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Children and Education Scrutiny Sub-Committee
Monday, 14th September 2026 at 6:30pm

 

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1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

My name is Councillor Gholam Kibriya Choudhury and I will be chairing this evening meeting.
I would like to welcome members of the Youth Council and our Time Sand Forum who are attending
this evening.
Could we do a round introduction, please?
Thank you.
Hi everyone, my name is Amaira. I'm one of the Deputy Young Mayors, Cabinet for Education.
I just started Year 12 and I'm doing English, History, Politics and Economics for A -levels.
Hi my name is Rian. I'm a member of the Ta 'amtit Youth Council. I'm 18 and I'm attending the sixth
in Tower Hamlets. I study politics, psychology and RA.
Hi, my name is Nicole Rahman and I'm the Deputy Young Mayor of Tower Hamlets as well as the
member of Youth Cabinet for Environment and I'm currently in Year 12 and I'm doing English
literature, history, philosophy and EPQ for A levels and I've previously attended the
secondary school in Tower Hamlets.
Thank you.
Hi everyone, I am Yamin and I am the leader of our time.
Hi everyone.
I am Tara and I am a Lawton.
Before we begin going through the agenda, there are few housekeeping announcement to
make this meeting is being filmed for the council website for public viewing.
Those participating in the meeting will be included in the footage. Should a technical error occur that
prevents remote attendees from participating, I will decide if and how the meeting should proceed
after taking advice from officers.
I would remind members
I would remind members at the meeting
to only speak on my direction and to engage and speak clearly into the microphones to ensure that
their contributions can be properly recorded. A reminder that those in physical attendance
must use their microphones and must turn them off when not speaking. There are no scheduled
The building is open to the public.
If the alarm is sounded, please proceed calmly out of the
chamber onto the street and assemble away from the building.
Attendees who are joining the meeting
online should use the raised hand function should they wish
to speak.
I would also like to remind members present that they have
to treat one another with dignity and respect,
and give others the opportunity to speak,
to listen to different viewpoints,
and ensure that challenge is constructive and inclusive.
I look forward to seeing all attendees
demonstrate this commitment
through their conduct this evening.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Please can you advise the committee whether any
apologies have been received.
Thank you, Chair.
I've received apologies from Steve Ready, our
corporate director for children's services and
Lisa Fraser, our director of education will be
deputising for him tonight.
Thank you.
I've also received apologies from Councillor
Feissel -Ackman, our cabinet member.
Can committee members introduce yourself and declare if you have any DPI's and indicate
which aspect that interest relates, state whether the interest is of personnel or prejudicial
nature give an explanation of each declaration.
I am Councillor Victoria Lupton, Councillor for St Catharine's and Wapping, and I don't have any DPI's to declare.
I'm Sheila Muna, representing the Diocese of Westminster, and I'm also a leadership consultant for Tau Hamlet's Education Partnership.
I'm Mads Churchill, Councillor for Bow East.
Hi, I'm Mohammed Shafik Islam, Councillor for St. Estrinium.
Good evening everyone, my name is Sadikur Rahman, Councillor from Island Gardens.
I have nothing to declare.
Good evening Chair and everyone, this is Councillor Iqbal Hussain from Lassiter Wood and I have nothing to declare.
The minutes from the last meeting, 13 July 2026, have been circulated. Is everyone happy to
those the minutes is a true reflection of the previous meeting.
Members are invited to note the progress made since the last meeting. Rosie is
there anything you would like to highlight before I open it up for
comments
Thanks chair. Um, so we didn't carry any outstanding actions from the last municipal year

4 ACTION LOG

So we do have two actions which arose during the last meeting of which one was that the subcommittee
Looks at the annual safeguarding report, which is on the agenda tonight
So that is been completed and the other was to have a briefing report on
vaping and the general like public health educational aspects of that we're currently liaising between
divisions to get a brief note to you as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.

