be an opportunity to ask the professionals essentially how much time and thought have been given to the impact of the imposition of VAT on school fees. Obviously, as well as the planned removal of the relief for business rates after the budget on October 30th. Given the high number of Jewish independent schools in Barnet, should there be an influx of students into the state sector? I think there needs to be some assessment of the availability of appropriate educational provision. I'm more broadly wondering if it's been considered outside of the Jewish lens. And I'd just like to thank Neil Marlowe for his time earlier this week. I think we've already begun a discussion about this. But I was hoping to bring it to the table here so that the committee can also hear about the impact of this. Thank you. I'll pass over to Neil Marlowe, who can advise us on suggested course of action. Thank you, chair. And thank you, Raisal, for your question. And yes, as Raisal says, she is assistant director of PAGES, the national organization that works to support Jewish schools, state and independent. And so it's really important that Barnet have a close relationship with PAGES, which we do, because we work cooperatively and co-produce ways forward. And I think it's really critical that with regards to this VAT exemption on independent schools, that we work very closely with PAGES and other relevant organizations to help co-produce the future. So just giving a background to the situation. But before I do that, I hope Raisal sees after we've met on Wednesday, Raisal, that we have given some real time and thought to the question. So it wasn't a surprise to get this question. As you know, we've been working already on that, Raisal, which you saw. Absolutely. And to acknowledge that in this space as well. So thank you very much. So yes, when this was mentioned in the Labor Manifesto, we obviously thought about what would be the potential implications for us in Barnet. If we look at non-faith independent schools and faith independent schools separately, if I just deal with non-faith independent schools first. So the non-faith independent schools, if there was a movement of parents from children from schools into the state system, our capacity within our state schools and non-faith state schools could easily manage that movement from independent to state. In fact, I'm sure state schools would openly welcome them to come into their schools to help with the falling roles situation we have across Barnet, across some areas of Barnet. So that would be no issue at all. Interesting that hasn't happened so far. I had a head teacher meeting this morning asking, has there been already any interest from parents about moving their children from independent to state? And that hasn't happened as yet. But clearly, this is due to come in in January next year. And so we may get an influx then. But the non-faith state schools within Barnet would be easily able to meet any need that comes from children moving from independent to state. So probably the greatest area of need would be if there was issues with regards to faith independent schools and particularly with regards to our Jewish faith independent schools. So just to give you some data of the Jewish school, the Jewish school landscape in Barnet, we've got 21 Jewish state schools in Barnet, 16 primary, four secondary and one special. So approximately 7,400 pupils attend Jewish state schools in Barnet. So 16 percent of state schools in Barnet are Jewish schools, which is obviously very high comparatively and obviously is high comparatively because we need to meet the need of the high Jewish population in Barnet. So 11.8 percent of pupils in Barnet state schools attend a Jewish state school. In addition to those 21 state Jewish schools, we've got 17 independent Jewish schools in Barnet. Now, that's out of a total of 36 independent schools we have. So 17 of the 36 independent schools we have in Barnet are Jewish independent schools. So 47 percent of our independent schools are Jewish schools. And so approximately 3,200 pupils attend those independent Jewish schools in Barnet. 32 percent of independent pupils in Barnet go to a Jewish independent school. And so just under 3,000 of that 3,200 attend strictly orthodox or Haredi orthodox. And apologies if my determinations are incorrect here, Councillor Conway and others. But that's looking at the different levels of orthodoxy. And so those are the higher levels of orthodoxy, the strictly orthodox and the Haredi orthodox. So thank you, Raizel, for helping me in my determination and classification there and realizing that actually often those two types of schools are very interchangeable. And the 3,000 pupils are going to those strictly or Haredi orthodox schools. We don't have exact numbers because we don't get numbers of independent schools as a council. That's not something that we get hold of. In fact, the way I find out how many pupils are in independent schools is when I read their Ofsted report that says pupils enroll and then so it updates our information about pupils enrolled in independent schools. So we certainly don't know how many pupils are in each year group either in those independent schools. Of those in the Jewish schools, nine of them are primary and seven of them are secondary. And as with our state schools, which go from reform schools where we've got four reform schools up to five strictly orthodox state schools, the same with independent schools. Although there aren't any reform independent schools and no modern orthodox independent schools, we do have two orthodox independent Jewish schools and 14 of their independent schools are strictly orthodox or Haredi orthodox. There are 3,000 of those pupils going to those schools that are strictly orthodox or Haredi orthodox. Now the recent history in Barnet over the last 30 years or so, the number of Jewish state schools has risen quite sharply in Barnet due to the opening of new schools including academies and free schools and independent schools successfully applying to become state maintained rather than being independent. The recent of those being Menorah High for girls that used to be an independent school and OAM primary used to be an independent school, both now are state schools. So the potential issue would be if a significant number of those children in independent Jewish schools were wanting to get a place in one of our state Jewish schools. Now we do have some capacity in our state Jewish school system at the moment though there are capacity across the board from reform right up to strictly orthodox. But in speaking to Raisel earlier in the week, the concern would be that a number of those parents, if they weren't able to afford the fees of the school that they're currently in as independent, none of the state schools that we had would meet their need with regards to their faith. So they would then have to look for another alternative which potentially would be becoming electively home educated. Now clearly we would want to try and avoid that because we want them to be in an educational establishment rather than EHE. So that removal of the VAT exemption in January could have an impact on us with regards to the Jewish state schools and meeting the capacity. Just out of interest, I could give you the figures that we have at the moment. In our primary state schools we have 195 places available for girls who are strictly orthodox. And we have 59 places for orthodox, etc. But within our secondary schools, all of our secondary schools, reform orthodox and strictly orthodox are all full. But what our Jewish secondary schools have managed to do over the past few years to meet the increased demand has been to open bulge classes within their schools. So we would obviously be needing to work with our schools to see if they could continue to open up bulge classes or expand their provision. So I would suggest that there's a few next steps from this discussion, and hope Reza will agree. One is that the state schools will welcome independent school pupils into our state schools, particularly non-faiths who are going to go into the non-faith state schools where we have a number of vacancies. The tax exemption is due to come in in January 2025, so we do have some time, but these few months will go very wide very quickly. But we obviously need to keep a keen eye on what's going to happen between now and then and assess the number of parents that are looking to find places in our school. I mentioned before the number of independent schools who have now become state schools, and there's a clear criteria that we have that the council has for accepting independent schools to be a Barnet state school. One of those criteria is that it's a good or outstanding school currently, and as you're probably aware, that single judgment has now been taken away from state schools and is probably likely to be taken away from independent schools as well. So clearly that criteria needs to be relooked at to make sure it's appropriate, particularly with regards to the changes of off-state judgment. And then we need to concentrate on potentially increasing the capacity in our strictly orthodox schools, particularly with boys at secondary, to meet that possible demand. So that's working with our existing schools to see if they could increase their pan even more. And finally, members may want to lobby to the DFE to exempt independent faith schools from this VAT exemption. So rather than saying every independent school is going to have to now pay VAT, if a school and the community within that school haven't got a state option, so as I said, a number of those 3,000 pupils wouldn't want to go into any of our state schools because they don't meet their faith requirements, then it would seem unfair that they said there's a blanket policy across all schools. So I know pages and I know other organizations are lobbying the DFE to say could there be some exceptions for schools when there isn't really a state alternative. Maybe the members might want to do that as well. Thank you, Neil, for that course of action. Can I ask members if they have any comments? Councillor Longstaff? Yeah, I just wondered if you'd done any analysis, both on non-faith schools and on independent private schools, if a few more people decide that they decide to go to private schools because of the increase in VAT, sorry, the addition of VAT, what happens when the school decides to close? Do we have any analysis of the school potentially saying, well, actually, we just can't afford to carry on? Then potentially you've got even… Yes, I mean, we've had one school contacting us and saying exactly that, that if this comes in in January, then their school isn't going to be financially sustainable and they may have to look to close. So clearly that would mean to try and find places for those children. But that's a factor. You know, it's not just about parents not being able to afford the fees. It's about schools not being able to be financially sustainable, potentially closing. Nigel? Thank you. Thank you very much, Neil, for your comprehensive explanation of the issues around Jewish schools. I wonder if are there any Muslim schools in Barnet and are there any issues around those situations? We have one Muslim independent school and so if that school closed or the parents were looking for a state option, there isn't a state Muslim school. So I should have said, by the way, I should have mentioned this before, that our statutory responsibility is just to provide places. We don't have to provide faith places. So we meet our responsibility by having enough places for the number of children who want a place. Now, obviously, we wanted the moral imperative is to make sure that it's a place that's going to be appropriate for their needs and particularly their faith needs. But our state schools are multicultural, as you know, and so there's quite a high Muslim population in our state schools currently. So we would hope that for state schools that they would be satisfied with the education they're going to get in one of our state schools. Do you know enough about that Muslim school to know whether the parents are strictly orthodox, if I may use the Jewish expression, and therefore perhaps reluctant to go to a multicultural state school? I don't, but we would need to work with those schools in the same – that school in the same way we would be working with Jewish schools as well. Have you been working with that school? We have had conversations with that school previously, yeah. Thank you. Councillor Navon Thiro? So if a independent school wants to close because the parents can't afford – because of the VAT situation, and if they're a good and outstanding school, will there be a consideration to take that into a state sector? So there's a process. Obviously, it needs the willingness of the school to want to be a state school, and some schools wouldn't want to be. But if they did want to be a state school, then they have to follow the criteria I said that maybe the council needs to re-look at again, particularly because of Ofsted. But that's how the schools like Noah, Menorah, Grammar, and others previously to that have become state schools, because they've followed the process, they've completed the information that we need. I can understand it's the council's responsibility to be making sure that they're taking on a school that is in a good way, both financially and educationally. And so that's what they need to demonstrate to become a state school. Obviously, there is some financial implications if a school becomes a state school, particularly which part of the financial year they become a state school, because that might have some drains on the – Thank you for that very detailed response to the question, and thank you, Raisal Friedman, for raising that. So the comments from members have been noted, and now we're going to move back over to agenda item eight, which is the Barnet Young residents' perception survey. So for this, we have Ben Thomas and Rosie Evangeline who will join us online. Excuse me, are we not meant to make a decision on that members' item? Okay, would members like to agree the recommendations that Neil has put forward? Could Neil just summarize? Yeah, could you summarize the recommendation? It says in point 31, do nothing, request an officer for a report, refer to cabinet, request a report represented at a future date. Surely, we need to select which one we would choose. I think Neil suggested some differing ones. So, I mean, some weren't really anything to act on. One is where I said we would welcome independent school pupils into our state schools where appropriate. There's no decision there. We've got time to deal with this. That's not a recommendation. So the ones to think about is looking at the current criteria for independent schools. My personal view on this item is that there's no further action for this committee because we are undertaking all of the actions that we've set out. And they are quite comprehensive unless they're, you know, writing a report would be exactly the same as we've given you. There's nothing to escalate to cabinet because there's nothing apart from when we get to a point of writing a new framework because of the offset changes, not because of the fact changes. And we've set out a whole range of things that we put in place. So my personal view, if you, you know, but it's for members to decide, is that there's no further action for this committee because we have debated it. And we've given you a very thorough, comprehensive answer to what the council is doing. Could this committee not request, for example, that Barnet lobby the DFE on behalf of Barnet with this report and call for an exemption on faith schools as part of this VAT taxation change? We did. Neil did suggest that there was an opportunity for members to write a letter, whether it would be a letter exempting all faith schools. That's a very different thing to what was proposed. My understanding is what Neil is proposing is that we write a letter where there are no state alternatives, that there should be an exemption. And I don't think we are happy to draft a letter in that in that line. But that's not one of the things that's on that list of things that you read out from the approach. But we are suggesting we write a letter that talks about those faith groups where there are no state alternatives. Perhaps because they're in the consultation open at the moment, I had raised this with