Archived decisions

Name:

Hampshire Education Psychology Service

Purpose

The guiding purpose of the Service is to develop an inclusive education system. The Service seeks to apply psychology to promote the development and psychological well being of all children and young people within the context of home, pre-school, school and community.

The Service has been working towards the following six aims as set out in the Development Plan:

· To promote excellence in service delivery through the application of evidence-based psychology;

· To contribute to the social and emotional well being of all children and adults who work with them;

· To promote effective inclusive education;

· To communicate clearly what the Service offers

· To improve access by the community; and

· To improve the use of information in strategic planning.

Current performance

Hampshire Educational Psychology Service was described in the recent LEA Ofsted report as "well regarded". Consultation with a broad range of stakeholders as part of this Review has confirmed this perception. Stakeholders tend to rate highly the quality of what the Service does, but often express concern about the low quantity of educational psychologist's time available to them. In comparison with other English shire counties the Service is considered to be good value for money. However, comparison with other services suggest that, in Hampshire, the ratio of psychologists to children and young people is relatively low. Stakeholders have raised important challenges regarding equality of access, particularly in relation to pre-school children, parents, looked after children, and young people in the 16-19 age group. As a consequence of this Review, new effectiveness measures have already been put in place. The Review Group recognised that the Service needs to work in closer partnership with other services provided by the County Council to local communities. There are no competitors that could run the full Service at present, but some functions could be outsourced or delegated in future. The main recommendation of the Review is that the Service should achieve a better balance between market sectors: as well as providing high quality statutory work, the Service needs to be more focused in its work with schools, and more available to pre-school children and other groups.

To achieve this the Service has to prioritise activities and/or find alternative funding sources.

Proposed improvements and how they will be achieved

The outcomes the Service seeks to achieve are:

· Provision of high quality psychological advice to officers regarding the statutory assessment of children with special educational needs;

· Improved attainments in National Curriculum assessments and at GCSE;

· Improved behaviour in schools;

· Training and support for early years providers in Hampshire;

· Access to psychological services for looked after children when appropriate;

· Contribute to the supervision and training of Connexions Personal Advisers;

· Improve the access that each community team has to a manager.

The recommendations from the Review to achieve these outcomes are:

· Establish a Service Level Agreement with officers regarding statutory duties;

· Establish a task team to raise educational attainments in schools;

· Establish a task team to improve emotional development and behaviour management;

· Establish a task team to apply psychology in early years settings;

· Contribute to the proposed corporate team to support looked after children

· Contribute to the Connexions initiative.

· Improve the management of community teams within a revised management structure.

The financial implications of the Review are:

· Statutory work: existing resources.

· Improving attainments: existing resources plus £20,000 for an additional consultant educational psychologist to lead this initiative.

· Behaviour: existing resources plus £20,000 to co-ordinate support to parents.

· Early years: existing resources plus £20,000 for consultant educational psychologist to lead this initiative.

· Looked after children: £20,000 to ring fenced educational psychology time.

· Provide training and supervision for Connexions Personal Advisers: £20,000

· Improved management: existing resources plus £20,000 for an additional community team leader.

Conclusion

The Best Value review has identified areas for improvement in the way that services should be delivered, and the improvement plan identifies how these changes can be achieved. However, some are dependant on sufficient additional funding being made available.