An independent report into parts of Suffolk’s special educational needs (SEND) provision has been published today.
The report, which is available to read here, has been written by a team from Lincolnshire, including Lincolnshire County Council and parent carer network, following a review of some SEND services.
The review looked at processes, communication protocols and family-facing elements of SEND provision and was commissioned by Suffolk County Council in June.
The report lists strengths and weaknesses of the service and includes nine recommendations for improvement. These recommendations are now being worked through and implemented by Suffolk County Council and other partners who help deliver SEND services.
Sue Cook, Executive Director of People’s Services at Suffolk County Council, said:
“The review has found that we must change what we are doing in a number of areas.
“I would like to say sorry to any child or young person, and their families, who we may have failed.
“Our priority now is to implement these recommendations with pace, efficiency and impact. We have begun to make these changes, but it will take time before the impact of the changes are felt.
“We are grateful to the team at Lincolnshire for their findings and recommendations, which we accept wholeheartedly, and for their support and advice.”
Rachel Hood, Cabinet member for Education, SEND and Skills, at Suffolk County Council, said:
“Suffolk County Council’s Cabinet commissioned this review after the May elections because of concerns that our SEND services were not performing well.
“As we anticipated, the report has shown that SEND services in Suffolk are not good enough, and I want to apologise to those children and young people we have let down.
“I want to be clear that this report does not cover all SEND services and many children or young people who have specialist educational needs in Suffolk are very well served, but significant changes must be made following this hard-hitting report.
“We must learn from this report and implement fundamental change as quickly as we can.”
The review was commissioned following a significant increase in correspondence from parents and carers earlier this year.
An Action Plan based on the recommendations is now being implemented. This can be read here.
One of the recommendations made in the review was to work with a third-party organisation to deliver improvements. The council has since secured Impower as a strategic partner, who will bring capacity and extensive experience of working on SEND systems across the country. This partnership starts today [Monday, September 2021].
Other recommendations include staff training, reviewing the process for allocating specialist placements and working with education leaders and parents and carers to understand the demand for specialist provision and use data and local intelligence to inform sufficient planning.
