MIDDLESBROUGH COUNCIL

Report Title:Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Reforms Progress

Executive Memberfor Education and Skills: Councillor Janice Brunton

Chief Executive: Mike Robinson

Date: 20 May 2014

PURPOSE OF THE REPORT

  1. To provide an update on progress made on the SEND Reforms programme in preparation for implementation in September 2014, to comply with Part 3 of the Children & Families Act 2014.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
  1. To note the report and note that when detailed operational proposals have been developed, further work will be undertaken on the financial implications with the Director of Resources as part of the Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan.

IF THIS IS A KEY DECISION WHICH KEY DECISION TEST APPLIES?

/ It is over the financial threshold (£150,000)
It has a significant impact on 2 or more wards / 
Non Key
DECISION IMPLEMENTATION DEADLINE
  1. For the purposes of the scrutiny call in procedure this report is

Non-urgent / 
Urgent report

If urgent please give full reasons

BACKGROUND AND EXTERNAL CONSULTATION

  1. In September 2014, revised legislation (Children & Families Act 2014) affecting assessment and provision for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) will come into force.
  1. The changes have been made after wide consultation by the government with all those people who might be involved in the assessment or review of a child with SEND – parents/carers, charities, teachers, local authorities, NHS and others.
  1. The reforms are considered necessary because children and young people who are identified as having special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) can struggle to get the support they need to do well. It can often take too long for families to find out that their child needs extra help. Also, the system of support available to children and young people with SEND is very complex, with teachers, health workers and social care workers often working separately to meet the particular needs of a child or young person.
  1. The legislation aims to deal with these problems and to make sure children with SEND all have the same opportunities as everyone else and receive the necessary support to make a successful transition into adulthood. The reforms will introduce a more effective, transparent and accountable system of support for children and young people with SEND, and will put children and families at the heart of services. A letter from DfE to parents and carers is attached as Appendix A explaining in straightforward language how the changes will affect them.
  1. The school funding reforms from April 2013 have changed the way we fund children and young people with additional needs (high needs); this also has implications for the SEND reforms.
  1. In order to meet these wide-ranging changes, Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland Councils agreed to work collaboratively to implement the legislation. The two boroughs share a range of cross-border issues, such as shared SEN provision, pupils moving between schools, financial challenge and not enough young people getting into work, training or further education after they leave school. It therefore seemed prudent to pool our resources, knowledge and experience to design a consistent approach to the reforms that meets the needs of both boroughs, while making it easier to engage Health staff who work on a South Tees basis.
  2. An Implementation Project Board was set up in November 2013, led by Julie Cordiner, Assistant Director Middlesbrough, and Kate Redfern Principal Education Manager, Redcar & Cleveland. It includes 12 senior operational managers who share responsibility for driving forward the 6 main themes of change. Six working groups for these themes are each led by two managers, one from each borough. Each group has a range of members from health organisations, parents’ groups and LA officers, with parents and young people represented on each one.
  1. The Project Board meets monthly. Each themed group meets monthly or more often as workflow speeds up. The 6 main themes of the SEND reforms are shown below:

Local Offer – requires LAs to publish information for families with disabled children and children with additional needs about services, e.g. special educational provision, short breaks services, leisure activities, childcare, funding arrangements etc. A website will need to be established to provide easy access to the information. Individual schools will be required to define their own local offer, i.e. the support a child can expect from the school (up to £10k per child).

The Local Offer will also contribute to other areas of the reforms. For example, where families have the right to ask for a personalised budget for their child’s support, the local offer will potentially support “purchasing” decisions. The power to control personal budgets will mean they can choose the expert support that is right for their child, instead of LAs being the sole provider.

Early Identification and Early Development – there is a need for joined up approaches across agencies to promote better and earlier identification of children’s needs. There are also changes to the Early Years Foundation Stage, Health and Development and Early Years Reviews, Early Language Development, Free Early Education, Childcare and the Early Years Workforce which will need to be reflected in this theme.

Education, Health and Care Plan / Assessment Framework 0 to 25 – the new EHC Plan will replace the statement of special educational needs. A single assessment process with clear, transparent, published criteria will be developed across education, health and social care. The new plan will have the same legal standing as a statement of SEN, with comparable legal obligations on all agencies to provide the services within the plan. Unlike the current system, where a statement ceases at age 16 and a Learning Difficulty Assessment is undertaken for post 16 provision, the EHC Plan continues up to the age of 25 if required.

