Broken SEND #2.
I introduced, in my first blog, the notion of the LA SEN team 'playing games'. I don't mean that this is how they see their role. People working at the lower levels in the SEN service, I have found, genuinely want to help make a difference for the children and young people that they are supporting. And at the senior levels, which is a Public Sector career level, they take their responsibilities really seriously. Indeed at this level, people move around the country taking on more seniority and learning from different LAs. This is why the system is broken nationwide rather than just locally.
The 'playing games' label is how it seems to parents and young people. Like the LA doesn't care about us as people. Like they seem not to be able to listen or take seriously when we talk about what our children and young people need, or the often savage consequences of a failing education.
Recently, Emma Steele and Matt Powell (senior peeps at HCC) published a paper: Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) 0-25 Update Report – SEN performance and joint working. (Link at the bottom of this blog).
It made my blood boil! And was very timely as I was thinking about 'playing games'.
The report was clearly positioned in a context of rising costs and demand for special education services - a 10% increase from the previous year, and a lack of central government funding for this increase, leading to an overspend.
There is a lot of corporate management-waffle that, I suppose, makes sense to those who work in the public sector, but doesn't do anything to help children and young people who are struggling with their education.
There is always a 'Transformation' process going on in public services. This is positioned as a current focus - we are transforming SEND as it will be provided in the future, without really acknowledging that they have failed for so long. And doubtless in 3 - 4 years time there will be the start of another transformation. And so it goes on.
So, Transforming SEND in HCC includes:
- Right support, right time. Who could argue with this, apart from all of the children and families currently in the system who, presumably, haven't been getting either the right support, and/or at the right time.
- Improve Outcomes, Control Costs. This "maximises strengths based, person centred approaches to achieve improved outcomes for children and young people with an EHCP while controlling high needs costs.". I can honestly say that I have never experienced the first part of this. And sometimes in my experience, the LA has gone for a higher cost solution than the one I was proposing.
- Inclusion and Educational Engagement. "This programme focusses on ensuring that children attend and are engaged in education, and that Hampshire’s settings are inclusive.". Again, a sad indictment of current services.
So, what made my blood boil?
I am setting off on another adventure of Appeals and Tribunals as the LA have refused to include any health provisioning in my son's EHCP. Which renders the rest of the EHCP meaningless. To provide an analogy, if a child suffers from chronic headaches, and the LA working alongside its health partners refuses to allow the child to take paracetamol, then don't expect the Outcomes to be favourable. In the Transforming SEND language, this is a case of Ignore Outcomes, Control Costs.
In Hampshire there were 674 Appeals in 2023-4. They also state that 71% of Appeals were resolved without the need to go to Tribunal.
674 families were so incensed with the LA's decision making that they took the massive step to take them to court. And, having gone down this route before, I know that this means an almost 100% focus on the legal process for 9 - 12 months, learning all about the law in this area, probably spending thousands of pounds, losing sleep, amassing paperwork that is best measured in inches (feet towards the end of the process) and living with almost constant stress and anxiety. This isn't something that every family can do.
And yet, the LA publicly state. "The
number of appeals is not a negative reflection on HCC decisions or processes"
The incredibly insensitive arrogance that this message portrays to parents, and their children and young people shows that there is no hope for things to change. Because the people in charge of the system, those who make the decisions, clearly see Appeals as a part of good practice on their part.
It gets worse.
Before looking at the Tribunals, what about those Appeals that were resolved. 436 of them. Apparently this occurs because of new information being made available. So, the claim here is that the original decision was good in the face of information available, and was changed as new information was provided. The question here is "whose job is it to secure this information?". It is the LA's of course. Our first foray into Appeals led to Mediation, which led to the LA commissioning an Educational Psychologist report, which backed up what we all knew anyway, and led to the EHCP placement being changed. 6 wasted months which would have been avoided had the EP report been commissioned at the start of the process rather than waiting for mediation.
So, onto Tribunals. HCC's published success rate in Tribunals is 7%. Or 17 out of the 202 that proceeded all the way to Tribunal (note that the numbers don't add up because some Appeals span the end of the year).
HCC describe this miserable success rate in positive terms because it is better than the national average! And the justification for why this is good is solely down to cost savings. There is no mention of outcomes in those 17 cases. There is no tracking of similar cases from previous years to see if the Tribunal 'got it right'. Without any evidence, I can well imagine some of those cases are now being home educated or have left education completely.
HCC also publish the data for 'partially' upheld Appeals without really stating what this means. This rises to 26%.
For me, as a parent and person who is on the receiving end of the LA's service, these read:
- Complete waste of our time, effort, mental stress, money: 74%
- Partial waste of our time, effort, mental stress, money: 19%
- Despair: 7%
And remember, that I, like every other parent in this system, pay for these decisions through our Council Tax.
I cannot comment on education outcomes for these cases because they are not published.
The LA do publish information on cost saving (in the absence of outcome data) to justify taking the decisions which lead to the 674 Appeals being lodged.
- A sample of 5 cases led to savings of £180,00 per annum.
- For all upheld and partially upheld cases, a cost saving of £450,00 per annum.
These cases exemplify the
positive impact of defending tribunals when relevant, as they resulted in
children being educated in school rather than not being at an educational
setting, and young people being educated within their local community rather
than in unnecessary independent residential placements.
No they don't, because you don't consider outcomes of these cases.
And the ecomonic arguments don't really stack up either.
I spoke to a mother who had been through this process many years ago. She was in the 74%. She described the scene when she picked up her son from his expensive, but necessary, provision. "He came out of the school and I asked him how his morning had gone. He smiled at me. It was the first time I had seen him smile since Pre-school." This young person is now in his second year in University.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://democracy.hants.gov.uk/documents/s131487/HCC%20SEND%20Annual%20Report%20-%20CYP%20Select%20Committee%2007.03.25.pdf
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