Agenda item

The following questions, received under Standing Order 35, were put to the Chairman of the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

 

(A) Mrs Louise Parker Engels asked the following question of the Chairman of the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

 

There is little or no accountability for schools who do not follow their own or national policies including the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) code of practice.  What is Leicestershire County Council doing to prevent further harm to children by supporting parents to secure timely reasonable adjustments and to prevent schools making inappropriate referrals for attendance prosecution and to child protection?  With the right levels it support from the beginning and listening to parents and children that they are not fine in school, many of these children would not be needing Education Health and Care Plans (EHCP) as they now do.

 

Mrs H Fryer CC replied as follows:

 

The Local Authority considers a range of DfE Guidance and Legislation in relation to children who have difficulty accessing school including school refusal, such as:

 

-       SEND code of practice – Best Endeavours and Reasonable Adjustments

-       Keeping Children Safe in Education

-       Children Missing Education

-       Children with Medical Needs

-       Preventing/responding to bullying in schools

-       Admissions Codes

 

Leicestershire County Council shares the DfE values that all children, regardless of their circumstances, are entitled to an efficient, full time education which is suitable to their age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs they may have.

 

Although the DfE consider children missing education are of compulsory school age who are not registered pupils at a school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise that at a school, Leicestershire Children and Family Services (CFS) have widened the consideration of Children Missing Education as those who are also registered at a school and have failed to attend regularly or have missed ten school days or more without permission.  This includes the consideration of school refusers.

 

Again in conjunction with the DfE Missing Education guidance, CFS agrees that effective information sharing between parents, schools and local authorities is critical to ensuring that all children of compulsory school age are safe and receiving suitable education.  CFS therefore focuses and continues to align resources on intervening early in the lives of vulnerable children to improve outcomes.  As such, CFS provides a variety of support to schools to make every effort to assess and respond to a child’s needs at the earliest opportunity through services such as:

 

·         Inclusion Services (including Children with Medical Needs/EHE and links to Health Services);

·         SENA;

·         Education Effectiveness Partners;

·         Secondary Educational Inclusion Partnership Surgeries;

·         Oakfield Short Stay Panel;

·         Specialist Teaching Services;

·         Families and Wellbeing Service

 

Supplementary Question:

 

Mrs Engels asked a supplementary question, to the effect that, as there was so little accountability with schools to follow the policies listed, how were parents going to access the resources when their children needed them if they did not meet the SEND threshold or the school did not acknowledge their need?

 

At the invitation of the Chairman, the Director of Children and Family Services replied to the effect that both children and their families could directly access a number of County Council services.  Referrals, particularly for early help services, could come either directly from parents or from other agencies.  An accountability framework was in place for all schools, some of which the local authority was involved in and some of which was the responsibility of Academies.  The Accountability Framework would be shared with Mrs Engels and members of the Committee.

 

(B) Mrs Louise Parker Engels asked the following question of the Chairman of the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

 

The EHCP process is currently taking too long.  As many parents are having to go through appeals processes to secure reasonable adjustments and suitable provision, what can the local authority do to prevent serious harm and deterioration to the health and well being of children who are not coping with mainstream provision but being expected to attend whilst they wait for suitable provision?

 

Mrs H Fryer CC replied as follows:

 

Leicestershire Children and Family Services understands that the EHCP process can appear lengthy, with it taking up to 20 weeks in response to the statutory time scale as outlined in the SEN Code of Practice, although granted the appeal process can mean that the process can be longer.  Within Leicestershire, CFS is successfully completing over 97% of first time assessments within the 20 week time frame.

 

Across the assessment and review work that CFS carried out in 2018 only 2.5% of cases resulted in an appeal to the SEN and Disability Tribunal.  Therefore 97.5% of cases successfully secured the provision they needed to be able to access effective education and support for their educational and health care requirements.

 

The Department has a range of services, as detailed in the reply to the above question, that work to support children and young people to support their emotional health and wellbeing.

 

Supplementary Question:

 

Mrs Engels asked a supplementary question to the effect that there were children who were being left in mainstream schools relatively unsupported whilst going through the assessment process, which could take up to 20 weeks, exclusive of the appeals process.  If these children were not coping in the meantime, they were still expected to attend mainstream provision.  Places such as the Oakfield Short Stay provision were not accessible to these children as they were trapped in between mainstream provision and having an EHCP.  Mrs Engels queried what could be done for those children as they were coming out of school with school trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder and were likely to have more complex difficulties than if their needs had been addressed in the first place.

 

At the invitation of the Chairman, the Director of Children and Family Services replied to the effect that there were statutory timescales that the local authority had to work to, and therefore the assessment could take up to 20 weeks, following which there could be an appeal.  The Director acknowledged that there were currently children waiting for an assessment and that the Department did not always get it right.  The County Council was looking at how it could work to support children and young people outside of an EHCP at an earlier opportunity.  This should then mean that there was support available for children that did not rely on them having an EHCP, in order to mitigate the circumstances described by Mrs Engels.  This was further described in the Overview of SEND Developments report elsewhere on the agenda for this meeting (Minute 11 refers).

 

(C) Mrs Louise Parker Engels asked the following question of the Chairman of the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

 

There is no current national policy for School Refusal – Children who are unable to attend due to unmet Special educational needs, mental health or medical conditions and bullying.  Would the Director of Children’s Services, the inclusion, attendance and educational psychology teams be willing to support and promote Not Fine in School guides as a county wide practice for School Refusal intervention?

 

Mrs H Fryer CC replied as follows:

 

The offer to promote Not Fine in School guides as a county wide practice for School Refusal intervention is very much appreciated and having looked at the Not Fine in School Website, it shows a comprehensive range of resources.  Later this year CFS will be developing information web pages for schools as part of the pathway development and it would be useful if the local authority could work with Not Fine in School to help co-design this.

 

Supplementary Question:

 

Mrs Engels asked a supplementary question to identify who would be responsible overall for developing the pathway later in the year, and if, in the meantime, some of the messages developed by Not Fine in School could be circulated through the local offer and local educational psychologists, who seemed to still be of the view that where children were struggling, this was due to parenting issues.  She also queried whether a working definition of ‘fine’ could be included in the local offer?

 

At the invitation of the Chairman, the Director of Children and Family Services replied to the effect that the literature on the Not Fine in School website was a useful resource.  Whilst the local authority would not be directly sending out this literature, it was keen to work with Not Fine in School and other parents and carers to develop resources.  The Inclusion Service Manager would make direct contact with Mrs Engels to progress this.