Agenda item

This report provides an overview of the Medway SEND Local Area Partnership (LAP) Improvement Plan 2024-25. The plan was developed in response to findings following the recent Joint Area inspection in February 2024 by Ofsted and CQC. The plan will be led by the SEND Partnership Board co-chaired by the Lead Member and the Chief Nurse of the NHS Integrated Care Board.

Discussion:

The Assistant Director Education and SEND introduced the report on the improvement plan, following the SEND inspection in February 2024. The inspection resulted in a Good grading and highlighted the strengths of the service as well as the areas for improvement. As a result of the inspections the Local Area Partnership (LAP) Improvement Plan was developed and had been approved by Ofsted.

Members raised several comments and questions which included:

Support for families- it was asked what was in place to assist families in understanding and navigating through the system. The officer said that availability of message was highlighted as an improvement and as a result, through revision of the local offer, they had launched inclusion teams (May 2024) at local hubs where families and carers could attend drop-in sessions to obtain support to navigate the system. Families and carers were also able to access support through their schools and health care providers. There was however more to be done on how information was sent directly to parents and carers.

Support for schools - members were informed that there was programme of training for schools, including the trauma informed training and they were able to access various online training tools around pedagogy and need. There was outreach support available for schools who wanted specific advice and guidance on particular issues. Top-up payments were made to school notional budgets when they were identified as having a higher proportion of pupils with Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) needs who were on waiting list for assessments.

It was further asked in relation to nurseries what was being done to educate early years settings to enable EHCP conversations to take place at an earlier stage. The officer explained that there was a range of training in place for providers on identifying need. The challenge was when there was not an obvious need or diagnosis, then a graduated approach needed to be implemented for those children. The officer confirmed that they do work rapidly to provide support for children with clear needs but in instances of complex needs, support was deliberately staggered to ensure they correct course of action was taken to address needs.

Communication – in response to a comment on how communication with families could be improved and ensuring that information received was inclusive, the officer said that accessibility was a fundamental part of the work being undertaken, not just for children with SEND but for all children and ensuring there was a wraparound service.

Benchmarking – in response to a question on benchmarking against outstanding Local Authorities, the officer said that they took on learning from other Local Authorities, by exploring what was being implemented and utilising examples of good practice.

SEND Reports – it was commented that parents were waiting for a long time for reports which impacted the wait time for support. The officer said that a number of strategies had been put in place including the imminent publication on use of Independent Representatives for reports. In the past, the service did not accept reports from Independent Representatives, but a decision had been made to trial this for a year. An Independent Psychologist would review the assessment report and if there was enough information gathered the report would be used as the basis of assessment and this would reduce the number of people on wait lists. Additionally, schools were due to be consulted regarding top up funding without an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) due to the wait time of 40 weeks for assessment.

There were concerns raised that acceptance of independent reports would create a tiered system that would further adversely affect families that were already from disadvantaged and deprived groups of the community as many families were not in a position to pay for an independent report. The officer said that this had been taken into consideration and it was recognised that there may be a disparity caused but this was one of the methods being utilised to clear the significant backlog which if used by some families would reduce wait times. This was not a long term proposal, but it was acknowledged that it was vital that this process be managed carefully.

It was commented that there was a worrying variance in quality of reports and often when ECHP’ s were submitted, the educational psychology reports often had to be recommissioned which meant the EHCP often had to be resubmitted. The practice in some Local Authorities was if there has been an educational psychologist report written in the 12 months of the submission of the EHCP, to use that report. This was currently not the process in Medway and should be explored as a viable option.

A comment was made that parents that wanted to pay for diagnosis and independent reports should be given the opportunity to do so given the delays with wait times for assessments, but it was acknowledged that the Local Authority needed to do more to address issues with wait times in a way that did not disadvantage any groups of the community.

Delays – it was commented that there were some instances where there had been delays in access to services for children who had an EHCP, due to conflict of who would fund the provision needed and it was asked how that could be addressed and if there was a responsible offer to oversee processes to ensure delays were not extended. In particular, moving at pace for children who may also have terminal health conditions as its important for needs to be addressed as quickly as possible. The officer said that the responsibility for funding of services were clear in the EHCP, there were some small number of cases that went to a complex case panel to explore who would be responsible for funding for various parts of their care and may need tri part funding from education health and social care.

It was commented that this may have been an historical issue, but legislation was now clear, and it was written in the EHCP who was responsible for paying for a service need.

Achieving best outcomes - it was asked what was being done to remain as aspirational as possible for children with SEND, ensuring the best outcomes were being achieved in adulthood. The officer said this was part of the SEND Strategy, ensuring the best outcomes for SEND children when they left school. In terms of academic outcomes, SEND performance was below their peers nationally. Extensive work had been undertaken with independent school provision to ensure a robust quality assurance framework was put in in place that was not just focus on social care, but included quality of education, commissioning teams, quality of contracts and monitoring of KPI’s. There were many children in independent provision that had aspirations after taking their GCSE to go onto studying A levels. The strategy had a strong focus on development of post 16 provision and also entry level 1 and 2 modes of further education.

Decision:

1. The Committee noted the findings of the February 2024 Joint Area Inspection and the Joint Area Improvement Plan coproduced by the Joint Area SEND Partnership which includes health, social care, education and Medway parents and carers.
2. The Committee recommended that future report be more user friendly and contain a glossary.