The Cabinet considered a report of the Executive Director (Children and Public Health) presenting the revised version of the Southend SEND Strategy.

Resolved:

1. That the minutes of the Children, Learning and Inclusion Working Party held 19 January 2023, as set out at appendix 2 to the submitted report, be noted.

2. That the revised SEND Strategy, set out at appendix 1 to the report, be approved.

3. That it be noted that the Southend SEND Strategy, once approved, would cover the period April 2022 to March 2026.

4. That the Southend SEND Strategy be produced in a range of formats so that it is accessible to a range of audiences and can be shared in a variety of formats.

Reasons for decision:

It is widely acknowledged that SEND is a joint area responsibility encompassing partners from education, health and care and the children, young people and families they support and therefore a specific coproduced SEND Strategy outlining priorities for the next 3 years is recommended.  Publishing the SEND Strategy was a recommendation of both the WSOA and the Peer Review.

Other options:

The SEND partnership could continue to operate without a formal published strategy or subsume the SEND Strategy into a wider Council Policy but this would not be deemed good practice and would not reflect that the SEND offer in Southend is delivered in partnership with other agencies and not solely by the Council.

Note: This is an Executive Function

Eligible for call-in to: People Scrutiny Committee

Cabinet Member: Cllr Burton