All agencies will have to agree when a child has a high need that requires an EHC Plan and must commit resources to deliver the plan. Agencies must also work more closely with families when an assessment is to be undertaken; the new processes are likely to result in an increase in personnel time.

Personal Budgets – From Sept 2014 a family whose child has high needs and has been assessed as needing an EHC Plan can ask for the budget for the provision as outlined in the plan. This budget could be for education, health or care elements of the provision. Middlesbrough Council has experience of Individual Budgets for adult social care and short break provision for children with disabilities, which are being built on for the SEND Personal Budgets approach, to the extent that our draft documentation developed by this themed group has been recognised as best practice and is to be shared nationally by DfE.

Joint Commissioning of Provision / Services – the LA needs toestablish integration between special educational needs, health and social care provision. This will improve the way services work together to provide for children and young people with more complex needs.

The LAs will need to work with health commissioning groups in their area, to agree joint commissioning arrangements for provision, and to determine how provision will be secured and by whom. These arrangements will also contribute to the Local Offer.

Transition to Adulthood – this theme focuses on improving the opportunities and support available for young people with SEND, so they can make a successful transition into adult life. The EHC plan will go some way to contributing to this. Services will need to work together to ensure the right service is provided at the right stage in planning for adulthood (children’s care to adult care and child health to adult health).

Where the adult remains in education, up to 25, the EHC plan would remain in place in place and offer the same right for the adult or their family to seek redress through Tribunal. Funding for SEND is now also on a 0-25 basis.

The new management structure of the Council will support transition to adulthood, through learning & skills and adult social care being in the same department (WCL). The Transitions Team Manager is the Middlesbrough lead for this themed group, providing specialist knowledge on the information sharing processes and the changes to services that will be required to achieve better transition for young people. A 14-25 strategy for youth employment is being developed as part of Middlesbrough’s improvement plan following the Ofsted LA inspection of school improvement, and will link to this part of the SEND reforms.

Programmes of work

  1. Clear objectives and outcomes for each themed group have been agreed and published; a copy is attached at Appendix B. Rolling action plans detail the required tasks for each group.
  1. The following actions have been completed:

Action / Date achieved
Personal letter outlining forthcoming changes sent to parents of all children & young people with statements of SEN in both boroughs / Nov 2013
Newsletter sent to all parents as above, all schools, Children’s Centres, GP Surgeries, nurseries, LA services and voluntary sector settings / February 2014 - 8 weekly thereafter
4 x Information Events held for parents, carers, young people, schools, health, LA staff and interested parties across both boroughs / March 2014 – further events scheduled for June 2014 **
Personal Budget model drafted and shared on request with Stockton / April 2014
Existing statements identified for transition to EHCP and three parents formally agreed to test process in May 2014 / April 2014
Information Event scheduled for parents with learning difficulties and for whom English is not their first language / May 12th 2014
Progress Report submitted to Senior Management Teams / April 2014
Information event scheduled for Governors and Elected Members / 14th May 2014
Draft schedule of training events for staff to be presented to next Project Board for ratification and publication / 25th April 2014

**These events attracted over 400 participants, of whom 164 were parents/carers.

  1. Advice, guidance and support was provided by regional Pathfinder authorities but this resource has now ceased. The 12 North East LAs are currently determining where there may be local capacity to continue voluntary peer support. DfE has provided funding to a range of organisations to act as partners to provide specific support to LAs in implementing the reforms.
  1. The Project Board is in discussion with ‘Headliners’ (one of the DfE appointed organisations) to undertake a specific piece of work to showcase young people’s views and suggestions on improving assessment of and provision for SEND. This will result in a short film being made by the young people, which will be shared with all partners later in 2014. Its content will also help shape provision in the local area.

Monitoring

  1. Progress against national and locally agreed targets is monitored by:

Project Board – monthly minuted meetings

DMT/CMT – quarterly written report

Middlesbrough Achievement Partnership (MAP) – SEND Task & Finish Group quarterly report and oral updates at each meeting

DfE – quarterly on-line surveys and on-site visits

  1. The DfE’s senior SEND Adviser Andre Imich and a colleague Merran Hilton recently attended an information event for parents and spoke to LA officers, parents, young people and other attendees on the progress of both LAs in implementing the reforms. Written feedback to both LAs has highlighted some areas of challenge and favourable comments on a range of initiatives already under way across both boroughs. They were particularly impressed with the work done on Personal Budgets and have indicated that the booklet prepared by Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland (based on the Middlesbrough Short Breaks brochure for children with disabilities) will be published nationally as part of central government guidance to assist other LAs with their preparation.

