Educational plan for special needs student found to be incomplete
The Education Health and Care plans for those with special educational needs are missing key details. KCC revealed these take an average of twelve weeks longer than legally required to complete, leading to one child in Ashford being out of school for four years.
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00:00 These are just some of the 21,000 children considered to have significant and complex
00:11 special educational needs across Kent and Medway.
00:15 For support, these young people need goes above and beyond for support a mainstream
00:20 school is funded for.
00:23 So their parents are required to request access to high needs funding from local authorities.
00:29 Zoe from Ashford is one of those.
00:31 Her daughter Ellie has severe autism, speech and language difficulties alongside selective
00:37 mutism.
00:38 Like all parents, she just wants the best for her daughter and had seen Ellie going
00:43 to multiple specialist schools and Zoe claims none of them have worked.
00:49 Her daughter has now been out of school for nearly four years.
00:55 I mean my child being at home, not being provided with tutoring, not being provided myself with
01:02 respite, you know she's got an EHCP that has not been followed for all those years.
01:08 For a child to be given a place at a special educational needs school, this needs to be
01:13 spelled out on their education health and care plan, known as an EHCP.
01:20 This is a legal document setting out the young person's need and support they specifically
01:25 require such as home to school transport, one on one support and other interventions.
01:31 It should also label the school setting.
01:34 For Zoe, she feels let down by the local authority as Ellie's education health and care plan
01:40 is missing key details.
01:41 Literally on the first page there's an error.
01:45 My child is not year seven, she's actually year nine.
01:50 If you go on to the next one, this is section A, that should be parent carers views, it's
01:57 blank.
01:58 Were you ever asked to put your views in there, did you ever send your views?
02:01 Legislation states that you need to take the input of a parent or child with section A.
02:06 We sent Zoe's views to Kent County Council.
02:10 They told us in a statement.
02:12 KCC tries to avoid whenever possible commenting on specific individual cases where we have
02:19 found to have made mistakes, we apologise and make every effort to ensure that the error
02:24 is not repeated.
02:26 On occasions parents request specific assessments such as speech and language therapy and educational
02:32 psychology reports to be carried out.
02:34 We try to accede such requests when possible but they can cause delays in the appropriate
02:39 education provision being determined and implemented.
02:44 Zoe is not the only parent who has struggled with an EHCP, there are a growing group of
02:49 parents calling for SEND reform nationally.
02:52 Rio has just received the EHCP for her son.
02:57 She's happy with it but she says it took a long time.
03:01 She's joined the SEND reform movement hoping to help others.
03:04 It's just a horrible battle and it's something that you shouldn't need to go through just
03:08 to get your child a basic level of care in school so they can kind of thrive and continue.
03:13 And are you happy with your EHCP now?
03:15 I am yes, now it's fine and obviously I know that he has got help in school and it is good
03:18 for him but others aren't as lucky as I am.
03:21 I know I've had a battle but I do know that my EHCP is right for my son.
03:26 Councils are legally required to issue EHCPs within 20 weeks of an application.
03:32 And through a freedom of information request we found out the average number of weeks to
03:36 issue an EHCP this year is 32.
03:40 The main cause of it is simply the volumes of work.
03:43 We've had a huge increase in the numbers of requests for education, health and care plans
03:49 and I recognise that we're not providing the service that people have a right to expect
03:54 of us at the moment and that's why we're working on a full scale improvement plan, root and
04:00 branch changes within the system to ensure that we can get back to that target level.
04:06 In 2019 Ofsted found nine weaknesses in KCC's SEND provision and a follow up last September
04:13 found significant improvements had not been made.
04:17 The county council are going for a staffing restructure in a bid to fill vacant posts
04:23 and reduce the backlog of EHCPs.
04:26 It's not a completely empty structure, it's a restructure of previous services but our
04:32 really big drive and we know this from other parts of the organisation, the very best way
04:39 to have quality and consistency in any service is a permanent, well supported, well trained
04:47 workforce.
04:48 We know that.
04:49 In the last council meeting it was said this should be complete by this September but the
04:55 Labour group here are still worried despite increased staffing.
05:00 The EHCP assessments should be carried out in 20 weeks.
05:05 This month, last month, month before in Canterbury, zero percent were carried out.
05:10 Gravesham, Dartford, zero percent.
05:13 It's completely unacceptable.
05:15 We've been asking the questions for the last couple of years, how is this going to be addressed?
05:21 We're guaranteed that staffing increases are going to be addressing this but as of yet
05:25 this hasn't materialised.
05:27 One provision costs the county council hundreds of millions of pounds every year.
05:32 The government wants that number reined in and parents across the county with SEN children
05:38 are continuing their calls for better provision.
05:42 Gabriel Morris for CAME TV.
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