Neil, and I appreciate that the timeframe is now very short because the consultation closes at midnight on Sunday evening. Perhaps Barnet could submit some form of abbreviated report based on the number that Neil's already kind of pulled together to say that there is no suitability by other submissions to the consultation. I know that pages and other charities and faith groups, the IFC have pulled together. Chris or Neil, would you like to respond to that? I'm not convinced that we would respond to that consultation with that level of detail. We can write a letter that sets out some particular concerns that we have, and I think that's proposing that we do. This is this is not a decision for Barnet as a local authority. The consultation should be directly affected and parents who are directly affected. So my view is that we can write a letter setting out what some of the challenges might be to ministers from council. But I don't think we should do any any more than that at this stage. But happy raisal, if you are having discussions with the department for me to be involved in those discussions, to be able to give a barnet context. Perfect. Even a letter to ministers would be helpful. So I think maybe, Neil, we can take it forward. And would that be circulated to this committee members as well? Can we make sure that's added to a follow up recommendation? OK, we just wanted to clarify if the letter is going to come from the committee. It seems there's two things. The consultation is open and anyone can respond to the consultation. I don't think I should be responding to the consultation on behalf of the whole of Barnet, but I'm happy to contribute to the discussions with the department with a letter to say what the barnet context is. Is the committee happy with that course of action? Yeah. OK, thank you. OK, so we'll move on to agenda item eight, which was the barnet young residents perception survey. Well, pass over to Ben and Rosie online. You've been patiently waiting. Thank you. Thank you, chair. So we're not going to go through all the slides that were in the appendix in the pack in detail, but I'm just going to go through some of the background. And then Rosie is going to talk through a couple of slides on the specifics of the data. So the young residents perception survey happened in two years. It's with young residents aged 11 to 18, and it's undertaken by an independent research company called ORS, who also did the previous survey. And this is actually the fifth one that we've done, the fifth wave of the survey. The first was done in autumn 2016, and then there have been subsequent surveys in 2017, 19 and 21, 22. The survey is done alongside the adult survey and is part of the strategic vision to make Barnet a family friendly borough and improve outcomes by listening to the voices of children and young people, listening to what they're concerned about, what's important to them, and then using that to inform strategies and plans going forwards. So 500 Barnet young people were interviewed between December 23 and March 24. And ORS had quotas on age, gender and ethnicity to make sure it was a cross-section of Barnet's young people and is representative of the population. So the survey provides important insight on what young people think about living in the borough, their perception of the council, the services they receive. And it also helps to understand young people's priorities and concerns. There is, of course, also the bright spot survey, which is specifically for children in care and care leavers, which which was reported on earlier in the year. So the presentation in the appendix provides a lot of the detail and we'll look at a little bit of that in a moment. But the results show that the majority of indicators are in line with the last survey and the previous findings and in particular satisfaction with the local area. With Barnet being a family friendly borough, young people remain broadly in line with the previous survey. In terms of the demographic breakdown and in particular in qualities, there are some clear themes with some groups of young people less likely to be satisfied in specific areas. So that's if they have a disability, if they live in the Burnt Oak, Hendon or Colindale North Ward, if they live in a low deprivation area, if they're of mixed or multiple ethnic backgrounds or if they're female. And a lot of these things are actually similar to what was found in the adults survey. So a joint action plan being worked on and a report began to Cabinet in November about this. So that was all I wanted to say. I just want to hand over to Rosie. Thanks Ben. Should I share my presentation? You can see a presentation there. Can you have a? We do have a screen to view the presentation. Yeah, that's OK. Great. So, yeah, thanks Ben for introducing that. And as Ben says, I'm just going to go through some of the highlights. It's very positive. What I'm just going to go through is some of the key image indicators and that are positive. And then just look at some more negative findings and then we'll look at some concerns and some further segmentation. So the slide you can see now is it's what we see as our core indicators and you can see we're doing. I'm just going to stop you there because we actually can't see any slides. Oh, oh, just sorry. Let me just go back. We're very happy for you to just continue presenting without the slides either way. So please don't fall under any pressure. OK, I'll just try one more time and see what happens. You see the slides now? We've got them now. Thank you. OK, I'll just start. OK, so these are the core indicators that I was talking about. So you can see the more we've got high satisfaction levels on these. So the majority of our young people are happy with Barnet as a place to live, agree we're a family friendly place, we're doing a good job, agree young people have their say on things and protect people from harm. The keeping informed is pretty much in line, what is still high and pretty much what in line what we normally get on how young people feel they're informed. So just in terms of satisfaction with the local area, this is actually in line with the last time, and you can see also in line with the adult survey. In terms of segmentation on this, disabled young people are less likely to be happy with their local area. And in terms of Barnet being friendly, again this is in line from the last wave and slightly higher than the adult survey. In terms of segmentation, again we've got disabled young people less likely to say this, and then young people living in Burntoke, Colindale and the Henford constituency. These are some other image of the council questions. So you can see 8 out of 10 of our young people think the council is doing a good job, but there has been a slight drop since its peak in 2019. So there's been a slight decline there. Providing service that young people need. This is in line with the last wave, but we did have a peak in 2017. And protecting people from harm, that's pretty much in line with 2021/22. So anything, and just to clarify that what Ben said earlier, anything that is above plus or minus 4.2%, that's when it's a significant change. But when it's anything below plus or minus 4.2%, that means it's in line with the previous survey, so just to clarify that. And then these are the indicators in terms of image of the council that received the lowest satisfaction levels, but still good. But what we can see is they're back in line with our 2019 findings, and there was a peak just as we're coming out of COVID, but they've returned back to the pre-demic pandemic levels. So this is an indicator that surprised us a little bit. So satisfaction in the primary and secondary education have seen a decline since the peak in 2021/22. So services for support for children and young people, that's remained in line with previous years. But what I will show you is the satisfaction, it doesn't mean that more young people have got dissatisfied with our primary education, secondary education, and what's happened is young people are now saying they're neutral or they don't know. There hasn't been an increase in dissatisfaction, it's just that they're more indecisive this year. So all the way through, there's quite an interesting data set on young people's concerns, and I've actually brought this one up in terms of personal safety. So young people actually still rate knife crime as their top concern, but you can see that's actually dropped. The number of young people saying it's their top concern has dropped compared to 2021/22, and actually concern for gangs has also remained the concern. What's happened is that we added two new options this year, so this has actually shifted where people are saying their top concerns are. So these two new concerns are safety of girls and hate crime, and that they're third and fourth. And I know we're very interested in the hate crime at the moment. It's quite worrying that one in four young people do see that as a concern. So I thought I'd just bring up the segmentation on this particular slide, but throughout the presentation you have, we have done deep dives on everything so we can start to look at who's more concerned. So in terms of our protected characteristics, we can see there's nothing coming up in knife crime, but in terms of area, Burntoke and Colentail North are more concerned about knife crime. So you can see all these different types of concerns from our different groups and different wards, and it's very well worth actually reflecting back on this and how this segmentation will help us start to prioritize our resources. And just to add, what we have done across the indicators is looked at the average in terms of segmentation groups across the indicators where those groups showing they're less happy. So on the left-hand side, we can see that disabled young people are across the board more likely to be unhappy. Those living in areas of low deprivation, which might sound surprising to you, but when you actually look at some of the indicators. Interestingly, those areas, things like being listened to, being aged, young people living in low deprivation areas are more likely not to feel listened to, so that there's probably, that might be sort of feeling ignored. But that's an indicator, a very interesting finding that I don't think we've seen before, and then mixed ethnic background, female young people, but those are the top segmentations where they're feeling less happy. In terms of the survey, and then we've done the same with wards. So you saw in that concern for safety, Burns, Herkon, Collindale was coming out, but across the board, the west of the borough are less, lower than the average. So that's a very quick whistle tour of what we've actually already sent to you, and Ben touched on the next step. So yes, we're bringing combined reports of the findings from the adults and the young person survey to the November cabinet, which will, as well as looking at what the Children's Partnership Board might be doing, or Children's Services, looking across the services, what other recommendations our services can bring to this, for example, parks and open spaces and community safety. So that's a very top tour of the presentation that's been shared with you. Thank you, Rosie and Ben. Do members have any questions? Councillor Baker? Thank you very much for that. It was really rich in detail. There were some really positive outcomes there. My thoughts are where you have, obviously, we often, you know, when we're scrutinising, tend to kind of dive towards the negative, and where there are dips in the results from last year to this year, and where they were quite low last year and they're still low this year. I wonder what kind of, if young people aren't feeling as valued as they did, and if they don't fill the Council, if there's an increase in the amount of fill the Council in any more detail. I mean, in terms of analysis, we are looking at a bit more analysis in terms of across the board, what indicators are driving certain things, so there will be more analysis on that. And there is potential to do more qualitative research, but in terms of what other actions Ben's team is thinking about, if you would like to come in on that, Ben? Yeah, following the last survey, we actually did a lot of qualitative work. We did around a whole series of focus groups. So I think we will do some more qualitative work after this one as well, looking at these specific areas as part of that, bringing together the joint action plan. Thank you for that. Will there be a comprehensive action plan as a result of this? Yes, that's part of the report that's coming in November to Cabinet. Thank you. Councillor Leutscher, page 81 where it looks at where the young people feel most safe has seen a decline in every area except for local parks since 2016. And that's just their perception of how they feel. But is there any research done to actually... I don't think that there is. I'll ask Tina, actually, because she might have some insights through the work of... We're feeding that back. I've got to speak in my mouth. We'll choke on it. We're feeding that feedback back into the Safer Community Partnership against the action plan so that we track to them so that they... Thank you. If I could just come back. So if you look at the top one, which is schools, and that's gone down 4%. And I assume that this survey is anonymized, but you may be able to work out which schools that they attend. It would be interesting to know that if that 4% comes from certain schools, and then if you average it out, it's a higher drop in those schools than in others when you average it all out. And whether or not you can actually go back to the schools and say you've got a bit of a problem here. It's interesting you say that, Councillor Longstaff, because I looked at the... We don't identify the schools, but it identifies the ward where the school was lowest. And so I looked at all of those wards, and those wards have got really good schools in those wards. So it's clear to do with the perception of the schools rather than actually the quality of the schools. I'm expecting it to be in certain areas where maybe there are some potentially underperforming schools, but they weren't. So they weren't in areas where there was any sort of underperformance of our schools. It's an interesting one. I think with regards to the schools, the last time the survey was done was just after children returned to school, after the lockdown. So I think there was probably an elation of being back to school at that point. Whereas now things are back to normal, as it were. Thank you, Councillor Hutton. Sorry, Chair. Was it the same percentage of young people that did the surveys, the same number of respondents, roughly? Yes, it was 500 for both. Sorry, I'll be comparing like with like, is what I was saying. Thank you, Councillor Naranthiram. My question is also relating to school, but in a different way. So I'm concerned about Collindale North, Burnt Oak, Hendon, because those words are on my board and the Hendon constituency. So will there be to take it forward? Will there really be an idea to work with the schools to find out why the kids are thinking that way or is that not appropriate? As I said, I'm not concerned about any schools in those areas. If there were schools in those areas that weren't working well with us or were, we were concerned with performance, we would already be working with them. We have schools causing concern who we work with and they're across the borough. But there's nothing particularly in those wards that would find why there particularly was a lower score in those wards. About the standards of the school I'm talking about. If you sort of work with the schools and probably you can find out why they are saying that's what I'm saying, that the schools, I know the schools are in those wards. They are good schools. Yeah, we shared this data with our learning network inspectors. And so each school has got a learning network inspector. And so they were going to be speaking to the schools about that survey. But there's nothing that's come back of any interest really, of any light of why there might be a lower score. We also don't know which school it is in the area. And due to the social status and things like that, because those wards are considered to be poorer wards. Could that be -- That's not what we've seen, no. Nigel? Thank you very much. I'm looking at page 82 of the report which we've just heard spoken about. And it names the personal safety concerns of young people. And the top four are these. Life crime, gangs, safety of girls, hate crime. Now, this is therefore hearing from the young people what concerns them. And therefore, what can -- I'm asking myself what can Barnet do about that. Now, one quick response might be, well, it's up to the police. But I'm not sure if that's the right answer. So I wonder what coordinated activity Barnet might consider doing in its action plan coordinating with other agencies such as the police to help alleviate these concerns that these young people have. Because we also know that a lot of young men carry -- when they carry knives, they carry them because they carry them for their own safety. And that issue needs to be addressed, obviously. And it's a coordinated approach, I think, that would do it. So please could you consider in your action plan some action to do with those top four concerns that young people have? Tina, did you want to respond? I look forward to your next report showing lower levels of fear. That's the aim, definitely. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ben and Rosie, for joining us online. We understand that there will be a report later on in the year which will have its own set of recommendations. But as for now, does the committee agree the recommendations are set out in the papers? Yes, agreed. Thank you very much. So we will be moving on to agenda item 9, which is our family services quarterly update, which as many of you know is our regular report on family services performance data. However, this time it also includes the outcome from the recent Ofsted inspection. I'm sure you'd all agree that we want to take the time out to congratulate Chris and his team for the fabulous results. So I will pass over some inspections and I'm very satisfied that the outcome is OK. And thanks to all of the staff and leaders within the service for bearing with us during that process. And we've put in the report an update about our service and how that is progressing. And Tina will be happy to take any questions in relation to that. And we've put in in in the report an update of the healthy child program. You'll be aware that we've moved the provision from a previous provider into the Whittington Health Trust. And that's setting out all of the things that have been done, which is significant progress over over the time that they've had the service. We've agreed to begin to implement the MOU for young carers, which is about no wrong doors. And we'll continue to work on delivering that. That memorandum. And finally, within the report, there's a there's an update and a strategy document around tackling child exploitation, which Tina will talk to. But overall, performance remains solid. There's a whole range of data that we've given you for your comment and questions. And particular focus on the offset and the work that we're doing on tackling extreme. Exploitation. So how do you take any questions, Tina? Do you want to say a few things about the exploitation strategy? Thank you for the report. On page 100 at the top, talking about care leavers, it says care leaver in touch data is currently 100 percent for both 17 and 19, which is very good. And I wondered how how long you might keep in touch with young people. One of the reasons I'm asking you, I was talking to somebody from Live Unlimited the other day, and she was particularly concerned when they reached the age of 25. She felt that some of them keep in touch with them until they 21. But we carry on until they're 25. We also have pledged a lifelong office. So after 25, we make sure that they know that they can contact us at any point. And we have a care experience. Young people are in their 30s that make contact with us for advice or just to tell us about life, life events. So I think that having it at 100 percent is what we want to make. So that's about emails and WhatsApps and telephone calls and sometimes visits. So it's a whole range of different ways that we keep in touch with our young people. But it's indeed us. Thank you. The strategy reads really well. It's really clear and it was really good to see as a governor, I've had responsibility for safeguarding for the last five years. I still have this kind of key to safe education policies. It was really, it was really actually helpful to see this and to think about this in relation to safeguarding policies that we have in our school as well. I'm just wondering what engagement you're having with schools, particularly on this strategy. If I could just add also all of these strategies then go to the designated safeguarding leave a briefing every six weeks for designated safeguarding leaves in schools. And so Tina's team have come along to those briefings to them and introduced new strategies. Thank you. Question from Rizal Friedman. Thank you so much. Again commending Barnet on the outstanding upstairs and also this absolutely fantastic Child Exploitation Strategy document. In 2020, I worked as one of their child safety operating protocol for the Jewish community because there was, there has been a lack of a focus in terms of plug into all of the excellent support that is available. And I note that in the exploitation strategy in 6.2, there is a desire to improve representation with marginalized communities and ensure the unique experiences, cultural and background are considered in terms of support, engagement and awareness raising. And I just wondered whether there might be a place before this is published to perhaps have an appendix or notation where it can be more specifically referencing the Jewish community. And as you so expertly know, you know, they are part of those ethnic communities where they are quite that much more vulnerable to exploitation as we've seen with really unfortunate cases. Thank you. Can I ask members if they agree the recommendations? Tamsin, you had a question? Thank you. I'm just conscious that we've still got a few agenda items to get through. So I just want to thank officers for their report and I'm just going to invite Stella to just summarize what's been agreed as a recommendation. Chair, I just want to clarify that it seems that they've constructed it by correcting it. Take that as agreed. Thank you. Okay. So we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is on elective home education, the task and finish group. As many of you will remember last year, this was selected as one of the task and finish groups, which was chaired by Councillor Wakeley. So I want to just take the time on behalf of the committee to thank Councillor Wakeley and the rest of the members who are undertaking this work. I know you had lots of meetings and lots of extra work over the year. So thank you very much. So essentially, the role of this committee is to consider the findings and determine if we wish to send the report and recommendations to cabinet to be agreed as a council policy. So we have Councillor Hutton, who's going to introduce the report, and we also have Lauren Johnson joining us online, who leads the EHE team. Oh, I have it here as Johnson. So Lauren Jackson. That's no problem, Stella. Councillor Hutton, should I pass over to you first? Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just very briefly. Yes, Councillor Wakeley chaired this, but I was also and some of the members of the committee. I think it was timely to look at this because there does seem to have been in the number of children educated at home. That's not specific to Barnet. I think that's overall. The terms of reference were to review changes with the Barnet team, and I would like to thank the officers who are involved in visiting family to include. Because at the moment, they don't have to register. I'll come back to that in a minute, because that's going to change. So it's very hard, I think, for officers to strike a balance between visiting family, trying to include families and offer services, whilst at the same time, I think the preferred option is mostly the children are better off in school. So that was one thing. We were looking at changes. The second was the rise in numbers since COVID, particularly. And the third thing was what can we do to ensure that all young people have access to the best education and feel included as Barnet citizens. So as I said, we looked at a range of people, including Lisa, who was here earlier, Dr. Star, head teachers, and took a range of evidence. So we still haven't -- nobody seems to have clarified what a suitable education is. That's what we have to look at to see if families are finding a suitable education. During the course of this, looking at this, London councils put forward a proposal that a register of families who want to educate their children at home should be drawn -- should be -- in fact, they should actually have to register with the local authority. And that's now, I think, going to be taken up at government level. And I think it's likely to become law. We are behind most other European countries, most other European countries at least. I don't know about America or Australia. Do -- if families do want to educate their children at home, then they have to register with the local authority and tell them that's what they're going to do. So that was briefly, and I think the recommendation -- we have -- we've got seven recommendations, so I'll pass back to the chair if anyone wants to have any comments. Does anyone have any comments? Yep, Councillor Naranthira. I'm really glad that we are actually getting there and getting a kind of a register of home-educated kids, and then we have got some kind of -- the council has got some kind of monitoring process that will be in place in future. That's very good to hear, so thank you for everybody who has worked on that. Thank you. We have Councillor Lemmon. Yeah, just a query. So notwithstanding there's some good stuff that came out of this report in terms of the outcomes, and now I believe the recommendation is it goes to the next cabinet meeting in October. But what about any associated costs with any of the recommendations? Should that be included before it goes to cabinet, or is that something that cabinet could say, well, we're not going to approve this until we have those costs? There are some recommendations that do have significant requirements, and we will be notifying cabinet when they make the decisions in regards to this stage, but that will be a decision for the cabinet to make, and if there are, with the resource requirements, finding the resources to enable that to happen because we don't have the budget to pay for something that's not statutory responsibility. A question from Naomi Phillips, and then to you, Councillor Baker. Thank you, and thank you to everyone who's taken the time to be on this task and finish the group. It was a really interesting report, and personally supported it. I just have a clarification question, if that's okay. And it may just be my misunderstanding of the figures, but I think my thing is that given that children, parents don't have to register their children as EHE, and then we do have a table with the numbers of EHE children in Barnet, do we have a sense of how many people that doesn't include at all? I mean, is it okay? In terms of the use of AI and teaching so teachers now have to monitor that work will be a cost to the exam centre, so you'll have to, you know, things we have to consider here. Our concern, our major concern is the proposals around the examinations cost to connect to at this stage. Questions from Councillor Hutton and then Councillor Longstaff. Yeah, it's also a question, I mean, these were the recommendations that came from the group, so I didn't put that at the time, but it's also a question of how we know the child is ready to take an exam, because if they're in the school system, then that's obvious, but otherwise, so I rather agree that I think from that record about, I think that would be quite difficult. Thanks, Councillor Hutton. Can I ask Lauren to answer it, just so that there was a reason for her to attend the meeting, it would be nice if we heard from her. Lauren, do you want to answer that? We wouldn't know whether a child who's home educated is ready to take an exam, would we? No, we wouldn't. Could we just be going on the parents' views? Yeah, because the parents are ultimately responsible, so they would be tracking whether the child is ready to take a GCSE or not. So you're right, Councillor Hutton, the parent could say my child is ready, there's some money spent for her or him to do that exam and actually there's no chance that they're going to pass it. And I think there might be the temptation to say, oh, we'll put him in for it, you know, see how well he does. But simply if it's funded. And, you know, it's that, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I think that's an issue to look at. Lauren just wanted to come in and add to her response. No, I was going to say the only other way is because you have an EHE teacher, but then her time would be taking up reviewing preparations for GCSEs and not reviewing everybody else. So I don't know how manageable that would be in reality for our EHE teacher to be checking whether people are ready. Thank you. We'll finish off with Councillor Longstaff's question. It seems to be that one person's gone off to do their exam, probably in the main for that ten days at least. And yet somebody has to wait ten days and can't get their child into that school until somebody actually decides, yeah, yeah, I'm fine with all this. In a very strange way, somehow whilst it's best practice for the child who used to go to that school, best practice for parents who may wish their child to get to that school. We implemented that, Lauren, when we revised the policy last time. Do you want to just give the reasoning why that was brought in, the ten day grace period? Yes. So it's not a full ten days, it's up to ten days. And the ten days are there to really put some safeguarding in for children that are going to be EHE. And it allows us time to have an exit meeting with the family in the school. It allows us time to check with parents that EHE is actually what they chose and not what maybe the school are asking them to do or if they feel under pressure. But it's not always ten days. Sometimes it's two days, sometimes it's five, depending on our checks. Now, parents who are opting for EHE, you know, as a lifestyle choice, don't normally choose to do it on the 1st of September, preventing a place for someone else. That's normally a choice that's made at the end of an academic year in preparation for the child's next year. Those that are suddenly doing it in September, it's normally due to a knee jerk reaction, which is why we need those ten days. Maybe they've gone back in September, fallen out with the school and we need those ten days to repair that. And I'd much rather that than them going off to be EHE when they could stay at school. And then also, if there is a knee jerk reaction and a parent says I'd like to be home educating my child, the school then fills that place and then two days later they change. They can't go back. They can't then go back to the school because the school's filled the place. So that's why we're giving them a bit of leeway with regards to their decision making, but also to do the safeguarding check that Lauren mentioned. Thank you. It just seems a bit for those who are waiting. Their anxieties are equally as important as those who have made a choice to leave. There are just a couple of other points that are not questions. It was just that on the page 28, there's a reference to a 13, which I didn't understand. And on page 29, there's a reference. On that basis, does the committee agree to send the report and the recommendations to Cabinet? Sorry, Anne? Thank you, Chair. My question is in relation to school or are they going to be considered as private candidates? I'm enjoying this item because all I'm saying is, Lauren. Well, unfortunately, Anne cut out a lot, so I missed half the question. So the question was, if a child does do an exam at an exam centre, where do those statistics of that child's achievement go? Does it go on to the school's achievement? If they do the exam at the Pavilion, for example, does that go on Pavilion statistics about the GCSE pass rate? So I think historically Pavilion have done it as private candidates, but if we've used a school, then it's used on the schools, the school of taking it. But I think with the