SEND provision no longer in ‘crisis’ but still needs ‘clear’ improvements
While the council has addressed the ‘significant’ weaknesses found last inspection, Ofsted said that the borough’s SEND services are ‘inconsistent’.
Special educational needs (SEND) services in Tower Hamlets have moved on from a ‘crisis’ but still need ‘clear’ improvements, a leading councillor has said.
An Ofsted inspection of Tower Hamlets’ SEND services this year found they needed to ‘make improvements’.
However, Councillor Maium Talukdar, responsible for education, said this was progress from a previous inspection in 2021.
Cllr Talukdar said: ‘Inspectors found progress since 2021, but also clear areas where further improvement is needed.
‘Compared to 2021, the systematic failings across the partnership, significant concerns – now we’re stronger in leadership, better partnership, families beginning to be heard.
‘So we have moved from a crisis to reforming, improving. But there are still improvement plans in place.’
Ofsted’s 2021 inspection found ‘significant areas of weakness’ in the borough’s SEND services, which are delivered by the council and the NHS.
Its findings included that education, health and care plans (EHCPs) – assessments that set out what a council needs to do to meet a child’s special educational needs – were of ‘poor quality’ and not updated.
The latest inspection, carried out in June, found there had been ‘many improvements’.
It found that ‘the quality of EHC plans is improving’ and that more are issued within the legal timeframe.
But it added that there is ‘still more to do to ensure that more children and young people benefit from a high-quality EHC plan than is the case now’.
It said: ‘Currently, some plans are significantly out of date and/or do not include accurate information, particularly in relation to health and care needs and provision.’
The council’s children and education scrutiny sub-committee considered the inspection at a meeting yesterday (Monday 22nd).
Parent governor Joanna Hannan said she had seen ‘a marked improvement in how quickly’ EHCPs were being completed.
She said: ‘It is actually working, so whatever we are doing is coming to fruition.’
Hannan asked what the council is doing to make sure the plans ‘are being consistently updated’.
A council officer replied that the authority had put tracking systems in place and was making sure education providers carry out EHCP reviews ‘in a timely manner’.
The Ofsted inspection found that the service’s leaders had ‘successfully’ addressed the significant weaknesses found at the last inspection.
However, it said that overall, children and young people’s experiences with the borough’s Send services are ‘inconsistent’.
Steve Reddy, the council’s corporate director of children’s services, said the finding ‘represents improvement’.
He said: ‘We were on the third lower level during the last inspection so that medium level which refers to inconsistent experiences is an improvement.’
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