5 SCRUTINY SPOTLIGHT

5 a) SEND Reform Update

Now we move our first agenda tonight is send reform update. This is a significant piece of
given the national reform programme and the implications for children, young people and
families in tower helmets. The report provides an update on local sand improvement activity,
the Bora sand reform plan and proposed experts at hand model. Welcome to come sorry I will
come Lisa Fraser, Director of Education. Please keep your opening remarks around 10 minutes and
then we will move to question from members and you will take it as read. Thank you. Thank you
Chair and members of the scrutiny committee. Good evening, I'm Lisa Fraser, I'm the Director of
education and thank you for this opportunity to present the spotlight on SEND reform in
Tara Hamlets. So supporting children and young people with special educational needs remains
one of our highest priorities. Similar to other local authorities across the country,
we continue to see increasing demand for SEND services and for support and we continue to
to maintain a strong focus on improving inclusion,
strengthening partnership, and working across education,
health, and care to ensure that our young people
and families receive the right support
at the earliest opportunity.
There are three key papers in terms of the spotlight
that have been presented to the committee,
and they provide both a national and a local perspective
on SEND reform and improvement.
So there are a lot of changes nationally,
which are still being worked through,
but we've provided through the SEND report
update presentation, an overview of the evolving
national SEND reform landscape,
including recent government policy developments,
and highlighting the implications of national
reform proposals for children and young people,
for families, schools, local authorities,
and partner agencies, crucially health too.
And we consider what these developments may mean
for local SEND systems.
So the SEND report update presentation
is very much linked to the local SEND reform plan,
which we submitted to the Department for Education.
We're awaiting feedback on that plan.
If they agree to the plan, then 90 % of our high needs block overspend will be,
will be, the DFP will give us that money back.
So currently we're looking at a high needs overspend of around 35 million.
So that's not an inconsiderable sum of money as you can appreciate.
but also in terms of those papers that you have before you, the SEND annual report which
provides an overview of SEND provision and service performance across education, health and care in
the borough. It reports on the impact of improvement activity undertaken during the year including
feedback from children, young people and families and also identifies further development and
and actions being taken to strengthen inclusion.
So in terms of those papers,
I can very quickly summarise if that would be helpful.
So in terms of the national messages around SEND reform,
the government is reforming the SEND system
and has asked all local authorities
to submit SEND reform plans.
The focus of that reform is very much centred
around earlier identification and earlier intervention with the aim of ensuring that
children, particularly young children, receive help as soon as those needs emerge rather than
waiting for difficulties to escalate. So in terms of our borough, it builds very well on the work
that we undertook a couple of years ago on the DFE DBV programme which focused very much on early
years and early identification. The government is keen for mainstream schools to be much more
inclusive and with strengthened expectations that most children with SEND can have their needs met
in local schools and again this sits really well in Tower Hamlets because our schools are currently
incredibly inclusive. We have very high percentages of children with EHCPs who receive their schooling
mainstream schools in the borough so we're very proud of that. Another aspect
of that national approach is around SEND support and focusing very much on
children who are not on the who haven't got an EHCP but are identified as SEND
support and really focusing in on developing support systems around this
particular cohort of students. In terms of the national reform, EHCPs will remain
important but they will be focused very much on children who have the most
complex needs, which is a little different to how it may appear at the
moment. The focus of the reform is very much on strengthening multi -agency
working, particularly in terms of health and social care and education, working
together more effectively around the child and on helping parents and carers
make sense of the system making sure that it's clearer and more transparent.
It's also about looking at alternative provision and SEND services and making
sure that they are more closely aligned and through all of this workforce
development is an absolute priority including improving SEND knowledge and
for teachers, school leaders and wider professionals. And again in terms of
Tower Hamlets that's something that sits quite well with us. Before the
announcement around the SEND national reforms we had been working on our
inclusion framework which is around the kind of changes and adaptations and
teachers and school leaders can make in terms of mainstream schooling to meet
the needs of children with special educational needs and to help them and
support them remain within mainstream schools. The reforms are very much
focused on those areas but also on delivering greater financial
sustainability. I talked about the high needs overspend in terms of Tower
Hamlets but it's it which seems quite significant but there are local
authorities who have significantly higher overspends so nationally there is
a need to look at how we meet the needs of vulnerable children but also provide
greater financial sustainability. So in terms of the national reforms that's a
short summary of what they are about and obviously you've had time to look
through the presentation.
I can provide a short summary
of the SEND annual report, chair.
Yeah, so we obviously it's an annual report,
so we provide the SEND annual report every year.
And we can see that we have made progress
in improving support for children and young people.
In June 2025, we had our local area Ofsted inspection, which confirmed that the significant weaknesses identified previously had been successfully addressed.
However, we're absolutely not complacent and we recognise that families across the borough don't receive the same standard of support as consistently as we would want them to.
In terms of Tower Hamlets and what has gone well, really strong educational outcomes for children,
particularly those with EHCP plans, when we compare that cohort to the same cohort nationally.
And those receiving SEND support continue to outperform their national peers at key stages
two and four, which is a testament to the fantastic work that goes on in schools across the borough.
As I've said, as I mentioned, we have high levels of mainstream inclusion.
72 .3 % of pupils with an EHCP attend a mainstream primary or secondary school in the borough,
and that's the eighth highest in England.
So very inclusive schools.
We have, there has been a great deal of focus in the council on EHCP timeliness, and we
We're very grateful to the mayor who provided an additional 400 ,000 around staffing and interim staffing to tackle assessment and backlogs within the system.
I'm really pleased to support to report that in June 2026, EHCP timeliness improved 62 .5 % with 76 .8 % of annual reviews completed within 12 months.
As I said, we have been focusing, we've been learning lessons from our DFE work on the
DBV programme, delivering better value programme from a couple of years ago and really focusing
in on support for young children, working with speech language therapy, therapists and
educational psychologists, which has helped to reduce duplication and delays in some cases.
And that has meant that children in the early years haven't always needed an EHCP assessment
because they've been able to access the support they need in a timely manner.
We have also more specialist provision, a new autism provision, Athena, opened at Hermitage
primary school and that will support up to 12 peoples. And in terms of capital
developments we are have earmarked a further 4 .8 million across our schools
to develop spaces which are more accessible to children with special
educational needs. So a whole range of projects and earmarked for that 4 .8
million. We have better information for families, family information hub was
co -produced with parents and young people and more than 1 ,700 parents and
young people attended SEND events in the borough over the past year and workshops
which is a really pleasing number. We have our SEND ambassadors who shaped
and national discussions.
And we've also, in terms of improved preparation
for adulthood, six young people completing council apprenticeships
with three offered employment.
We have a peer mentoring programme which is training 12 young adults
with SEND to support others.
As I've said, there is lots to be proud of and lots to celebrate,
but we're not complacent,
and we recognise that we still have a lot of work to do.
So in terms of areas for development,
demand remains very high.
8 .59 % of the borough school population has an EHCP
and that's the third highest proportion nationally
and that continues to place pressure on services
and on specialist provision.
Diagnostic waiting times are long,
Particularly in terms of autism, the average weight is around 122 weeks.
Additional paediatrician and therapist capacity is needed to bring weights down to below 52
weeks.
I referenced our inclusion framework and we're really proud of that and of the impact that
it's having, but more could be done to ensure that that is being used consistently across
all our schools. The SEND national reform programme means that all local authorities are looking for
the same specialists. So in terms of recruitment we're very fortunate to have a really strong team
of educational psychologists. We need to be focusing now on the recruitment of
speech and language therapists and occupational therapists. At the moment
obviously all other local authorities are doing the same so that is a pressure
for us. Although we think engagement has improved and we've got lots of families
and children attending our events, we're very mindful of the fact that families
still need clearer information, more consistent communication, and more meaningful involvement
in discussions around our provision.
And then in terms of post -16 and post -19 opportunities, we need to ensure that we have a range of
suitable education, training, and employment pathways, and that still needs further development,
particularly for young people working below level two.
So, in terms of summary, we have stronger foundations than we've had perhaps in a couple
of years ago for delivering a truly inclusive system in SEND across the borough.
And our focus now is very much on early intervention, shorter waiting times, and consistency in
support across our settings with a real focus on stronger preparation for adulthood and
and continued partnership with children, young people, and their families.
Thank you, Ms. Afreza, for your informative presentation.
Definitely it will help us to understand this very fun plan.
Do members have any questions?
Now it's your turn, please. Thank you. Can I just ask you, I mean it's a very comprehensive plan,
can I just ask, did schools have a say in drawing up this plan? So we've communicated with schools
around the plan. The time scales were incredibly tight in order to get all of
the detail off to the DFE to meet the deadline. So we would have wanted in an
ideal situation to have involved schools from the get -go. Unfortunately like other
local authorities that wasn't possible given the really short timescale that
the DFE asked of us. But in terms of how we roll that out further, yes we're very
much involved in schools in terms of our head teacher consultatives. I'm using the
head teacher bulletin as a mechanism to communicate.
Yeah.
percentage of our school population within education healthcare plan third in the country.
So, at least I have said we have 12 young adults with S &D are trained to become mentors,
which is good news, and three people have been employed.
So, given the rate in the third highest in the country, do you think this number is something
we can be proud of or more can be done. Thank you. I think what we're absolutely focused on looking
to improve our provision and we do have high numbers of children with the EHCPs. If the
