SCN0684

Written evidence from Halton Borough Council.

 

 

  1. What challenges do you face in discharging your statutory duties towards children and young people with SEND?  Is this enough to lead to satisfactory outcomes for children and young people with SEND?

 

  1. There has been over 60% reduction in the LA budget since 2010, this coupled with the loss of flexibility in the DSG, means the core SEN service has had to be reduced.  This along with the increase in statutory assessments, restricts the LA ability to tackle schools effectively about the support for children and young people with SEND.  This reduction in staff has meant there is less of an emphasis on preventative work and more of an emphasis on reactive processes.  These barriers mean that instead of working to support schools to deliver at SEN support, schools are now progressing children and young people to statutory level.

 

  1. Is the assessment threshold for Education Health and Care Plans too low?

Yes it is too low. The two questions that form a legal test within the code are :

 

 

  1. These questions mean that less evidence that is put forward the more likely we are to have to assess as we are unsure about the answers.  This means that the school need to demonstrate less of a planned approach to meeting needs, that is, no graduated approach.  It also means that schools are no longer required to demonstrate how using their SEN budget is meeting the needs of their children with SEN, disadvantaging children with SEN from the very beginning.

 

  1. Our work is further hampered as the definition of SEN lacks specificity.

 

  1. We have recently been directed to undertaken assessments for a child when the evidence we had available was that he would not need additional provision, however the tribunal view was that we could not answer this until an assessment had been completed.  This undermines the ongoing assessment of need and support schools and other professionals make, and will lead to additional assessments to be undertaken and, in some cases, raising the expectation of parents.

 

  1. Are the statutory for assessment and finalisation of Education Health and Care Plans appropriate?

 

  1. It is impossible to meet the timescale if a request is received between April and July as we lose time over the summer period.  It is not possible for all the assessment advice to be completed within the 6 week timescale.  With the pressure on specialist provision it is often difficult to identify appropriate provision within that timescale.

 

  1. We have now built in additional planning meetings where we now try hard to co-produce plans with parents.  We value this contribution but it places pressure on the assessment process.

 

  1. We are currently faced with increasing numbers of assessments due to the relatively low bar for assessment.  Often children are assessed that do not require this assessment, this then requires work to write up the advice and deal with the issues that will raise and creates extra pressure on a denudated service and makes the timescales less likely to be met.

 

  1. How do you control the quality of EHC Plans?  Do you consider all plans to be of sufficient quality?

 

  1. All plans are read by the lead for the Assessment Team, the Clinical Lead for Health and they are checked by an EP to ensure that EP advice is reflected in the plan.

 

  1. There is a multi-agency partnership panel and all plans are scrutinised by this panel.    

 

  1. Plans are co-produced with parents or young people, where appropriate and practicable, and they often ‘choose’ the inventions they want to see their children accessing based on the advice given through the assessment process.  This we believe was advocated within the changes to the code, in order to make children and their parents central to the process.  This can sometimes mean that parents strongly advocate for additions which then require a negotiated a form of words that meets the expectations of the parent and meets the assessed need of the child.

 

  1. Whilst the codes revision regarding keeping parent’s central is a good one, it does not account for the varying demands of parents and the resources required to meet them, this has increased the number of tribunal appeals as it is not always possible to meet all demands in full neither is it always in the best interests of the child, and nor is it possible to be delivered by the school.

 

  1. We are currently looking in more detail at the quality of our EHC Plans.  External consultants have been engaged who will look at 60 plans from 2014 to 2018 so that we can see how the plans have evolved, identify effective practice, strengths and areas for development.

 

  1. In your authority, do you consider there is enough focus on children and young people with SEND without an EHC Plan?

 

  1. No.

 

  1. Although we have a small Specialist Teachers Team and EPs trying to work with schools.  There is often a push by schools and parent to get an EHC Plan and this is seen as the ultimate aim.  This then changes the focus of work away from the SEN support to supporting the assessment process.  This is directly having an impact on the social emotional and mental health of staff in schools and of children and young people.  EPs are trained practitioners and can deliver a number of therapeutic interventions in schools to support SEMH but they are unable to deliver much of this work as they are having to meet statutory demands and the workforce is shrinking.

 

  1. More work needs to be done to help schools, parents and the community to understand that their needs can be met without a plan, however, this will require more investment and better access to some health services.

 

  1. A barrier to inclusion in many schools is that schools will define the amount for SEN and ring fence this sum only.  With recent challenges to schools budget, the staff schools have had to cut are more likely to be non-teaching staff, and those staff are in the majority of eth cases those supporting pupils with SEND.

 

  1. For many schools the gathering of ‘advice stage’ becomes more of process of gaining evidence to meet the criteria to allow them to apply for an EHC Plan.

 

  1. What impact did the transition to EHC Plan have?

 

  1. Additional staff were employed on fixed term contracts to undertake this work.  100% of transitions was completed within the timescale, however, we have identified some inconsistency in the quality due to the lack of time and capacity to undertake up to date assessments for each plan.  This will, however, be picked up in the reviews.

