The purpose of this report is to make recommendations to the Director of Children, Family, and Education Services regarding the proposal to directly commission an agency to provide locum educational psychologists to support the Council’s core psychology team to provide assessments and advices to children under the education, health, and care plan needs assessment process (EHCNA). 

The Director of Children, Family and Education Services has approved that a direct award is made to Reed Talent Solutions Ltd. via the YPO Framework Managing Consultancy and Professional Services lot, to provide locum educational psychologists for children and young people undergoing the education, health, and care plan needs assessment process within statutory time frame for a 15 month contract at an estimated cost of £926,250.

Educational Psychologists are critical in identifying special educational needs anddisability (SEND) and providing a statutory contribution to Education, Health, and Care Needs Assessments (EHCNA). When the Council carries out EHCNA they must obtain all the information set out in Regulation 6(1) of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 (the “SEN Regs”). This includes “psychological advice and information from an educational psychologist” (regulation 6(1)(d)). The advice provided must be given within six weeks of the date of the request.

There is a national shortage of educational psychologists. The Council currently has eight Educational Psychologist vacancies, and this, along with an increasing demand of requests, and an increase of complex needs in Wirral children, has led to a backlog of outstanding assessments and advices required to meet statutory requirements for children with SEND in the EHCNA process.

As of September 2024, the number of final plan Education, Health, and Care Plans (EHCPs) issued has increased steadily from 141 in 2019 to the latest full year reporting for 2023, to 368.  This is an increase between 2019 and 2023 of over 260%. Educational Psychology advices completed in 6 weeks have seen rates below 30% the past two full years with the trajectory reducing into 2024/25. The latest data from Q1 2024/25 shows 11.6% of advices within 6 weeks. Advices in Social care have remained well above 90% for the same time period and for health advices the levels have fluctuated between 100% compliance to lows of 24% for the six services offering this support.

There are specific actions and success measures identified in the Wirral Improvement notice (May 2024) issued by the Care Quality Commission to strengthen the quality and timeliness of Education, Health, and Care assessments and annual reviews before the next Ofsted Local Area SEND inspection.

The Wirral SEND strategy sets out strategic priorities for Wirral’s children and young people. One of these priorities is to ‘Ensure early identification of special education needs and high-quality intervention particularly for children and young people exhibiting social, emotional, and mental health issues.’

For the financial year 2024/25, Reed Talent Solutions Ltd. was commissioned to deliver 350 assessments across a 12-month period for the Council. By December 2024, Reed has overdelivered on this target and the existing budget has been exhausted. It is necessary to re-commission this service early in order to maximise the service deliverables.

The costings provided by this provider Reed Talent Solutions Ltd. have been benchmarked against other agencies are competitive against the current market for face-to-face and remote assessments. Additionally, the cost per assessment has not increased since the last financial year.

Schools currently are able to source their own Educational Psychologists for EHCNA on behalf of the Council. The Council will reimburse the payment to help support the backlog of advices/assessments once the advice received has been quality assured.

During the next 12 months there will be further consideration of the model of Educational Psychologists for Wirral, a proposed termination of school-commissioned assessments, and further procurement exercises.