Decision details

Cabinet received a report providing:

·               a progress update on the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Improvement Programme since inspection.

·               a brief overview of the new SEND Inspection Framework and outcomes to date.

·               an overview of current challenges across the system and the evolving strategic plans to try to mitigate the challenges.

The local authority and the Integrated Care Board (ICB) were jointly responsible for services provided to children and young people with SEND in Buckinghamshire and were subject to inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West (BOB) was the partner ICB.  Ofsted and the CQC inspected the services provided for children and young people with SEND in Buckinghamshire between 7 March and 11 March 2022. Following the local area inspection, the Local Authority and the Integrated Care Board (formerly the Clinical Commissioning Group [CCG]) were jointly responsible for submitting an action plan to Ofsted, detailing how 3 areas of significant weakness would be addressed. The plan, submitted on 8 August 2022 was approved by Ofsted on 25 August 2022.

The 3 areas of weakness identified related to:

• The lack of a cohesive area strategy to identify and meet the needs of those children and young people requiring speech and language, communication and occupational therapy.

• Waiting times for assessments on the autism and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder diagnosis pathways and the system-owned plans in place to address this.

• Waiting times to see a community paediatrician.

The current challenges across the SEND system related to:-

·       waits for access to diagnoses and therapy support being still too long,

·       a sharp rise in requests for EHCP assessment, together with a shortage of Educational Psychologists (This had led to a decline in performance against the statutory 20-week EHCP needs assessment measure.)

·       the number of EHCPs maintained by Buckinghamshire was also increasing

·       there were very significant financial pressures on the High Needs Block.

Buckinghamshire was not alone in facing challenges in meeting the needs of children with SEND. The local area has sought to deliver against a wider improvement programme to ensure the experience of children and families improved across all areas of SEND.

RESOLVED –

That the update from the Area SEND Partnership be NOTED.