Agenda item

The Cabinet Member (CMR) for Education and Skills, the Director of Education and Early Help and the Assistant Director for SEND and Vulnerable Learners updated the Panel on the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) improvement journey, including performance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By way of introduction, the CMR wished to record his thanks to all staff, both in WCF and in the health service, for the huge amount of work they had done on service improvement.

The Director of Education and Early Help went on to make the following points:

·       The agenda included a set of slides that had been presented to the SEND Improvement Board.  The Board had continued to meet virtually throughout the pandemic.

·       On 9 March WCF had been notified by Ofsted/CQC of a re-inspection of the SEND local area provision.  Services had begun to prepare for this re-inspection and this had proved to be a good exercise in planning.  However, as the COVID-19 situation developed, the inspection was deferred to a later date.

·       Throughout lockdown it had been business as usual for the SEND team and assessment and planning had continued.

·       Changes in legislation effective from 1 May meant that instead of the duty to secure provision, the service now had to be able to demonstrate reasonable endeavours to secure provision.

·       It had been a significant challenge to improve assessment timescales.  However, in March 2020 100% of Education, Health and Care (EHC) Needs Assessments had been completed within 20 weeks.  For April the figure had been 96% completed on time.

·       In response to the pandemic and in line with the DfE requirement, all schools were asked to carry out an individual risk assessment for each pupil with an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP).  In Worcestershire this covered over 4000 pupils.

·       Staff had managed very effectively from home despite heavy workloads.

·       The lockdown period had seen an improvement in relationships with schools and other settings and moving forward the service would wish to continue the use of video calls.

·       There had been fortnightly meetings with a DfE adviser and feedback had been very positive, in particular on the strength of preparation and the team’s resilience.  Feedback had suggested that the service was in a strong position.  The DfE was no longer monitoring monthly data, a sign of confidence that this was being done effectively internally.

·       The focus now would be on ensuring that those children with EHCPs who could go back to school were able to do so and supporting those who could not return due to health concerns.

Members were given an opportunity to ask questions and the following main points were raised:

·       A Member of the Panel congratulated the service on the positive improvement in the timescales for assessment.  He referred to a discussion at Adult Care and Well-being O&S Panel which had highlighted that adult services had found advantages in the use of video conferencing with some service users.  The Assistant Director for SEND and Vulnerable Learners confirmed that the Service would look at what was best for each child.  As a result of the relaxation of requirements, where face to face work was essential, the service had chosen to extend the timescale in order to do the work properly.  There needed to be a balance between meeting the needs of service users and managing the workflow to avoid a backlog.  Staff has been creative in their approach.

·       A Member noted that 14 settings had not responded to the request for individual risk assessments and suggested that Councillors who were governors may be able to help.  The Panel was informed that this had been the picture as of 21 May and it was a dynamic, changing position.  It was confirmed that the up to date figure was that 12 settings had not responded and these were all independent, out of county settings which may be working with a large number of local authorities.  Officers were working with the DfE to make contact.

·       The Chairman expressed concern about children and young people from London boroughs who were housed locally and asked whether contact would be made with the originating authority in London.  Members were reminded that the Director of Children’s Services had written to the Association of London Directors of Children’s Services expressing concern about this issue.  Although the issue remained, there had been some improvement with better communication and better joined up working.  The Director of Children’s Services added that there was a need to be clear about the legal basis on which the local authority was placing a family.  If a local authority placed a looked after child out of area, there was a legal obligation to tell the ‘host’ authority.  There was not the same legal obligation when families were housed out of borough and this was an ongoing frustration.

The Panel thanked the Cabinet Member and the officers for the report and requested a further update in six months.