Being a public servant is about doing all you can to help the citizens you work for, especially those most in need of support. That’s what I promised when I became cabinet member for vulnerable children and families and that is what I am passionate about, and I am whole-heartedly committed to delivering on improving services to all our children, young people and their families.

I took on the portfolio with the service being in disarray; we'd had churn in service leadership and a damning Ofsted reinspection with unacceptable weaknesses in the SEND service. Things are improving but the scale and breadth of change needed will take time to be realised.

This is not dissimilar to our children’s social care improvement which has been a long journey; Birmingham Children’s Trust was established a few years ago and the improvements have continued, and we are finally making what we anticipate being rated as good progress.

Key to our improvement journey must be stable leadership which we are now starting to put in place. This has begun with the appointment of a permanent Director of Children's Services and in the next few months we will have a new permanent staffing structure in place.

Communication and Co-production

One of the first things I heard very clearly when taking on this portfolio from our parents was that communication from the service was not good – families don’t feel listened to, are not having timely responses to issues raised and generally felt ignored. We have made efforts to change this and my mantra has been co-production and communication. We need to ensure all our processes and practices are co-designed by our young people and their families so changes will make a positive difference for them. They are, after all, the experts by experience. We have invested in our communications support and have recruited a co-production officer.

SENAR

We have doubled our SENAR case workers, so applications are now being progressed far more quickly. This is still far from ideal but we now have the basics established and we can start to improve this further.

The service has improved on the 20 weeks’ statutory compliance with Education, Health and Care Needs assessments, from 53% in April 2021 to 60% in December 2021 - this is a 12 month average and compares well to the 58% national average.

The percentage of young people who are NEET - Not in Education, Employment or Training - with an Education, Health and Care Plan has dropped from 9% in April 2021 to 6.1% in December 2021, bringing Birmingham closer to national performance of 2.5%.

The average wait time for Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) has also improved, from 75 weeks in April 2021 to 23 weeks in December 2021, as has the longest wait time for SLT from 128 weeks to 44 weeks in the same time period.

This many appear as if I am painting a rosy picture of current SEND services, but I am aware and I do hear on the ground from parents and families that the system is far from where it needs to be. I have heard some positive feedback which is great to hear, but I am not in denial and understand the service has a way to go, as many families are not yet feeling the impact.

I also recognise that we need to reach out to more parents and hear their views and experience as currently compared to the number of children and young people with SEND we only hear from a small proportion of them. We want to make sure that we get the views of as many as possible, so we can respond and improve practices and processes that make a positive difference to them. I would encourage as many parents as possible to join the Parent Carer Forum (PCF), as we are ensuring they are intrinsically linked into supporting us in our improvement journey and the PCF has a key seat on decision-making boards and are being linked into discussion on improvements.

Work is also underway to engage Children and Young People in the SEND improvement process and we are starting to hear from our RISE group about how they would like services and communication improved so that we can provide the best possible outcome for them.

One example of how we have listened and acted on feedback is the SEND Youth Forum/RISE Youth Forum saying that the word SEND itself is outdated and doesn’t represent them. These amazing young people asked that we join their campaign to replace it with Children with Additional Needs (CAN) where appropriate, which we have been very happy to do.

I also recognize that there are many more stakeholders that we could be working far more closely with, who are supporting children with SEND. We need to bring together these partners from the third and charitable sector so we can improve the outcomes and experiences of our children and young people. Also, our health partners are intrinsically involved in supporting health and care needs, we need to learn from each other and share and embed positive practices.

This year a considerable amount of work has been done to ensure that we met the statutory deadline to issue school phase transfer amendments, ensuring that children have a placement ready for September.

So, I’m really pleased to say that this year:

• 99.9% of Reception placements were confirmed
• 100% of Year 2 placements were confirmed
• 99.77% of Secondary placements were confirmed

This is compared to 0% in 2021, so a massive and much-needed improvement.

There is still so much that needs to be done; we are restructuring our SENAR service and work is underway to prepare for the phase transfer arrangements for September 2023 so we can get better at ensuring that these transfers go smoothly. I know as a parent myself the worry and concern parents have when it comes to key milestones in their child’s educational journey and this is compounded for parents of SEND as they know these, if not managed well, have a significant impact on their child’s development and an impact on their family's wellbeing. We need to be far, far better at supporting our children with SEND.

Home to school transport is improving; the team has reduced the backlog of bus pass applications from 1017 in February 2021 to 90 in February 2022; the volume of calls has dramatically reduced, reflected in a reduction in complaints. We currently have around 98% of all routes running effectively and on time; this is the start of the improvements.

Early Help

It is more vital than ever that we get help to people as early as possible so we can prevent problems becoming more serious. This not only improves the quality of life for young people and families, giving them better life chances, it reduces the risk of more costly interventions later.

Over the past few months, I have overseen the extension of grant funding of £7.5m for our city’s early help programme, which is delivered through the voluntary sector in 10 localities across the city, working alongside public sector partners.

Over the past 12 months the programme has helped more than 17,000 families, providing support, advice and guidance, including assessments, links to community resources and professional services.

Birmingham Children's Trust is doing great work, with the most recent Ofsted visit confirming children’s social care in Birmingham continues to improve. It is an area that requires strong leadership, highly committed and devoted staff, and a collective commitment to constantly improve services and support on offer to children, young people and families. This is what is being delivered daily and that children, young people and families are being given the best opportunities that we can provide.

We have over the last year supported the Holiday Activity Fund.

Our Birmingham Children's Trust has established the BFriends Charity, reaching out to our partners in business industry to support our young people leaving care identifying training and apprenticeship opportunities.

We’ve provided housing support to care leavers and lobbied government on lack of acute mental health beds for children and young people.

We are re-establishing the Childrens Strategic Partnership.

Corporate Parenting is re-looking at how elected members and all partners in the city can play a bigger part in supporting our children and young people.

Over the last few months I have met so many dedicated staff within SEND and our BCT, there is real commitment and there are many that go that extra mile to improve outcomes for our children, young people and families. I would like to thank them, and with fixing the senior management team we are now in a stronger position to see real improvements in our services to our young people.

I would like to thank Andy Couldrick and his team, and the Board of Trustees as they have been instrumental in supporting the changes needed. Also, a big shout out and thank you to Deborah Cadman for ensuring that we have a whole-council approach in supporting our children, young people and families. Sue Harrison has been amazing - not quite sure she knew what she was taking on – but she has already made such a difference, and the simple thing of changing the directorate's title to the Children and Families directorate signifies and reflects the change in direction alongside a new vision which signifies the need to put children and families first and foremost in all we do.

The appointment of the Commissioner in autumn last year was timely, as with his outside view he has been a very helpful, critical friend supporting us on this journey. Staff and members have been supportive and helpful with open and transparent reflections on how services were performing and previous challenges, not least the churn in senior management.

There is of course a long way to go. It is not going to be easy, but I am determined we can drive these through together with all stakeholders as our children and young people are everyone’s responsibility. I will not take my foot off pushing for improvements until we have achieved this; there is too much at stake and our children and young people so very much need for us to get it right.

This blog was posted on 17 March 2022.