Special Educational Needs and Disabilities review

“There were several reasons we decided to carry out this review which forms part of our revised 4-year programme of scrutiny activity.

"Firstly, the national picture was that the number of pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) increased to 1.37 million in 2020.

"Secondly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the attainment gap between SEND and average attaining pupils increased by over 20% across all age groups nationally.

"Locally, data indicated timescales for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) were not being met. This data prompted a necessity to carry out this review as soon as possible but we were delayed due to Bracknell Forest being inspected by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission.

"When we did start our activities, we spoke to parents and carers and visited several schools, early years and post-16 settings. We fed back our findings to decision makers along the way to make sure swift action was taken to address any issues we found.

"However, some issues require longer timescales and significant investment. Our recommendations below are aimed at addressing those issues in order to strengthen services and support provided for children, young people and their families in the borough in the future.”

- Councillor Mrs Gill Birch, Chair for Education, Skills and Growth Overview and Scrutiny Panel.

The approach

The Panel met to agree the scope of the review in October 2021. Due to Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) announcing an imminent joint SEND inspection in Bracknell Forest, it was agreed the scope would be revised and split into 2 parts in order not to overburden the schools and organisations involved.

Part 1:

• scrutinise background documents including strategies and data available
• review good practice nationally
• carry out ‘secret shopper’ exercise on the Local Offer

Part 2:

• carry out interviews with children, young people, parents and carers, lead officers in partner organisations, schools, early years settings, post-16 settings and other local authorities
• review Bracknell Forest’s Written Statement of Action

Good practice

​​During the review, panel members identified the following areas of good practice:

1. Following the lockdowns, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bracknell Forest Council Child Development Centre allocated a key worker to each pre-school.
   
   Staff in those settings we visited said this had helped identify and provide support more quickly to children they identified as potentially having SEND.
    
2. Dedicated teaching and learning posts were created in the SEND team to support schools and this helped teachers to implement Quality First Teaching in all schools.
    
3. The locality ‘cluster’ structure for schools has recently been implemented across the borough which should help schools in each cluster to support each other.
    
4. Co-production with parent and carer forum representatives was apparent in helping to write the strategic future vision for the borough, including the WSOA.
    
5. SEND Information, Advice and Support Services (SEND IASS) were highly regarded by everyone interviewed, including young people, parents, carers, schools, Post 16, and early years staff.
   
   Parents and carers said they appreciated SEND IASS staff’s empathy skills and that they listened to children and communicated their needs clearly to others.
    
6. Three members of Croydon Borough Council’s SEND team had built a new team to liaise between the local authority and schools. Evidence showed schools felt listened to by the local authority and education staff felt:
   • they were supporting children and young people better
   • they had better access to necessary resources
   • the number of EHCPs had been reduced and the strategy had resulted in significant savings for the local authority
7. The WSOA was accepted by Ofsted without any changes.
    
8. Health visitors were beginning to visit nurseries again, which had ceased during the pandemic, and nursery staff said it helped because they knew who to contact.
    
9. It was recognised NHS Frimley Clinical Commissioning Group were looking at a key worker project to prevent crisis and hospital admissions. Parents said they felt this would help them navigate crisis admissions but wanted it extended so all parents had a health key worker.
    
10. A local school had ‘grown their own’ therapists to deal with the national shortage of availability of occupational therapists and speech and language therapists, which young people in the school said provided them with vital support.

Review findings

During this review, panel members found evidence which largely corroborated Ofsted’s judgment that Bracknell Forest Council and Frimley Clinical Commissioning Group, who provide statutory support and services to children, young people with SEND and their families, required a WSOA to help improve.

During this review panel members noted:

