Agenda item

To progress check if Recovery Plan is bringing timeliness in line with statutory obligations and understand lessons learned from a review of the EHCP statutory process.

Witnesses:

• Clare Curran, Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Lifelong
  ?Learning
• Rachael Wardell, Executive Director for Children, Families and
  ?Lifelong Learning
• Julia Katherine, Director for Education and Lifelong Learning
• Liz Bone, SEND County Service Planning & Performance Leader
• Kerry Oakley, Headteacher of Carrington School, Redhill

Key points made in the discussion:

1. The Chair said Surrey County Council was required to manage demand and review the Education, Health and Care processes as part of the Safety Valve Agreement with the Department for Education (DfE), which provided £100 million additional funding to offset the cumulative deficit on special educational needs. Part of the Recovery Plan aimed to help reduce the number of EHCP requests by strengthening Ordinarily Available Provision in schools. The End-to-End Review focused on improving the 20-week statutory process from the initial request to the issue of the EHCP, as well as annual reviews.

2. The Chair said the review showed clear progress in completing more EHCPs on time, with rates improving from 9% in December 2022 to 71% in July 2023. The Cabinet Member said the level of timeliness achieved was commendable and ultimately the ambition was 100% wherever feasible. She noted the Council must report to the DfE three times a year on the Safety Valve Agreement.

3. The headteacher, invited to report on progress observed in her school, described more EHCPs being completed and the increased stability and improved communication from having the same case officer for the last four months. The Specialist Teachers for Inclusive Practice (STIP) team had provided a good service with mental health support. She added that the challenge remained of the school not being able to refer to MindWorks. She also had concerns about the reduction in the number of specialist places planned, anticipating requests for EHCPs would continue to grow. Consultation with the Council was also problematic, with three pupils allocated to the school despite them stating at consultation that they could not meet their needs.

4. The SEND County Service Planning & Performance Leader responded that schools had the opportunity to voice concerns about their ability to meet need. There should then be a conversation about what reasonable adjustments could be put in place, and she was sorry that had not happened in Carrington School’s experience. There were plans to streamline the consultation process.^* The Chair said this highlighted the need for better communication with schools. The Executive Director for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning said the Service would follow up on the status of all cases where schools directed to take a student had expressed a view that they could not meet need .

5. The Chair asked what was being done to support disappointed parents after only 16% of a sample of recovery plan EHCPs in July 2024 were rated good or outstanding, down from 22% in May 2024. She had been notified by parents of wrong or missing information and not being able to reach their case officers. The SEND County Service Planning & Performance Leader said the review has identified issues in EHCPs with the description of health and social care needs, the extent to which the voice of the young person was captured, and typographical errors. However, the young people’s educational needs were being described accurately. It could be difficult to distinguish between a mistake in a Plan and a disagreement over a Plan. The Executive Director said there was a distinction between EHCPs that deliver the content to meet educational needs and those judged to be good or outstanding at audit. The Service would check the number of concerns raised about EHCP quality against the number that went through the recovery team and would evaluate challenges due to incorrect or incomplete essential information versus challenges due to disagreement.

6. A Member asked if parents and carers had participated in the end-to-end review process and if meeting notes could be shared. The SEND County Service Planning & Performance Leader said they had individual meetings, and the Service had answered their questions at a Family Voice Surrey event. While notes from one-to-one meetings were not available due to confidentiality, learnings would be made available.

7. A Member asked if co-production with families, identified by the Task Group’s research as lacking, was being prioritised. The SEND County Service Planning & Performance Leader said they recognised there was improvement work to do, and it was a priority for the Service. They planned to make better use of technology to lessen the case officers’ administrative burden, allowing more capacity to have earlier and more effective co-production meetings with families. They wanted the process to be implemented in a person-centred way and were also increasing the time case officers spend working in schools. The Committee was told feedback on the changes made so far as part of the end-to-end review was collected regularly and was overall positive.

8. A Member asked about annual review element of the end-to-end review. The SEND County Service Planning & Performance Leader said that while only 25% of EHCP annual reviews were completed on time in July 2023, this had risen to 65% at the time of the meeting. A significant issue was ensuring the work done was accurately recorded.

* Note: A review following the Select Committee showed that the correct process had taken place including a discussion about reasonable adjustments with additional funds made available.

Resolved:

The Children, Families, Lifelong Learning and Culture Select Committee recommends:

1.    In order to ensure that it is moving in the right direction and the changes are delivering what was anticipated, the Service commissions feedback from, or surveys parents/carers and schools on:

·         how the changes to the end-to-end process implemented so far have been received; and

·         whether they have improved outcomes for children, outcomes for schools, communications, timeliness, quality, co-production and relationships.

This feedback should be reported to the Select Committee before the end of 2024, but by February 2025 at the latest.

2.    As communications with parents and carers continue to be a significant issue, the Service should undertake, as a priority, a golden thread analysis of touch points with parents and carers (i.e., points where communications ought to be taking place), as well as touch point/communication dependencies. Gaps identified should be remedied as a priority. The results of this analysis should be reported to the Select Committee by February 2025.

3.    While the Committee acknowledges that it is desirable for parents to have identified preferred schools for SEND children as early as possible, it recommends that the communication to parents advising them of the timeline for this process is worded unambiguously so that the SCC suggested deadline is clearly differentiated from the statutory deadline. We also recommend that the suggested deadline should not be earlier than the end of September.

4.    The Committee endorses the following recommendations from Carrington School:

a.    Communications with schools should be kept open, and schools should be updated on how referrals to MindWorks are being managed and progressing.

b.    Enable schools to identify and track funds they receive from Surrey County Council, and help them to clarify that they are receiving the appropriate amount.

c.     In the situation where the school is requested to accept a child and there is no agreement over whether the school can meet the child’s needs, a meeting between the school and the Local Authority should be scheduled to agree a way forward. In addition:

·         The actions from this meeting should be documented and shared with both parties.

·         Placing a child in a school should require positive agreement and not be based on any assumptions or assumed default position.

d.    Consider a more flexible approach to identify where some of the funding that would otherwise go to Non-Maintained Independent schools could be spent in maintained sector schools to boost resource and capability - enabling more maintained schools to offer places to pupils who could otherwise only be accommodated in an NMI school.

Actions/requests for further information:

·         SEND County Service Planning & Performance Leader: To follow up on the status of all cases where schools directed to take a student had expressed a view that they could not meet need.

·         Director for Education and Lifelong Learning: To check the number of concerns raised about EHCP quality against the number that went through the recovery team and evaluate how many were challenged due to incorrect or incomplete essential information versus due to disagreement.

·         SEND County Service Planning & Performance Leader: To share a link to the Digital Design Team Discovery report and anonymised learnings from the end-to-end review.

·         SEND County Service Planning & Performance Leader: To provide the Committee with a summary of feedback received so far on the end-to-end review changes and share the results of the annual parent survey scheduled for the autumn term.

·         Director for Education & Lifelong Learning: To provide the number (and proportion compared with the number of applications) of no to assess decisions and no to issue decisions for the last three years.

·         Director for Education & Lifelong Learning: To provide benchmarking data if available showing how many EHCPs are rated good or outstanding in other Local Authorities.

Julie Oldroyd left the meeting at 1.16pm.