Content

RESOLVED:
 

That Cabinet notes the contents of
the report that will lead to improved outcomes for children and
young people and their families.

 

That Cabinet approves, as part of
the budget setting process for 2026/27, for the ongoing investment
of £4.9m to continue to improve services for children with
additional needs and disabilities.

 
Reasons for
Decisions:
 
Implementing Statutory SEND Transformation
(End-to-End Review)
 

The implementation phase of our
statutory SEND transformation project is now live, building on the
outcomes of the End-to-End review of statutory SEND which
identified a range of opportunities to transform ways of working in
order to improve outcomes for children and young people and their
families.

 
What the service needs moving
forwards  
 

As part of the wider Additional
Needs and Disabilities transformation programme, the End-to-End
review of the statutory SEND service included a review of the
staffing and structure required to maintain the improvements made
to statutory assessment timeliness and improve the lived experience
of schools and families.  Teams need to
be right-sized to be able to meet the needs of service
users.  Lower caseloads will create
capacity for staff to work more closely, and more responsively with
children and young people, families, schools and
settings. 

 

The review has recommended a new
structure, with casework held across 5 rather than 4 teams, with a
single management structure. 

 

One team would exclusively work on
the 20-week needs assessments for issuing new Education Health and
Care Plans (EHCPs), countywide, but removing the current hand-offs
in the system that are impacting the experience of
families.  This would include 30
assessment officers working directly with families.

 

The 4 other case holding teams would
hold all open EHCPs, ensuring that annual review actions are
completed in a timely way, managing the annual statutory Key Stage
Transfer process and being able to spend more time in schools and
being more available to communicate with families when
needed.  This will increase the number
of permanent case officers from 81 to 111.   

 

An operational team will oversee
staffing, staff development and training, efficiencies, and cost
containment, systems developments, and the SEND helpdesk. Another
team will focus on tribunals, mediations and dispute resolution,
complaints, and quality assurance. This would include the
continuation of the Mediation and Dispute Resolution Officers
(MADROs), who have been part of a successful pilot which reduced
the number of families proceeding to tribunal hearings by over 50%
for the cases they were allocated. 

 

After all changes are implemented,
there will be 231 staff in the statutory SEND service.

 

These changes, recommended as a
result of the End-to-End review, will ensure the SEND service is
fit for the future, sustaining staffing capacity that has been
tested through the 3-year £15m investment. This investment
will be made alongside wider transformation so that the service is
future proofed for growth. For example, we anticipate greater
efficiencies through the use of artificial intelligence tools and
broader technological developments, and through implementing new
ways of working that focus on consistently high quality work
alongside children, young people and families.

 

Projected EHCP numbers (based on
upper confidence levels) show the projected size of the EHCP cohort
is due to increase to 23,017 by January 2034. That is an increase
of 6,517 (39%) against the numbers in May 2025. In order to
continue to maintain high standards of timeliness and drive high
quality, relational work with children, young people and families
and an improved relationship with all schools; as activity
increases, the team requires ongoing investment to right-size the
staff team as the temporary additional funding concludes in March
2026.

 
(The decisions on
this item can be called-in by the Children, Families, Lifelong
Learning & Culture Select Committee)