Agenda item

This report provides the Panel with an overview of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) in B&NES.

The Head of SEND introduced the report to the Panel. She explained that the numbers of Education Health and Care Plans continue to rise both nationally and in B&NES and that we have 4.9% against a national average of 4.8%.

She stated that B&NES receives around 500 applications for plans every year and that the number of plans issued was quite stable, at around 360 this year which was the same as in 2023 and 2022.

She said that the major challenge for the service is to keep up with the increasing number, those extra every year, on top of the ones we had before and the challenges around sufficiency, in particular around our special schools, our resource bases and our resources within our mainstream schools.

She addressed the issue of timeliness, the time it takes to get a plan to go through the process and said that she had been working with the local Parent & Carer Forum quite closely and listening to their views on this.

She explained that the data for September 2023 showed that we were at around  35% on time and that if we look at the requests that have come in for this calendar year we are at 39% on time which is an average of around about 24 weeks to issue instead of the 20 weeks.

She added that the parents and carers tell us that it is really the quality of the plan that is important and the quality of communication. She said that there were things that we could do within the service to improve that number, such as issuing plans before we have had all the reports back and then add them into the plan afterwards, then it looks like you have done it on time. She said but actually our parents and carers are telling us they don't really want us to do that they want a final high-quality plan rather than multiple different issuances of the same plan just for the sake of a 20 week timescale.

She said that if they could get all plans complete in 22 weeks then she would be happy with that.

She informed the Panel that she would like to address the matter of SEND Appeals, when a family appeal to a tribunal. She said that tribunal is the only recourse for the Local Authority and families when there is a disagreement between professionals around what is best to go into the plan, which school is correct for the child or young person or what provision is listed for them.

She explained that this is provided to us in the code of practice and that we would never choose to go to tribunal lightly, it would be because we have been unable to resolve the matter at the mediation stage.

She said that in 2024 we have had 81 mediation requests come through so far and 49% of those have been resolved prior to needing to go to a tribunal. She added for the majority of cases that do begin the tribunal process we would agree with the family before the final stage some kind of resolution.

She said that an example that comes up quite often for us is a family would like us to name an independent school, but we feel we have a maintained school that can meet the needs of the young person and so we work with that family to try to come to an agreement that works both for them and the child or young person, but also for the public purse around how much that placement will cost and quite often that might be a resolution around something like transport.

She referred to the subject of Annual Reviews and said that they were another important area raised by the Parent and Carer Forum and that they had improved issues around communication significantly. She said that the focus now was on enabling a review to take place every year. She added that at the moment around 53% this year of annual reviews had taken place this year and that this was some way away from where want to be.

She said that they were working within the Council to increase the workforce to be able to do that, though the challenge is the number of cases that our case officers hold and until we can bring that down we won't be able to improve some of these figures.

Councillor Joanna Wright referred to section 3.2 of the report which stated that we expect the increased expertise and support in schools will reduce the number of children and young people requiring an EHCP. She asked was this based on evidence as with an increase in EHCP need assessment requests and an increase in issued plans shouldn't we be prepared for a continued increase despite the increased expertise and support.

The Head of SEND replied thar there was a lot of evidence that points to early

intervention being very important for our children and young people and so the purpose of the SEND and AP Advice Service which started in September is to work with schools to intervene at the earliest point for children and young people to ensure that schools have the expertise required for the changing needs, that they can consider the curriculum, school layout environment etc and that we would expect that the increased support in schools, at that earlier stage, would reduce the amount of support needed later on for that child or young person.

She said that an example of this might be where there are mental health challenges for the young person and that the earlier that support is put into place the less likely it is to escalate to a point where significant intervention is needed. She added that whilst remaining optimistic the service has not planned to change its focus on increasing its staffing numbers and has not changed our plans around looking for additional sufficiency within the area.