government's reforms roll out we would expect that number to reduce because the EHCPs will be focused
on children with the most complex needs.
That's why we need to make sure that we support our schools who are very inclusive already,
but to support them with the pedagogy and practise to ensure that children with needs
which don't hit that EHCP threshold, to make sure that they can achieve the best that they
can within our mainstream education.
I have a few questions Lisa on the EHCPs,
but perhaps I'll start with one which is,
I know that the government wants to reduce
the reliance on EHCP escalation,
and the SEND reform report emphasises that,
but how do we evidence that this,
that a reduction in escalation means
that children are getting support earlier and that their needs are being met and that
there's quality there rather than it just being a cost -cutting measure and it's cutting
the numbers of EHCP purely for financial reasons.
So how do we make sure that this is needs -led and it's not just cost -cutting?
So I think it's really important that if a child has complex needs and needs an EHCP,
it's really important that they receive that EHCP.
So I think it's about ensuring that using our early intervention systems
across partners to ensure that that cohort of children and do get their EHCP.
But it's also about supporting families at a really early stage and helping them
understand what's available within the borough to to meet need for children
whose needs aren't as severe.
So I hear what you say in terms of an anxiety around
is this just a cost cutting initiative,
but from my perspective it's really important
if a children has complex needs
and needs an EHCP that they receive that.
Will there be specific KPIs for that
that we can look out for in the next report that comes out?
At the moment it would be fair to say
the time scales to produce the plan were really tight.
So we're still working through that.
And we met with the DFE advisor today
in terms of how we roll out
that particular programme experts at hand.
So yes, we have within the plan reference KPIs,
but we don't have specifics yet,
but there will be undoubtedly a range of KPIs
that you can measure progress against in the future.
Could I ask a, it's still on the EEHC piece.
So I then had a couple of questions
around the timeliness piece.
And I know that it's a huge achievement
to have improved timeliness from 30 to 62 .5 %
as you mentioned.
But again, how do we make sure
that that's about quality improving?
And it's not just, you know, sort of incomplete plans
being done within the 20 week time period.
So could we have information about what proportions
of plans then require further amendments
because the quality's not quite there.
And then that does still mean that there's 37 .5 % of children
that are waiting more than 20 weeks to receive the plans.
So I'm wondering, do we have stats on what's the current
longest wait time to receive a plan?
You know, are there some children who are waiting 100,
I know that for ASD, for the autism assessments,
it was 122 weeks.
So, you know, the children who are waiting that long.
And then the final question was around
the 400 ,000 investment in the interim caseworkers.
Is the improvement in timeliness purely
because of those caseworkers?
And therefore, once the money goes,
once that funding goes for the interim caseworkers,
are we gonna see a return to the lower timeliness stats?
Okay I'll try and remember those questions sorry. So the one around
quality of VHCPs, we have been really fortunate to have a really strong
interim head of centre for quite some time now and who has introduced quality
assurance mechanisms around ensuring that those plans are not only timely but
of a good quality. I'm really pleased to say that we've made a permanent
appointment to that head of centre post and the two will work together in a
kind of hand over period so the focus is very much on quality assurance. I hear
your point around the proportion of children whose plans are not timely and
we do have those stats but I don't have them to hand off the top of my head
sorry, but when we have been monitored by the DFE in terms of the children whose plans are not timely,
a very small number were significantly delayed, so often it's around about the 20 -week mark,
and in those cases there were some quite complex things to work through, but I'm certainly happy
to get those stats for you. I've forgotten the last question. It was just about the
400 ,000 and the interim caseworkers. Yes so I think as I've said we've had a
really strong head of CENAR who's been working with us for some time in an
interim capacity who has really introduced new systems and ways of
which I am confident will ensure that that investment spurs further success and we won't slip back into the backlogs that we previously experienced.
Thank you.
We'll get chance.
Just this first round for members and second round for you.
Just wait five minutes.
Five, ten minutes.
Yeah, please.
Thank you, Chair.
I had a – thank you.
I had a number of questions about the report and I appreciate it was done under really crushing timescales
and that an awful lot of work has gone in from officers and council staff to pull this together to deliver it to the government in time.
Drawing on what was mentioned by Sheila and also to a certain extent Victoria as well,
there is a sort of widespread public understanding that these reforms, whilst we all do want to promote inclusion,
were ultimately due to the government's need and like the council's need to
reduce the the massive high cost overspend that most local authorities
are really struggling with to do with send and because of and that concern
around that has fallen particularly strongly on teachers who see by and
large I think as a group it's it's commonly felt by them that a lot of the
pressure of these reforms is actually going to just fall onto their shoulders
as an understaffed and stretched workforce
with diminishing budgets.
So given that this report just inevitably
had to be produced in timescales
where unfortunately perhaps teachers and schools
were not as involved as you would have liked
in an ideal situation,
how do we increase teacher confidence
in a collaborative and respectful way
that these reforms are actually not just there
to dump the burden of high -needs children on them.
Particularly given that I looked at some of the government's
official guidance on inclusion hubs,
which is going to be the basis of a lot of these reforms,
is moving children from specialist provision
into inclusion hubs.
Actually, the Department of Education's own data
on parent and child feedback on those hubs
is very mixed in terms of whether or not
they consider them to be successful.
So I just wonder if there's scope here to be actually frank and transparent with schools that we know that this is really really difficult and I don't...
and acknowledging that their worries are very very genuine, that this is not just a roses and sunshine exercise in magically including every child.
This has come out of some serious financial concerns on a national level and it is going to be really really difficult.
How do we get teachers on board? How do we get staff on board?
How do we do that in a positive way where they feel supported and included in the process?
I saw a couple of things in the plan. There was something called like a challenge head
So I'd love to hear a bit more about that
But you know when I read that word it almost sounded like oh, this is someone who's going to challenge teachers
To get on board it felt almost it obviously there's not a lot of detail here and I appreciate that
How do we do this in a collaborative and non -confrontational way really is my question.
Thank you.
So I think Tara Hamlets has always worked in a really collaborative way and our schools
work really well together.
And as I said, we already have schools that are incredibly inclusive in terms of how we
compare with other local authorities.
But also I meet regularly with head teachers in terms of we have consultative meetings,
met the secondary last week, primary this week, specials next week and I meet with
the heads of those consultatives as well every two weeks in our kit meetings. So
very much tapped into the challenges that schools are reporting around and I
think there is I think it would be fair to say in Tower Hamlet so there's a very
much a desire across the vast majority of our schools to be inclusive but
obviously sometimes there are practical difficulties. We're really fortunate to
have a significant team in our SEND staff called the Learning Advisory
Service and they were very much involved in terms of producing, co -producing with
with teachers and schools, our inclusion framework that I mentioned. So we're
building on real strengths within the borough. As I've said, our
children with SEND, with the EHCPs and also on SEND support do really well in
terms of their outcomes compared with other London boroughs and nationally.
So we're building on a position of strength. I think the key to that is to, if you look at I think
page 24 of your pack, it's about getting that experts at hand model right. So this is the
groupings of schools and then how we support them to access that specialist input from educational
psychologists, from speech -language therapists and occupational therapists. So
we really need to make sure that we get that right for schools and that they
understand our model and how it works. So we're just at that stage really now of
working through that with schools. I think we were also, if I could be
of bold as to say on the front foot in terms of our capital investment. So we rolled that out I
think from Easter last year in terms of the four million or so earmarked for SEND spaces. And so I
think in terms of what the local authority can do to support schools, we do have the specialist
expertise and are fortunate to have teams like the Learning Advisory Service.
But we've also really shown a commitment to supporting schools to think about
their environments and to invest in our school estate. But as I said the rollout
of the experts at hand model is absolutely critical and we really need
to it has to work for schools and we really need their input into how we
develop that. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. My question is how is the partnership
ensuring that the voices of children and young people are informing safeguarding
practise, particularly those from group that are traditionally harder to engage.
Thank you. So we in terms of our sound improvement board we usually have a
representative from our time forum on that board who feedback and Sarah's fed
back before to us in terms of the the voices of children and and their views
We are really fortunate to have the Our Time Forum.
They are incredibly influential nationally, really,
and regularly present at meetings of local authorities
in the DFE, so they're really helpful in terms of us
understanding what it's like from a child
or a young person's perspective and informing our work.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Do any members of your council or our team have any questions? Please.
Since the EHS CPS waiting times remain a significant challenge, what support is provided for individuals with evident and demanding needs whilst awaiting the EHS PC plan as well as their families?
So in terms of particularly health, there are programmes called Waiting Well, whereby
families work with professionals who support them to access support while they're waiting
for that diagnosis.
But it's really important to make sure that that support is available and known to families
without them needing to have the EHCP in as best that we can. So there are programmes around that.
It's been a difficult time for health colleagues in particular because there have been changes to
the ICB which has impacted to some extent. I'm sorry, may I please follow up on that. How do
you make sure that these programmes are accessible to each family whose child may have these needs
and how are they staying informed about these?
So we do have a strong SENDIAS department
who work very closely with families.
We have our family information service
and we have recently revamped our, I forgot what it's called,
but our website in terms of what support is available.
But there's definitely more that we can do.
It was the local offer.
Thank you, it's the local offer. Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Yeah, I know you mentioned the experts are hand model, so my specific question
there is what will that relationship between those specialist services and
schools look like in practise and how will we make sure that these the
expertise from the specialists is being used efficiently and having a
