Consultation on the Proposal to Reduce the Number of Residential Places Atrowdeford Special

Consultation on the proposal to reduce the number of residential places atRowdeford Special School, Rowde

Contact Details:

Susan Tanner/ Judith Westcott

Commissioning and Joint Planning

Children's Services

Wiltshire Council

Bythesea Road

Trowbridge

BA14 8JN

e-mail –

The Proposal Summary:

It is proposed that there is a small reduction in the number of residential beds at Rowdeford special school and that from September 2015 the local authority will commission the school to provide the equivalent of 16 residential beds which will –

Enable pupils to access residential provision more flexibly (without residential being specified on their statement) according to identified need and potential benefit.
Enable the school to plan for and meet the identified needs of pupils in a flexible and timely way.
Provide the school with a more stable financial footing for residential provision.
Reduce the administrative burden on the school and the local authority associated with the amendment of Education, Health and Social Care Plans (Statements previously).

Why is this consultation taking place?:

Before any major decision can be made about the future of a maintained school, there has to be consultation with those people likely to be affected by the change. The purpose of this document is to consult with parents and others with an interest in the future provision of special education residential provision for children in Wiltshire. This document gives you background information and asks for your views.

Background:

Rowdeford is a secondary school (11-16), co-educational special school for pupils with complex learning disabilities, some of whom have additional sensory impairments, physical difficulties or medical needs. The school provides for up to 130 pupils and up to 23 boarding places.

The school runs three boarding houses with 9, 7 and 7 beds respectively. Typically the children who access boarding at Rowdeford are at Bands 3 and 4 (where 1+ is the highest band and 5 is the lowest).

There are currently 21 pupils in residential places, however this will reduce to 16 at the end of this academic year.

For the local authority to consider that there is a need for a pupil to have residential provision there needs to be multi-agency agreement that

The child has severe or multiple special educational needs that cannot be met in local day provision;
The child has severe or multiple special educational needs that require a consistent programme both during and after school hours that cannot be provided by parents with support from other agencies;
The child has complex medical needs as well as learning needs that cannot be managed in local day provision and the placement is jointly funded by the health authority.

The current system of providing residential provision (only after an amended Education Health and Care Plan or statement has been issued) is onerous on the school, the family and the local authority in that it takes a significant amount of time, requires a lot of administrative and planning time, and can be unsettling for families. It also means that the school is not always able to meet a pupils’ needs in as timely a manner as it would like to.

Benchmarking data, carried out in 2011-12 as part of the CIPFA SEN Benchmarking Club, has indicated that the proportion of residential provision within Wiltshire special schools is high compared with other authorities and that care costs are significantly higher.

Wiltshire’s special schools had 114 boarding places, 99 of which were occupied at the time of the benchmarking exercise; that is 1 per 1000 population. This is five times higher than the comparison group (of 20 other LAs) which averaged 0.2 per 1000 population.

Care costs in Wiltshire were £43 per 1000 population compared to an average of £11 per 1000 population. However, education staff costs are lower in Wiltshire at £188 per pupil compared to an average of £294, indicating that historically spend has been skewed towards residential care costs and not core education costs.

Increases were made in 2013/14 in day and residential top up rates leading to a consequent cost pressure of circa £600k in the High Needs Block in order to continue to pay these rates in 2014-15. In 2013-14 the increase was funded partly from an underspend against the Independent Special Schools (ISS) budget and partly from underspends on top ups for ELP and Resource Bases. The savings on Enhanced Learning Provision (ELP) and Resource Bases will not recur in 2014-15 following a review of top up rates with new values being applied from 1st April.

Potential savings from a review of residential provision were therefore identified as part of the ongoing funding of that increase and meetings have been held with the school to progress that work.

The Proposal:

Following extensive discussions with the school to identify how the benefits of residential provision can be maximised and used to support outcomes more flexible for, potentially, all children within the school (according to need), whilst reducing the overall number of beds, the proposal is

to reduce the number of residential beds at Rowdeford School from 23 to 16, by closing one 7 bedded residential unit in the school,and for
the local authority to commission the school to provide approx. 2,400 residential nights p/a (which equates to full placement in 16 residential beds)

The benefits of this proposal are that it will

Enable pupils to access residential provision more flexibly (without residential being specified on their statement) according to identified need and potential benefit, as statements will not need to be changed to accommodate residential provision (which has traditionally been the case in, typically, Year 8,9 and 10).

Enable the school to plan for and meet the identified needs of pupils in a flexible and timely way. The provision may be delivered in different ways depending on the pupil’s needs and the agreed outcomes.
Provide the school with a more stable financial footing for residential provision. A three year Service Level Agreement (SLA) will be drawn up to agree the required outcomes and operating model for the provision, based on using the places to best improve outcomes for pupils, and offer the school a guaranteed level of funding which would not be subject to fluctuation according to pupil numbers.

