Meeting documents

To consider presentation from C Merchant-Jones, Strategic Manager, SEND.

Dr Hart, Assistant Director, Inclusion will give an update on the WSoA by way of introduction to the item and the focus on EHCPs.

Note: The Chair will be allowing 1 hour for this agenda item to allow for discussion.

The Committee received a PowerPoint presentation introduced by the Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing Councillor Clare Paul and presented by the Council’s SEND Strategic Manager Claire Merchant-Jones and the Council’s Assistant Director for Inclusion Dr Rob Hart.

The presentation covered the following areas: -

-      Numbers of Education and Healthcare Assessments and Education, Health and Care Plans.

-      Annual Reviews

-      Working with Education Settings

-      Working with Families

-      Findings from Tribunal Review – this will be available through the SEND Improvement Board (somerset.gov.uk) (Executive summary was sent to the Committee on 30 September 2021.

-      The commitment for 2021-2022 - collaborative outcome meetings will be scaled up to be available to more families; issuing of EHC plans within 20-weeks is consistently above the national rate of 61%; targeted training relating to EHC assessment and reviews will be delivered across settings, practitioners and families; and reduction in the number of Tribunals registered will be below 3.5% of decisions taken.

The Committee asked detailed questions and made comments, which were responded to by officers, as follows: -

·         Concerns were expressed in relation to 30% of plans not meeting legal timeframes.

·         It was acknowledged there were sometimes delays to ensure plans were correct, there was a commitment with working with families to issue plans within 20 weeks.

·         Those plans that went go over 20 week timescale were delayed by a lot less than a year ago so a reduction in delays had been experienced.

·         Holding discussions with schools before there were formal disputes to try to resolve and have conversations where possible. Offering more resources around costed plans was assisting to work more effectively with schools.

·         As part of the annual review process, children 5 and under would have a review more frequently than annually but this had not been a priority, school transition meetings were in place.

·         There was reported 3017 annual reviews, audits had been undertaken of new plans issues, these included multiple stakeholders to ensure plans were appropriate and improved where needed.

·         Data on aged cases was requested at a regular report to the committee.

·         A parent could ask for an EHCP up until the age of 25 (education social care needs assessment), it was hoped that an agreement can be made before ceasing a plan is agreed.

·         A copy of the new autism pathway for the over 5’s was requested.

·         It was confirmed that there was no hold on the recruitment in the SEND team.

·         Concerns were expressed in relation to problems experienced accessing therapies in a timely way which pushes those towards an independent therapy assessment.

·         The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) had responsibility around commissioning health providers, to engage with CCG and providers of therapies to ensure a joined up process to access assessments.

·         There was confidence there was consensus around ensuring the therapy requirements and support was available and well trained members of staff could undertake interventions.

·         There were instances where tribunals could be a learning opportunity to lessen instances of a loss of tribunals in future. Critical evaluation and ongoing audit to implement mediation where possible was considered important.

·         In view of the work involved it isn’t feasible to shorten timescales from 20 weeks.

·         Questions from members of the public attending via teams were referred to.

·         The Vice Chair encouraged members of the public attending the committee via Teams to contact the Scrutiny Manager to ensure answers and responses could be provided to them following the meeting,

·         It was requested if performance figures could be considered compared to neighbouring authorities and not just national comparison along with the number of families compared to number of complaints, this was agreed to be provided in future.

·         Vacancies in SEND team were considered, there were vacancies for 2 senior assessment officers and 1 assessment reviewing officer.

·         Numbers of cases handled by individual officers were requested along with tribunals. It was estimated that there were between 87-91 live tribunals ongoing.

·         Figures involved and the number of cases in tribunals were considered excessive, there were extreme cases where children not attending school for over a year.

·         It was agreed this was number was too high. In an average year there were 1000 healthcare needs assessments which could be appealed and go to tribunal.

·         Further clarification was provided that 3000 decisions a year could be appealed. Not all would end up in a hearing, there were the amount that had been appealed, many of which would be resolved before getting to a hearing.

·         It was considered serious in those going to tribunal due to equalities issues and indicated a fundamental flaw in the process.

·         It was questioned if providers felt confident about delivering EHC plan requirements, good examples of schools being told they could provide EHCP but this was not the same as the reality of being able to provide this.

·         Families and schools had worked hard with to ensure support for advisory teams to help young people to stay in local communities.

·         A List of specialists from the authority were requested. Families and young people had the right advice and looked to local providers and specialists from the CCG and educational psychologists through health, social care and education.

·         Concerns were expressed in the lack of capacity when parents were progressing requests for special education. this had been picked up from therapy action plan with a good quality EHCP including information from parents.

·         EHC tribunals would be added to the forward plan for future consideration to be looked at and to include appeals, free support offered to tribunals and the low uptake of mediating.

·         It was clarified, there were 4000 plans, with the total number of complaints of this 3.5% of this total.

·         Concerns were expressed over the number of tribunals, the context, management and working of the appeals process to be considered in future on the work programme.

·         The Committee requested that an update report be circulated, with numbers as well as percentages with full data and sets of information to be included to provide more clarity in relation to tribunals along with the number of complaints and families who make repeated complaints to be included.

·         The Vice Chair asked that consideration be given to including an item on the agenda for the December meeting on the process of appeals process and tribunals.

In conclusion the Vice Chair thanked the officers for the detailed presentation.

The Committee noted the Education Health and Care Assessment Plan Update.