Pavilion, they've been able to do it as private. But don't quote me because we've not had that many. But they're not put on role of that school. No, no, no, no. I don't think they would feature on the school's achievement statistics because they're not a child that's on that role. So they wouldn't be on any statistics apart from EHE statistics, which I don't think exist. That's right. Thank you. Before you go ahead with the question, I've just been asked if you can clarify the comments that you had made. We just want to make sure that the numbers you were referring to weren't just the footnotes. Hi, it's Fiona Ray. So the 13 and 14, I think we can make them more superscript, if that helps, but they refer to the references at the bottom of the page. So there's like kind of a reference to where we've used information from other sources. And by taking point, they do look a bit big so we can make them a bit smaller. They're obviously referring to the footnotes. Is that what you mean, those ones? In the meantime, that has been noted. Okay. We have agreed that they're going to make it a little bit smaller just to make it clear that that is a footnote. So can I just get the committee to agree to send this report and the recommendations to cabinet? Right. Thank you. So we'll move on to agenda item 11, which is very short. Essentially, it's just on the task and finish group updates paper. Just asking the committee if you have any comments. No comments. Perfect. So we'll move on to agenda item 12, which is the cabinet form plan. Essentially, that's the cabinet for plan for 2024-25. The subcommittee are requested to consider any items that they may wish to request for pre-decision scrutiny during 2024-25. Thank you, Chair. So Fiona Ray of the Unscrutiny Manager, as the chair says, it's just to get any in if people want any of those items on our work program. It's probably good to read it in conjunction with the next item as well, which is the committee's work program. If there's any comments, we can take them now or outside of the committee, if that's helpful. So as Fiona mentioned, you can raise this now or you can follow up later in writing. Is that correct? Right. Okay. We'll be at agenda item 13, which is the scrutiny work program. This report sets out the work program for the children education overview and scrutiny subcommittee. Does the committee have any comments on the work program? No? Okay. So I guess that brings us to the end of the meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Transcript

Hi, welcome everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful summer break. Welcome to the Children's Education Overview and Scrutiny Subcommittee. A special welcome to our new member, Councillor Sue Baco, who comes with a wealth of relevant experience and we're very lucky to have you. Also, a special welcome to my new Vice Chair, Councillor Longstaff. Thank you. As always, a bit of housekeeping. That meetings may be recorded and broadcast by people present as allowed for in-law or by the Council. So by attending either online or in person, you may be picked up on the recordings. Council recordings are covered by a privacy notice, which can be found at www.barnit.gov.uk. A quick reminder for members and new members that to talk, you click the little speaker icon when it turns red. You can speak and when you no longer want to speak, if you just tap it again. So we will go straight into the minutes of the last meeting. So do members have any comments they would like to make? Yes, Councillor Hutton. Only that there's some words like to and left out. I don't want to make a big thing of it. OK, thank you. Anyone have any other comments? Yes, Councillor Longstaff. Thank you, Chair. I wasn't actually at the meeting, but I did ask for it to be passed on. The reason I was missing the meeting was because the dates kept getting changed. And they were changed from one date to the date and then changed back again later on at short notice. Otherwise, I would have been in attendance and I was asked for that to be noted in the minutes because in Council language, if you're missing because you're on Council business, it is noted that you're on other Council business rather than just absent. And I think it should be noted that I was absent because of changes to the dates. OK, thank you. Perfect. Perfect. OK, just checking. Right. Other than that, are we happy to agree the minutes from the last meeting? OK, we'll take that as agreed. So we move on to absence of members. So I received apologies from Councillor Woodstock-Vellaman and we have Councillor Narranthirai sitting in on his behalf. I have a receipt. Yep. Councillor Conway, please. Councillor Meyers just parking. OK, thank you. Yeah, that's fine with me. So we will move to agenda item four. We don't have any. Sorry. Agenda item three. Do members have any declarations to make in relation to any of the agenda items? Councillor Conway. As a local headteacher of a primary school, Jewish Independent School in Henson, in regard to agenda six. If there's any discussion or anything further from the committee, then I'll pardon myself. Thank you. That's been noted. OK, so we'll move on to agenda item six. So the purpose of this members item is to allow the subcommittee to consider. We're deferring the item, so we'll move on to agenda item seven. We're going to whiz through this today. So this is the special educational needs and disabilities agenda items. We had a question from a co-opted member, so we're just going to wait till she's here. OK, so we are now going to consider the special education needs and disability. I'm sure we are aware this is a challenge faced by councils across the country and is one of the biggest concerns in children's services. Finding ways to improve services within a context of rising demand and diminishing resources can be incredibly difficult. Whilst these problems cannot be solved overnight. Welcome. We need to satisfy ourselves that we are doing all we can to address this issue, to bring about solutions in the short, medium and long term. So I'd like to invite Karen to present some key highlights from the. Thank you. And so every year we have we have the statistics in relation to S.E.N. published in July. And so we bring a summary of those statistics to this and share it more widely as well. I if any of you are involved in S.E.N., you represent you will know that S.E.N. is an area of concern, I think, for many people, many families. Since the introduction of the Children and Families Act in 2014, we have seen year on year increases in the number of students being supported either through an education, health and care plan and S.E.N. support. So the HCPs in Barnet last year, for example, increased by 10 percent. So as of January, we had three thousand eight hundred and nine children and young people being supported with the HCPs. Already this year, that has increased to four thousand one hundred and eighty. So it's likely we'll see another 10 percent increase, if not higher, at the end of this year as well. So the I think it's important to note that the increase in the children and young people being supported who have S.E.N. has increased year on year, and that is disproportionate to the increase in the pupil population. So the increase in Barnet, for example, since 2016, in terms of the S.E.N. population has increased by 120 percent compared to 10, just over 10 percent in terms of the pupil population. Barnet is a very inclusive mother. It has a high percentage of children in mainstream, which we're very proud of. The number of children, the percentage of children at S.E.N. support is lower than the national average at eleven point five percent. And this is of the pupil population, a whole cohort of children and young people with S.E.N. And the percentage of children in our schools with the HCPs has increased to three point nine percent. So our rate of increase of children and young people with a faster rate than that of the national level. And we have 19.5 percent of our pupils are in Barnet's special schools. In terms of need types, the largest cohort is for children with speech, language and communication needs, followed by social, emotional and mental health and then autism. And that's reflected by evident S.E.N. support. You know that our bar is wonderfully diverse, which we welcome, and that's reflected in our S.E.N. statistics. Nationally, people are pupils with S.E.N. are more likely to be than the national average. One of the areas we are concerned about is appeals to the special education on linked and disability tribunal. So we do have high rates. They did come down from last year from three point seven percent to three point six percent. But that's still significantly higher than the national average at two point five percent, although the national average did increase last year by 24 percent. I think you will all know that our children in this bar do very well in terms of attainment, and that is reflected in both our S.E.N. cohort and those pupils with the HCP as well. So at every stage from early years to key stage five, pupils with S.E.N. in Barnet had higher levels of attainment. And the progress of S.E.N. pupils is also greater than England and also Barnet S.E.M. pupils attend schools more consistently as well. So there's there is there are challenges within the system as we'll come on to. But there's a lot to be proud of in Barnet as well. And that is thanks to our education providers here and the wider services. We so in terms of destinations, we have high rates of pupils remaining in sixth form, and that's particularly over 30 percent compared to 20 percent at the national average. The proportion, sorry, in terms of a third, 31 percent of the HCP to sixth form or sixth form college compared to 11.6 percent nationally. Our rates of exclusions and suspensions are lower than both the national and our statistical neighbors as well, but they are increasing. And that's we're seeing that reflected at a national level. But that's something that where the children are experiencing challenges. And we're also reviewing alternative provision offers over the next year as well to make sure we're really clear, as well as outreach support where children can have short term placements in a PRU and or longer term placements where they prepare them to go on to their next phase. Education and employment rates for for young people with a learning disability are higher in Barnet than nationally. And that's something that we're really proud of. So that eight point two percent versus four point eight percent nationally. We've we do have challenges around the number of special school places. I know that's something that we need to work to those in ARPs by 40 percent since two thousand and eighteen. But we know that with the increase in SEND, particularly those coming through under fives, that's something that is is a priority area for us. So before we just go into questions, we also have Lisa Hoffman, so I was going to invite her over. Lisa is a representative from the Barnet Parent Carers Forum and is attending to give us a perspective on services from the organization supporting children, supporting parents whose children have SEND. So welcome. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to come along this evening. I'll just explain a little bit about the Barnet Parent Carer Forum, because I'm not sure that all of you will necessarily have come across it before. But we are a group of volunteers primarily who work with Barnet in order to represent the parenting carers of children, young people with special educational needs and disabilities in Barnet. We survey members, we speak to our members to find out what the issues that they are facing are. And then we collectively represent those voices with the local authority and we work very closely with them to try and improve services as best we can. Hopefully you see my note and I don't propose to go through it in a huge amount of detail, but I just wanted to highlight a few things, if that's OK. Firstly, I think it's really important to say that the work that we've done with Barnet over the last few years has been, in my mind, really quite incredible. Our levels of co-production are really high compared to other local authorities and the Barnet Parent Carer Forum is part of the National Network of Parent Carer Forums. So we liaise a lot with other forums and other local authorities and we understand the kind of problems that they have, the difficulties they have with co-production. And we, in the forum and Barnet, have worked really hard to increase our co-working over the last few years and I really think that it shows. I'm not saying that we get it right all the time, of course we don't and there are so many areas that we need to focus on. But I think it's important to understand the backdrop of that. There are so many things that we do really well and I'm grateful for the time and the support that we get from the professionals in Barnet. And the fact that we are included in so many of the discussions at an early point, which is relevant. And I've listed in my notes some areas where we have worked really closely with the local authority and in some ways have been trendsetters. There's some things that we do that are not common among other local authorities and we have set standards in that respect, which is really encouraging. That said, obviously there are issues that are still a struggle for families in Barnet and the backdrop of course, as Karen has said, is increasing demand and pressures on funding. And parents and families are really feeling that and are really struggling in a lot of ways to get the support that they feel their children and young people are entitled to and in many cases are written into educational health care plans and therefore they are entitled to under law. So just to highlight a few areas, we feel, and this is something that most parent carer forums agree with, that early intervention is key. If we can find a way to support children and young people at the earliest possibility where they are showing signs of difficulty, then so many of them will not need greater support later on. And that's important for the young people, for parents and for the local authority, who will, I hope in some cases, need to find less funding for them later on. And so many young people reach a crisis point because they don't get timely intervention and timely support. And I'm not saying that teachers don't try, of course they do, but there is, in my mind, not enough training in certain areas and not enough funding in school to be able to support these young people. So I feel that we are firefighting so much of the time and we need to just kind of reverse some of those decisions and get the support in school earlier. It is happening, and I know so many people are working to do that, but I just feel that there is so much more to do. There is such an impact on families when children are unsupported, and there was a survey that was done to support a special Women's Hour feature this week, where they surveyed a thousand mothers of children who have sent. And one in three of them said that they had to give up work in order to look after their children who were not being supported in school. So either there was no place for them or they were out of school because they weren't receiving the support they needed. And of those mothers who hadn't given up work entirely, over 50 percent said that they had to reduce their hours. And that's hugely significant. I mean, I am one of those mothers. I'm a lawyer by profession and had to give up my career to look after my daughter who wasn't able to attend school. So I can speak from the heart in that respect. But that has a knock on effect on the whole community. So it's not just the child, it's families that are suffering. And, you know, it goes well beyond that, that families are not able to earn the money that they would otherwise have done. They're relying on benefits to the extent that they wouldn't have done otherwise. So it has such ramifications that shouldn't be ignored. Very closely connected with that, obviously, is the mental health of the young people and the mental health of parents and siblings, which can be affected when the situations are so difficult. Diagnostic assessments remains a really difficult area. If children can't get the assessments they need in a timely fashion, then the support can't be put in place and the wait times for those assessments are too