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0069 2024/25
06/12/2024
Children and Young People
All wards
Delivering Better Value in SEND, (DBV) Investment Plan
To approve the procurement of Barnardo's and Addvanced Solutions to extend service capacity to support improvement activity in the key themes identified in the DBV programme through becoming an associate to the Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board contracts with the 2 providers
The purpose of this report is to seek approval the procurement services from Barnardo's and Addvanced Solutions to extend service capacity to support improvement activity in the key themes identified in the DBV programme. The route to procurement will be through becoming an associate to the Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board contracts with the 2 providers.
Between October and December 2023, the Council participated in the DfE Delivering Better Value in SEND, (DBV) programme. The programme was aimed at Local Authorities with significant pressure on their high needs spending. The programme had 2 phases: A financial diagnostic, which forecasted potential expenditure for the period 2024 – 28 and used this to identify the areas of SEND where there was the highest opportunity for financial impact. A series of ‘deep dives’ into these areas to determine where developments could be made. This determined that SEND expenditure in the period 2024 – 2028 would increase significantly. Four area-specific workstreams were designed to address the above drivers and a grant funding application submitted to support their delivery. The LA has received confirmation that this application was successful and £1M of additional funding has been allocated to the borough. The DfE has stated that the funding could be rolled across 2 financial years. The Investment Plan was approved by the DCS and the S151 Officer prior to submission to the DFE. This is one off funding and given the timescales for the programme and the need to work at pace, consideration was given to those areas which could make a sustainable impact, through spreading or scaling programmes already in place which aim to build capacity and capability in the system. The grant has been provided for expenditure in 2024/25. However the DfE has stated that the funding can be rolled across 2 financial years. Working with stakeholders and parent carers the investment plan outlined 2 areas with potential to scale up: - Creating a PATHs Secondary model - PATHs is an evidence based whole school approach to supporting pupils to thrive emotionally and mentally. The PATHs model already operates in 20 primary schools with funding from Public Health with positive feedback from all stakeholders. The programme is delivered by trained practitioners in Barnardo's. Working with the ICB commissioner, Barnardo's have indicated that they would be able to design, develop and deliver a secondary PATHs to schools in St Helens, ready to roll out in September 2024. - Neurodiversity: the investment plan identifies scaling up the Autism Education Trust Autism in Schools programme. This is currently funded by the ICB and aims to build capacity and capability in schools to better support pupils with autism. The AET programmes work well when there is a shared and collaborative approach with parent carers. The ICB commission a service user led organisation to deliver a variety of young people and family support models. These programme are currently delivered by Addvanced Solutions and it proposed that the DBV funding is used to extend the offer linking into the DBV investment areas to ensure there is a coproductive approach to improvement and parental confidence is restored in the mainstream offer. Working with the ICB commissioner, Addvanced Solutions have indicated that they would be able to increase their offer in St Helens, ready to roll out in September 2024. These proposals were included in the investment submission to the DfE and approved by the DfE. To enable this approach, discussions have been held with C & M ICB who advise that they would be willing to vary current contracts with their existing contracts to cover the value and activity required. Both contracts were commissioned by C & M ICB through an open and competitive procurement process. St Helens Council would become associates to the contracts to ensure the contracts deliver on the expectations of the funding.
The proposals in this DED where outlined in the DBV Investment Plan, approved by the DfE and offers the greatest potential to deliver improvement at pace required within the grant conditions
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Please contact Thomas Howard on 01744 671094
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