The Director of Children, Families and Education addressed the industrial action of the Wirral SEND team reported in press. She noted that for too long children with SEND had suffered poor performance. Only 1 in 5 children were getting their EHCPs in time. Complaints were high, with missed deadlines and poor communication from the SEND team. She stated that this was to change, with a commitment to put children and families first. The Improvement notice had been a wake-up. Over the previous 6 months there had been an accelerated pace of improvement work. There was an upcoming re-structure of the SEND team. She agreed that the SEND team’s case-load had been too high, the full review was moving forward to address this. She note that the Policy and Resources Committee had agreed to an investment of £1.1m in 2024  and £2.8m the following year to improve SEND services. She hoped representation of SEND service had been one of staff that want to do their best for children and families and were working to make sure that disruption is minimised.

The Assistant Director of Education presented the report of the Director of Children, Families and Education. The report provided members of the Children, Young People and Education Committee with an update on the improvement programme for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) for the Local Area in Wirral.

In addition to an update on the September 2024 Local Area SEND Partnership Board progress and reporting, this report provided members with clarity on how Wirral Council’s additional £1.1m investment was being used to support Wirral’s improvement journey.

The report noted that it had been agreed with the Department for Education and NHS England through the revised Terms of Reference for the Local Area SEND Partnership Board that the Health and Wellbeing Board was the appropriate forum to provide oversight of SEND improvement activity in Wirral, ensuring that the Written Statement of Action (WSoA) was fully delivered by October 2025. This report was presented to the committee to provide assurance of improvement and enabled alignment with the business of the committee.

The Chair thanked officers for the report and noted that it was good that the SEND service was being invested in, with additional staff coming, which would improve the speed of EHCPs being delivered.

He also raised that speech and language therapy services (SALT) had been raised by the SEND Partnership Board as the data referring to a 31 week wait appeared to include medical interventions, which effect the overall timescale. He noted that this had been queried with the NHS and he was waiting on clarification.

The Assistant Director for Education agreed that SALT had been noted at SEND Partnership Board and that Children’s Services were working closely with health colleagues around the data that was being shared.

The Chair also raised that neurodevelopmental pathways were mentioned in the report, but that no information was given on this.

The Assistant Director for Education stated that additional funding had been requested from the Integrated Care Board to support neurodevelopmental pathways, but it had not been forthcoming. Work was ongoing with health and education colleagues to see what could be done and a further report on this would be brought to committee in future with more detail.

Members queried whether the five milestones reported as delayed, but not at risk would be affected by the delay in additional staffing caused by the industrial action started by the SEND team.

The Assistant Director for Education responded that while there would be an additional delay in recruitment and subsequent training of new staff, it would not have an adverse effect on the overall EHCP recovery plan.

Members queried the number of “stuck” cases where EHCPs were stuck at the “draft due” stage, mostly due to a lack of positive consultation responses.

The Assistant Director for Education noted that the Assistant Director for SEND Inclusion and the manager of the SEND Referral Assessment Team were overseeing all of those stuck draft plans to see what could be done quickly to move them forward. 

Members queried how the budgeting for EHCPs worked and whether the costs were covered by the local authority or the schools.

The Assistant Director for Education explained that the local authority paid the costs for the operational delivery of an EHCP, and the school’s would fund the delivery of that plan.

Members raised that it was reported that the target for Children’s Services staff being trained in Co-production had not been met due to a delay in launching a FLO training module. Performance of 16.5% was achieved

against a target of 20%. Following a Board meeting, the Organisational Development Team prioritised the training, which has now reached 22% of employees. They asked if there was an estimate for when the number of staff that had completed this training might reach 50% or more.

The Director of Children, Families and Education as of the end of September 2024, the completion rate had reached 35.5% and was expecting to reach at least 50% before Christmas 2024.

Members queried the support and communication for parents of SEND children, particularly while waiting to find out what kind of support might be offered.

The Director of Children, Families and Education noted that during the previous months, a large amount of work had been done by the family hubs to develop a parent-like SEND offer. They had worked closely with parents to co-design various sessions to support parents through the family hubs.

Members noted that there were, at the time of the report, 71 SEND children being homeschooled and queried why there were so many and how the parents of those children were being communicated with to encourage them to bring their children back to mainstream schooling.

The Assistant Director for Education responded that additional officers had been employed to make home visits and they made it clear to those parents where there was additional support and what provisions were available.

Resolved – That the report be noted.