1. The SEND department at Bracknell Forest Council was being reorganised but there were still several vacancies which was impacting on the service children, young people and their families received (recommendation 2, WSOA reference 2.1.4).
2. There was evidence of productive partnerships in the past between external agencies, but this needed rebuilding after the pandemic. A key issue was communication and poor response times for getting back to people (recommendation 1, WSOA reference 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.3).
3. Co-production was apparent in the WSOA but there needed to be more opportunities for ‘hard to reach’ parents and carers’ views to be incorporated into shaping the strategic vision (recommendation 1, WSOA reference 2.1.3, 2.3.1, 3.1.3).
4. The culture of the SEND team was highlighted as an issue by parents, carers, school, Post-16 and early years staff. In particular, a lack of empathy for the needs of the child or young person with SEND and the staff supporting the child (recommendation 1, WSOA reference 2.1.4).
5. Training was raised as an issue by parents and carers as well as school, Post-16 and early years staff. Parents and carers wanted training that helped them support their child better rather than generic parenting courses. Specifically, school, college and early years staff said they wanted courses that would help identify needs and give them techniques to better support children and young people (recommendation 7, WSOA reference 3.1.4, 6.1.5).
6. Parents, carers and school staff said they wanted consistency of key worker assigned to them and to be informed immediately when their key worker changed (recommendation 1 and 2, WSOA reference 2.1.4).
7. Few children, young people, parents or carers were aware of the Local Offer and, those that were, said they rarely used it. One parent who did use it said the functionality should be improved as filtering when looking for a suitable school did not work properly (recommendation 5, WSOA reference 9.1.5, 9.1.6).
8. EHCPs were not reviewed in a timely manner although it was recognised there had been recent improvements in timescales (recommendation 1, 2 and 6, WSOA reference 2.1.2).
9. Parents and carers said they wanted to access different types of therapy for children, such as art classes, but were not able to as they didn’t have control of the finances. Only one child had a personal budget to date (recommendation 3, 4, 6, 9 and 11, WSOA reference 5.1.7).
10. Parents and carers said they felt they had to say negative, not positive things about their child when completing forms and assessments. Also, where strengths were identified, they were not feeding into their EHCP to help their child continue or use that strength to progress (recommendation 1, 3 and 7, WSOA reference 2.1.2, 2.1.3).
11. It was unclear what the processes were for monitoring budgets by senior staff (recommendation 2 WSOA reference 6.1.1).
12. All of the parents and carers interviewed said they were not offered a carer's assessment. One parent had pushed for a carer's assessment but was informed they would not qualify for any support (recommendation 8).
13. Parents and carers said they would like someone to hold their hand at the beginning of their journey, similar to the Kickstart programme which is a ‘peer mentoring programme’ (recommendation 1, 3, 8 and 10, WSOA reference 2.1.3).
14. Feedback from parents, carers and schools was that EHCPs needed to be more deliverable.  They felt the current panel set up did not allow for those directly involved with the child to advocate for them at those meetings (recommendation 2 and 3, WSOA reference 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.3, 2.1.4).
15. Masking signs of autism, especially girls, was thought to be on the increase and there was not enough training in this area (recommendation 7, WSOA reference 3.1.4, 6.1.5).
16. There was a significant lack of access to trained therapists, especially occupational therapists and speech and language therapists (recommendations 6 and 11, WSOA reference 5.1.7).
17. Specialist local provision needed to be reviewed as provision could not cater for all children and young people with SEND in the borough (recommendation 12, WSOA reference 4.1).
18. There were some issues with data sharing between the local authority, Frimley CCG and Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust (recommendation 1 and 13, WSOA reference 6.1.1).

Financial considerations 

There are likely to be financial considerations attached to staff changes and alternative provision options although most are included in the WSOA.

However, the recommendation regarding reviewing carer's assessments and investing in new IT software to create a ‘one stop shop’ are not included in the WSOA currently.

A feasibility study will be required to explore financial implications prior to commissioning new IT software.

Review panel

The review panel are:

• Councillor Allen    
• Councillor Ms Gaw
• Councillor Mrs Birch (Chair)    
• Councillor Gbadebo
• Councillor Bhandari    
• Councillor Mrs Gibson
• Councillor Brossard (Vice Chair)    
• Councillor Hamilton
• Councillor Brown    
• Councillor Ms Hayes
• Councillor Temperton    
• Councillor Skinner

Contributors to the review

• Grainne Siggins (Executive Director for People, Bracknell Forest Council) 
• Cheryl Eyre (Assistant Director for Learning, Bracknell Forest Council)
• Fiona Slevin-Brown (Managing Director, NHS Frimley Clinical Commissioning Group)
• Samina Hussain Senior (Transformation Lead for Children and Young People, Bracknell Forest, NHS Frimley Clinical Commissioning Group)
• Tracey Faraday-Drake (Executive Place Managing Director for Slough, East Berkshire Clinical Commissioning Group)
• Julian Emms (Chief Executive of Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust) 
• Karen Cridland (Director of Children's, Young People and Families Service, Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust)
• Councillor Dr Barnard (Executive Member for Children, Young People and Learning, Bracknell Forest Council)
• children and young people with SEND - many children and young people with SEND were interviewed during visits to educational establishments
• parents and carers - parents and carers of children with SEND
• schools, early years, Post-16 and specialist provision settings - 10 educational establishments around the borough allowed panel members to visit during the course of this review and interviews were held with head teachers, deputy head teachers and special educational needs coordinators
• Croydon Borough Council representatives - Mark Southworth (Locality SEND support, Consultant Lead, Croydon Borough Councils), Sonal Desai (Area SEND Lead, Croydon Borough Council), Keran Currie (Area SEND lead, Croydon Borough Council)
• Louise Connelly (Governance and Scrutiny Officer, Bracknell Forest Council)