Agenda item

Report by Assistant Director of Education and Skills.

The Committee is asked to consider the performance and progress of the SEND and Inclusion Strategy to date against its objectives, including current performance on Education, Health and Care Plans.

20.1     The Cabinet Member for Learning and Skills, Cllr N Jupp, introduced the report and highlighted that it was timely to review the Special Educational Need and Disability (SEND) and Inclusion Strategy as it had been adopted in late 2019, but the recent Government Green Paper meant that proposals and actions needed kept under constant review.

20.2     Assistant Director (Education and Skills), Mr Wagstaff, reminded the Committee that the SEND and Inclusion Strategy had been prepared in response to the rising demand for additional support for children with special educational needs, and to particularly look at work in mainstream schools to ensure they were inclusive.  The strategy addressed several key issues around data to plan for placements, the broader issue of inclusive practice in schools, whether the needs of children who had been identified with special needs were being met, the need for more specialist placements and market analysis of where to look for additional specialist facilities when required. 

20.3     The SEND and Inclusion Strategy Board contained representatives from the sector, including parent carers, schools and health, who scrutinised detail of progress against initial objectives and actions.  The strategic board had increased its remit to cover SEND commissioning and had a very clear focus on workstreams including provision and alternative transition.

20.4     The Chairman introduced Ms Westwood, the acting Chief Executive of the West Sussex Parent Carer Forum (WSPCF), an independent, pan-disability charity working to represent the views of parent carers in West Sussex of children and young people aged 0-25 years with special educational needs and/or disability. 

20.5     Ms Westwood made the following points:

20.6     The WSPCF had been very much involved in the co-production and updating of the Strategy and their views had been heard and taken on board where possible.  There was clearly a strong commitment and desire to improve SEND services for children in West Sussex, but the process was more service focussed than on the child or young person.  Many families felt that what they said about the young person was not always heard, and this caused them frustration. 

20.7     The West Sussex Children and Young People’s Plan listed SEND as a priority.  The SEND and Inclusion strategy had to deal with inconsistency of good practice across a large county. The strategy needed to also focus on the majority of SEND young people who do not have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). 

20.8     The strategy could do more to acknowledge the SEND family journey and focus on telling families how they can access services. 

20.9     The WSPCF acknowledged that delays in the delivery timescales for EHCPs and action plans were often due to services outside the ownership of the strategy.

20.10  Better communication with families, children and young people could help address some of the challenges, frustrations, empower families and help manage expectations and reduce a culture of blame if people knew where the problem laid.

20.11  WSPCF recognise that the County Council is being asked to deliver more support with no additional funding, e.g. educational psychology have identified the need for local authorities to communicate with families about delays to service and to help signpost families for support whilst they are waiting for services and if they have applied for an EHCP.

20.12  SEND covers those 0-25 years, covers education, health and care, but it sits in Children’s Services.  Was there enough high-level strategy representation from other key areas on the strategy board? How could there be a sense of ownership from other areas if it was not their strategy.  In many local authorities the SEND and Inclusion Strategy sat in an overarching position so adults and children services have equal ownership and could have key input.

20.13  Members thanked Ms Westwood for her input and members of the Committee asked questions of Ms Westwood and officers and a summary of those questions and answers follows.

20.14  Examples of how communications could be improved would be by highlighting where things were happening to families, to have education and skills officers working with colleges, families do not know what is happening behind the scenes.  Families also need to be sign posted to different partners who might be involved in supporting them in areas such as health.  A recent example had been the lack of communications around school transport at the beginning of the autumn term.  Communications with schools were via advisory teachers and regular planning meetings are held. 

20.15  In terms of governance the SEND and Inclusion Strategy Board had a broad range of representatives beyond the education and skills service, including the assistant director of social care and health colleagues.  There was currently no adult service or scrutiny representative and that was an opportunity the Board would like to explore, that member could then feed back to the scrutiny committee.    Additionally, a pan-Sussex Children’s Board was being established as part of the development of the Integrated Care Board, which would focus on five priorities with children with SEND being one of those.  That board would feed into the Children First Board, which then feed into the Health and Wellbeing Board.  Members questioned whether all the boards under key line of enquiry 2 were necessary and requested a chart detailing the meeting, attendees, how often they met and the links between the boards.  It was confirmed that this model was replicated in many other authorities and was based on the engagement of stakeholders.

