Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence from those Members who are unable to attend the meeting.

No apologies were received.

Members will be asked to say if there are any items on the Agenda in which they have any disclosable pecuniary interests or any other interests, which may prevent them from participating in any discussion of the items or participating in any vote upon the items.

Cllr Hannah McKerchar declared an other interest in the agenda item relating to the Kirklees Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE) Annual Report 2024-25 (Minute No. 52 refers) as Vice-Chair of SACRE.

To approve the Minutes of the meeting of the Panel held on the 11^th December 2025.

RESOLVED –

That the Minutes of the meeting held on 11^th December 2025 be approved as a correct record.

Most agenda items take place in public. This only changes where there is a need to consider exempt information, as contained at Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972. You will be informed at this point which items are to be recommended for exclusion and to be resolved by the Committee.

All agenda items were considered in public session.

The Panel will receive any petitions and/or deputations from members of the public. A deputation is where up to five people can attend the meeting and make a presentation on some particular issue of concern. A member of the public can also submit a petition at the meeting relating to a matter on which the body has powers and responsibilities.

In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 10, Members of the Public must submit a deputation in writing, at least three clear working days in advance of the meeting and shall subsequently be notified if the deputation shall be heard. A maximum of four deputations shall be heard at any one meeting.

No deputations or petitions were received.                                               

To receive any public questions.

In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 11, the period for the asking and answering of public questions shall not exceed 15 minutes.

Any questions must be submitted in writing at least three clear working days in advance of the meeting.

No public questions were received.

The Panel will consider a report and presentation on the Kirklees Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE) Annual Report 2024 -2025.

Contact:        Jo-Anne Sanders, Service Director

Emma Brayford, Head of Educational Outcomes

Mark Janes, Chair - Pennine Learning

Emma Salter, SACRE Advisor - Pennine Learning

The Panel considered the 2024/25 Annual Report from the Kirklees Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE). Emma Brayford, Head of Educational Outcomes, introduced the report and advised the Panel that the Local Authority were compliant in meeting the statutory responsibilities with regard to SACRE, and were advised by Pennine Learning who worked alongside the service and SACRE. These responsibilities were:

• To monitor Religious Education (RE) provision across the local authority and produce the annual report which is shared with the Department for Education (DfE) and the National Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education.
• To monitor and support collective worship across the local authority.
• To ensure that where there have been family concerns, complaints, or requests to be removed from collective worship that they have had the opportunity to raise those with the advisory council.
• To produce an agreed syllabus for RE for community schools; this was the first year of that syllabus being in operation.
• To provide schools with high quality training and networking opportunities.

Mark Janes, Chair of SACRE, informed the Panel that SACRE met four times each year, and that its membership included Councillors, members of religious and other communities, teachers and representatives from the Church of England. The partnership with Kirklees was essential and Kirklees funded the work of SACRE. Strong relationships with officers and the partnership with Pennine Learning enabled SACRE to help teachers deliver the RE syllabus, called Believing and Belonging, so that children and their education remained at the heart of SACRE’s activities.

Jake Womack, RE Advisor at Pennine Learning, thanked Kirklees for the funding that enabled the work of SACRE to provide high quality religious education training and support for the benefit of students and teachers. RE provided the opportunity for teaching critical thinking and remained an important subject. The Panel were advised that:

• The locally agreed syllabus that began in 2024 continued to be well embedded, with half of Kirklees schools using the planning and many used the associated resources.
• Interfaith events had taken place and were planned for this year, with over 2,000 pupils taking part, interacting with the faith and belief panel.
• Secondary and Primary networks had been opened up to teachers free of charge, and networks were being run with up to 40 primary school teachers, with Secondary networks representing about 20% of the schools in Kirklees.
• A SACRE award had been set up as an alternative to the costly RE Quality Mark bronze standard, which demonstrated where schools were meeting the standards required to deliver quality religious education. Advisors visited schools as part of this process, to evaluate learning through a learning walk, work scrutiny and a student panel.
• Work was ongoing with the school welcome project. SACRE held a directory of faith and belief groups that schools could connect with, to invite speakers in and to organise visits to places of worship. This enriched students’ education by providing religious literacy and cultural understanding, which was at the core of the syllabus. Ultimately SACRE aimed to help  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52.