impact on young people in those schools? So in terms of the experts at hand model
we've there's a lovely what I call the sunshine diagram on page 24 it's very
yellow and we are looking to have schools working collaboratively as they
do really well in Tower Hamlets in small partnerships with some funding available
to them and access to a specific range of specialist expertise.
But in terms of how we ensure that we get the best out of those specialists, we've got
within our plan a really structured system of transformation, transformation team and colleagues
which we're currently out to advert for and in terms of the KPIs that we referenced in a previous
question that will help us to design a dashboard with clear KPIs which will help us to understand
whether we're having impact or not but at the moment we haven't yet developed that so I can't
say anything concrete around that but we're very much aware of the need to
ensure that there is real impact. Just to follow up on that, do you plan on involving young
people with SD &D needs who will be affected by these reforms in the process of
evaluation and making measures to keep them accountable? Absolutely, in terms of
our general work in SEND, we launched, you'll have to forgive me because I get confused
with times, but I think with the last term we launched our co -production charter, so
co -production and working together, collaborative work, feedback from all our stakeholders is
absolutely key in terms of driving our work on SEND forward, so we're absolutely committed
to that.
To briefly follow up on what Amari just said, how do you ensure on, because I know we say
that we involve young people with SCND in this, but how do you ensure that you represent
a variety of SCND needs? Because I know we've got SCMH, you've got speech and language
communication difficulties, stuff like that. How do we ensure that, because they're all
going to be affected generally similarly but also very uniquely. How do you make
sure that a variety of young people not just within that term, how do we
ensure that they're involved? And I also wanted to ask as well how do we like
measure inclusiveness because I know quite a few times we've said our schools
are inclusive but does that mean in the sense that we've got a lot of young
people with EHCPs in those schools or that they are essentially some schools
may have different forms of like people with an EHCP that may have more
profound needs may be in a different class from everyone else or they may be
in lessons so I know schools do it very differently but how do we define that in
the sense of inclusiveness? If you'd like me to repeat, what do you say?
So in terms of how we define whether our schools are inclusive we're using a
really crude measure that the the DfE would use in terms of the numbers of
children in our schools who have EHCPs or who have EHCPs. So that's the measure
that we're using and I hear what you say in terms of ensuring that we have a
range of voices and that's something that we need to think about how we work
through moving forward.
I'm just going back to, you mentioned somewhere in the report about there being plans for
five alternative provisions in the next three years, I think.
Is that correct?
I read it in some part of the report, or some part of the plan.
I could find it if we want to come back to it.
the question I wanted to ask was you said you there was 72 % of children with
EHCPs in mainstream school. Do you know out of that 72 % how many of those
children are waiting for alternative provision or who are not managing well
in schools? I do believe that we do have information on particular schools who
whose where families are very keen for their children to attend and so we do
have that information but I don't have it to hand. What was the first bit of the
question sorry. So of the 72 % of children in schools with EHCPs I wondered is there
an answer to how many of those children with EHCPs are just being contained in
schools because they're waiting for specialist provision? Sorry I thought I'd
answered that bit. So that the answer to that bit was we are aware of schools
like Phoenix for example, where families are very keen for the children to attend
Phoenix. But at the same time, given the educational outcomes for the
borough overall, our children are doing really well in the main
stream where they are. But yes, there are specific cases of
children who may be better placed in different schooling.
Although in terms of the alternative provision, I'm not quite sure around your reference to five alternative provisions.
I'll cheque on that, but following on just from that, you know the schools that are closing, you know with the pupil numbers falling,
and at the moment there's a few empty buildings, are there any plans to use those?
So there are unfortunately very few empty buildings around Tower Hamlets.
We are really keen to develop our centre state, but we have to be mindful that we don't live in a borough with lots of potential buildings.
So yes, we're working through that.
Yeah, a specialist inclusion base is a different designation.
So a specialist inclusion base is a bit like a resource base in the past.
Yeah.
Since it was mentioned in the experts are hand overview that there is going to be several
schools like eight leading, sorry, local area partnerships.
So what schools would be chosen to be those local area partners and what criteria do they have to meet?
So we've just over the summer thought about what we would want a lead school to do in those local area partnerships.
So we've come up with a criteria. Our intention is to share our plan again with schools and to talk through with them
what the criteria for that lead school would be
and then to invite schools who are interested to come forward.
May I please follow up on that?
Would it be purely based of interest
or would the council also be able to identify schools
that maybe will benefit more from this than others?
So the lead school, the lead convener school, it's a role within the group so we would want schools to
feel confident and to understand exactly what they were getting themselves into. Obviously
we've got really strong schools, the council may have a view and in the case of if there is a local
area partnership where there may be a couple of schools who are keen to come forward then
we'll need to work through a process around that but we haven't thought that through at this point.
I know you mentioned before that the progress and support provided is not as consistent so
my question is are there any measures or have you thought of anything to make sure that the
support is consistent throughout all mainstream schools regardless of their size or access to
resources? Yes, so in terms of that consistency, I mentioned our inclusion
framework and we're meeting with the primary heads on Wednesday and we will
have some input from Lindsay Kelly who is the head of our learning advisory
service and that is regardless of the national reforms that is something that
we intended to push forward with over the course of this academic year.
Thank you.
Thank you chair. Very brief follow -up question to some of the things already
raised regarding the expert hands model being the basis for this success. What
provision is there within the plan at this stage or maybe at a later date if
there are serious challenges and I know I saw there's a risk assessment matrix
in there if this model does not effectively work what is the impact
going to be upon the council in terms of our ability to access that funding from
the Department of Education and the write -off of the the high needs overspend
Is that going to have a critical impact on the funding of the programme?
What is the risk, what's that word?
I can't think of the word, where there's leeway for something to go wrong, essentially.
Thank you very much.
It's a very good question because today we learned in our meeting with the DFE
that we've already been allocated the experts at hand money, so we have that.
And it did appear to us, but we're seeking clarification,
and the DFE is looking at the two things separately.
So there's the reform plan
and there's the experts at hand model.
And we hadn't been quite clear on that up to that point.
So we do have the money for the experts at hand.
And in terms of how we take that forward,
we have clear plans around governance,
transformation boards,
how that will feed into the SEND improvement boards.
So in terms of if things go not to plan,
hopefully we'll have mitigations in place
through those mechanisms.
Thank you.
Education healthcare plan, EACP,
is very important for children's well -being and education.
My simple question is to you,
where we are in our current position?
For example, either red, amber or green.
If you look into the KPI for key performance index,
where we are.
In terms of the timeliness?
Well, we're currently on 62 .5,
I believe we're above national,
but I would say we were amber green.
In terms of our council reporting, it's green, yes.
Thank you and my last question to you. Is the RIG section of the local SAND reform plan including parental
confidence, workforce shortages, NHS reform and capacity issues is pages 104 to 105, challenges
around workforce pressures, waiting times, financial pressures and system confidence is page 55.
National sand reform continues to evolve whilst demand for services remains high. What are the
three biggest rigs to successful implementation in tower handlers and how they being mitigated?
is the risk.
Sorry I didn't quite catch that. In terms of there are national
risks and clearly health is a significant partner in terms of the
reform. We work very closely with our health partners currently but these are
significant risks that we will need to mitigate locally.
Thank you so much. I know we've been talking about the experts at hand a lot, so just one last question for it.
I noticed on the post 16 one, there's only one college that has that service and my question was,
do you have any plans to expand that?
Because especially as needs increase post -16,
how will young people get the support in an efficient way?
Yes, so in terms of that, page 24,
it's one lead college that will be working as a convener
with post -16 settings.
So we have NCC, which is our biggest college,
but it's about working with all the providers within the post 16 arena.
So they'll be the point of pulling it all together, but based.
But it's not just for the college, it's for working across the piece.
Thank you very much.
And for allowing me, asking the last question on me.
On page 36 it says,
So 45 % of children with an education healthcare plan are from Bangladeshi region background
compared to 12 .4 % white background, 8 Bangladeshi communities around 34 % of our Bara population.
So this is quite staggering. So what was the main underlying reason do we know as a council
and have we established the reason for the high number of people from Bangladeshi
background are under education healthcare plan and was the was the plan to tackle this? Thank you.
So in terms of that analysis my understanding is that there isn't an over representation of
the Bangladeshi children who have an EHCP but it is to do with they they are Bangladeshi population
And in terms of need, speech -language communication need, autism and SEMH are the principal areas.
So I know that there was comments made about reducing the amount of EHCPs young people
have.
My question is, as someone who hasn't EHCPed myself, I'm wondering, those who would now
not get one, will they still have the provisions like for example access
arrangements being very accessible to them or the legal right to that I get to
choose the provision I attend and that anything, any provision I change to
will be consulted in and just the general other things that come
with an EHCP that you're entitled to, will they still get that or at least some of
it when that change happens? So difficult for me to talk about what will happen
nationally and my understanding is that they as I've said the EHCPs will be
will be only for children with really complex needs but we are the whole focus
of this reform is about early intervention and about supporting
children who may be on SEND support to get access to the range of services. So in terms
of if you have specific needs and you need access arrangements for exams for example,
that's not dependent on whether you have an EHCP. So there shouldn't be any impact in
terms of those particular aspects.
Thank you. Thank you, Lisa, for your presentation and answering the questions. SAND remains one of
the most important areas for this committee and members will no doubt wish to receive further
update as reform progress and local implementation develops. Thank you.

