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Written evidence from Parental Submission 172

 

  1. I am happy to submit a review of how the SEN reforms have gone under my local authority and how I have had national support. The only positive that I had is that there have been a number of charities and parent support groups that I have been able to access for support. Other than that it has been a miserable, spectacular failure. I have listed the facts below so that I can be as direct as possible.
  2. I am under the [local authority 1] and these are some of the problems that I have come across that are not unique to myself.
  3. Illegal EHCP’s – Most of the EHCP’s that are issues in this borough are either accepted and then the family end up home education because of the mental health of their children as a direct result as of a lack of support or they end up going to court. This can be verified by many parents. The most common issues being
    1. Woolly wording
    2. No specific content from reports
    3. No proof of reports used
    4. No proof of school evidence and schools told not to write specific information in their contributing evidence (this is used as an excuse for EHCP’s as the council insist they need to be flexible)
    5. Reducing need to behaviour issues as this is the biggest PRU
    6. Not reading amendments and just resending it back out.
    7. No know available information about who actually writes and then edits the EHCP’s
    8. A widely known issue that reports are often not read due to size.
    9. Up to date information not added to EHCP (an example being medical needs and recourse)
    10. Staff not trained to write EHCP’s
  4. Staff cuts – There have been a number of cuts and this has been disastrous as I have listed below.
    1. Sen reform law not followed as in a common delay being no Educational Psychologists or a maximum of 2 on contract meaning the EHCP process takes longer and there is rarely one for annual review.
    2. No actual input unless funded by the schools as all services are now school buy in only. This has meant reports “rejected” for nothing more than no one can get support services to help.
    3. The EHCP not meeting parents before annual reviews due to “paperwork only” Annual reviews.
    4. EHCP in communications lock down. An example of this being the cut off from statements to EHCP’s and parents being actively told not to bother getting in contact with them because they will not have time.
    5. No transition. My son was supposed to have his EHCP sent to schools so they could say that they could meet need. This never happened and now my son has mental health issues because the school could not meet need. Delays in meetings due to a lack of staff has meant that I am still waiting after 7 months from when the annual review should have started to get it actually started. This is common place.
  5. Breaches of SEN reform law consistently – A prime example telling parents that charities such as IPSEA and SOSSEN are wrong and that the local authority policy is what is in charge. This often results in home education or court tribunal. The home education often happens because families are tricked into it or school based anxiety due to SEN needs not being met means high levels of attendance issues and the risk of a fine.
  6. Lack of provision to meet need – They are closing down ARCs in the borough due to budget cuts that are directly affecting home education. There is not enough provision for need and with the cut of 50% of children that access out of borough provision (parents are only fighting got out of borough placements because the SEN schools will only take a child if they have a learning disability and the mainstream schools either do not have an ARC that can meet capacity, are having their ARC closed or have no SEN system that can actually meet need. Again there is no system to record this or to give feedback on this and the school forum minute concerns about the cuts that are going to directly affect SEN children have yet to be addressed).
  7. Lack of accountability in both the council and schools – Again no due process, no system of feedback or complaints. The council refusing to support parents with child discrimination and child safety issues due to a lack of SEN support of the implementations of EHCP written support as I have been told Academies are not subject to the same scrutiny and there for the council cannot intervene in any way. The problem with this is that schools often do not follow their own compliance policy and there is no complaints procedure for not implementing an EHCP at either local authority or national government level.
  8. Lack of complaints or feedback procedure for SEN needs – This is a serious problem as feedback is never gathered from the area (this was evident in Ofsted as it was all marked as individual issues raised by parents) even at events that are designed for this. This has been copied by schools that marl all issues as individual that means parents are often subjected to the same issues from one academic year to the next.
  9. No parental advocacy – SENDIASS is advisory only and there are 3 members of staff for the whole borough. That is a joke. Most of the time the EHCP team for the borough called the [name] team lies to parents, are not able to get hold of and use budget cuts and SEN policy to get away with it.
  10. No support from the council – The local offer website is missing in up to date information and local authority policy. Policies are always kept in draft form so they are never formally issued and there for cannot be challenged. All questions have to be sent via email because there is no one available to call and even then you are chasing them for up to weeks at a time. The longest I have known is 17 weeks for a question to be answered about EHCP law and that was a referral to a charity. This is the extent of what support there is in the borough other than paying for a lawyer or trying to use the [name] service that is very good but also extremely over stretched.
  11. Breaches in child safety – This is due to need not being met and support that is recommended not being implemented and a lack of provision to meet actual need. Even with an EHCP there is no guarantee that need will be met at all and there are a million and one excuses as to why.
  12. Schools unable to cope – No funding pathway, no services to meet need, no trained staff, no money for training, behaviour zero tolerance policies steamrolling EHCP reports and reasonable adjustment laws and getting away with it from the council because home education is an official recommendation due to the lack of provision and that they will not interfere with academies.
  13. Illegal funding brackets – These brackets do not cover need and often do not cover SEN school placements. No one knows what these brackets are but the average for an EHCP is 6000 for the EHCP and a fight if there is any more needed which only happens through court. This often happens because there is NOT ENOUGH PROVISION THAT CAN MEET NEED.
  14. No way to officially bring issues with the council to the council – many meetings and feedback sessions with a repeat of what the actual issues are from both parents and professionals but the issues still remain. My first meeting was 3 years ago.
  15. No direct office of contact – There is a 0-25 phone number but no direct EHCP phone number and it has become standard practice to not return phone calls due to time constraints.