The Panel will consider a report and presentation on ‘The Big Plan’ - Preparation for Adulthood (PfA).

Contact:        Jo-Anne Sanders, Service Director

The Panel considered a report on ‘The Big Plan’ – Preparation for Adulthood (PfA) presented by Jo-Anne Sanders, Service Director for Learning and Early Support.  The report outlined what Preparation for Adulthood was, as set out in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Code of Practice (2015) and provided an overview of the work that the Local Area Partnership was undertaking to improve, as part of the SEND transformation. The Panel was asked to note the progress made so far and the planned next steps.

Jo-Anne Sanders presented the highlights of the report which included:

• Preparation for Adulthood (PfA) meant being healthy, having care needs met, educational opportunities, entering the world of work or volunteering, being part of society, and enjoying leisure and social activities.
• As a partnership there were statutory responsibilities to remove barriers to achieving this preparation.
• High quality resources for parents, carers and young people were available online to provide an understanding of PfA.
• Transition from childhood to adulthood involved different health and social care services, and possible changes in educational or work setting.
• The Local Government Agency had provided advice to help prioritise, and develop services, support and sufficiency for young people.
• Suggestions from parents and the Parent Carer Forum had included additional learning opportunities for young people, help with their housing needs and information on their rights regarding finances and benefits.
• A ‘Preparing for the Future’ event had been held with council services and partners, and output from the event had fed into the refreshed PfA workstream under the SEND Transformation Plan.
• Feedback from young people had informed the plan, specifically with regard to providing for those young people who had been in receipt of some SEND support but had not received an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).
• The Inspecting Local Authorities Children’s Services (ILACS) inspection in June 2025 acknowledged the good practice in PfA, including Project Search’s supported internships and Real Employment’s help in finding the right jobs for young people.
• ILACS identified PfA as an area for further improvement.
• ‘Big Plan 3’ incorporated focused activity around PfA over the next 12 months, including a board refresh and the convening of a working group involving partners including parents.
• Positive feedback was given by the Peer Review regarding self-evaluation, culture, the new governance, the Local Offer Live, examples of co-production, personalised transition support, job coaching and the enthusiastic participation of all those involved in providing PfA services.
• Areas for action included establishing and publishing a clear pathway, from Year 9, putting in place collaborative transition teams (transition huddles). Gap analysis and a commissioning review was recommended, and it was suggested that good practice be built upon with supported internships.
• The review team had also learned from Kirklees and asked for the PfA Board’s terms of reference.
• More support from the RISE partnership would be available in March, with co-production workshops, training for social workers, and the gathering of young people’s voice.

In answer to questions, the Panel  ...  view the full minutes text for item 53.

The Panel will consider a verbal update on multi-agency developments around the Children’s Social Care reforms.

Contact:        Vicky Metheringham, Service Director

The Panel considered a report on Multi-agency developments around the Children’s Social Care Reforms, presented by Robert Fordyce, Head of Service and Practice Development.

Robert Fordyce highlighted the following:

• The Department for Education had asked children's social care departments to get engaged in one of the biggest reforms of children's social care in a generation.
• The government’s aim was for every child to be given the best chances

in life, by focusing on earlier intervention in children's lives, and preventing children getting to the stage where they could no longer live with their families.

• The three main areas for change were: family help, support to children on child protection plans, and involving families more effectively through family group decision-making meetings.
• The ultimate aim was for children and families to be supported to stay together and get the help they need.
• The Children's Well-being and Schools Bill required families to be offered a family-led decision-making meeting before care proceedings were issued.
• Assessment templates were being changed to one assessment and one plan for children, to ensure that families did not have to complete complicated reassessments on new forms when their level of service provision changed.
• Pathfinder local authorities had been trying out these changes and Kirklees had been linked in with them to learn what had worked well and what challenges they had faced.
• Oversight of progression of the reforms was being provided by the safeguarding partnership executive group which fed into the chair's delivery group, and a Family First Partnership program board that had been set up.
• A working group had been set up to ensure that the renewed one assessment plan was easily understood by families, using clear language.