6 REPORTS FOR CONSIDERATION

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6 a) THSCP Annual Report 2025-26

Thank you.
Our next agenda is Tower Hamlets safeguarding annual report, 2025 to 2026.
The report provides an overview of safeguarding activity and performance during 2025 to 2026
and sets out priorities for the coming year.
I welcome Rolle Hunter, Strategy Manager,
Tower Hamlets Safeguarding Children Partnership, THSCP.
Please keep your opening remarks to around 10 minutes
and take the paper as read.
And when we will move the question from member after you're finishing. Thank you.
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Okay, sorry. So we have, the partnership has two priorities. In a two year cycle the partnership
chooses priorities to focus on. Our current priorities are adolescent safeguarding and
think family. And that two year cycle is drawing to a conclusion in March 2027. What of what
we done? So from a Think Family perspective, to some extent that work
driving improvements from the Think Family has been subsumed within some of
the wider reform work that is taking place, the neighbourhood reforms in health,
the families first partnership reforms in social care. We have also developed
with across the partnership learning and development materials to help people
build and understand their understanding of how to implement a ThinkFamily approach in practise.
From an adolescent safeguarding perspective, we have created an adolescent safeguarding strategy
across the partnership. It is still in draught form but that is being finalised currently. As we move
into autumn, that will be finalised and we will be leading work creating an action plan to shape
how that strategy is embedded and operationalized across partner agencies.
So that work is sort of coming into effect, will be coming into effect over the next sort
of month.
Maybe to sort of finish up, I think the other things to draw out of the report would be
the focus on child sexual abuse and the work that the partnership has done to both order
and quality assure and support reviews into CSA practise across partnership agencies,
but also driving improvement across those agencies too.
In late 2025, the partnership led a multi -agency review into CSA and over the past year there
has been work embedding learning that was drawn out of that review.
There's been an increasing amount of scrutiny on CSA over the past year. So in March we were the
subject, the partnership partnership agencies with the subject of a C -safe JTIE, so C -safe is child
sexual abuse in the family environment, and that was a multi -agency statutory inspection. That
concluded in, it was both delivered and concluded in March, we've had feedback from the inspectors
and we've led work creating an action plan to embed and implement the changes
and address the areas for development identified by the inspectors. The
scrutiny doesn't end there. Over summer we had inquiries submitted by the
National Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs which the partnership
coordinated the response to. We have had follow -up inquiries subsequently which
we are also in the process of responding to. That work is ongoing. I think maybe
just to finish some of the kind of risks challenges for the partnership.
Budget and resources is always a challenge. There's a lot of work that the
partnership does. There's a lot of work that people want the partnership to do.
It's always a challenge finding the requisite amount of time, resource, money,
funding to do all of the work that we want to do at the standard we want to
make sure it's done at. I think positive news in that respect is that MOPAC, so
the Mayor's Office of Policing and Crime, agreed additional funding for all London
safeguarding children partnerships this year. We've received that, it's just in
excess of £20 ,000, that money has come in to our account and also
mentioned it before but the national, the weight of national reform activity, so
So whether that's the neighbourhood agenda in the NHS or gender reform in education or
families first reforms across social care and youth services, there is a huge amount
that is being expected nationally of the agencies that are critical to the work of the partnership
and ultimately safeguarding children across this local authority.
That work takes a huge amount of time and resource and there's always a risk that that
takes people away from driving the core functions
of the partnership.
So that's something that we are alive to
and making sure that we mitigate against at all times.
I think that's a good summary of the annual report.
I'm gonna throw it over to Sarah now for the comments,
unless people want to ask questions immediately.
Thank you, sir.
Do you want to add anything?
Just that my role is very different
in the context of the partnership and I just want to explain that I act independently of the partnership
and I use a bit of an allergy of, if you like, kicking the tyres in terms of what we're hearing and seeing from the partnership.
Does that make sense? Does it triangulate? Does it feel right?
And Roly has explained some of the external scrutiny and internal that the partners have done with partners
but I'm different from that again, so I add a different layer of scrutiny.
And I do work alongside the partnerships, kind of shoulder to shoulder in terms of the scrutiny activity that I do.
But I'm very much able to identify themes and trends and go and examine, if you like, those myself.
So I'm not led by necessarily what's going on locally.
I can look across the piece in terms of what's going on nationally or just looking at data and thinking
that doesn't quite make sense I'm gonna scratch the surface into that so that kind of contextualises
the approach I take. Thank you, thank you for your presentation and give us update. Do members
have any question please. Thank you, you go first please. Thank you for that and how do you ensure
that within Tower Hamlets all the information is shared appropriately between health, police,
schools and other stakeholders, how do you ensure that that happens?
So from a safeguarding perspective there are, so there are obviously existing
data sharing sort of pathways across different agencies but from a
safeguarding perspective a lot of the data sharing is governed by statute.
We've actually had updates to one of the key pieces of legislation that shapes
how eight different agencies that work with young people are required to share
information when it comes to safeguarding children and young people.
So that's the working together guidance. Additional guidance was actually
published last week so it's a very timely question around improving
understanding both how information is shared across agencies but also
critically different professionals understanding of what appropriate
information sharing is because I think one of the key challenge is different
agencies and individual professionals will hold personal information about
children and families and it's right that we're cautious about sharing
information because it's private but it's also critical that the right
information is shared at the right time to make sure children and young people
are safeguarded. The new guidance makes it really clear that there is a duty to
to share information whenever we are worried
about safeguarding.
So in terms of how do we make sure people are aware of that,
it's from the partnerships perspective,
at least the business unit that I manage,
it's about sharing that information with partner agencies,
with instructions and additional guidance
about how to disseminate that to practitioners
and frontline service areas.
And actually just to also highlight,
In terms of the information sharing, not only has there been this change to working together
and the new guidance that's been published last week, there is also a new statutory responsibility
for mandatory reporting when it comes to child sexual abuse, which is quite a significant
change.
And again, it's about information sharing, I think, for us to make sure that frontline
professionals are aware of this really significant new duty that they are subject to.
Thank you chair. To follow up on that briefly, the statutory duty to the mandated reporting,
does that now cover all professionals working with children then?
Off the top of my head I can't remember exactly, there is a list of professionals, so it will
cover like it will cover what you would think of as maybe the obvious
professionals, teachers, social workers, youth services. I can't remember off
the top my head how broad it goes in terms of the name professionals but
there is a list of named professionals within the new within the guidance that's
been introduced around that with that statutory change that's available on the
gov website so yeah. Great thank you and a couple of my own questions. So slight specific sort of
ones. Is a CSPR the same as a serious case review? Is that a new name for those?
Great, thank you. And something I notice is missing from the data and
actually also from the matrix that we received from directly from Talhamlet's
Children's Services through the corporate parenting board that I think
would actually be really beneficial to have reported is the length of time that
the children remain, particularly on child protection plans. I think that's a
really key performance indicator in terms of
whether families are improving.
Something that is, obviously it's a serious concern
if individual children remain on a child protection plan
in particular for many, many years
and don't ever go down to child in need
or if they have them in a crisis
and they've entered PLO or something.
So I would just like to request,
is that some data that we could potentially
get added to the reporting? Yeah, that data will be held by Children's or
Supporting Families Division but we can make them send a message to
Supporting Families Division that that data would be useful for this committee
for them to provide. Thank you and then just one final specific question. In the data about the
children in care, interestingly it seems that white and mixed kids are
over -represented compared to Bangladeshi kids in care. I just wondered is there,
yeah, what is your understanding of why that is in Tower Hamlets?
Well, I can give you a broad answer because I think I wouldn't have the specifics, I don't have
the specifics in my mind, but I think that would broadly reflect national trends. So there is data
that the Nuffield Trust did a report a couple of years ago,
and I can't remember the name of it now,
based around Birmingham and the Midlands,
where they looked at how ethnicity affected
actually both CP interventions and length of time
on CP plans and also court and care interventions.
And they identified that it said that,
I think children with mixed heritage are most likely to be subjects of both CP interventions,
child protection interventions, and ultimately court and removals.
Children from I think all Asian backgrounds were underrepresented in the national data.
I believe black children were over -represented
and white children, I think if it was chopped up by,
if the data set was chopped up by income,
there was a higher over -representation of children
from that group from poorer backgrounds
and a significant under -representation
from older backgrounds.
So the answer is I'm not entirely sure
what the particular character is in Tower Hamlets,
but I don't think it's entirely unusual given the national data perspective.
And actually I'm serious, I shouldn't come in, but I'm just going to say I would also know that the Supporting Families Division,
which is obviously where Child Protection Interventions and Court and Care sit,
is alive to ethnicity as a factor in determining a child's experience of both safeguarding interventions and court,
