Agenda item

The Committee resolved that:

·         A case study of an EHC should be circulated to the Committee so they can see what a completed EHC looks like.

·         Information on the numbers of children that will need to convert from statement of SEN to EHC plans and the number of children expected to be on EHC plans should be provided to the Committee.

Warwick Tomsett (Head of Targeted Services and Joint Commissioning) and Keith Martin (Manager, Children with Complex Need) introduced the report, highlighting the following key points:

·         This is the first update since the change in law came into effect in September 2014.

·         Officers are now implementing Education, Health and Care plans (EHC), including the EHC local offer, personal budgets and the Early Years work stream.

·         The timetable for converting from statement of special educational need (SEN) to EHC includes the restructure of the team carrying this out.

·         The EHC plan gives context for a child’s life and allows the child to talk about their likes and aspirations as part of it, which is a big cultural shift from the statement of SEN.

In response to questions from the Committee, Frankie Sulke (Executive Director for Children & Young People) Warwick Tomsett and Keith Martin provided the following information:

·         The majority of referrals for EHC will come from schools, although other agencies will also refer. The local authority will then need to complete the assessment.

·         There are likely to be some ongoing gaps and anomalies in the figures for the 19-25 age range, especially as this is where the 3 year period of further education is covered. A young person is entitled to further education support for a 3 year period under their EHC. Once this period has finished their plan will follow them, although it will no longer cover further education support. 

·         The eligibility criteria for EHC are set by the national code of practice, although there is no standard model for the way that decisions around EHCs can be taken. Lewisham has adopted a multi-agency panel approach for its decision making panel.

·         The size of team working on conversions from statements of SEN to EHC plans will decrease as the conversions are carried out and less need to be done.

·         An individual child that has more complex needs may require more resource and there are cost implications around that but these are built into the budget.

·         Every child with a statement will have to be converted to EHC and all children who went through the pathfinder project will have to be reassessed to have their EHCs taken via the statutory process. This is not what was initially set out and has created additional workload and resource demand on the local authority. Approximately 1400 SEN statements need converting to EHC.

·         The biggest challenge and opportunity comes with the introduction of personal budgets. The challenge comes from costing the needs and outcomes for children and how to meet them. Many services are tied into big contracts with suppliers which is unsuitable for the flexibility required of personal budgets. However the opportunity is there to provide autonomy for families through bespoke packages of support. This could massively improve the lives of parents and children and the EHC gives much more control to parents and is a less adversarial process.

·         Points of transition can be very difficult, but EHCs offer a better chance here by allowing more planning for transition at an earlier stage.

·         Officers are working alongside colleagues in Communications about how to make the local offer more accessible for parents and children. At the moment it meets the statutory requirements but this should be improved and is a key strand of work.

The Committee resolved that:

·         A case study of an EHC should be circulated to the Committee so they can see what a completed EHC looks like.

·         Information on the numbers of children that will need to convert from statement of SEN to EHC plans and the number of children expected to be on EHC plans should be provided to the Committee.