The Northamptonshire Integrated Care Partnership was scheduled to meet to discuss integrated neighbourhoods, the changing role for Integrated Care Boards¹, progress on the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Action Plan, the Anchor Institutions Network, and Care Quality Commission (CQC) assurance for local authorities.

SEND Action Plan Progress Update

The meeting was scheduled to include a progress update on the SEND Action Plan from Ben Pearson, Assistant Director Education, West Northamptonshire Council, and Charisse Monero, Director Childrens Services, North Northants Council. A SEND progress update from both West Northamptonshire and North Northamptonshire is a standing agenda item for these Partnership meetings. At the previous meeting on 28th January 2025, Ben Pearson, Assistant Director Education, WNC, the West Northants Voices in Partnership (WNVP) representative and the Chief Nursing Officer, ICB gave a progress update on the SEND provision in West Northamptonshire and highlighted that:

• West Northants Voices in Partnership is a parent carer forum that collates voices from children, young people and their families to get a true picture and reflection of their experience with the SEND provision in West Northamptonshire, and this information is fed back to WNC officers to help improve services.
• Mrunal Sisodia, who is a parent carer and has represented parent carer forums nationally and locally, has been appointed as an independent Chair to the West Northants SEND Board.
• There are long waiting times to get assessments and the right support in place, and a child needs to have an assessment completed before SEND support can be put in place. Health partners are working with the voluntary and community sector to offer support for families who are waiting for an assessment.
• The demand for SEND assessments has significantly increased both locally and nationally, which has been exasperated by COVID19 pandemic.

• The West Northamptonshire SEND partnership has 4 workstreams:

  • Partnership and leadership develop clarity in communication, collaborative working, a SEND Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) and Joint SEND Commissioning Plan. The JSNA will provide intelligence on the impact of a late diagnosis/assessment has on children, young people and their families.
  • Right Support, Right Time, Right Place to have early intervention and prevention, stopping families reaching crisis point before receiving support. This would include ensuring that all schools and early years providers are delivering the best quality SEND provision to children and young people.
  • Timeliness and Quality of Assessments and EHC Plans there is a national and local pressures on timeliness of issuing EHC Plans². WNC have invested and expanded the EHC Team to ensure there is sustainable improvement in the timeliness and quality of EHC Plans.
  • Transitions and PfA making sure the transition from childhood to adult is seamless as possible. This includes discussions with potential employers, highlighting that young people with SEND can add value to a workforce, as well as informing young people and families the employment provision that is available.

• Every SEND provision measure is being monitored in a quantitative and qualitive way, to track if improvements are being made to children, young people and families lives.

• A survey has been designed by young people to measure outcomes of the SEND provision.

The Director of Childrens Services, NNC gave a progress update on the SEND provision for North Northamptonshire and highlighted the following:

• North Northamptonshire had an OFSTED SEND inspection in early 2024 which identified several systemic challenges and areas of progress. Following this a priority action plan was developed including key actions to help mitigate against the key issues identified in the inspection.
• The SEND Partnership in North Northamptonshire has reset their transformational ambitions and objectives, including areas around alternative provision (AP), early help and neurodevelopmental pathways.

• The priority action plan has several transformational strands, with each strand supported by a plan on a page:

  • Inclusion, belonging and early help Alternative Education and Belonging Strategy, AP provision and early help support for schools and early years providers.
  • SEND statutory processes improving the timeliness and quality of EHC Plans.
  • Complex intersectionality between high need and demand cross cutting across including neurodevelopmental pathway wait times, SLT wait times and community paediatrics.
  • Progression to adulthood wrap around care and support for children as they transition to adult services, including improving intergenerational experiences and outcomes.
  • Joint commissioning interface between SEND, education and children's social care. A SEND Joint Commissioning Strategy is currently being developed, along with a SEND JSNA for North Northants.
  • Sufficiency working in partnership with schools to provide in-house AP, using community and family hubs.
  • Leadership and Strategy.

• The first NNC DfE stocktake took place in November 2024, where evidence of strong partnership was found, and a strong endorsement from the DfE for the direction of travel.

• NNC have made a £700k investment into SEND over the past 12 months and the timeliness for EHC Plans has increased to 57.6%. This year there have been 900 EHCP assessments compared to 450 EHCP's the previous year.

• A Rapid Response Strategy was developed and implemented, looking at out of time assessments as well as new assessments. A 10 week ECHP Advisory Board has been created, which includes a wide range of partners and tracks every child at 10 weeks.

• The Quality Assurance Programme around EHC Plans has been developed, and a EHCP Quality Assurance Officer is being recruited.

• From February 2025 the EHCP service will be moving to a locality model and become permanent in April 2025.