and the supporting families division has done some work with the Nuffield Foundation looking at ethnicity and care proceedings in Tower Hamlets
and there is a big work stream in supporting families division looking at cultural identity and anti -racism that I guess touches on the sort of thematic things that you've raised
and I'm going to stop talking and let Sarah.
I'm so I outside have been independent scrutiny here at Tower Hamlets I wear
different hats and one of the and that's been the trend that you've just referred
to has probably been around for about 40 years there has been a lot of work done
to done on looking at the reasons why and curiously it certainly doesn't
answer the whole reason why we've got that demographic but what we found is
culturally, if we look at the, you mentioned the Bangladeshi community,
actually come to look after their own children in their community more than other groups do.
And the significance of that is when we are counting numbers and we're talking about children
in care, you're probably talking about children on care orders that are kind of what I would call
formerly children in care. I'm not sure it would include children such as those on child
arrangements or child arrangement orders. So we're not suggesting for a moment that perhaps,
well I think we probably should, but there is certainly less if you look at the number in the
care system and there is probably less being cared for within their own families overall. But yeah,
culturally there's coming together with child arrangement orders so it's understanding the
legal, technical kind of label, if you like,
about whether a child is in care
or looked after by a family member without that care label.
Thank you, Lachlan.
You can ask at a time, two questions, please.
Thank you for this report.
I was interested that quite in the beginning
you identified housing as one of the significant themes.
you didn't talk that much about what exactly were the risks associated with housing is obviously a big issue here in town Hamlets is
Overcrowding is it is it relating to overcrowding is it more about?
Neglect or child abuse domestic abuse could you just speak a little bit about that housing issue? Yeah, thank you
so my role is slightly different in terms of
scrutiny activity and
So I'm not kind of giving a chapter and verse in terms of some of the detail
I'm going to look at one element of it and see what I can identify.
So what you're saying is absolutely right and one of the reasons why I started looking at housing initially
was because they hadn't participated in the annual audit, the safeguarding audit.
So every year we have an annual audit and that for me is a new scrutiny coming in
because this report was after my first full year as a scrutiny.
was a bit of a red flag for me.
So I took it upon myself to go and start having a look and engaging with housing
and actually understanding the culture of safeguarding.
So you're right around overcrowding and children in temporary bed and breakfast accommodation.
That wasn't what I was looking at.
I was looking at the culture of safeguarding in housing
because they hadn't contributed to the annual audit.
So coming from that, interestingly, I have to say,
over the past year, that's, I would say, one of the successes
in terms of how housing have come to the table
and we've seen a significant sea change in terms of the conversations.
Now, what I did see was some very good practise on an operational basis.
So social workers and housing officers sharing information, having conversations.
But for me, I think that if we look at safeguarding system, we need to understand how we come together from a strategic perspective to change pathways in the way that we work.
So that to me is the culture bit.
One of the things I identified from having those conversations was the huge opportunity we've got around working with registered social landlords.
And actually from a data perspective, from a strategic perspective, probably there still remains opportunities there in terms of how we share data and information and intelligence that we've got and how that shapes services from a place -based perspective.
And so that sounds very high level because it was, so I wasn't drilling down in terms of children in
bed -and -breadthfast accommodation, it was around the strategy. I have a separate question. Is that
okay? I just wanted to ask about the section 47 inquiries. So I was interested that the section
The child protection 47 inquiries I think were double almost the national average, but
then the number that progressed to child protection plans were relatively low.
Just wondering why the discrepancy between the two.
Which page is that on?
Sorry.
25, yeah.
So sexual 47 inquiries per 10 ,000 children.
And then Rick.
Yeah, so it says it's 299 per 10 ,000 when the national average is 189.
So it's significantly higher than that, but then the child protection, which is just below,
is lower than the national average.
So I just was wondering, is there an issue about progression from the section from the inquiry to the child protection?
I don't have, I think I probably would have to go back and sort of review the data in more detail.
I'm really happy to provide a follow -up answer. I know that there has been work specifically across supporting families division about making sure that when sexual assault and seven inquiries,
it's completely legitimate and right that it's implemented when there's a, we're concerned that when there is a concern that a child's at risk of or experiencing serious and significant harm.
I don't have a reason why we closed down so many,
but it might also be, it can be entirely appropriate
to go actually, if it doesn't need to progress,
then that's good.
I will try and find some reassurance around
the appropriateness of either the closures or not,
and be able to provide that to the committee.
Or it could be a sign that actually people
feel empowered to make the inquiries in the first place.
I'm just interested to know about that.
Yeah, and that's a really good point.
So thank you, and I'll try and return that to the committee.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor Iqbal.
Thank you, Chair.
On page 16970, online safety has been identified as a key risk.
Which page, right?
Page 16970.
Okay so and much of which has been happening outside the schools so what is
done they're doing to tackle this online harms with working with police parents
and other agencies to minimise or tackle this crime and particularly cyber
bullying AI generated image online social platform like TikTok and
with him and how are we measuring the impact on the victims? Thank you. Thank you. Yeah online harms
are really significant and they've you know in terms of as a type of harm that children in
Tower Hamlets are at risk of and experiencing. They have come up in various different ways in
the work of the partnership. I mentioned right at the start the multi -agency audit
that was undertaken at the end of 2025 looking at child sexual abuse. Online
harm and CSA perpetrated or online was a vector for child sexual abuse was a
feature in a number of the cases that were examined as part of that audit. In
are obviously things happening at a national level. The implementation of the Online Safety Act across the country, the incoming social media ban are all things that will have an impact on children and families in Tower Hamlets.
There is information that we've produced that's available on the partnership website about online harms.
I know over the past year the safeguarding leads in education has also designed and led an online safety conference for teachers and designated safeguarding leads that took place in the council chamber.
I can't remember, maybe two or three months ago.
I think, as you'll see in the report, in terms of areas to consider going forward,
online safety, online risk, online harm is something that I think we could explore how we can do more
to ensure children and families are aware of risk, harm, safety online,
but also upskilling professionals and frontline practitioners
to both be able to better respond to online risk and harm and understand how to help families be safer online.
And just lastly I'd say I know the police have really clear online harm functions,
so CEOPS is the National Police Response to Online Harm, is run through the CEOPS programme.
But that's a national thing that's not specific to town handlers.
Well, we're staying on the national theme actually because I think actually it's probably
going to be legislation is going to be one of our greatest friends in terms of addressing
some of the online harm that our children are experiencing. There have been changes
to keeping children safe in education 2026, only this month that's come in. And we've
got mobile phone bands in school now for children and young people aged 16 and under. We've
off com very recently have just launched a really big review in terms of finding the social media
companies and not doing proper ID cheques and just trying to think well oh and in terms of new
seminars deep fakes AI that is also now a form of child on child abuse and that's something now
that's got a different escalation pathway in terms of social care intervention and obviously
we would also link that up around child exploitation etc and we would see
children who are perpetrators being victims as well it's a very complex
landscape. Do you have any figure or numbers and the last 12 months have been
escalated as in safeguarding issue? The really simple answer is I'm not I haven't seen data across the
partnership about online risk and harm specifically.
I'm thinking maybe the police might have some more specific
data potentially about online crimes that are reported.
I don't know what data our other partner agencies
are collecting on it.
We will, sorry I'm independent, but I do know,
I do understand how some of the data is collected.
So education will do Section 17 audits,
so they gather information from schools,
but that's only done once a year and they take all their information from the schools,
C POMs or safeguarding systems of which they have to collate issues relating to online harm.
So sadly it means that the authority will only get that data annually.
We were pleased to see because in my world there's a secondary school called Langley Park schools,
So if he can get the report or the numbers for us,
when it's appropriate, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Questions, please, yeah, go ahead.
I know this was previously mentioned
about any early identification.
However, I would like to follow up on that
and confirm that how confident are we
that overall safeguarding risks
are being identified early enough
before escalating into that critical extent,
particularly for children whose needs or vulnerabilities may be less visible.
For instance, they may not speak up about it
or they may not show that they're in need of help
or are vulnerable to any sort of safeguarding issue.
Yeah, I would just reflect the importance of that early intervention
for children and families to ensure that there's not that escalation.
So I think that's a really key point. We have a really strong and well -resourced early help service,
and we've got the new youth service as well, all early points of contact for children and families.
So we hope that with increased contact, there's increased visibility and increased opportunity to intervene at an early stage.
I think that there's always space to do more. You will maybe have heard about the families first
reforms that are coming in across social care and sort of youth services. A huge focus of those
reforms is about early intervention and prevention. So making sure as much as possible, children and
families are not neat, we don't need to escalate. And one of the things that those reforms are doing
and supporting fact these are not at a kind of like distance stage that we are in the supporting