Conclusions

  1. The changes to the assessment of children and young people with SEND and provision for them are the widest seen in over 20 years. It is recognised by DfE and those involved in implementing the changes that this is a huge piece of work for LAs to undertake in addition to their current duties and against the backdrop of budget and associated personnel reductions.
  1. However, there are clear indications that the collaborative implementation of the reforms in Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland is progressing well, and both boroughs are in a strong position to ensure the legislative duties will be met from September 1st 2014. There is recognition and acceptance by parents in both boroughs that it will take some time (12 to 24 months) for all aspects of the reforms to be developed to meet local needs, but there is a well-developed partnership ethos between service users and the LAs and their partners which will reduce potential challenges for all stakeholders.

IMPACT ASSESSMENT (IA)

  1. An IA is not required at this stage as no policy changes have been proposed and the report is for information. As the implementation of the reforms develops, and changes to policies become apparent, an IA will be prepared.

OPTION APPRAISAL/RISK ASSESSMENT

  1. An option appraisal is not appropriate to this report, as there is no option but to implement the SEND reforms to comply with the legislative requirements of the Children & Families Act 2014.

FINANCIAL, LEGAL AND WARD IMPLICATIONS

  1. Financial –the long term financial impact of the changes cannot be assessed until operational changes are confirmed for each of the themed areas. Some aspects will result in cost pressures and others will achieve savings. Further work will be undertaken with the Director of Resources as part of the Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan once operational details have been more fully developed.
  1. Some services currently provided by the Council may be affected by the level of take up of Personal Budgets by families; however, not all Personal Budgets will be taken as direct payments. Some may simply be a statement of the cost of services to which the child is entitled, with families able to have a say in how those services are delivered.The Pathfinders experienced very limited take up of Personal Budgets.
  1. DfE has allocated one-off funding to each LA to be used for implementing the reforms. Whilst there is no prescription on how the funding should be allocated, the following expenditure has been agreed by the Implementation Project Board and in order to maximise resources, all costs are shared between the two boroughs.

Amount / Purpose / Managed by
£6,000
(£1,000 for each themed group) / To facilitate meetings and information materials for parents and young people / Themed lead
£2,000
(£1,000 for each parent forum) / Travel costs to agreed regional /local meetings by parents / Project Board
£8,000 / Planned Information Events over 12 month period until Mar 2015 / Project Board
£78,120 / Project Lead 18 month secondment w.e.f. June 2014 / Principal Education Manager R&C
£5,500 / Website Design & Maintenance / Project Board
£20,000 / Multi Agency Training / Project Board
£12,000 / Marketing materials for all agencies
  1. Individual requests for funding from any groups must be submitted in writing to the Project Board and if agreed, will be monitored by the Board.The remainder of the funding will be allocated to ensure compliance within the required timescales, and to accelerate the conversion of existing statements to EHC plans in order to avoid running two separate systems for a prolonged period of time, which would be inefficient for the statutory services and potentially confusing for parents/carers.
  1. The Local Government Association is in discussions with DfE on additional funding for ongoing new burdens caused by the legislation; the outcome of this will be announced in due course. It is anticipated that the key cost pressures will relate to:
  2. Maintaining the Local Offer website with up to date information (staff time to obtain and regularly refresh information from all agencies plus website hosting);
  3. The cost of providing mediation services and responding to appeals when parents are not satisfied with the provision for their child;
  4. Additional staff time across all agencies to prepare EHC Plans for new referrals compared to the old system, and to convert existing statements and Learning Difficulty Assessments to EHC Plans at review points;
  5. Training and development for all staff involved in the reforms;
  6. Changes to ICT systems and information sharing arrangements;
  7. Developing support and helping families to plan for Personal Budgets;
  8. Marketing costs to raise awareness of the reforms and publicise the opportunity to have a Personal Budget;
  9. Extension of the right of appeal to young people aged 16-25 (although this may be mitigated by savings from mediation preventing some tribunals).
  1. Ward Implications – there are no specific ward implications, as the processes and services apply to children and young people with SEND from all areas of the town.
  1. Legal Implications –the Children & Families Act 2014 contains high level requirements; the detail which LAs must comply with is contained in a Code of Practice. The latest draft of thiswas published in April following extensive consultation by DfE; it contains specific operational requirements across all aspects of the reforms. A further short consultation on this draft closed on 6th May and the final version is awaited. The reforms also include a new approach to SEN Tribunals, with a requirement for mediation to be explored before any formal legal action is initiated by parents.

SCRUTINY CONSULTATION