 

  1. What level of training do the case officers in your SEND Team have?

 

  1. When the Assessment Team was first established they were provided with weekly training sessions.  As they have built up their knowledge and skills over the last 4 years the training has reduced, but we continue to provide external training in a range of areas such as personal budgets, person centred planning and how to write outcomes. 

 

  1. What steps do your authority put in place to avoid Tribunal cases?

 

  1. We include parents in the planning meetings throughout the process and try and be explicit from the beginning that there is no guarantee that a plan will be issued.
  2. Assessment Co-ordinators build a relationship with the family, keeping the family informed at all stages of the process and explain reasons for the decisions.  They negotiate with parents over changes to the proposed plan and placement.  This seems to have a positive impact as we have relatively low levels of tribunals.

 

  1. Following ‘decline to assess’ or ‘decline to issue’ the Assessment Co-ordinators always offer mediation.  Most mediations end positively, sometimes because the LA agrees to assess as new information has been received, or it could be due to other plans being put in place during the mediation which meet the child’s needs.

 

  1. When a notification of appeal is received, the original decision is reviewed again, if additional compelling information is then received at this stage we will look to withdraw.

 

  1. What process do you go through when deciding when to engage external legal advice?

 

  1. We have only employed external legal advice on 3 occasions over the last 5 years.  In each of these cases the family have themselves engaged legal advice.

 

  1.                     Do you use traded services?  If so, do you think that this prevents some young people with SEND accessing support?

 

  1. The EPs is a partially traded due to cuts to the central budget.  This in effect has reduced the access to the service within the authority.  Whilst the service tries to maintain some access to service at a core level, with all schools allocated a small amount of core time, time is often lost to the completion of statutory assessments, which has to take priority.  This time can then not be used to support children at SEN support.

 

  1. Some schools cannot afford to purchase traded services.  Those that can and do, buy high amounts of service and with only a few EPs in the service to deliver, there are, even with buy-back, too few EPs to meet demand.  Every effort is made to try and ensure that schools access support in a fair and equitable way, however, if they do not buy in they have very limited access above the statutory service. 

 

  1. In some academies, if they purchase support they “buy’ what they want and often do not wish to see challenge to their practice.
  2. We are currently working hard with other stakeholders, primarily the CCG, to encourage them to fund more psychology support, but this is not forth coming and their own budget pressures and higher profile priorities have hindered or prevented them in supporting and enhancing children’s services.

 

  1.                     Do your arrangements for involving children, young people and their parents include a broadly representative group of children with SEN or disabilities and their parents and young people with SEN or disabilities?  How do you involve these groups in decision making?

 

  1. We now have a new parent/carer forum which is a collaboration of a number of representative parent/carer organisations.  It is supported by the local children and young people service commissioned to support the voice of children and young people in the authority.  The parents/carer group is represented at all SEND Strategic Groups and the Children’s Trust.  We also have very active participation from our Children and Young People through ‘Bright Sparks’.

 

  1.                     Do you consider that your local offer meets the needs of children and young people and parents?

 

  1. Yes.  We regularly review our Local Offer with parents/carer and children and young people and monitor the hits and feedback we receive.

 

  1.                     Do you consider that your social care and education teams work well enough together?

 

  1. We have recently had an independent review of our High Needs processes and this has been highlighted is an area for development for us.

 

  1.                     How are you overcoming the barriers such as different thresholds and different assessment timescale for different services?

 

  1. See above and specifically, this remains a challenge for the health service.

 

  1.                     How are you helping schools to overcome challenges with working with health services?

 

  1. At an operational level by ensuring representation between schools, LA and health as part of a multi-disciplinary team is helping to ensure that assessments encompass the work of EP and specialist services. We are also liaising with schools and sharing information from these panels to help improve communication and timeliness of assessment information e.g. outcomes from panels and what schools need to do.

 

  1. We have a standing item on SENCO workshops to discuss their concerns and share information back from our Chid  Development Centre. This has allowed us to address some of the training needs that have arisen. It is improving but can be a process that is fraught with conflict and frustration at times.

 

  1. The main issues remain however; that there is limited priority in the health service for children services and health contribution to SEND is limited either due to funding or in the ability to recruit the appropriate health professionals.

 

  1.                     What challenges do you face in discharging your post-19 duties as intended by the legislation?

 

  1. The expectation of parents and carers is often that young people will continue in education irrespective of whether there will be a positive benefit for the young person.

 

  1. The costs of post-19 provision cannot be met within the current High Needs budget.

 

  1. For many young people it would be more appropriate for them to access a supported internship or work but currently opportunities are limited.

 

 

  1. We have successfully secured consultancy support from the DFE and are working on improving our approach to preparing young people for adulthood.

 

 

 

March 2019