Further to the recent paper and Full Council debate on post 16 education provision, the Council would like to set out its position and policy around this subject.
The Council has a number of statutory duties regarding the education of young people who are aged 16+. However, there are specific duties that relate to young people in the care of the Council known as looked after children, or those who have Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and have been assessed as high needs requiring an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). Young people in these categories are entitled to additional support due to the complexity of their needs. The statutory duties and regulations for these children and young people are complex, often requiring more personalised planning.
This statement setting out the Council’s position does not cover those young people who are either looked after or subject to an EHCP.
The Council also has duties for young people aged 16-18 years who are not in Council care or have an EHCP these duties include:
- Promoting the effective participation of young person aged 16-18 in their area in Education and Training to ensure that those persons fulfil their duty to participate in education or training.
- Maintain a tracking system of all young people aged 16-18 years to ensure they are in education or training and identify those who are disengaged so that they can be identified and supported to get them back into education or training. This support can come from a number of areas and programmes that are in existence.
- Work with providers of education and training in their area to ensure there is suitable provision to meet the reasonable needs of the young people aged between 16 and 18 years old. Where there is insufficient provision in their area Councils should look to neighbouring local authority areas to provide capacity and work with the DfE to ensure there is provision for reasonable needs.
- Publish an annual Transport Policy Statement that sets out the arrangements for the provision of transport that supports the attendance of young persons of 16-18 years old in Education and Training. This will include details on concessionary travel schemes that are available, bus passes, subsidised bus passes, the actual provision of transport, any local authority subsidy and the average cost per young person before any subsidy is provided to ensure the extent of any subsidy is understood.
- The Council has the flexibility to contribute to, fund or charge for transport solutions where it wishes.
- Local Authorities are expected to target any support for young people and their families to those who need it most, particularly those with a low income. The policy should clearly set out the eligibility criteria for those learners who will receive support.
In formulating its policy on how the Council delivers these duties the Council also takes into account the need to exercise the responsible use of public funds, be fair and equitable and to be realistic. Therefore, an offer of travelling to college from the islands to the mainland on a daily basis is not realistic as well as not being an efficient use of public funds. Furthermore, not in the best interest of young people to take such a daily commute.
The Council’s policy for post-16 provision is based on a comparable offer for post-16 provision with the rest of the country, including Cornwall. The Council’s offer is a host family solution in West Cornwall using the extensive and excellent further education provision that exists in Cornwall. A host family solution is perfectly legal. Due to the fact that young people aged 16-18 years who live on the mainland in order to access 6th form education and are not children who have high needs under an EHPC, or a child/young person in the care of the local authority there is no legal requirement for the host family to be a registered provider of care with Ofsted. The outstanding and good level of educational attainment of students from Scilly and Cornwall attending further education colleges is high. Furthermore, it also aligns with the basic principle of keeping children close whilst developing a sense of belonging as described in the Nation Care review of ‘Stable Homes Built on Love’, this approach further minimises the impact on young people when weather impacts travel arrangements and families are worried that young people can be stranded in Penzance on occasion.
The financial support that is offered to the parents of young people aged 16-18 years old on Scilly is based upon this offer. As stated in the duties set out above the Council does not have a responsibility to fully fund all costs associated with post-16 provision but in uplifting the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) grant from £6,350 to £8,000 for this academic year the Council believes that the £8,000 is close to covering the majority of costs associated with a host family solution. Having an offer that is virtually fully funded also precludes the Council from having to adopt a means testing approach as suggested in the guidance.
If parents choose a different solution and send their young people to an alternative education experience, such as a boarding school, they remain entitled to the £8000 contribution and will need to cover any further costs. Elsewhere across England a choice of boarding school is covered by the families themselves without any contribution from the state and therefore they pay 100% of the cost unless they apply for assistance through the providers’ bursary scheme. Given that parents on Scilly get a subsidy towards the cost the Council believes this a fair and equitable solution and a responsible use of public funds (ESFA and Council), on that basis the council cannot agree to the requests for fully funded boarding options that are currently being requested by some parents.
Our experience has been that the vast majority of families and young people on Scilly have accessed the host family model for many years and still do. Host families provide a warm, welcoming and supportive home environment to young people from Scilly.
As set out in the full Council report there are a number of improvements that can be made to the hosted family solution to make it a better experience, this work is well underway with great support from the two main FE providers in Cornwall and we look forward to being able to help young people succeed in the next stages of their education.
The Council would like to remind the public that at no point has there been a referral for social work support as a result of safeguarding worries, either to the CIOS or Cornwall Council at any point on the basis of host families being unsafe and would urge the public to bear in mind the impact on young people when such language is used as a means of pressure to support fully funded boarding school choices. The impact of such language within a locally controlled social media platform is something that the Council has had significant representation about and is keen to set the record straight. The Council wishes to offer its full support and thanks to the host families who continue to support our young people.