Councillor Wright referred to section 3.4 of the report and said the number of appeals lodged with SENDIST had increased significantly. She said that the cost for legal proceedings was around £200,000 since 2019. She asked what the Council was doing to decrease the number of appeals lodged as many appeals are about a needs assessment being refused and these are usually won at tribunal stage. She said wouldn't it lead to better outcomes for children if we were to refuse fewer needs assessments requests.

The Head of SEND replied there is a proportion that are due to the refusal of a  needs assessment request and that this was a challenging thing for us to consider when you think about the amount of time that goes into a needs assessment, not only from the Local Authority, but also from our partners in the NHS and our Service Partners in the third sector.

She said that it therefore has to be a balanced approach and that we need our schools to support us in ensuring that we have enough information available to us to make the right decisions about needs assessments the first time around.

She added that often what happens is that we are awaiting certain documents or evidence of what the school has done to support the young person and if that is the case the panel won't be able to make an accurate decision unless we have those reports.

She added that as a result of this we often end up going to mediation and at the mediation point more documents are provided by the school or by other people and we are able to say yes we can now see that the two legal tests for the assessment are met.

She explained that this was another area where the SEND and AP Advice Service also comes into play and supporting our schools around what information needs to be put forward to the panel. She added that ideally you would rarely say no to a needs assessment request because your schools would be working with you in such a way that they would only submit when they had the right information and when it was necessary for them to do so.

She felt that what we might see is a slight drop in applications over the next few years but an increase on how many of them go through first time.

Councillor Wright referred to the matter of children being taken out of school and being homeschooled. She said that this situation can leave young people and their parents frustrated. She asked how we support the young people at that time and their families.

The Head of SEND replied that she would welcome coming back to the Panel to talk about Elective Home Education because she did not have those figures to hand.

Councillor Wright commented on the request for further staff and asked would this be enough as she had heard that one of the team members is currently responsible for 300 to 400 children each which seems to be quite a high number.

The Head of SEND replied that a full-time colleague could have between 250 and 300 children in their case load plus needs assessments on top of that. She said that is very high compared to other Local Authorities, so we have put in a staffing request, and we would want to see that number drop to around 150 - 160 if possible, to provide a much better service to our families and young people.

Councillor Onkar Saini asked what strategies are being implemented to increase the success rate of mediation and reduce the number of cases that proceed to a tribunal.

The Head of SEND replied that while there is a responsibility for the Local Authority to provide mediation for families there are cases when families do not take up that offer of mediation and decide to go to tribunal instead which is their right to do so. She added that this was one of the things that we are working really hard to resolve because if we can't get together and work with that family we can't move things forward effectively for them.

She said they were seeking to improve communication with the families beforehand to ask why they are choosing not to go to mediation as the wait for a tribunal is about a year at the moment, whereas mediation is much quicker it is usually around six weeks, so we can resolve quicker if we get to do mediation.

Councillor Saini asked what measures are being taken to improve the timeliness of EHCP assessments to ensure they are completed within the statutory 20 week timeframe.

The Head of SEND replied that some of that does come down to the capacity of the team, but said a plan is only of high quality if the advice that we receive is of high quality and if we don't get all the reports in on time we can't write the plan. She said that a Quality Assurance Officer is working closely with our partners around the timeliness of their submission of their evidence towards the plan and we have recently recruited a Designated Social Care Officer within the Local Authority to help coordinate with Social Care because their advice is important to go into the plan.

Kevin Burnett commented that the most common need for an EHCP seemed to be around autism and speech and language. He asked how things were progressing in terms of maybe trying to head these off with early interventions and whether there are the resources to able to do that.

The Head of SEND replied that as well as early interventions for autism and speech and language she would say that social and emotional mental health was a factor. She said that the SEND and AP Advice Service have an instrumental role in that, but so do our partners in our commissioned services.

She said that the quality of the practitioners that we have managed to recruit into those roles was excellent.

Kevin Burnett asked if the SEND and AP Advice Service were involved with all schools before they submit any needs assessment.