  16. No clear funding pathways – This is both for services, reports that the council tell you that you need or what the funding for your child’s needs should be. I know that funding is not the problem of the parents but the top reason for a denial of specific support and EHCP reports is money quickly followed by a lack of evidence from the school even though there is no official way for schools to do that so they reject the reports or often tell schools that they cannot be too specific as schools are expected to meet most needs. Funding for a school placement is a major stress as well as most school use EHCP money for their SEN departments and not for the child. This is never investigated as the council will not get involved with academies.
  17. No clear referral pathways – To anything. The only reason why most parents know what on earth is going on is because of other parents in support groups. Parents are doing everything to within their best capacity with little council help, information or even following the law.
  18. No parental support out of school or professional support in schools until crisis point – All services are bought in from schools. This means that the schools have to do all there referrals often leaving families out of support. This is important because when a family has to home educate or has a school anxiety school refusal situation there in no support and this is often used as a reason not to issue an EHCP even though families are put under the impression that home educating is a preferred option only to be told they have to be in a school to apply for an EHCP.
  19. Home education being the only option for borough children – If you fail in getting support, an EHCP or getting the school to follow an EHCP home education is your only option until you can solve these issues. There is no consistent home tutoring groups as they are all on contract. Home education is often the only option while a family fights for an out of borough placement as that is the only provision that there is. This can carry on for years.
  20. Mental health crisis caused by lack of suitable provision – self-explanatory.
  21. Waiting lists for schools that mean home education is the only option – This is both for the ARC’s and the SEN schools that will only take a SEN child if there is also a Learning Disability. The only difference is [secondary school] that has been converted for wheelchair use that is on the border for [local authority 2] and [local authority 1] and only has 12 places. This is not enough for the borough
  22. Average fight for an assessment 2 years/average fight for a complete EHCP 4 years including tribunals and appeals, mediation, reports and the illegal EHCP.
  23. Verbal lies from the council – The first thing that support groups tell parents is only email the EHCP team. This is due to verbal lies. A prime example is the transition of removing all support when a child moves from year 6 to year 7. This has become standard practice and is told to both parent and school. My son was a victim of this standard practice and is currently suffering from mental health problems as a result and cannot access his school. There is also no official way to record that a school have said that they cannot meet needs on an EHCP. I have this situation with my youngest as his school have said they cannot meet his gifted educational needs and yet the response from the EHCP team has been to name the same school in section I and refuse to help with alternative schools.
  24. A lack of information on the local offer
  25. Illegal SEN policies from schools that do not follow the SEN reform law or follow the reasonable adjustments law – These are kept as an excuse that they are still in draft. They have been in draft since the reforms and is one of the reasons Ofsted passed them with room for improvement time slots.
  26. No parental legal consultations and all parent feedback sessions not having follow through or officially recorded.
  27. Average time for a smooth completion of an EHCP early review is a year
  28. Average time for an annual review completion is 2 years
  29. There are no social care assessments for an EHCP as there is not a department to do this and often parents are told that it is not a legal requirement.
  30. I have listed the problems above and to be honest this is echoed across the country and it has got to change. The country does not need another SEN reform it needs central government to solidify what is the SEN law including funding ring fencing law.  I have also listed what can be done nationally to help below.
    1. Standard practice law
    2. National training
    3. A national layout of an EHCP and making sure that it is transferable to every Local Authority as the case often happens that a new local authority will reject the old Local Authority EHCP leading to delays and often out of borough schools are conflicted with their own Local Authority over layout so that they can meet need.
    4. Enforcement team of the law for complaints and issues with local authority policy instead of passing the buck back to the Local Authority.
    5. Standard practice SEN policy format.
    6. Minimum standard of training required for an EHCP team.
    7. Legal support for parents to avoid rising lawyer costs.
    8. A separate legal budget that has to be applied for from central government for local authorities to use for SEN challenges. This would mean that it would not come out of the local authority SEN budget and that central government would have a true scale of how many parents have to take their EHCP to tribunal.
    9. Parent support that is central government based. This is because the councils local offer information is often incomplete.
    10. Yearly local authority checks from central government that include parental feedback.
    11. National pathways paperwork for applying for an EHCP, applying for supportive reports and feedback.
    12. National guidance for schools to follow that is legal and according to SEN reform law as most schools are reliant on councils and EHCP teams and this is a conflict of interest especially in budget cut times.
    13. Clearer applications for Legal Aid
    14. Clearer options for training for parents.
    15. Legal framework in the writing and editing of an EHCP as well as a legal requirement of panel transparency. This is often parents are told that an EHCP team can not contradict a panel decision and it is up to the parents to appeal but the panel in question is never known about or is not able to actually be challenged at all in mediation.
    16. Actual provision instead of rubbish ARC appeasements as this is a massive problem and the biggest reason families are forced to home educate.
    17. Regular central government updates in that parents have issued concerns that are reflected and central government issue a statement of correction to address this publicly. This would help resolve issues publicly instead of hiding solutions.
  31. Basically the SEN reforms have caused hell for to many people and have been used to enforce illegal, damaging cuts for children and you add on the Home Education proposed register to this whole mess and families are being attacked for no other reason than there is no one to enforce actual law if you cannot afford a lawyer or qualify for legal aid.
  32. There are loads of holes in both the Law and policy so my final suggestion would be to plug the gaps, enforce the law and hold local authorities to account.

 

April 2018