families division is implementing these reforms as we speak. It's about the reforms request or
ensure that multi -agency teams are created to try to make sure that rather than waiting until
someone meets in meets threshold for social care or you know and different
types of social care intervention there's the opportunity to provide much
more wraparound support at an early at an early stage to prevent that so there's
we have things already early help and our youth service but some of the
national reforms in the way that Tower Hamlets are implementing the national
reforms are intended to address exactly that question, early support, early intervention,
prevention from a need to escalate.
I'm going to give you the scrutineer's answer and I'm going to slightly challenge what Roly
has just said here. Because it's really, really difficult because when you've got a child
that is not feeling okay, perhaps things aren't alright at home.
Actually, it's the parents that we need to persuade to come and work with us so that we can help the child.
And time and time again, as professionals, I know that all of our partners will get really frustrated
that we have these families that are just bouncing underneath statutory intervention,
which is the bit where we say, look, you don't have a choice
now, we're getting involved.
And that threshold's actually really high.
And we know that the cumulative harm of just not thriving,
but not having that significant harm,
is not good for children.
And that's where my challenge to anybody
will be, how do we come around those families as a community?
It is about relationships.
It's about the people that live next door to you.
It's about being neighbourly.
It's about being friends.
It's about reaching out and helping.
And I think that that's a challenge to society.
I'm sorry that sounds like I'm giving a bit
of a lecture there, but I think what I'm saying is
it's really, really hard.
And I think there are so many people
that want to help our children,
and when we just can't get in there.
So I'm hoping some of these reforms will help,
but in part, we need to come together as a community.
I know this is really difficult to tackle but what are we doing as a service and as
a partnership to reduce stigma so that people and families are more likely to reach out
to these services before it becomes a significant harm, where there's significant harm, there's
a risk of significant harm.
Yeah.
It's a really good point.
I think there might be more scope for us to do outreach.
The things that I've already spoken about in terms of the youth service
and our early help services, which obviously run family hubs, children's
youth service has youth centres like Haylborough and stuff.
A visible presence in the community, welcoming spaces that are accessible for children, families in the community.
I think those help.
You mentioned the word stigma in particular.
More can be done possibly to help people understand the role of social care
and how social workers are, you know, what social workers do, maybe what police do,
and how what communities understanding perception of the police can be. I don't
think that any of our agencies are not alive to how they are perceived and how
sometimes that can be a struggle. I would say go back to those in terms of the
families first reforms which is about dissolving some of the kind of things
particularly around what I talk I'll talk very briefly about families first
forms in the neighbourhood reforms in health families first reforms is a
little bit about dissolving that kind of rigidity around the social work role
that might make social workers and the social work system feel more
approachable less stigma the neighbourhood reforms maybe is an
opportunity for health services to be more community based, for people to feel more welcome,
more like their health services reflect them and their needs. That's not to say there aren't
really big risks around those changes and how that's going to be. Does that answer your
question? A little bit at least. Yeah it does, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Just to follow up on what Rowan said, I wonder if there's any plan to consult young people
on their experiences accessing these services or the challenges that stigma is there to
prevent them from accessing these services in schools or outside schools as well?
Yeah, that's a really good point.
So the answer is yes, and again, hopefully we can do more.
I guess I'll talk a little bit about some of the different things,
because I think what we're talking about is quite broad,
but actually sometimes I think agencies are trying to address that broader concern
in terms of stigma and how people feel working with different agencies,
but doing it on a slightly more specific level.
So I mentioned when I spoke earlier about our young
scrutineers, so the partnership employs local young people
to provide direct consultation, advice, insight and guidance
on the work that we do.
Through or with the young scrutineers, the partnership
has led a number of focus groups and consultations
with young people in various education and social care settings. Those have been focused
specifically a lot on like adolescent safeguarding thematically. We're looking at the moment to
explore more with educational sort of neglect in an educational setting and how sort of stigma
around accessing services and support in school for young people. There are groups within our
are other agencies. I know for instance supporting families division has children living in care
councils who are consulted and spoken to about changes. I can't remember the name but I believe
there are patient groups within health as well who also provide that function. Not to
say it can't be more and more central but there is really good work in that respect
that's taking place.
Due to time constraints, please in brief.
Really briefly, just to confirm, previously it was mentioned
that a lot of families and young people are involved in helping shape those early identification programmes.
So what evidence do we have directly from families and schools that early identification is actually improving?
I think so the earlier identification element there are feedback mechanisms
that some of the agencies who form the partnership are implement so there's for
instance there's early help annual survey that the early help service
implements I don't have the data to that off the top of my head so there are
various points where people are checking, people who use services are
checked in with, I would need to go away and have a think about where that data
is located to be able to give you a kind of more detailed answer. I would also, I
would say in terms of what we spoke about with the the reforms and how
that's going to shape that or affect earlier early identification, the reforms
are a relatively early stage so I wouldn't expect a huge amount of data or
insight to be available right now on that. I think it is something that
people and the people leading those reforms in various agencies are alive to.
So perhaps when I return here I'll be able to give you some more insight and
data in that respect and Sarah wants to come in. Yeah it's really really complex.
The reason being is we talk about an early health service but by the time our
and families are with the early help service, they're already starting to escalate.
The people that do absolutely fantastic early help will be our communities.
All our councillors in this room will be advising families in their communities,
the church, the send group, you know, and so schools, amazing, fantastic,
in terms of having relationships with children and knowing when things aren't right,
being worried when they get absent.
We don't collect that data at early help.
All of that, so it's a phenomenal system
because it is a system.
So I think that eventually, whatever you do see here
that is early help data is still up here.
I'm not sure we will ever capture
what everyone in this room is doing,
but what we absolutely must do,
and perhaps we might be able to capture an evidence,
is to make sure that everyone has got the skills and knowledge and the confidence to know how to ask a question, how to help,
and know when it's not right and know when you can't manage it and we need to maybe get the higher early helping, if that makes sense.
But in terms of engaging, talking about stigma, I think that our young people will be,
I went to Spotlight to go to meet the sexual health service there and to meet the GP there
and I spoke to some young people there. Oh, I was blown away. Blown away.
And we wouldn't capture that sort of data from an early health perspective, but there's some absolutely amazing advice being given,
really empowering children. And so there is a lot going on. I don't know how we capture that in the sense of data.
talk about it because we can ask young people. So just putting it out there as
complex doesn't mean we shouldn't try and mind. Thank you. As a chair I have a
very simple question to you. What has been the most significant learning from
safeguarding reviews and inspection during the past year and how has this
translated into tangible service improvements?
So I should probably end up and say, so I was appointed in July,
so my answer will be based on information that I can't necessarily take a huge amount of credit for.
I think there are typical emerging themes that we see recurring across different practise
reviews and we would take action to address these. Perhaps one of the most prominent or
around information sharing between professionals.
So the question was raised earlier
about how we can make sure
that professionals understand information sharing
and that proper and appropriate information sharing
is taking place, particularly from a safeguarding perspective
I think when we look at both good practise
that's identified in safeguarding practise reviews
but also where there are areas for development identified,
a lot of those relate,
or something that it's not unusual for those to relate to where agencies have
or haven't shared information in a timely manner to support safeguarding
interventions. And I'm thinking it if you'd like a more detailed answer I
think I'd want to go away and have a look at the reviews that we've done and
then and then provide a little bit more detail sort of separately if that's okay.
Just from the independent scrutiny of perspective over the last
one of the significant improvements I have seen is the data sets.
And we do need to be led by data, they tell a significant storey.
There's opportunities for us to start having really targeted strategic conversations
around what that data means for our children across the borough.
If you saw the data a year ago, it was shambolic.
The amount of work that has been put into it is phenomenal.
what it means is we know the impact of our work as a partnership better.
We know the impact that we're having on our children better.
We can start holding each other to account better, and they do, really, respectively, actually, as a partnership.
So for me, from a scrutiny perspective, that has been a game changer,
and I would be very proud, actually, of the partnership in terms of how they've come together to achieve that.
Thank you to all partners involved in safeguarding children across the borough. The committee
welcomes the continued focus on learning partnership work and responding to emerging safeguarding
weeks. I would like to recommend that officers provide a quarterly briefing note to the children
and education scrutiny subcommittee detailing progress against the same reform programme including
performance data as you mentioned and EHCP timelines assessment waiting times to enable
the subcommittee to assess whether the reform are delivering improved outcomes and more sustainable
same system. Thank you.