The Head of SEND replied that the SEND and AP Advice Service have been in contact with 63% of primary schools this year since they opened in September. She added that she believed that they have been to all our maintained secondary schools. She said they were working hard to not only step in when a needs assessment is turned down, but step in at a much earlier stage through things like our SENCO conferences.

Kevin Burnett referred to the subject of Annual Reviews and asked who is responsible for carrying them out, the school or the Local Authority.

The Head of SEND replied that the local Authority delegates the responsibility to the school to hold the review, however there have been a number of Ombudsman's decisions, not against our Local Authority, that have said that the Local Authorities need to chase to ensure they have taken place.

She added that again it was not about the actual meeting it was the processing of the paperwork afterwards that was the problem. She added that the Local Authority do not need to attend these meetings unless there is a change of placement or something similar being asked.  She said that they were still pursuing a technology solution around having a portal so that parents, schools and the Local Authority can better monitor what is happening with that paperwork and reducing the workload.

Councillor Paul Crossley proposed a further recommendation to call on the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services to argue the case within the budget setting process to support the request for staffing increases to reduce the case load to approaching 150 cases per member of staff.

Councillor Joanna Wright seconded the motion.

Councillor Liz Hardman asked what happens to those children who refuse to go to school because they are unable to be in that environment without the right levels of support in place.

The Head of SEND replied that the responsibility for providing education for those young people still sits with the school even if they are not able to come into school. She added that we would want the school to be working with the families and young people to try to repair that relationship and to really get underneath what has meant that the young person feels that they can no longer come into school.

She explained that the school should be going out to the home and try to support the young person to come back, putting in reasonable adjustments and to build relationships for that young person to reattend the school.

Councillor Hardman asked if the portal that was mentioned briefly, so parents can access their case notes and check the progress of their case was up and running yet.

The Head of SEND replied that was still in the early discussion stages and they have had a number of hurdles to get past as a service in order to move forward, but were committed to doing that. She added that they are continuing to work with colleagues in the wider Council team to be able to move forward but it would likely be at least another year.

Councillor Wright asked if there was a wider question that needed to be considered in terms of assessments and autism and the time it takes to get a diagnosis through the NHS.

The Head of SEND replied that a lot of work was ongoing around autism or neurodiversity pathways but the EHCP needs assessment is a needs-based assessment and so whilst some services will require a diagnosis to access them the plan itself and the EHC needs assessment should not be held up by not having an autism diagnosis. She added that it should be based purely on the needs of the young person and how they are presenting at that time.

She explained that it was important that this part of the process tries to focus on the social model rather than the medical model of disability in order to ensure that every child gets the support they need for school regardless of any diagnosis.

The Director for Education & Safeguarding commented and offered some reassurance to the Panel to say that they do have a dashboard which they use to tell us the patterns to which practitioners respond on time and that if advice is late, we will record it so that we can put together a much more accurate picture around what the reasons for lateness were.

He also thanked the Head of SEND for her work over the past 15 months in supporting the team, bringing new people in and going through a full business change process.

He informed the Panel about a pilot with the B&NES Parent Carer Forum for a year that would be providing emotional support. He added that they do commission a lot of additional services for those children who don't necessarily have an EHCP but are out of school and that the Student Family Support Service have a range of services that parents can access outside of that as well.

The Chair asked if the additional staff mentioned by the Head of SEND is included in the £179,000 already being consulted on within the budget.

The Director for Education & Safeguarding replied that this was in addition to that and that officers were looking to make a separate request so we can support additional temporary staff to help us with some of the backlog.

The Panel RESOLVED to;

i)  Note the national, regional and local picture regarding the increase in applications for Education, Health and Care Needs Assessments (EHCPNA) and the increase in issued plans as detailed in the attached slides.

ii)  Be assured that Local Authority Officers continue to work strategically with social care, health, schools and other partners in order to work within statutory guidelines and support schools in delivering the very best outcomes for our children and young people.

iii)  Call on the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services to argue the case within the budget setting process to support the request for staffing increases to reduce the case load to approaching 150 cases per member of staff.