Invitees

Lindsay Harvey, Corporate Director - Education and Family Support;

Cllr Charles Smith, Cabinet Member for Education and Regeneration;

Nicola Echanis, Head of Education and Early Help;

Michelle Hatcher, Group Manager Inclusion and School Improvement

Andy Rothwell, CSC Senior Challenge Advisor;

Andrew Williams, Acting Assistant Director CSC

The Corporate Director – Education and Family Support submitted a report, the purpose of which was to inform Subject Overview and Scrutiny Committee 1 (SOSC1) of the local authority’s draft response to recommendations identified during Estyn’s recent inspection of the BCBC’s local government education services.

By way of background information, he advised that the education services were inspected by Estyn in March 2019. He confirmed that through the inspection process, Estyn identified four recommendations for the Local Authority to respond to, and these were outlined in paragraph 3.2 of the report.

The Corporate Director – Education and Family Support that the Local Authority were required to submit a post-inspection action plan (PIAP) to Estyn by 31 August 2019, which would seek to address the four main recommendations and also take account of shortcomings identified through the inspection process.

The Inspection Report had been closely considered by both the Local  Authority and Central South Consortium (CSC), from which the PIAP had been developed and this was shown at Appendix A to the report.

The Corporate Director – Education and Family Support confirmed to Members, that the PIAP detailed BCBC’s proposals to not only the four main recommendations raised by Estyn, but also the Local Authority’s plans to improve the areas for development in the report. These were regarded as a suite of ‘sub-recommendations’.

He also pointed out to Committee, that limited progress had been made against the majority of outcome measures in the PIAP Termly Progress Card. This was in the main due to the fact, that the Inspection Report was published on 31 May 2019 and the school term ended 7 weeks later. Therefore, swifter progress had been not possible, due to the 6 week school summer holiday period. Progress would now accelerate the Corporate Director – Education and Family Support advised, by the autumn term.

He concluded his submission, by confirming that Officers would arrange for formal termly reports with regard to progress against the PIAP objectives to the School Improvement Group.    

The Chairperson stated that it would be beneficial if some of the information shared with and findings from the School Improvement could also be presented to Members, at the end of school terms.

The Corporate Director – Education and Family Support confirmed that in principal this could be considered.

He added that one of the aims of the Post Inspection Action Plan, was to link-in closely with the Overview and Scrutiny process on this, as well as to prepare in the future more succinct reports (to Committee (s)).

The Chairperson felt that this post-Inspection report was a good report and very positive overall, therefore it was important she considered for it to be shared with the likes of children, parents, carers, teachers and any appropriate wider audience.

Conclusion:  

The Committee was pleased to note the proposals contained within the Post-Inspection Action Plan in respect of the four main recommendations and the plans to improve the areas for development.

The Committee requested that in addition to Officers providing termly reports in relation to progress against the Post-Inspection Action Plan objectives to the School Improvement Group, it also receives reports on those outcomes at the end of each term to ensure the recommendations are being achieved.