Inspection finds ‘widespread failings’ in West Northamptonshire’s special educational needs service

The education watchdog - Ofsted, and the care watchdog - Care Quality Commission (CQC), completed the SEND inspection of the West Northamptonshire Local Area Partnership, between March 18 and 22 this year.

The report has now been published and the partnership has been told they must address the failings and concerns “urgently”.

The Local Area Partnership is made up of West Northamptonshire Council, NHS Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board and Northamptonshire Children’s Trust. The partnership says it accepts the findings and has apologised to children, young people and families.

Inspectors detailed the outcome as: “There are widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), which the local area partnership must address urgently.

“A monitoring inspection will be carried out within approximately 18 months. The next full reinspection will be within approximately three years.

“As a result of this inspection, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector requires the local area partnership to prepare and submit a priority action plan (area SEND) to address the identified areas for priority action.”

Findings

The report said: “Children and young people with SEND have not been prioritised for education, health and social care provision.

“Many children and young people with SEND wait too long for their needs to be assessed and for suitable provision to be put in place to meet their needs.

“Some parents and carers and practitioners feel that it is those who ‘shout the loudest’ that get the help they need. This is because area leaders are not working together closely enough to ensure that children and young people with the most need are prioritised, particularly those with needs across different services. This increases stress and anxiety for families because they feel they must battle to get the right support, and it has led to increasing complaints from parents.

“Some parents say that these times are like ‘approaching a cliff edge’, with no guarantees of ongoing support, services or care.

“Too many young people expressed their frustration that it took until nearly the end of their time in education before professionals realised that their needs remained unmet.”

The report goes on to say that there is an “ambitious” SEND strategy and children who access a specialist school setting “often receive the right help and succeed in their placement”, however the inspectors said leaders are aware there are not enough places available. Inspectors say the partnership has started to address the issues by opening more specialist resourced bases in mainstream schools and increased capacity in specialist settings, but the current shortage means young people are left “without any suitable provision or must access provision a long distance from where they live”.

Inspectors also say that parent voices, as well as the views of children and young people with SEND, are now heard “much more effectively”.

Five areas for priority action

The inspectors identified five areas for priority action, which the partnership needs to submit a plan for.

The areas are:

• A partnership commissioning agreement needs to be in place based on a thorough joint strategic needs assessment.
• Leaders need urgently to address the length of time families have to wait for EHC needs assessments.
• When issued, EHC plans need to be accurate and contain key information from all partners.
• Health leaders must address the current waiting times for speech and language therapy, mental health services and neurodevelopmental assessment.
• Local authority and health leaders must improve the joint approach to speech, communication and language needs.

How the partnership has responded

The partnership has said “priority work progresses at pace in response to the report”.

A spokesman said: “The partnership fully accepts the findings of the inspection and apologises to children, young people and their families where we have fallen short.”

The partnership says it has developed a priority action plan and said it will meet with the Department for Education and NHS England at “regular intervals” during the next 18 months (in the lead up to the monitoring inspection) to “ensure delivery of the action plan”.

The partnership also addressed the five priority points.

Partnership commissioning agreement - A spokesman said: “A working group has been set up to develop an [agreement] for children and young people with SEND that includes data from across the partnership to inform local need, planning and outcomes.”

Improving timeliness and quality of EHCs - A spokesman said: “At the end of last year, WNC commissioned a team of Educational Psychologists to support with overdue assessments with positive progress being made, setting a positive trajectory for improvement. To further support this, at WNC’s last cabinet meeting £1.35 million of funding was approved to increase capacity in the Council’s SEND team to meet the increased demand being experienced – since April 2021 there has been 40 percent increase in EHCP requests (an increase of over 1,000).”

Wait times for speech and language therapy and mental health services - A spokesman said: “Additional staffing capacity has been agreed by the partnership for the Speech and Language Therapy service. Resources are being refocussed across specialist therapeutic pathways within child and adolescent mental health community services to increase access. Improved navigation tools for emotional wellbeing and mental health services are being developed for children and young people and professionals. A Community Paediatric Review has been undertaken to transform the early years and primary school neurodevelopmental assessment pathways. This will explore all opportunities to introduce extra capacity and innovative practice.”

Improving the approach to speech, communication and language needs - A spokesman said: “The partnership jointly commissioned a nationally recognised programme to analyse needs, and this has provided useful recommendations for improvement and future transformation. A working group has been set up to identify delivery options for earlier identification and support for children with speech, language and communication needs.”

Read the full inspection report here.

To read what leaders from the partnership and a spokesperson from the West Northants Voices in Partnership group had to say about the report, visit the council website.