Rachael presented to colleagues the SEND green paper. Whilst it is helpful to have the direction of travel indicated by the Department for Education, members were disappointed in the detail that's now in the Green Paper given the fact it was so delayed in its publication, whilst recognising the need to respond to the challenges that it creates and the opportunities that it is creating.

It was felt from a School Forum perspective, that the Green Paper alludes to many of the issues that we have been discussing around how we build a culture of inclusive practice and how do we use all of our mechanisms to be able to make sure that children get the right support. Rachael noted similarities between the outcomes of our Local area SEND inspection and the Green Paper findings.

The Green Paper suggests that there's going to be a bigger push on mainstream education to use its notional send budget to meet the needs of children and young people. Where children and young people then have an Education, Health and Care Plan, they will be a national banding system for children and young people and a framework in which all local authorities will be expected to use to assign funding. The other aspect of financial note in here is that they are also going to ask local areas/school forums as the mechanism for funding that.

Rachael highlighted to members that one of the other key things that will drive spend within the document is preference given to parents to be able to select their own provisions. It was felt that a national EHCP document, coupled with a selection and a choice mechanism built into that could potentially lead to a high number of tribunals where the LA disputes whether or not cost can be met differently or need can be met differently at different costs.

Rachael then proposed to forum that the LA makes available it's consultation response to all schools and heads within the Torbay, to encourage all of our Head Teachers, SENCOs and others to respond to the paper and the consultation document.

Dorothy reiterated the importance of submitting a local area response as part of the consultation, because the lobby groups that support parents in getting their views back to central government will be doing the same, shaping the actual Green Paper that is eventually submitted as legislation.

Dorothy has sent the Green Paper out to all schools and SENCOs prior to the next SENDCO forum on the 18th of May, in order to start to shape the response that we as a local area pull together before the end of the consultation process, which is in in July.

Members stated the importance of the Early Years sector being included in the response. Dorothy agreed and will talk to Early Years colleagues to extend an invite to the 18^th May meeting.

Mike Lock shared details of a DfE presentation he attended last week on the Green Paper. He noted that The DfE are saying that the Green Paper is a consultation document, and that there's a lot of work to be done to become the finished article.