6 b) Draft Children and Education Scrutiny Sub Committee Work Programme for the 2026/27 Municipal Year

Thank you.
Our final substantive item this evening is the draught work programme for 2026 to 2027.
Effective scrutiny relies on careful planning and ensuring that the issues most important
to resident are reflected in our programme. Rosie, could you please provide a brief overview of how
the draught programme was developed and highlight any key points members should
consider. Please. Thank you. Thanks chair so quickly just provide an overview of the
work programme how we developed it so it's included in the agenda pack. You recall
at the last meeting we considered central topics for the 2026 to 27 work
programme which identified through discussions with officers and other
areas relating to policy development, performance monitoring and pre -decision
scrutiny and reports were scheduled into consultation with service leads to align
with business planning and to ensure agendas remain manageable throughout the
year. So you can see from the agenda that we're aiming at the moment for two
substantive items per meeting so this allows for any reactive items or any
timeline shifts that we just don't foresee. Further to this we held a
scrutiny member workshop in July where members heard about the key directorate
priorities and explored how these could be reflected within scrutiny work and
And then additionally to this, throughout August and September, and they are continuing
into October as well, the scrutiny team are undertaking community engagement activity
to gather residents' views on issues they believe the council should prioritise.
Obviously this has uncovered a huge array of items which cannot fit into one agenda
for this year.
So we've gone through the prioritisation framework to try and whittle these down.
So basically what you see at the moment is here for your discussion and it has not yet been signed off
and we are going to sign it off, well if everyone agrees, at the overview and scrutiny committee, if it's happening,
I think on the 22nd and that's pretty much the Whistlestop Tour but I'd just like to emphasise as well that these,
although it's been cleared it does remain draught all year so there might just be a few changes
but you'll be kept up to date on what these changes are and why they've been changed as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Rujain. Thank you for your update. Do members have any suggestion about any items who is their thinking
are missing?
You okay?
Thank you. Yeah, go ahead, please. Am I allowed to suggest new lines of inquiry for the work plan or is it only
comments on the existing work plan. You can suggest new lines of inquiry that we
can look at sort of weaving in so there's a chance it might work with
another item. Also I should have added, apologies, that we also will run some
challenge sessions throughout the year too so there's a chance that's something
that we haven't covered we can have like a one -off deep dive into as well.
So yeah, feel free. Thank you. So I've just been approached by a lot of residents
especially recently about post -16 attainment in the borough. And I know
that this was identified in the council's own report on school
performance last year as a key area for scrutiny. And you know there's a concern
from residents and from myself and from the report as well I think that while
we're really strong in Tower Hamlets on earlier you know pre -16 results
attainment post 16 is less strong,
it's, you know, we're being outperformed
by neighbouring boroughs, you know, Hackney -Newham,
and, you know, what are the reasons for this,
and how can we be kind of improving in that area.
So what I was hoping that we could include somewhere
is a review of educational outcomes,
not just in terms of A -level attainment,
but also things like, you know,
Russell Group and Oxbridge admissions,
higher education progression rates, apprenticeships, including degree
apprenticeships, benchmarking against other boroughs, all that kind of thing.
And also stats, I think the mayor, Rahman, said this, you know, stats about pupils
who are leaving, high attaining pupils who are leaving the borough post 16 to
study elsewhere. I don't know if that's if that's possible to do or not.
I think we can.
Yeah, I think that's definitely doable and I'd also, obviously with the agreement and
everyone, we can look at doing probably like a deep dive, but I think something else that
came out in a lot of the engagement sessions was disappointment, I guess, that there's
a lot of young people in the borough that just can't access work and they see Canary
Wharf and they get quite frustrated that all the opportunities are there, so I do wonder
whether that could be sort of weaved into a broader piece of work that's still quite streamlined in its
outcomes. Obviously we can work with the chair and the rest of the committee at how this can look,
but it's been noted, thank you. Thank you. I would like to give a brief recommendation. I know there is a huge disparity in people with
having 45 % of the education healthcare plan.
I think we as a council need to determine the underlying issue
and a piece of work should be commissioned to establish the reason
for high number of education healthcare care from the Bangladeshi background.
Thank you.
Thank you, chair.
Councillor, if I may, I think the reason for that is because the statistics for the number
of children in the borough are Bangladeshi children are overrepresented compared to the
number of Bangladeshi adults in general.
So I think Lisa answered that question to say that actually Bangladeshi children's
education health care plans aren't over, even though if you look to adults as well it looks
like it's very over as that represented but because of the number of children are higher
in Bangladeshi families actually it's less over.
Sorry, I was just wondering, it might not be appropriate, but is there anywhere that
we can talk about pupil place planning and the four enrols in the schools that are having
a huge impact on deficit budgets in schools and what the schools can provide for the children.
I just haven't seen any mention of it anywhere and it's quite a big issue in town Hamlets
Falling rows
But what support is the borough providing for schools where they've got falling roads
Because it has a huge impact obviously on the school's budget and what they can provide for the children
Thing
Thank you chair. There is one item that I would be really really keen to have on the agenda.
Potentially it would be appropriate for a challenge session or sort of to be slotted
in rather than a larger piece of work. Specifically around the renegotiation of the council's PFI
contracts which are responsible for a lot of the schools in the borough. Those contracts have been
underway for up to 25 years, a lot of them.
I think some of the most recent ones
were renegotiated about 10 to 15 years ago.
But they're all coming up for renegotiation in 2027.
So this is a really key moment in time
for the council to have, for us to assist the council
in scrutinising those contracts
and ensure we're getting best value for money
from these private financing contractors
who have actually built a lot of schools in the borough
and who have unfortunately actually in the past not built those schools to the
standard that we were promised 25 years ago under the Labour government that
they would be built. So I was hoping, I appreciate that it was a very last
minute, but I sent yourselves a little brief today and I printed one out and I
was hoping I might be able to just share it with other members in case they're
interested to read and if that was something that could be fitted into the
workflow, potentially just by calling in the officer who manages the PFI contract renegotiation.
I think that would be a really key moment for us to have some good oversight of a very,
very lucrative, potentially, moment in time for the Council and for our kids.
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I would like the subcommittee to undertake a challenge session on new services to evaluate
the impact of the services transitioning in -house. It would be important to understand whether there
is a consistent offer across the world, whether services are meeting local need and whether any
gaps in provision remain. Any members happy with this suggestion, I will be circulating further
information by email to the youth sorry wait until they are from our chamber
For your contribution, the comments made this evening will help shape the final programme
before it is referred to the overview and scrutiny committee for approval.
You may wish to recommend that subcommittee add items to the work programme if any are raised here.
Already we will discuss this here. Now I would like to remind everyone about the overview and
scrutiny briefing seminar on the new corporate performance framework which is taking place on
Thursday, 17th September,
6 PM to 730 PM on Teams.
Finally, is there any other business to discuss?
No. Thank you.
With no other business to discuss,
I call this meeting to a close.
The next children and
education subcommittee meeting will be on 9th November.

7 ANY OTHER UNRESTRICTED BUSINESS CONSIDERED TO BE URGENT

Thank you, scrutiny member, for your attendance,
participation tonight,
your meaningful contribution, your comment, your question. Thank you and good evening.