Rachael then gave an update on the Safety Valve progress. The LA had to report to the ESFA (Education, Skills and Funding Agency) on the 15th of September, around the position of the LA in meeting the targets within our safety valve as described at previous Forums.

The main indicator that the ESFA is mindful of is our overall budget position and we were able to report in September that our budget position was aligned to where we had anticipated that it was going to be in our safety valve agreement. We then also were able to provide them with an overview position of the numbers of EHCPs (Education, Health and Care Plans) within the system as well. And that demonstrated that although there are challenges within that process and challenges in the overall numbers, we are still seeing the numbers being fairly maintained within Torbay at this time, and they are reduced from our starting point.

A progress report was shared with members, and Rachael detailed some of the key indicators that remain a significant challenge. What we recognise at the moment is that we're still having a high number of requests for statutory assessment coming into the system above and beyond that we would hoped to have seen through the introduction of our graduated response, whilst recognising that it is early days in terms of people understanding what is universally available provision and what is graduated response of support. So we are seeing a quite still a high refusal rate compared to the numbers of requests that are coming into the system and what we'd want to see in time is that was picked up through that graduated response and the SCN notional budget. Alongside that there's some really good news where a plan is not agreed, as next steps meeting has been put in place to look at how need can be met through universally available provision and SEND. Rachael was pleased to note the positive outcomes coming out for families about how needs are being met as well with very few of those moving through to actually then require a statutory assessment moving forward.

The other key area of concern is around the health contributions and that remains one of our key focus areas. Rachael stressed to forum that we are pushing at the very highest level that Health need to engage and make available a budget for joint commissioning within our local area. Members were asked to participate in a recent DfE monitoring visit on joint commissioning as well and it's important that we get a budget identified and a process within our local area to be able to do that. Rachael explained that we continue to calculate and keep a running tracker of the health funding that should be available within our plans, but we're not issuing that money through the Higher Needs block as we previously did.

Nancy then informed Forum that partnership summit meetings have been held over the last four months with our chief executive and equivalents within Health. The LA has very clearly said to them that unless they come to the table with some understanding that they need to fund some of the requirements,
We will be putting together a pre action letter through the LA’s legal team to actually place on record we will start to take legal action if they don't deliver some of the funding that we absolutely know they should be delivering. Nancy will be meeting with Health colleagues again in a couple of weeks to reiterate this. The pre-action letter is being drafted with the agreement of the Chief Executive and will be sent to ICB shortly with a view to getting a response before Christmas. Members did however note that there have been changes within the health colleagues through the ICB and certainly we've got better engagement with them recently where we've pushed on other elements of funding.

Laurence asked what the barrier is to Health contributing. It was explained that through open discussions with Health colleagues there has never been a budget for these contributions. Nancy explained that this is a problem nationally and is not specific to Torbay. With that in mind, Laurence also raised the possibility of reclaiming backdated amounts. Nancy clarified that the LA is exploring this, but it is too early in the process to say whether or not this is an option.

The Chair thanked officers for the update, noting it was pleasing that the LA is having these robust conversations with Health colleagues. Members requested we invite them to the next Forum meeting to discuss further.

Action – Officers to invite colleagues from Health to the next Forum meeting.