Central Bedfordshire Council apologises for 'sluggish' response to emails
CBC director apologises for sluggish response to emails from parents of children with SEND because of service demands and staffing levels v.1
A local authority is saying ‘sorry’ to parents and carers of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Central Bedfordshire for not replying to their emails within the specified five-day limit.
Rising demand and Central Bedfordshire Council (CBC) staffing capacity are being blamed for the slow response by its education, health and care team.
The council’s director of children and families Amana Gordon apologised in its latest SEND bulletin.
She thanked parents and carers for “your patience and understanding”, saying: “As head of this team, I recognise that families don’t always receive responses to emails within the agreed five working days.
“I sincerely apologise on behalf of the team for this and understand how frustrating it can be when waiting for a reply. We really appreciate you bearing with us.
“This has been because of an increased volume of inquiries, as well as our staffing capacity.
“Please be assured that this is an area for improvement at which the team is working as hard as they can to reply, and everyone is committed to meeting response times.”
The team has developed an annual review recovery plan setting out steps to improve performance to achieve CBC’s statutory duties around annual reviews, explained the bulletin.
“The statutory timeframes require schools and settings to return annual review paperwork within two weeks of a meeting. Currently 51 per cent of annual review reports are returned within a fortnight.
“The SEND service will be working with special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs), headteachers and chief executive officers of school academy trusts to improve this rate.
“All schools and settings have been issued with the list of children and young people in their location for whom they need to arrange annual reviews during this academic year.
“The local authority should issue its decision within four weeks, whether it intends to maintain an education, health and care plan (EHCP), amend the plan or cease it.
“With an improved return by schools and settings, the team can succeed in issuing decisions within timeframes.”
Where the council proposes to amend an EHCP, it should do so within 12 weeks of the annual review meeting.
“Extra staffing capacity has been agreed to support this area,” added the bulletin. “The team is aware that families and schools are waiting too long for the final amended plan.
“Amendments to plans will only be agreed where significant changes are required, in accordance with the SEND code of practice, end of Key Stage, or for phase transfer.
“There’s also a multi-agency EHCP audit process, which has graded new plans consistently as good. This takes place bi-monthly to ensure CBC is producing high quality new and amended plans.”
A local Government and Social Care ombudsman report, published last month after a mother complained about delays by CBC in amending an EHCP, mentioned “finding fault with similar issues in an earlier investigation”.
The watchdog provided CBC with an action plan to ensure statutory timescales for annual reviews are met.
It said: “The percentage of amended EHCPs finalised within 12 weeks declined to 13.4 per cent.”
CBC replied “staffing has increased and its performance is improving now”.