Reduce the administrative burden on the school and the local authority associated with the amendment of Education, Health and Social Care Plans (Statements previously).

Enable the requirement for financial savings (anticipated to be between £0.137m and £0.184m) whilst minimising, with greatest effect, the impact on the school and the pupils.

Effects of the Proposed Changes:

On pupils:

Pupils who currently have a residential placement specified on their statement or Education, Health and Care Plan will not experienceany change, beyond the normal practices of the school to cease boarding at the end of Yr 10, or – rarely Yr11. The local authority and the school are committed to a gradual progression towards the new model and a detailed transition plan will be drawn up to support this.
Pupils who meet the requirements for residential provision, set out in the Background section, point 2, will have their need for provision prioritised in the Service Level Agreement between the school and local authority.
Future pupils and those not currently using the residential provision will have greater opportunities to do so, according to identified need, and will benefit from the enhanced social and independent living skills activities.

On the school:

There is a risk that the proposals may result in the need for redundancies within the school although efforts will be made to ensure staffing levels can be managed through the transition to the new place numbers so that numbers and costs of redundancies can be minimised. Redundancy costs would be a cost to the Local Authority and would not be a pressure on the Schools budget. If there is a need for redundancies further consultation will take place with all those affected in line with policy.
Gives the school the opportunity to meet more flexibly, and timely, the needs of its pupils.
Provides a greater level of funding security than is available under the current system (which is subject to significant variation)
Enables care and school staff to focus on the needs of pupils, rather than on the demands of statutory processes.

On other schools:

It is not anticipated that there will be any detrimental impact on any other school in the County, or on the borders.
The proposal reduces the pressure on the High Needs Block funding stream.

On the Local Authority:

Significantly reduces the time and administrative effort required for statutory processes.
Reduces the external pressure to specify residential provision when children do not meet the specified criteria.

Consultation Period:

This consultation will run from Friday, 9th January 2015 to 6th February.

Who is being consulted:

This document is being sent or made available to:

Parents of current pupils the schools via school book bag system and on the school website
Residential care and support staff
Governors of the schools
Other Wiltshire Council staff working with SEN children
The County Secretaries of the relevant unions and professional bodies –
The Primary Heads Forum The Special Schools Forum
The Local Offer website and can be downloaded from the Wiltshire Council website

How to Respond:

There are a number of ways in which you can make your views known:

There is a questionnaire attached to this consultation document which you can fill in.

There is a meeting for staff and governors of the school on Friday, 9th January at 11am.

There will be a meeting for parents, pupils and other interested parties at the school on the 3rd February 2015 at 6pm

You can submit your comments thought the Local Offer website or e-mail

What happens at the end of the consultation process?:

All responses and views expressed will be collated and analysed by Wiltshire Council during the week beginning 9th of February 2015. The information provided to the Council will also be available as a public document. Wiltshire Council School’s Forum will hold a meeting to take place within the two months following the 6th of February to decide whether or not to proceed to make statutory proposals and to implement the proposed changes.

Wiltshire Council can choose to proceed as identified in this document, make modifications and implement or withdraw proposals. If significant changes are made a further consultation period will be established. Following a decision Wiltshire Council will publish its decision via the Website and to the school Governing body, Head teacher and to all parents with children at the school. An appeal can be made by School Governors within four weeks of the decision to the Schools Adjudicator. A decision should be made by the Schools Adjudicator within a week and there is no further appeal. Following implementation Wiltshire Council will inform the Secretary of State by updating the department’s Register of Educational Establishments.

Rowdeford Proposal Questionnaire:

Enable pupils to access residential provision more flexibly (without residential being specified on their statement) according to identified need and potential benefit.
Enable the school to plan for and meet the identified needs of pupils in a flexible and timely way.
Provide the school with a more stable financial footing for residential provision.
Reduce the administrative burden on the school and the local authority associated with the amendment of Education, Health and Social Care Plans (Statements previously).

Please give us your views on the proposal.

Your connection to the school

Please circle one of the below
Parent
Parent seeking admission for a child in September 2015 or later
Member of staff
Governor
Other – please explain your interest in the consultation:

Do you support the proposal? (please circle)

If you want to give reasons for your answer please do so here:

Any other comments on the proposal?

If you think there are other options that should be explored that would meet the intended outcomes for improvement please state briefly what they are and give your reasons:

Please return your form either electronically to or in hard copy to the school office who will pass it on. You can also post your response to Judith Westcott at Commissioning and Joint Planning Team, Children's Services, Wiltshire Council, Bythesea Road,

Trowbridge, BA14 8JN