20.16  The impact of the covid pandemic is being seen in terms of escalation of needs and there is a national evidence base of data which we could compare our data with.

20.17  Greater detail could be found on the data dashboard which held a lot of detail and linked through to reports to the Strategy Board.  Workstream leads meet fortnightly to assess the data and progress.

20.18  Training is a key element and is provided through the West Sussex Services for Schools websites.  A key part of the SEND and Inclusion Advisors’ role is to provide advice and training for SEND co-ordinators with regular forums and networks.  Schools can also bid for focussed learning around subjects like autism and therapeutic thinking approaches.  

20.19  Officers acknowledged there were multiple entry points for support and advice for families and a project was already underway to bring the many different advice lines together to directly support parents to find the right pathways early on.  Officers would welcome any feedback from members from schools they visited.  Schools were aware of contact arrangements, but work was underway to encourage schools to identify the support they might need and to contact the service earlier, ideally before reaching the exclusion stage.  Funding had been provided, over the last few years, to schools for earlier intervention work, so schools could take more responsibility for a child’s needs and get the right provision to reduce the risk of exclusion. 

20.20  Examples of best practice are shared with other schools to help those who were not managing as well.

20.21  The Committee sought reassurance from the Cabinet Member for Learning and Skills, that the extra 500 SEND places would be realised.  Cllr N Jupp advised the Committee that it was reviewing whether demand could be met over five years it was hoped some of the spaces would be provided by two new Government funded special free schools, however schools could take several years to build.  Cllr N Jupp confirmed that he would continue to press for capital funding for places as soon as was possible.

20.22  Educational Psychologists (EPs) were employed by the County Council, however the professional standard had shifted to a doctorate level, which had led to less people becoming EPs, less places available to train and less willingness to work with local authorities on strategic assessments.  This had led to a national demand issue.  The County Council were working on a project with Southampton University to engage with trainees and with agencies, but there was still a small pool of professionals available.  The service was exploring how Early Years Inclusion Advisors could support the assessment process with the right support at the right time.

20.23  Members expressed concern that only 6% of EHCPs were being completed within the statutory 20-week deadline.  Officers reported that the caseloads had increased nationally as well as in West Sussex and coupled with a smaller pool of professionals had caused a backlog of work.  They added that although some assessments were not always being completed within the timescales, children were being assessed.  EPs were focussed on statutory assessments and work was in hand to get families support from other professionals sooner and avoid children from reaching the full assessment level.  Officers monitored the workload in what was a high-pressure environment for a committed service.  Members highlighted that should there be an Ofsted inspection of the service, that this would be an area of concern. The action plan at Appendix 1 of the agenda papers outlined various actions being taken.  Officers had regular discussions with the SEND advisor at the DfE to look at greater efficiencies and how panels worked, to address the backlog and increased demand.

20.24  Resolved – That the Committee:

1.   Agrees that open lines of communication with SEND families and schools are key to ensure they are aware of the journey and support available and ask that consideration is given to how this can be improved, including a single point of access for advice for schools and dedicated communication support for families.

2.   Would welcome that Adults Services and CYPSSC representation on the SEND Strategy Board is explored. 

3.   Will explore the impact of Covid on SEND children as a potential item for future scrutiny at its Business Planning Group. 

4.   Raises concern over the number of EHCPs being completed within the statutory deadline number and that the increase in number of requests for assessments is exacerbating this and highlights that early identification of Children and addressing their needs early is key and that this is focused on moving forward.

5.   Requests that the Cabinet Member makes every effort to accelerate the provision of additional SEND placements, including securing an additional capital commitment to fund this where possible. 

6.   Would like to see a document that sets out the governance structure that oversees the delivery of the SEND and Inclusion Strategy to understand the roles of the different Board and how they interrelate.