high. We know work is being done to reduce them, but the pressures on specialist services fashion and that then has a knock on effect that I've been talking about before. I wanted to mention about appeals and tribunals and in Barnet I feel strongly that the amount of appeals and tribunals is too high and we need to address that. And I know as part of the change programme, that's something that's being looked at. And I know there's been recruitment in the area to try and mediate with families with appeals, but families don't have enough trust in the system. They don't believe that that will work. So they're skipping any form of mediation and alternative dispute resolution and going to a tribunal. That's a waste of resource for the local authority. It's a terrible strain on families. And I feel that we really need to concentrate on that to try and resolve these disputes before they get to that stage. Elective home education, which I know is on your agenda and it's something that I have spoken about before. And I really just wanted to say thank you for giving me a voice in that piece of work and for understanding the concerns that parents have in terms of the pressure put on them when their children are unable to attend school. And we use we often use the term EBSA, Emotionally Based School Avoidance. It's not avoidance. So many children want to be in school. So many parents want their children to be in school. They're not bunking off. They're not taking them on holidays. Yes, of course, there are some that do. But on the whole, that is not the case at all. Children want to be in school with their friends. Parents want their children to be in school so that they can work or do whatever else they need to. And it's really important to understand that penalising parents, putting pressure on families, blaming children and young people and families is never going to work. What we need to do is make sure that the barriers for them to be in school are reduced and that their needs are met. And that supports reflect that, you know, and it is a case of support first. And I hope that as a result of those recommendations, more parents will feel supported. And we are working really closely with the educational psychology team in Barnet on guidance around EBSA for families, schools, professionals in the hope that we can increase the levels of non-dependence children. So lots of work being done on that, but a way to go. Therapies remains a difficulty in Barnet. Even children who have levels of therapeutic support written into their EHCPs are not always getting that. And parents are incredibly frustrated. It comes straight back to the point that I was saying before. If we're not giving the support to the children at the time they need it, then they will need more support later on. They will fall further and further behind. Potentially it can affect their attendance. So it's something that needs to be addressed. And of course, I appreciate it comes down to funding, but it is such a priority for so many families and shouldn't be ignored. So I think that that's the only issues that I really wanted to highlight, but I'm more than happy to answer any questions if anybody has anything they want to ask. I know in the report we mentioned as a significant part about VAT and funding. Can I ask, have we got any modeling on how many additional school places we may need should the VAT tax that's been spoken about by the government be implemented? Because I'm probably quite concerned that parents won't be able to afford that and will need to make places and provisions in existing schools. If I can respond, I think we're going to have a further discussion about that when the paper six is going to be discussed. But for children with special education needs, there is no VAT charge. That's one of the exemptions that has been. Thank you, Nigel. Thank you very much, Chair. It's not so much a question, but a vote of thanks. I'm a member of the task group you spoke to, and we were all deeply impressed with what you had to tell us, your recommendations and your thoughts. And we're very impressed with what you're doing for that era. So thank you very much indeed. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thank you very much. And, you know, as I said before, most of the people I work with in the forum give up their time voluntarily. We all feel really passionate about what we do, and it's so important that parents are encouraged to speak out. And we are grateful when people listen. So thank you for your experiences and the key issues. Thank you for the wonderful work you do. Does anyone? Councillor Longstaff? Thank you. Both Karen and Lisa spoke about demand for places, the amount of places available. Just out of interest, is this because we provide less than the rest of London and the country? Or is this because more people are actually moving to Barnet? Because, in my opinion, the provision is very good. People work very hard. And when there's a good provision about, there's a lot of people interested in moving into the area. So I think there's a variety of reasons. It's not it's not unique to Barnet. So across the country, people are struggling with the efficiency of special school places originally anticipated. I think there are things about that that Barnet itself that make it a very attractive borough. And we know across, you know, across London, there's high, you know, there's high levels of movement of families. So we do have a high number of families moving into the area, but also above sanctuary. And so, you know, with that was we welcome every single one of those families. We know there's a higher proportion of children, not just that have experienced trauma, but you know, who who have other complex needs as well. Talking about the cost of placing Barnet residents in independent mainstream schools, I wondered how that worked. I could understand that the ECHP part of it would be paid, but if parents wish to send their child to that school, why would that necessary set that extra cost if there is fall on the local council and not on the family if they wish to send their children to an independent school? I'm not sure how that works, if you could clarify that. And if you if you place a child into an if a school has been deemed appropriate, then the tribunal for those cases or, you know, everything is such a case by case basis. It's difficult to give a specific answer for, you know, for individual cases, but that's generally what happens. So if it's been deemed appropriate for that child, then the local authority is responsible for the fees. As an independent school? Yes. If that's what's named on the plan, it's been deemed appropriate. OK. Councillor Longstaff. Thank you. There was something as well that was raised from Lisa about how it would help in order that the disputes between what a parent or carer wants and what the council is able to provide, willing to provide. And they should try and resolve that long before it goes to an appeal court or wherever it goes beyond. So what is the council's how can the council actually square that circle where there are finite resources, but the parent knows that their child and of course, it's emotional and they want the very best for their child. How are you intending to square that circle to resolve things and get them done quicker? So we've just taken on two to disagreement resolution. We have mediation arrangements in place, but quite often families, as Lisa referred to, want to skip straight to that because their understanding is that they will have a better chance really to get what they feel is needed for their child. So we really want to build that trust with families in terms of conversations and trying to agree those disagreements, even if we can agree them partially. So there will be always times where it's right that it goes to tribunal because there is an agreement and it's up to the judge then to make a decision. But I think the more we can do with families, the better. Thank you. Sorry, don't know what they have to get is, but I just wanted to make a point on that, which is a concern of mine. And this is absolutely in support of mediation pre tribunal. Many families do not have the resources to get legal support for tribunals and are too overwhelmed to work out what their rights are in that respect. And therefore, it is often not always, but often the case that those that do go to tribunal are cases where families can afford legal support and have the highest level of help, and that creates such an injustice that you've got families who perhaps have exactly the same similar needs. And their cases should be considered in the same way, but they don't actually have the ability to push it that far. And my concern is that those children will lose out. If we have a system by which there is faith in dispute, alternative dispute resolution and mediation pre tribunal, you don't need legal representation. You just need to sit around a table and have a conversation to try and understand what the issues are. And in my opinion, that system will be fairer as well as better for all. So I think the drive to improve mediation, and we certainly need to work together to improve perceptions of the benefits of mediation, I think is really important. But I can find out for you. I know that in, I think anything that goes to a hearing is not, you know, we hear you hear language such as oh it's a win for the parent, it's a win for the local authority. I don't think anyone wins when they go to tribunal. We are aware that of those that do go to a hearing in Barnet, then there is a higher number than the national average that are upheld in favour of the local authority, but still, you know, there's still a lot more that are upheld. Yeah, I think the, over the last few years, the team have worked really hard to understand, you know, the legal positions, and so on so they really try and hard to improve that position and hopefully, you know, last, the improvement, albeit not good enough. Last year to this is the start of a trend, and that's certainly what we're hoping, but it will require everyone to work together and everyone to have a bit more trust. Thanks. Councillor Lemon. Thanks, Chair. Just like to first of all thank the Speaker and obviously all the officers who contributed not only to the report, especially when you compare Barnet to other boroughs and how well we're doing. I don't want to be rude, but let's start talking about money. One of the appendices refers to the schools grant and the finance block area where there's projected, I presume that's projected to have 6 million this year, so that's fast at the moment. Yes. And then it talks about a few examples about how you might just touching around the edges. Yeah, and I think, perhaps I didn't make this clear in the report, I think there is a difference. It's certainly not about cuts. It's about reviewing things to see how we can use that, that amount of funding more effectively to meet the needs of more children. So we are undergoing an alternative provision, so approved review, for example, because we know there is some crossover. So how can we improve the system? How can we make it clearer for parents, the pathways around that? How can we be, how can we support our schools more? We have an increasing number of children, so one area of increased spend has been on home tuition, for example. So can we look at that and think about how we do it in-house? Rather than using external providers, we think there'd be more control, improved quality and probably a saving in costs in terms of that. So these aren't, these are not looking at cuts, they're really looking at ways of doing it more effectively. Thanks for that reassurance. And just a quick follow up on that as well. And I presume when you're talking about more higher mainstream inclusion, that's all evidence-based and that's something new, substantial savings, but based on clear evidence. I think it is certainly about doing things more effectively, but in terms of the savings, it's trying to slow the increase in the deficit by investing more in early prevention and different matters like that. Thank you. And I wonder, is there any tracking? Yeah, we have to do a return, so that started last year in terms of returning annual reviews. You're right, they do have to be done every year. Annual reviews are, currently, of the whole cohort, we're about 63 per cent in terms of those that are processed on time within the time scales. That is clearly not as high as where we'd like it to be, but we know that that is a better rate than many other local authorities. And it's an improving picture as well. Within that cohort, though, we do focus annual reviews on what we call early annual reviews, where there are real concerns and also on our vulnerable children cohort as well, so looked after. So the completion rates for that cohort is much higher, it's 84 per cent. Separately, they're tracked within FE, so we do have high rates of participation in FE as well. But I think one of our strengths is the number of children with EHCPs that go on to sixth forms and stay in their school. Thank you for those questions. So a massive thank you to Lisa and Karen for speaking and presenting to us today. Can I ask the committee if the recommendations in the report have been agreed? Yep. Great. As Raisal Friedman has joined us, we're going to go back to Agenda Item 6, and that's our members' items. So the purpose of this members' item is essentially to allow the subcommittee to consider the issue raised and decide if you wish to agree a course of action. Raisal Friedman, would you like to read your question for us? Thank you so much. Also, just to declare an interest, I work for pages, partnerships with Jewish schools, we support Jewish schools across the UK. I don't know if you need me to say anything else about the interest or if that's sufficient. Is that sufficient? Thank you. I wanted to ask whether there will be an opportunity to ask the professionals essentially how much time and thought have been given to the impact of the imposition of VAT on school fees. Obviously, as well as the planned removal of the relief for business rates after the budget on October 30th. Given the high number of Jewish independent schools in Barnet, should there be an influx of students into the state sector? I think there needs to be some assessment of the availability of appropriate educational provision. I'm more broadly wondering if it's been considered outside of the Jewish lens. And I'd just like to thank Neil Marlowe for his time earlier this week. I think we've already begun a discussion about this. But I was hoping to bring it to the table here so that the committee can also hear about the impact of this. Thank you. I'll pass over to Neil Marlowe, who can advise us on suggested course of action. Thank you, chair. And thank you, Raisal, for your question. And yes, as Raisal says, she is assistant director of PAGES, the national organization that works to support Jewish schools, state and independent. And so it's really important that Barnet have a close relationship with PAGES, which we do, because we work cooperatively and co-produce ways forward. And I think it's really critical that with regards to this VAT exemption on independent schools, that we work very closely with PAGES and other relevant organizations to help co-produce the future. So just giving a background to the situation. But before I do that, I hope Raisal sees after we've met on Wednesday, Raisal, that we have given some real time and thought to the question. So it wasn't a surprise to get this question. As you know, we've been working already on that, Raisal, which you saw. Absolutely. And to acknowledge that in this space as well. So thank you very much. So yes, when this was mentioned in the Labor Manifesto, we obviously thought about what would be the potential implications for us in Barnet. If we look at non-faith independent schools and faith independent schools separately, if I just deal with non-faith independent schools first. So the non-faith independent schools, if there was a movement of parents from children from schools into the state system, our capacity within our state schools and non-faith state schools could easily manage that movement from independent to state. In fact, I'm sure state schools would openly welcome them to come into their schools to help with the falling roles situation we have across Barnet, across some areas of Barnet. So that would be no issue at all. Interesting that hasn't happened so far. I had a head teacher meeting this morning asking, has there been already any interest from parents about moving their children from independent to state? And that hasn't happened as yet. But clearly, this is due to come in in January next year. And so we may get an influx then. But the non-faith state schools within Barnet would be easily able to meet any need that comes from children moving from independent to state. So probably the greatest area of need would be if there was issues with regards to faith independent schools and particularly with regards to our Jewish faith independent schools. So just to give you some data of the Jewish school, the Jewish school landscape in Barnet, we've got 21 Jewish state schools in Barnet, 16 primary, four secondary and one special. So approximately 7,400 pupils attend Jewish state schools in Barnet. So 16 percent of state schools in Barnet are Jewish schools, which is obviously very high comparatively and obviously is high comparatively because we need to meet the need of the high Jewish population in Barnet. So 11.8 percent of pupils in Barnet state schools attend a Jewish state school. In addition to those 21 state Jewish schools, we've got 17 independent Jewish schools in Barnet. Now, that's out of a total of 36 independent schools we have. So 17 of the 36 independent schools we have in Barnet are Jewish independent schools. So 47 percent of our independent schools are Jewish schools. And so approximately 3,200 pupils attend those independent Jewish schools in Barnet. 