(UK) East London: Council has $46M high needs debt; "skyrocketing demand"
Parents and children currently face long delays for support, while the council struggles with a multi-million pound education deficit
A shortage of specialists poses a "critical" threat to efforts to save the special educational needs system in Tower Hamlets, council plans have revealed.
The council has published a plan to reform the beleaguered system. Parents and children currently face long delays in accessing support, while costs have left the town hall lumbered with a multi-million-pound education deficit.
However, the plan says it is "very likely" that there will be a shortage of specialists needed to make the changes work – and this could have a "critical impact" on their success.
Councils across the country have faced rocketing demand for support from children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in recent years.
The increase has meant children and parents often face long delays for education, health and care plans (EHCPs). These set out the support a council must give them, and involve yearly needs assessments.
Increased demand has also put a strain on town hall and school budgets. Some 8.6 per cent of schoolchildren in Tower Hamlets have an EHCP – the third-highest rate in the country. However, in recent months, around 40 per cent of plans were issued to children after a wait of more than 20 weeks – the statutory limit.
Meanwhile, the high-needs element of the council's schools budget is in a £ 35 million [$46M] deficit, which has built up over a number of years.
Council plans to reform its Send service, suggesting this could get worse unless action is taken. They say: "Demand continues to rise, creating financial pressures and a high needs deficit", further adding that "waiting times for therapies and assessments remain too long".
The government has told councils to change their SEND services so that more children can be educated in mainstream schools, and fewer need EHCPs to receive support. In return, it says it will pay for 90 per cent of each council's high needs deficit.
The government says this means councils and health services must make more specialists – such as speech and language therapists and educational psychologists – available in mainstream schools. It calls this scheme "experts at hand".
Lisa Fraser, the town hall's director of education, told councillors on Monday (14th) that experts at hand would be "absolutely critical" to the success of the reforms. However, the council's plan warned that it is "very likely" that there may not be enough specialists available to make experts at hand work.
An investigation by Schools Week magazine found that of 40 councils' Send reform plans it examined, 28 warned of a shortage of specialists.
Tower Hamlets' plan said that "limited workforce capacity to meet increased demand for specialist roles (e.g speech and language therapists and educational psychologists)" would have a "critical impact" on the success of the reforms.
The plan also said that 25 per cent of community occupational therapist roles at Barts Health NHS Trust were vacant. The trust told the Local Democracy Reporting Service it has since brought this down to 14 per cent. Plans say the council would "consider" how to cut staffing shortages and train up its existing workforce. . . .
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