Agenda item

Report of the Executive Director of People

The Cabinet considered a report of the Executive Director of People, which set out the proposed Education Service redesign.

The report indicated that the Council had a strong education partnership with the Coventry Family of Schools, putting the needs of children and young people at the heart of everything it did.  This was captured in the vision for education services: “As champions of children: Successful partnership working enables children, young people and adults to access high quality education and learning, develop resilience, make positive life choices and contribute to a vibrant Coventry city; and to lift the cloud of limitation for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and enable their entitlement to an ordinary life.”

Coventry’s overall performance continued to improve and the city now had a higher percentage of pupils in good or outstanding schools (88%) than the national average. This local improvement was set in the context of a very challenging financial environment for both the local authority and for schools. 

The redesign of Coventry’s Education Services, in collaboration with Coventry schools, was aimed at enabling services to be fit for purpose for Coventry children and young people, offering services that schools value and dealing with grant cuts in a managed way. 

Management proposals were outlined at the start of a consultation on 3rd October 2016 and the consultation ended on 23rd November 2016. This provided the opportunity for staff and other stakeholders to feedback views. The proposals for implementation outlined in the report took account of this feedback. There had been strong collaboration with schools on the development of the model throughout and the final proposals were discussed with the Primary and Secondary Executive Headteacher groups who gave full support and agreement to the outline proposals.

Appendix A of the report set out detailed descriptions of the teams and services in scope, alongside the original proposals.  Appendix B, provided a summary of consultation feedback, the corresponding management response and the final proposals and recommendations for implementation, which reflected the outcome of the consultation process.

The proposals summarised in the report were in relation to the Hospital Education Service (including Pregnant School Girls Unit); Coventry Extended Learning Centre; Coventry Performing Arts Service; Work Related Learning Team;  School Improvement; Minority Group Support Services; Special Educational Needs (SEN) Statutory Assessment and Provision Team; Educational Psychology; SEN Early Years Foundation Team; Social Emotional Mental Health and Well-being Team; Complex Communication traded offer; and the Sensory Team offer.

The Cabinet noted that the report had been considered by the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee at their meeting on 18^th January 2017, and that a briefing note outlining their recommendations was circulated.  In particular, in addition to endorsing the recommendations to Cabinet, they recommended that scrutiny be kept updated of any further changes as a result of evaluation, especially those services traded with schools and expressed their thanks and appreciation to the Director of Education, Libraries and Adult Education and all the team involved in the successful consultation process which informed the development of the new Education Service model.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet:-

1.  Accept the additional recommendation and comments from the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee.

2.  Note the collaborative approach with schools to develop this new Education Service model

3.  Approve the implementation of the proposed new Education Service model.

4.  Delegate authority to the Director Education, Libraries & Adult Learning in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Education and the Schools Forum, to identify and approve the usage of any over delivery in Dedicated Schools Grant savings pending the outcome of the current Dedicated Schools Grant funding consultation.