32 percent of independent pupils in Barnet go to a Jewish independent school. And so just under 3,000 of that 3,200 attend strictly orthodox or Haredi orthodox. And apologies if my determinations are incorrect here, Councillor Conway and others. But that's looking at the different levels of orthodoxy. And so those are the higher levels of orthodoxy, the strictly orthodox and the Haredi orthodox. So thank you, Raizel, for helping me in my determination and classification there and realizing that actually often those two types of schools are very interchangeable. And the 3,000 pupils are going to those strictly or Haredi orthodox schools. We don't have exact numbers because we don't get numbers of independent schools as a council. That's not something that we get hold of. In fact, the way I find out how many pupils are in independent schools is when I read their Ofsted report that says pupils enroll and then so it updates our information about pupils enrolled in independent schools. So we certainly don't know how many pupils are in each year group either in those independent schools. Of those in the Jewish schools, nine of them are primary and seven of them are secondary. And as with our state schools, which go from reform schools where we've got four reform schools up to five strictly orthodox state schools, the same with independent schools. Although there aren't any reform independent schools and no modern orthodox independent schools, we do have two orthodox independent Jewish schools and 14 of their independent schools are strictly orthodox or Haredi orthodox. There are 3,000 of those pupils going to those schools that are strictly orthodox or Haredi orthodox. Now the recent history in Barnet over the last 30 years or so, the number of Jewish state schools has risen quite sharply in Barnet due to the opening of new schools including academies and free schools and independent schools successfully applying to become state maintained rather than being independent. The recent of those being Menorah High for girls that used to be an independent school and OAM primary used to be an independent school, both now are state schools. So the potential issue would be if a significant number of those children in independent Jewish schools were wanting to get a place in one of our state Jewish schools. Now we do have some capacity in our state Jewish school system at the moment though there are capacity across the board from reform right up to strictly orthodox. But in speaking to Raisel earlier in the week, the concern would be that a number of those parents, if they weren't able to afford the fees of the school that they're currently in as independent, none of the state schools that we had would meet their need with regards to their faith. So they would then have to look for another alternative which potentially would be becoming electively home educated. Now clearly we would want to try and avoid that because we want them to be in an educational establishment rather than EHE. So that removal of the VAT exemption in January could have an impact on us with regards to the Jewish state schools and meeting the capacity. Just out of interest, I could give you the figures that we have at the moment. In our primary state schools we have 195 places available for girls who are strictly orthodox. And we have 59 places for orthodox, etc. But within our secondary schools, all of our secondary schools, reform orthodox and strictly orthodox are all full. But what our Jewish secondary schools have managed to do over the past few years to meet the increased demand has been to open bulge classes within their schools. So we would obviously be needing to work with our schools to see if they could continue to open up bulge classes or expand their provision. So I would suggest that there's a few next steps from this discussion, and hope Reza will agree. One is that the state schools will welcome independent school pupils into our state schools, particularly non-faiths who are going to go into the non-faith state schools where we have a number of vacancies. The tax exemption is due to come in in January 2025, so we do have some time, but these few months will go very wide very quickly. But we obviously need to keep a keen eye on what's going to happen between now and then and assess the number of parents that are looking to find places in our school. I mentioned before the number of independent schools who have now become state schools, and there's a clear criteria that we have that the council has for accepting independent schools to be a Barnet state school. One of those criteria is that it's a good or outstanding school currently, and as you're probably aware, that single judgment has now been taken away from state schools and is probably likely to be taken away from independent schools as well. So clearly that criteria needs to be relooked at to make sure it's appropriate, particularly with regards to the changes of off-state judgment. And then we need to concentrate on potentially increasing the capacity in our strictly orthodox schools, particularly with boys at secondary, to meet that possible demand. So that's working with our existing schools to see if they could increase their pan even more. And finally, members may want to lobby to the DFE to exempt independent faith schools from this VAT exemption. So rather than saying every independent school is going to have to now pay VAT, if a school and the community within that school haven't got a state option, so as I said, a number of those 3,000 pupils wouldn't want to go into any of our state schools because they don't meet their faith requirements, then it would seem unfair that they said there's a blanket policy across all schools. So I know pages and I know other organizations are lobbying the DFE to say could there be some exceptions for schools when there isn't really a state alternative. Maybe the members might want to do that as well. Thank you, Neil, for that course of action. Can I ask members if they have any comments? Councillor Longstaff? Yeah, I just wondered if you'd done any analysis, both on non-faith schools and on independent private schools, if a few more people decide that they decide to go to private schools because of the increase in VAT, sorry, the addition of VAT, what happens when the school decides to close? Do we have any analysis of the school potentially saying, well, actually, we just can't afford to carry on? Then potentially you've got even… Yes, I mean, we've had one school contacting us and saying exactly that, that if this comes in in January, then their school isn't going to be financially sustainable and they may have to look to close. So clearly that would mean to try and find places for those children. But that's a factor. You know, it's not just about parents not being able to afford the fees. It's about schools not being able to be financially sustainable, potentially closing. Nigel? Thank you. Thank you very much, Neil, for your comprehensive explanation of the issues around Jewish schools. I wonder if are there any Muslim schools in Barnet and are there any issues around those situations? We have one Muslim independent school and so if that school closed or the parents were looking for a state option, there isn't a state Muslim school. So I should have said, by the way, I should have mentioned this before, that our statutory responsibility is just to provide places. We don't have to provide faith places. So we meet our responsibility by having enough places for the number of children who want a place. Now, obviously, we wanted the moral imperative is to make sure that it's a place that's going to be appropriate for their needs and particularly their faith needs. But our state schools are multicultural, as you know, and so there's quite a high Muslim population in our state schools currently. So we would hope that for state schools that they would be satisfied with the education they're going to get in one of our state schools. Do you know enough about that Muslim school to know whether the parents are strictly orthodox, if I may use the Jewish expression, and therefore perhaps reluctant to go to a multicultural state school? I don't, but we would need to work with those schools in the same – that school in the same way we would be working with Jewish schools as well. Have you been working with that school? We have had conversations with that school previously, yeah. Thank you. Councillor Navon Thiro? So if a independent school wants to close because the parents can't afford – because of the VAT situation, and if they're a good and outstanding school, will there be a consideration to take that into a state sector? So there's a process. Obviously, it needs the willingness of the school to want to be a state school, and some schools wouldn't want to be. But if they did want to be a state school, then they have to follow the criteria I said that maybe the council needs to re-look at again, particularly because of Ofsted. But that's how the schools like Noah, Menorah, Grammar, and others previously to that have become state schools, because they've followed the process, they've completed the information that we need. I can understand it's the council's responsibility to be making sure that they're taking on a school that is in a good way, both financially and educationally. And so that's what they need to demonstrate to become a state school. Obviously, there is some financial implications if a school becomes a state school, particularly which part of the financial year they become a state school, because that might have some drains on the – Thank you for that very detailed response to the question, and thank you, Raisal Friedman, for raising that. So the comments from members have been noted, and now we're going to move back over to agenda item eight, which is the Barnet Young residents' perception survey. So for this, we have Ben Thomas and Rosie Evangeline who will join us online. Excuse me, are we not meant to make a decision on that members' item? Okay, would members like to agree the recommendations that Neil has put forward? Could Neil just summarize? Yeah, could you summarize the recommendation? It says in point 31, do nothing, request an officer for a report, refer to cabinet, request a report represented at a future date. Surely, we need to select which one we would choose. I think Neil suggested some differing ones. So, I mean, some weren't really anything to act on. One is where I said we would welcome independent school pupils into our state schools where appropriate. There's no decision there. We've got time to deal with this. That's not a recommendation. So the ones to think about is looking at the current criteria for independent schools. My personal view on this item is that there's no further action for this committee because we are undertaking all of the actions that we've set out. And they are quite comprehensive unless they're, you know, writing a report would be exactly the same as we've given you. There's nothing to escalate to cabinet because there's nothing apart from when we get to a point of writing a new framework because of the offset changes, not because of the fact changes. And we've set out a whole range of things that we put in place. So my personal view, if you, you know, but it's for members to decide, is that there's no further action for this committee because we have debated it. And we've given you a very thorough, comprehensive answer to what the council is doing. Could this committee not request, for example, that Barnet lobby the DFE on behalf of Barnet with this report and call for an exemption on faith schools as part of this VAT taxation change? We did. Neil did suggest that there was an opportunity for members to write a letter, whether it would be a letter exempting all faith schools. That's a very different thing to what was proposed. My understanding is what Neil is proposing is that we write a letter where there are no state alternatives, that there should be an exemption. And I don't think we are happy to draft a letter in that in that line. But that's not one of the things that's on that list of things that you read out from the approach. But we are suggesting we write a letter that talks about those faith groups where there are no state alternatives. Perhaps because they're in the consultation open at the moment, I had raised this with Neil, and I appreciate that the timeframe is now very short because the consultation closes at midnight on Sunday evening. Perhaps Barnet could submit some form of abbreviated report based on the number that Neil's already kind of pulled together to say that there is no suitability by other submissions to the consultation. I know that pages and other charities and faith groups, the IFC have pulled together. Chris or Neil, would you like to respond to that? I'm not convinced that we would respond to that consultation with that level of detail. We can write a letter that sets out some particular concerns that we have, and I think that's proposing that we do. This is this is not a decision for Barnet as a local authority. The consultation should be directly affected and parents who are directly affected. So my view is that we can write a letter setting out what some of the challenges might be to ministers from council. But I don't think we should do any any more than that at this stage. But happy raisal, if you are having discussions with the department for me to be involved in those discussions, to be able to give a barnet context. Perfect. Even a letter to ministers would be helpful. So I think maybe, Neil, we can take it forward. And would that be circulated to this committee members as well? Can we make sure that's added to a follow up recommendation? OK, we just wanted to clarify if the letter is going to come from the committee. It seems there's two things. The consultation is open and anyone can respond to the consultation. I don't think I should be responding to the consultation on behalf of the whole of Barnet, but I'm happy to contribute to the discussions with the department with a letter to say what the barnet context is. Is the committee happy with that course of action? Yeah. OK, thank you. OK, so we'll move on to agenda item eight, which was the barnet young residents perception survey. Well, pass over to Ben and Rosie online. You've been patiently waiting. Thank you. Thank you, chair. So we're not going to go through all the slides that were in the appendix in the pack in detail, but I'm just going to go through some of the background. And then Rosie is going to talk through a couple of slides on the specifics of the data. So the young residents perception survey happened in two years. It's with young residents aged 11 to 18, and it's undertaken by an independent research company called ORS, who also did the previous survey. And this is actually the fifth one that we've done, the fifth wave of the survey. The first was done in