• Quarterly updates were being sent to the DfE on progress made and a quarterly newsletter was being sent to partners.
• Engagement events had been held with staff, and the Our Voice Team had been working with high school children.
• Challenges included:

• Reforms should be implemented by April 2027, with a plan completed by the end of the financial year, although the Children's Well-being and Schools Bill was going through parliament more slowly than had been expected.
• Next steps included talking to HR partners and the unions to ensure that staff were well briefed on any changes, and engaging with staff and partners to ensure that the reforms were right for children and families in Kirklees, and would make a positive difference.
• The reforms would be used as an opportunity to make changes  ...  view the full minutes text for item 54.

The Panel will consider a verbal update on the performance highlights from the latest Children’s Services data report covering the period ending 31st December 2025.

Contact:        Jo-Anne Sanders, Service Director

Vicky Metheringham, Service Director

Robert Fordyce gave an update on performance data to 31^st December 2025:

• Children’s Social Care Assessments – The percentage of assessments completed within 45 days was improving, but needed to increase by a further 6% to be in line with statistical neighbours. Service managers were writing weekly performance reports which kept a clear focus on the overall performance of teams. Where teams were performing less well, support had been put in place, and social workers were being offered protected time to record their assessments on liquid logic.
• Children’s Social Care Caseloads - Vacancies in some social work teams had impacted the caseloads of social workers in the Assessment and Intervention Service. This was being addressed through a variety of pathways into social work, including apprentices, frontline students, the step-up programme, and hosting university students on placement. Over the next 24 months there were a number of students due to qualify, with the first social work apprentices qualifying in July 2026.
• Section 47 Assessments - A section 47 assessment was completed when a multi-agency strategy meeting had taken place to discuss concerns that a child may have suffered significant harm. In December it was noted that more than 50% had an outcome of “other” which covered a range of different options eg: a child may already be on a child protection plan or may be a looked after child but there was enough risk for a strategy meeting to take place. These were monitored to ensure that children were put through that process only when necessary.
• Core Groups – Timeliness and rate of core groups changed according to the month; staffing levels, school holidays and other staff taking leave over Christmas could impact figures. The aim was to ensure that education representatives attended core groups where appropriate. Timely recording should improve these figures as social workers used their protected time.

Jo-Anne Sanders gave an update on December’s EHCP performance data and highlighted the following key points:

• The number of EHCPs held was over 400 more than the same period in 2024.
• 38 plans were issued in December, with only 5.3% issued within the statutory compliance time frame. This was partly due to a spike in requests for assessment in June and July which had impacted the EHCP team and those who provided statutory advice.
• Cumulatively across the 12 months of 2025, there had been 50.8% compliance (issued within the 20 weeks) which was more than double the previous year’s performance.
• The new IT case file management system provided data to pinpoint where the challenges were.
• Pressure on the educational psychology team due to maternity leaves and retirement had been identified. The existing team had been bolstered with locums to ensure compliance increased.
• It was important to balance compliance with quality to ensure that the plans were of good quality when they were issued.
• Less than five plans in December had been complex cases whereby families were waiting more than 52 weeks.
• A very small number had been waiting 30 weeks.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 55.

The Panel will consider any potential areas of pre-decision scrutiny in accordance with any cabinet decisions relating to children and young people which are on the horizon and receive updates from senior officers in Children’s Services.

Contact:          Service Directors (Children’s Services)

No items of pre-decision scrutiny on Cabinet decisions were discussed. 

The Panel will consider the proposed areas of focus and activity for the 2025/26 municipal year and discuss the method and means to be used to continue the Panel’s work going forward.

Contact:          Helen Kilroy, Assistant Democracy Manager

Visits were being organised for February 2026, dates and times were in the process of being arranged and the Panel would be updated on these.

RESOLVED –

That the Work Programme and Agenda Plan for 2025/26 be noted.