Agenda and minutes

The Chairman welcomed everybody present to this meeting of the Joint Committee and particularly Ffion Edwards Ellis, Senior Educational Psychologist and Mr Darren Jackson, Education Officer from Gwynedd Council.  The Chairman referred to the appointment of Mrs Delyth Molyneux, formerly of Gwynedd Council, as the Head of Learning for the Isle of Anglesey County Council and congratulated her on being appointed to the post. 

To receive any declaration of interest by any Member or Officer in respect of any item of business.

No declaration of interest was received.

The minutes of the previous meeting of the SEN Joint-Committee held on 10^th December, 2013 to be presented for confirmation.

The minutes of the previous meeting of the Special Educational Needs Joint Committee held on 10 December 2013 were submitted and confirmed as correct.

To submit a report on the activities of the SEN Provider Unit during the Autumn and Spring terms.

A report was submitted on the work of the Special Educational Needs Provider Unit and related matters during the 2013 Autumn Term and the 2014 Spring Term.

The SEN Education Officer of the Isle of Anglesey County Council, Mrs Mair Read, reported on the main considerations arising from the report as follows –

•           In relation to the administration of assessment and review processes, the administrative team is now at full capacity following the appointment of two clerical assistants for a period of 12 months up to the end of March 2015.  It had been a challenging period for the administrative service and the efforts of staff who had taken on the additional workload during this period were appreciated.

•           All the statutory assessments were completed within the deadline where there were no exceptions.

•           A substantial number of annual reviews had been processed in a timely fashion in order to set devolved budgets for schools.

•           Regional developments in relation to streamlining business plans linked to the Capita ONE records system are continuing.  Adopting the proposed changes will ensure substantial time savings for the clerical assistants.

•           A model of the new administrative service had been presented to the Client Officers with a view to addressing the need to restructure the administrative unit for 2015/16 to reflect changes to the operational requirements of the Provider Unit.  The principle was approved in November.

•           In relation to the Specialist Teachers Service, advertisements were placed for three posts – a full time post in language, communication and autism, where the greatest increase in caseload had occurred, and two 0.6 posts, one in the visual field and the other in the hearing field.  Historically, there had been difficulties in recruiting specialist teachers that are also fluent in Welsh and therefore trainee teachers had been employed and arrangements made for them to attend courses whilst in employment.  It was decided on this occasion to advertise for qualified teachers with an additional clause that applications from experienced teachers who wish to receive training would also be considered.  An internal appointment was made to the full-time language and communication post but not to the two part-time posts, and they were therefore advertised externally.

•           In relation to the Educational Psychology Service, the team continued to operate with substantially fewer psychologists during the term as a result of maternity absence and the departure of two part-time psychologists.  A service had been provided for every school but each one received considerably fewer visits than usual.  As a consequence, three assistant psychologists were employed to help fill the gap in the service.  Although one of them could not start in post until Christmas they had made a contribution with a number of tasks and had presented two courses on specific issues.

•           The Senior Educational Psychologist referred to the appendix to the report on the work of the Provider Unit outlining proposed arrangements for the Educational Psychology Service from September 2014 onwards. The plan proposed is based on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

To report on the 2014/15 Budget.

A report was presented by the Head of Finance of Gwynedd Council incorporating the Joint Committee’s budget for 2014/15.

The Senior Education Accountant of Gwynedd Council reported that the budget includes employment contracts, pay increments, changes to national insurance contributions and general inflation for 2014/15 – an increase of 0.99% to the contributions of Gwynedd and Anglesey Councils.  The net cost of the budget is £1.2m and is funded by contribution of 61.37% from Gwynedd which equates to £738,150 and 38.63% from Anglesey which amounts to £464,637.  The Joint Committee is not facing a financial cut for 2014/15.

The SEN Officer of the Isle of Anglesey County Council stated that the possibility of asking the Joint Committee to implement a cut of 5% for 2014/15 and 2015/16 had been considered in discussing the financial plans.

The Senior Education Accountant stated that although it would be possible to absorb such a cut in the short term through the use of balances, a reduction of 5% equates to £60,000 which is equivalent to the cost of funding an educational psychologist and that implementing a further cut of 5% would equate to another psychologist post.  As the bulk of the Joint Committee’s expenditure is on staff salaries it is the staffing establishment that has to absorb the burden of any cuts.  The SEN Officer of the Isle of Anglesey County Council added that a process of restructuring would have to be considered in order to cope with the financial cuts on such a scale.  Any cuts would have to be incorporated within the changes occurring regionally across North Wales.

The Members of the Joint Committee emphasised the following points –

•           That a different approach has to be taken to the budget setting process as opposed to salami slicing of services and the impact of cuts on individual services and their associated risks must be evaluated.

•           If balances are to be used to maintain the Joint Committee’s Services for two years, an analysis must be undertaken of the practical impact of cuts on service users i.e. how losing an educational psychology post would impact upon children with additional learning needs who need the service.

It was resolved to adopt the budget for 2014/15 as presented.

10:30 a.m. on Friday, 4^th July, 2014

2:00 p.m. on Friday, 19^th September, 2014 (Accounts meeting)

10:30 a.m. on Friday, 21^st November, 2014

10:30 a.m. on Friday, 13^th  March, 2015

It was noted that the meetings of the Joint Committee for 2014/15 would be held on the following dates:

Friday 4 July 2014 at 10:30am

Friday 19 September 2014 at 2pm

Friday 21 November 2014 at 10:30am

Friday 13 March 2015 at 10:30am.