autumn 2016, and then there have been subsequent surveys in 2017, 19 and 21, 22. The survey is done alongside the adult survey and is part of the strategic vision to make Barnet a family friendly borough and improve outcomes by listening to the voices of children and young people, listening to what they're concerned about, what's important to them, and then using that to inform strategies and plans going forwards. So 500 Barnet young people were interviewed between December 23 and March 24. And ORS had quotas on age, gender and ethnicity to make sure it was a cross-section of Barnet's young people and is representative of the population. So the survey provides important insight on what young people think about living in the borough, their perception of the council, the services they receive. And it also helps to understand young people's priorities and concerns. There is, of course, also the bright spot survey, which is specifically for children in care and care leavers, which which was reported on earlier in the year. So the presentation in the appendix provides a lot of the detail and we'll look at a little bit of that in a moment. But the results show that the majority of indicators are in line with the last survey and the previous findings and in particular satisfaction with the local area. With Barnet being a family friendly borough, young people remain broadly in line with the previous survey. In terms of the demographic breakdown and in particular in qualities, there are some clear themes with some groups of young people less likely to be satisfied in specific areas. So that's if they have a disability, if they live in the Burnt Oak, Hendon or Colindale North Ward, if they live in a low deprivation area, if they're of mixed or multiple ethnic backgrounds or if they're female. And a lot of these things are actually similar to what was found in the adults survey. So a joint action plan being worked on and a report began to Cabinet in November about this. So that was all I wanted to say. I just want to hand over to Rosie. Thanks Ben. Should I share my presentation? You can see a presentation there. Can you have a? We do have a screen to view the presentation. Yeah, that's OK. Great. So, yeah, thanks Ben for introducing that. And as Ben says, I'm just going to go through some of the highlights. It's very positive. What I'm just going to go through is some of the key image indicators and that are positive. And then just look at some more negative findings and then we'll look at some concerns and some further segmentation. So the slide you can see now is it's what we see as our core indicators and you can see we're doing. I'm just going to stop you there because we actually can't see any slides. Oh, oh, just sorry. Let me just go back. We're very happy for you to just continue presenting without the slides either way. So please don't fall under any pressure. OK, I'll just try one more time and see what happens. You see the slides now? We've got them now. Thank you. OK, I'll just start. OK, so these are the core indicators that I was talking about. So you can see the more we've got high satisfaction levels on these. So the majority of our young people are happy with Barnet as a place to live, agree we're a family friendly place, we're doing a good job, agree young people have their say on things and protect people from harm. The keeping informed is pretty much in line, what is still high and pretty much what in line what we normally get on how young people feel they're informed. So just in terms of satisfaction with the local area, this is actually in line with the last time, and you can see also in line with the adult survey. In terms of segmentation on this, disabled young people are less likely to be happy with their local area. And in terms of Barnet being friendly, again this is in line from the last wave and slightly higher than the adult survey. In terms of segmentation, again we've got disabled young people less likely to say this, and then young people living in Burntoke, Colindale and the Henford constituency. These are some other image of the council questions. So you can see 8 out of 10 of our young people think the council is doing a good job, but there has been a slight drop since its peak in 2019. So there's been a slight decline there. Providing service that young people need. This is in line with the last wave, but we did have a peak in 2017. And protecting people from harm, that's pretty much in line with 2021/22. So anything, and just to clarify that what Ben said earlier, anything that is above plus or minus 4.2%, that's when it's a significant change. But when it's anything below plus or minus 4.2%, that means it's in line with the previous survey, so just to clarify that. And then these are the indicators in terms of image of the council that received the lowest satisfaction levels, but still good. But what we can see is they're back in line with our 2019 findings, and there was a peak just as we're coming out of COVID, but they've returned back to the pre-demic pandemic levels. So this is an indicator that surprised us a little bit. So satisfaction in the primary and secondary education have seen a decline since the peak in 2021/22. So services for support for children and young people, that's remained in line with previous years. But what I will show you is the satisfaction, it doesn't mean that more young people have got dissatisfied with our primary education, secondary education, and what's happened is young people are now saying they're neutral or they don't know. There hasn't been an increase in dissatisfaction, it's just that they're more indecisive this year. So all the way through, there's quite an interesting data set on young people's concerns, and I've actually brought this one up in terms of personal safety. So young people actually still rate knife crime as their top concern, but you can see that's actually dropped. The number of young people saying it's their top concern has dropped compared to 2021/22, and actually concern for gangs has also remained the concern. What's happened is that we added two new options this year, so this has actually shifted where people are saying their top concerns are. So these two new concerns are safety of girls and hate crime, and that they're third and fourth. And I know we're very interested in the hate crime at the moment. It's quite worrying that one in four young people do see that as a concern. So I thought I'd just bring up the segmentation on this particular slide, but throughout the presentation you have, we have done deep dives on everything so we can start to look at who's more concerned. So in terms of our protected characteristics, we can see there's nothing coming up in knife crime, but in terms of area, Burntoke and Colentail North are more concerned about knife crime. So you can see all these different types of concerns from our different groups and different wards, and it's very well worth actually reflecting back on this and how this segmentation will help us start to prioritize our resources. And just to add, what we have done across the indicators is looked at the average in terms of segmentation groups across the indicators where those groups showing they're less happy. So on the left-hand side, we can see that disabled young people are across the board more likely to be unhappy. Those living in areas of low deprivation, which might sound surprising to you, but when you actually look at some of the indicators. Interestingly, those areas, things like being listened to, being aged, young people living in low deprivation areas are more likely not to feel listened to, so that there's probably, that might be sort of feeling ignored. But that's an indicator, a very interesting finding that I don't think we've seen before, and then mixed ethnic background, female young people, but those are the top segmentations where they're feeling less happy. In terms of the survey, and then we've done the same with wards. So you saw in that concern for safety, Burns, Herkon, Collindale was coming out, but across the board, the west of the borough are less, lower than the average. So that's a very quick whistle tour of what we've actually already sent to you, and Ben touched on the next step. So yes, we're bringing combined reports of the findings from the adults and the young person survey to the November cabinet, which will, as well as looking at what the Children's Partnership Board might be doing, or Children's Services, looking across the services, what other recommendations our services can bring to this, for example, parks and open spaces and community safety. So that's a very top tour of the presentation that's been shared with you. Thank you, Rosie and Ben. Do members have any questions? Councillor Baker? Thank you very much for that. It was really rich in detail. There were some really positive outcomes there. My thoughts are where you have, obviously, we often, you know, when we're scrutinising, tend to kind of dive towards the negative, and where there are dips in the results from last year to this year, and where they were quite low last year and they're still low this year. I wonder what kind of, if young people aren't feeling as valued as they did, and if they don't fill the Council, if there's an increase in the amount of fill the Council in any more detail. I mean, in terms of analysis, we are looking at a bit more analysis in terms of across the board, what indicators are driving certain things, so there will be more analysis on that. And there is potential to do more qualitative research, but in terms of what other actions Ben's team is thinking about, if you would like to come in on that, Ben? Yeah, following the last survey, we actually did a lot of qualitative work. We did around a whole series of focus groups. So I think we will do some more qualitative work after this one as well, looking at these specific areas as part of that, bringing together the joint action plan. Thank you for that. Will there be a comprehensive action plan as a result of this? Yes, that's part of the report that's coming in November to Cabinet. Thank you. Councillor Leutscher, page 81 where it looks at where the young people feel most safe has seen a decline in every area except for local parks since 2016. And that's just their perception of how they feel. But is there any research done to actually... I don't think that there is. I'll ask Tina, actually, because she might have some insights through the work of... We're feeding that back. I've got to speak in my mouth. We'll choke on it. We're feeding that feedback back into the Safer Community Partnership against the action plan so that we track to them so that they... Thank you. If I could just come back. So if you look at the top one, which is schools, and that's gone down 4%. And I assume that this survey is anonymized, but you may be able to work out which schools that they attend. It would be interesting to know that if that 4% comes from certain schools, and then if you average it out, it's a higher drop in those schools than in others when you average it all out. And whether or not you can actually go back to the schools and say you've got a bit of a problem here. It's interesting you say that, Councillor Longstaff, because I looked at the... We don't identify the schools, but it identifies the ward where the school was lowest. And so I looked at all of those wards, and those wards have got really good schools in those wards. So it's clear to do with the perception of the schools rather than actually the quality of the schools. I'm expecting it to be in certain areas where maybe there are some potentially underperforming schools, but they weren't. So they weren't in areas where there was any sort of underperformance of our schools. It's an interesting one. I think with regards to the schools, the last time the survey was done was just after children returned to school, after the lockdown. So I think there was probably an elation of being back to school at that point. Whereas now things are back to normal, as it were. Thank you, Councillor Hutton. Sorry, Chair. Was it the same percentage of young people that did the surveys, the same number of respondents, roughly? Yes, it was 500 for both. Sorry, I'll be comparing like with like, is what I was saying. Thank you, Councillor Naranthiram. My question is also relating to school, but in a different way. So I'm concerned about Collindale North, Burnt Oak, Hendon, because those words are on my board and the Hendon constituency. So will there be to take it forward? Will there really be an idea to work with the schools to find out why the kids are thinking that way or is that not appropriate? As I said, I'm not concerned about any schools in those areas. If there were schools in those areas that weren't working well with us or were, we were concerned with performance, we would already be working with them. We have schools causing concern who we work with and they're across the borough. But there's nothing particularly in those wards that would find why there particularly was a lower score in those wards. About the standards of the school I'm talking about. If you sort of work with the schools and probably you can find out why they are saying that's what I'm saying, that the schools, I know the schools are in those wards. They are good schools. Yeah, we shared this data with our learning network inspectors. And so each school has got a learning network inspector. And so they were going to be speaking to the schools about that survey. But there's nothing that's come back of any interest really, of any light of why there might be a lower score. We also don't know which school it is in the area. And due to the social status and things like that, because those wards are considered to be poorer wards. Could that be -- That's not what we've seen, no. Nigel? Thank you very much. I'm looking at page 82 of the report which we've just heard spoken about. And it names the personal safety concerns of young people. And the top four are these. Life crime, gangs, safety of girls, hate crime. Now, this is therefore hearing from the young people what concerns them. And therefore, what can -- I'm asking myself what can Barnet do about that. Now, one quick response might be, well, it's up to the police. But I'm not sure if that's the right answer. So I wonder what coordinated activity Barnet might consider doing in its action plan coordinating with other agencies such as the police to help alleviate these concerns that these young people have. Because we also know that a lot of young men carry -- when they carry knives, they carry them because they carry them for their own safety. And that issue needs to be addressed, obviously. And it's a coordinated approach, I think, that would do it. So please could you consider in your action plan some action to do with those top four concerns that young people have? Tina, did you want to respond? I look forward to your next report showing lower levels of fear. That's the aim, definitely. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ben and Rosie, for joining us online. We understand that there will be a report later on in the year which will have its own set of recommendations. But as for now, does the committee agree the recommendations are set out in the papers? Yes, agreed. Thank you very much. So we will be moving on to agenda item 9, which is our family services quarterly update, which as many of you know is our regular report on family services performance data. However, this time it also includes the outcome from the recent Ofsted inspection. I'm sure you'd all agree that we want to take the time out to congratulate Chris and his team for the fabulous results. So I will pass over some inspections and I'm very satisfied that the outcome is OK. And thanks to all of the staff and leaders within the service for bearing with us during that process. And we've put in the report an update about our service and how that is progressing. And Tina will be happy to take any questions in relation to that. And we've put in in in the report an update of the healthy child program. You'll be aware that we've moved the provision from a previous provider into the Whittington Health Trust. And that's setting out all of the things that have been done, which is significant progress over over the time that they've had the service. We've agreed to begin to implement the MOU for young carers, which is about no wrong doors. And we'll continue to work on delivering that. That memorandum. And finally, within the report, there's a there's an update and a strategy document around tackling child exploitation, which Tina will talk to. But overall, performance remains solid. There's a whole range of data that we've given you for your comment and questions. And particular focus on the offset and the work that we're doing on tackling extreme. Exploitation. So how do you take any questions, Tina? Do you want to say a few things about the exploitation strategy? Thank you for the report. On page 100 at the top, talking about care leavers, it says care leaver in touch data is currently 100 percent for both 17 and 19, which is very good. And I wondered how how long you might keep in touch with young people. One of the reasons I'm asking you, I was talking to somebody from Live Unlimited the other day, and she was particularly concerned when they reached the age of 25. She felt that some of them keep in touch with them until they 21. But we carry on until they're 25. We also have pledged a lifelong office. So after 25, we make sure that they know that they can contact us at any point. And we have a care experience. Young people are in their 30s that make contact with us for advice or just to tell us about life, life events. So I think that having it at 100 percent is what we want to make. So that's about emails and WhatsApps and telephone calls and sometimes visits. So it's a whole range of different ways that we keep in touch with our young people. But it's indeed us. Thank you. The strategy reads really well. It's really clear and it was really good to see as a governor, I've had responsibility for safeguarding for the last five years. I still have this kind of key to safe education policies. It was really, it was really actually helpful to see this and to think about this in relation to safeguarding policies that we have in our school as well. I'm just wondering what engagement you're having with schools, particularly on this strategy. If I could just add also all of these strategies then go to the designated safeguarding leave a briefing every six weeks for designated safeguarding leaves in schools. And so Tina's team have come along to those briefings to them and introduced new strategies. Thank you. Question from Rizal Friedman. Thank you so much. Again commending Barnet on the outstanding upstairs and also this absolutely fantastic Child Exploitation Strategy document. In 2020, I worked as one of their child safety operating protocol for the Jewish community because there was, there has been a lack of a focus in terms of plug into all of the excellent support that is available. And I note that in the exploitation strategy in 6.2, there is a desire to improve representation with marginalized communities and ensure the unique experiences, cultural and background are considered in terms of support, engagement and awareness raising. And I just wondered whether there might be a place before this is published to perhaps have an appendix or notation where it can be more specifically referencing the Jewish community. And as you so expertly know, you know, they are part of those ethnic communities where they are quite that much more vulnerable to exploitation as we've seen with really unfortunate cases. Thank you. Can I ask members if they agree the recommendations? Tamsin, you had a question? Thank you. I'm just conscious that we've still got a few agenda items to get through. So I just want to thank officers for their report and I'm just going to invite Stella to just summarize what's been agreed as a recommendation. Chair, I just want to clarify that it seems that they've constructed it by correcting it. Take that as agreed. Thank you. Okay. So we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is on elective home education, the task and finish group. As many of you will remember last year, this was selected as one of the task and finish groups, which was chaired by Councillor Wakeley. So I want to just take the time on behalf of the committee to thank Councillor Wakeley and the rest of the members who are undertaking this work. I know you had lots of meetings and lots of extra work over the year. So thank you very much. So essentially, the role of this committee is to consider the findings and determine if we wish to send the report and recommendations to cabinet to be agreed as a council policy. So we have Councillor Hutton, who's going to introduce the report, and we also have Lauren Johnson joining us online, who leads the EHE team. Oh, I have it here as Johnson. So Lauren Jackson. That's no problem, Stella. Councillor Hutton, should I pass over to you first? Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just very briefly. Yes, Councillor Wakeley chaired this, but I was also and some of the members of the committee. I think it was timely to look at this because there does seem to have been in the number of children educated at home. That's not specific to Barnet. I think that's overall. The terms of reference were to review changes with the Barnet team, and I would like to thank the officers who are involved in visiting family to include. Because at the moment, they don't have to register. I'll come back to that in a minute, because that's going to change. So it's very hard, I think, for officers to strike a balance between visiting family, trying to include families and offer services, whilst at the same time, I think the preferred option is mostly the children are better off in school. So that was one thing. We were looking at changes. The second was the rise in numbers since COVID, particularly. And the third thing was what can we do to ensure that all young people have access to the best education and feel included as Barnet citizens. So as I said, we looked at a range of people, including Lisa, who was here earlier, Dr. Star, head teachers, and took a range of evidence. So we still haven't -- nobody seems to have clarified what a suitable education is. That's what we have to look at to see if families are finding a suitable education. During the course of this, looking at this, London councils put forward a proposal that a register of families who want to educate their children at home should be drawn -- should be -- in fact, they should actually have to register with the local authority. And that's now, I think, going to be taken up at government level. And I think it's likely to become law. We are behind most other European countries, most other European countries at least. I don't know about America or Australia. Do -- if families do want to educate their children at home, then they have to register with the local authority and tell them that's what they're going to do. So that was briefly, and I think the recommendation -- we have -- we've got seven recommendations, so I'll pass back to the chair if anyone wants to have any comments. Does anyone have any comments? Yep, Councillor Naranthira. I'm really glad that we are actually getting there and getting a kind of a register of home-educated kids, and then we have got some kind of -- the council has got some kind of monitoring process that will be in place in future. That's very good to hear, so thank you for everybody who has worked on that. Thank you. We have Councillor Lemmon. Yeah, just a query. So notwithstanding there's some good stuff that came out of this report in terms of the outcomes, and now I believe the recommendation is it goes to the next cabinet meeting in October. But what about any associated costs with any of the recommendations? Should that be included before it goes to cabinet, or is that something that cabinet could say, well, we're not going to approve this until we have those costs? There are some recommendations that do have significant requirements, and we will be notifying cabinet when they make the decisions in regards to this stage, but that will be a decision for the cabinet to make, and if there are, with the resource requirements, finding the resources to enable that to happen because we don't have the budget to pay for something that's not statutory responsibility. A question from Naomi Phillips, and then to you, Councillor Baker. Thank you, and thank you to everyone who's taken the time to be on this task and finish the group. It was a really interesting report, and personally supported it. I just have a clarification question, if that's okay. And it may just be my misunderstanding of the figures, but I think my thing is that given that children, parents don't have to register their children as EHE, and then we do have a table with the numbers of EHE children in Barnet, do we have a sense of how many people that doesn't include at all? I mean, is it okay? In terms of the use of AI and teaching so teachers now have to monitor that work will be a cost to the exam centre, so you'll have to, you know, things we have to consider here. Our concern, our major concern is the proposals around the examinations cost to connect to at this stage. Questions from Councillor Hutton and then Councillor Longstaff. Yeah, it's also a question, I mean, these were the recommendations that came from the group, so I didn't put that at the time, but it's also a question of how we know the child is ready to take an exam, because if they're in the school system, then that's obvious, but otherwise, so I rather agree that I think from that record about, I think that would be quite difficult. Thanks, Councillor Hutton. Can I ask Lauren to answer it, just so that there was a reason for her to attend the meeting, it would be nice if we heard from her. Lauren, do you want to answer that? We wouldn't know whether a child who's home educated is ready to take an exam, would we? No, we wouldn't. Could we just be going on the parents' views? Yeah, because the parents are ultimately responsible, so they would be tracking whether the child is ready to take a GCSE or not. So you're right, Councillor Hutton, the parent could say my child is ready, there's some money spent for her or him to do that exam and actually there's no chance that they're going to pass it. And I think there might be the temptation to say, oh, we'll put him in for it, you know, see how well he does. But simply if it's funded. And, you know, it's that, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I think that's an issue to look at. Lauren just wanted to come in and add to her response. No, I was going to say the only other way is because you have an EHE teacher, but then her time would be taking up reviewing preparations for GCSEs and not reviewing everybody else. So I don't know how manageable that would be in reality for our EHE teacher to be checking whether people are ready. Thank you. We'll finish off with Councillor Longstaff's question. It seems to be that one person's gone off to do their exam, probably in the main for that ten days at least. And yet somebody has to wait ten days and can't get their child into that school until somebody actually decides, yeah, yeah, I'm fine with all this. In a very strange way, somehow whilst it's best practice for the child who used to go to that school, best practice for parents who may wish their child to get to that school. We implemented that, Lauren, when we revised the policy last time. Do you want to just give the reasoning why that was brought in, the ten day grace period? Yes. So it's not a full ten days, it's up to ten days. And the ten days are there to really put some safeguarding in for children that are going to be EHE. And it allows us time to have an exit meeting with the family in the school. It allows us time to check with parents that EHE is actually what they chose and not what maybe the school are asking them to do or if they feel under pressure. But it's not always ten days. Sometimes it's two days, sometimes it's five, depending on our checks. Now, parents who are opting for EHE, you know, as a lifestyle choice, don't normally choose to do it on the 1st of September, preventing a place for someone else. That's normally a choice that's made at the end of an academic year in preparation for the child's next year. Those that are suddenly doing it in September, it's normally due to a knee jerk reaction, which is why we need those ten days. Maybe they've gone back in September, fallen out with the school and we need those ten days to repair that. And I'd much rather that than them going off to be EHE when they could stay at school. And then also, if there is a knee jerk reaction and a parent says I'd like to be home educating my child, the school then fills that place and then two days later they change. They can't go back. They can't then go back to the school because the school's filled the place. So that's why we're giving them a bit of leeway with regards to their decision making, but also to do the safeguarding check that Lauren mentioned. Thank you. It just seems a bit for those who are waiting. Their anxieties are equally as important as those who have made a choice to leave. There are just a couple of other points that are not questions. It was just that on the page 28, there's a reference to a 13, which I didn't understand. And on page 29, there's a reference. On that basis, does the committee agree to send the report and the recommendations to Cabinet? Sorry, Anne? Thank you, Chair. My question is in relation to school or are they going to be considered as private candidates? I'm enjoying this item because all I'm saying is, Lauren. Well, unfortunately, Anne cut out a lot, so I missed half the question. So the question was, if a child does do an exam at an exam centre, where do those statistics of that child's achievement go? Does it go on to the school's achievement? If they do the exam at the Pavilion, for example, does that go on Pavilion statistics about the GCSE pass rate? So I think historically Pavilion have done it as private candidates, but if we've used a school, then it's used on the schools, the school of taking it. But I think with the Pavilion, they've been able to do it as private. But don't quote me because we've not had that many. But they're not put on role of that school. No, no, no, no. I don't think they would feature on the school's achievement statistics because they're not a child that's on that role. So they wouldn't be on any statistics apart from EHE statistics, which I don't think exist. That's right. Thank you. Before you go ahead with the question, I've just been asked if you can clarify the comments that you had made. We just want to make sure that the numbers you were referring to weren't just the footnotes. Hi, it's Fiona Ray. So the 13 and 14, I think we can make them more superscript, if that helps, but they refer to the references at the bottom of the page. So there's like kind of a reference to where we've used information from other sources. And by taking point, they do look a bit big so we can make them a bit smaller. They're obviously referring to the footnotes. Is that what you mean, those ones? In the meantime, that has been noted. Okay. We have agreed that they're going to make it a little bit smaller just to make it clear that that is a footnote. So can I just get the committee to agree to send this report and the recommendations to cabinet? Right. Thank you. So we'll move on to agenda item 11, which is very short. Essentially, it's just on the task and finish group updates paper. Just asking the committee if you have any comments. No comments. Perfect. So we'll move on to agenda item 12, which is the cabinet form plan. Essentially, that's the cabinet for plan for 2024-25. The subcommittee are requested to consider any items that they may wish to request for pre-decision scrutiny during 2024-25. Thank you, Chair. So Fiona Ray of the Unscrutiny Manager, as the chair says, it's just to get any in if people want any of those items on our work program. It's probably good to read it in conjunction with the next item as well, which is the committee's work program. If there's any comments, we can take them now or outside of the committee, if that's helpful. So as Fiona mentioned, you can raise this now or you can follow up later in writing. Is that correct? Right. Okay. We'll be at agenda item 13, which is the scrutiny work program. This report sets out the work program for the children education overview and scrutiny subcommittee. Does the committee have any comments on the work program? No? Okay. So I guess that brings us to the end of the meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]

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