• There is an increasing number of permanent exclusions from schools which is resulting in an increased number requiring AP.

• As part of the early help offer, there will be multi disciplinary squads for school communities from May 2025 and will include:

  • Education Early Help Navigators,
  • SEND Inclusion Navigators working with children pre and post EHCP.
  • Therapeutic practitioners to help children and young people who are suffering with SCMH, emotional dysregulation and anxiety disorders.
  • Trauma informed practice will be rolled out to all schools.

• There will be a 2-tiered digital support menu, an early warning flagging system for schools and an app that children, young people and families can access.

• All these practitioners will have training in dialectic behaviour therapy, motivational interviewing and early help skills.

• There is support from both academies and maintained schools for this model.

Anchor Institutions progress

The meeting was scheduled to include a discussion of the progress of the Anchor Institutions Network, with a presentation from Sadie Beishon, Public Health Principle, West Northants Council. The Anchor Institutions Network (AIN) contains a wide variety of public and private sector organisations as well as the voluntary sector. The AIN will work together to seek and agree best practice, to measure impact and hold each other to account and actively commit to the following workstreams:

• Empowering the next generation Reduction in numbers of children not in education, employment or training.
• Employment opportunities Increase employment rates and in groups most affected by inequalities and reduce recruitment gaps.
• Social value gained from local investment Local spend increased and maximising/reporting opportunities for social value.
• Enhancing sustainability To have a collective local assets and estates ambition and increase collective impact to achieving Net Zero. A sponsor is yet to be confirmed for this workstream.

Each of these workstreams will have a bronze, silver and gold approach. Organisations within the AIN will need to consider how they are developing employment opportunities for those with SEND or looked after children, along with how their providers are developing these opportunities. The AIN aligns with the 4th aim of Integrated Care Systems (ICS), 'Helping the NHS to support broader social and economic development', by helping member organisations broaden their social and economic development. Key actions that the AIN are progressing are:

• Mapping existing initiatives.
• Stronger network governance to provide accountability. The 4 workstreams will have a working group that will feed into the AIN Steering Group, who will then feed into the appropriate Board with this Partnership provide oversight on how the AIN are achieving the 4th aim of the ICS.
• Identify key roles within the AIN which will align with the governance action.
• Develop a progression framework, to provide clarity on what it means to be a member of the AIN.
• Raise communications and awareness of the AIN.

Since January 2025:

• The Anchor Institutions Network has attended both Place Boards to provide updates
• The Anchor Institutions Network steering group has been meeting monthly, overseeing updates from workstreams
• George Candler, Executive Director Place and Economy, North Northants Council, has been appointed to lead the Positive Employment Opportunities workstream, focusing on:
  • Key focus areas
• Colin Foster, Chief Executive, Northamptonshire Childrens Trust, has been appointed to lead the Empowering the Younger Generation workstream, focusing on:
  • Enrichment Offer for Young People
  • Initiatives for youth employment, work experience and apprenticeships
  • Pledge for Children in Care and Care leavers
• Stuart Finn has been appointed to lead the Enhancing Sustainability workstream, focusing on:
  • Sustainability funding bids
  • Travel and transport Shared skills, training, and resources
• Dave Maher, Deputy Chief Executive, Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust, has been appointed to lead the Maximising Social Value workstream, focusing on:
  • Corporate Volunteering Social Value Framework
  • Social Value in Procurement

A social value event was scheduled for 4th June 2025, with the following agenda:

1. Update on the overall Anchor Network / Introduction of workstream leads
2. Keynote Speaker - National Social Value Position
3. Corporate volunteering policies
   • Potential impact of corporate volunteering
   • Share good practice of policies
   • Showcase examples of how they do it well - Cummins - examples for west and north / different types roles of volunteering - UHN as a showcase
   • Volunteers to share their story and lived experience - highlight volunteer to career
4. Keynote Speaker – Local Social Value Impact
5. Social Value Policies / National Framework
   • Potential of social value impact
   • Overview of National Framework – where are we as organisations?
   • Showcase good examples – NHFT procurement policy / local spend
   • Pledges for accountability
6. Next Steps
   • How we will work together to make progress collectively

Other Business

The agenda also included the following items:

• Integrated Neighbourhoods - Chloe Gay, Jane Bethea, David Watts, Neil Cox and Nicki Adams were scheduled to give a presentation and lead a discussion on this topic.
• Toby Sanders, Chief Executive, NHS Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board, was scheduled to give a presentation on the changing role for Integrated Care Boards.
• David Watts and Neil Cox were scheduled to provide a verbal report on CQC assurance for local authorities and partners role in this.