Agenda item

Report of the Interim Corporate Director, Children and Families.

The Committee received a report which set out the arrangements for implementing the SEND reforms introduced by the Children and Families Act 2014 to improve outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs.

The Divisional Director of Special Needs Services introduced the item and made the following points:

·                     the Committee had first considered the issues raised in this report about a year ago.  The Committee had agreed that these issues would be further reported at this point to set out the relevant developments which had taken place;

·                     the requirements of the SEND reforms are contained within the Children and Families Act 2014 which repealed previous legislation;

·                     Local Authorities and their partners were required to implement a number of key aspects of the reforms by 1 September 2014 and there were a number of elements that were being developed over time;

·                     a key feature of the new system that had been introduced was that there was a greater emphasis on a family-centred approach with the expectation of a stronger engagement of the parents of children, young people with special educational needs and disabilities, children and young people;

·                     there were a number of key developments relevant to Harrow.  Firstly the Council was required to publish an initial, accessible local offer developed with key partners.  This covered the support available for those with or without special educational statements or education, health and care plans from birth to 25 years, including SEN support in school;

·                     a Transition Plan had been published as part of the local offer and was produced and developed with parent and schools and colleges.  This gave information on how the Council would go about transferring children and young people who received support as a result of special educational statements or a learning difficulty assessment to education health and care plans overall by April 2018;

·                     a clear policy was in place regarding the scope of personal budgets being part of the local offer.  Whilst personal budgets had attracted a lot of media attention, they had attracted less attention from parents;

·                     there was a strong emphasis on Joint Commissioning and the requirement for Local Authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups to work together strategically to develop special needs and disability system that will nest support the SEND reforms;

·                     the Authority was required and had put in place arrangements for providing independents information, advice and support for parents and children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities across education, social care and health, including independent supporters;

·                     the Council also had to have in place systems for dispute resolution;

·                     the Government had provided funding for the implementation of the SEND reforms.  However the amount provided had been modest and the Council had engaged in considerable amounts of work and service restructure to deliver the new requirements;

·                     research commissioned by the Department for Education had indicated that the new proposals would on average be more expensive than the previous system of special needs statements.  This was consistent with the Council’s experience locally;

·                     it was still early to assess the performance of the new provisions.  However there were indications that the views of families were being sought and listened to and taken into account.  The process was more joined up and integrated, involving children and adult social care services;

·                     since the SEND provisions came into effect in September 2014, there had been a 14.5% increase in the number of requests for education, health and care (EHC) plan assessments.  The statutory time period for the completion of assessments had been reduced from 26 weeks to 20 weeks;

·                     Harrow’s performance in relation to the key national indicator of EHC Plans which measured  country.  However owing to the increased time demands and complexity of completing assessments under the new SEND system there had been a decrease in performance;

·                     there was an anticipated inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) due to take place.  This would assess the implementation of SEND reforms in local authorities and health partners;

·                     the process of transferring from the old to new system for those with special needs statements had involved the initiation of 244 transfers of which 198 were complete.

The following questions were made by Members and responded to accordingly:

·                     the process involved the Council being more proactive which was more positive. It enabled the Council to detect issues at a much earlier stage.  What were the financial implications on delivering the new proposals for the future?

It was unsure how long that the Government funding for implementing these new proposals would last.  The Council had carefully budgeted for it by using money allocated for this current financial year to be transferred to the next financial year.

·                     What was is meant by the Council extending and widening the personal budget approach to supporting children and young people with disabilities and their families?

The scope to deliver personal budgets for children was similar to that in adult services.  Given the emphasis placed on personal budgets the next step would be personalisation.

·                     Were schools prepared for the education, health and care plan templates that were tested with children and young people with special educational needs?

There was not a national template that could be utilised but there was guidance and legislation that had to be followed.  The template that the Council were using had been approved by the Department for Education.  There would be a steep learning curve for schools and this was a complex area.  Upskilling by schools was required as they were still operating two systems which caused confusion in itself.  The Council would be working hard to support schools as best they could.

RESOLVED:  That the report be noted.