Dozens of children have been left waiting for special needs plans to be put in place in Sefton amid a surge in demand.
Over four in five children are waiting more than 20 weeks for their education and health care plans (EHCP) to be put in place as the borough’s SEND service struggles to keep pace with the number of requests.
According to a Sefton council report released ahead of a meeting of the borough’s children’s services overview and scrutiny committee next week, the number of assessment requests has almost doubled in the past two years.
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In 2020, there were 412 requests and by 2022 this had shot up to 726.
The report states that it has been an “unsettled” year for Sefton’s special educational needs (SEND) team with high numbers of staff turnover alongside the huge increase in demand.
This has led to a “significant decrease in compliance” of plans being completed within a 20 week time-scale. Whereas 60% of plans were completed within that time in 2021, by the following year this had reduced drastically to just 18%.
This means over four in five children are experiencing delays in having their plans completed.
The report adds that the situation began to improve towards the end of 2022, when completion levels increased to around 40% showing “clear indicators of recovery and improvement.”
There has been a national increase in the number of children in receipt of EHCPs – with the figures across the UK showing a rise of over 20%.
The situation in Sefton has broadly tracked the rest of the country, with the number of children who have EHCPs rising from 1765 in 2020 to 2584 currently with that number expected to continue to rise.
In Sefton, measures being taken to deal with the situation include the appointment of a new interim service manager in September last year and the recruitment of three new permanent case workers, with three other temporary case workers having been contracted to increase capacity.
Work is also currently being undertaken to “create greater efficiency and effectiveness” by “refining processes” and prioritising delayed assessments.
There has also been a best value review carried out by Capita with an action plan now in place which will include developing the data and case management systems in place in a bid to improve the service.
Sefton’s SEND service was previously under an improvement notice following a 2019 OFSTED inspection, with that having been lifted in 2021 with the service working through an improvement plan through a local area partnership in a bid to improve the quality of its services to some of the borough’s most vulnerable children.
Councillors will meet next Tuesday to discuss the report and the wider improvement plan for the borough’s children’s services at an Overview and Scrutiny committee at Bootle Town Hall at 6.30pm, which the recently appointed Commissioner for children’s services Paul Boyce is also due to attend.
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