The issue of services for children with special educational needs and disabilities was discussed at a Lancashire County Council election debate, chaired by local democracy reporter Paul Faulkner.
For a complete list of candidates standing in the elections to the authority on 1st May, click here - https://www.lep.co.uk/news/politics/complete-list-of-candidates-standing-in-lancashire-county-councils-last-ever-local-elections-5067966
For a complete list of candidates standing in the elections to the authority on 1st May, click here - https://www.lep.co.uk/news/politics/complete-list-of-candidates-standing-in-lancashire-county-councils-last-ever-local-elections-5067966
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NewsTranscript
00:00We did get several questions about this, several people hopefully in the audience will be able to
00:04pitch in directly with their questions about services for children with special educational
00:09needs and disabilities. The County Council and the NHS jointly received quite a damning
00:15Ofsted report back in February which talked about unacceptable delays in assessments
00:21and widespread systemic failings. Start with you Gina on this one, that's a pretty shameful
00:27failure isn't it? It's very disappointing and certainly if you're needing that assessment
00:33and you're needing that education health assessment for anybody in that position the delays are distressing.
00:41I was actually quite disappointed at the last full council meeting because there was really big
00:49attempt by all parties there to make this into a political, yeah to politicise it and to weaponise
00:56it and really when you've got a situation where it's clear that the service is failing
01:02Lancashire's population, it's been inspected as such, you really need to pull together, you know
01:08trying to make political capital out of that when we know that staff are really working hard, that they
01:17are trying their best, they are up for improvement, there's already been a response that they recognise
01:21some of the, well they recognise the recommendations, so I just feel as though when it comes to that kind of, you know, seeing the response to a failed inspection that clearly needs addressing, all parties need to pull together with a plan for the future, not trying to exploit the situation for their own political ends. I would just add one more thing, you know, again,
01:50send services need to be responsive to local people and that's what the Greens are emphasising, you need to be listening and you need to work together to find solutions.
02:02Matthew, would you say you tried to make political capital out of this situation, you called for a resignation or your group called for a resignation of the cabinet member?
02:11Yeah, and it's a bit odd to be sat here with five politicians being criticised for being political, you know, I think it just comes with the territory, and frankly, if the cabinet member responsible for this bailing had stood up in public and said, I am sorry, and I will work hard to put things right, then that debate in council would never have happened.
02:36Not one single conservative politician has ever apologised for what happened. Things can go wrong, I know to my own personal cost, you know, things have gone wrong when I've been in charge of things, and when things go wrong, you hold your hand up, you admit that things are wrong, and you commit to putting things better.
02:56And no one from the ruling group, not the leader, not the deputy leader, not the cabinet member said a word in public when that report came out. And that was our main criticism. But in terms of putting things right, you know, there is a way to do this, and we've committed to getting the waiting list down by 90%.
03:16By 90%. There are some families who are waiting four times the legal limit to get an educational health and care plan. Four times the legal limit. And that's not acceptable. And then when they do get assessed, and we don't have the provision to look after these children, we've got children being bussed all over the county, travelling two hours a day to get to school and back because we don't have enough local provision.
03:45And that's costing. And that's costing the home to school transport. Any councillor will know how much that is spending. And we're spending money on home to school transport to give these poor families and children a poor service. And that's simply not good enough.
03:59I think the Labour government has committed more money, and the Conservatives have said how they'll spend that money. So there is more money coming through the SEND, SDND. But we have a plan. It's in our manifesto that we've published.
04:15And our commitment is to get that waiting list down by 90%.
04:19So I'll just quote the... Can you eat me, everybody? I'll just quote the OSTED report. Just a few lines.
04:30There are widespread and or systematic failings, leading to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with special educational needs and or disabilities, which the local area partnership must address urgently.
04:45Now, this legislation has been in for 10 years. And the county are putting £5 million in to solve this backlog. But why are they doing it now? They've known about this for 10 years.
05:00And we have a situation where some families, because they can't get the EHC assessment, are actually having to pay and put the children to private school.
05:12And now the Labour government is charging them 20% VAT on that because they haven't got an EHC plan. It's absolutely appalling.
05:21But this is the elephant in the room. For the next two years, the county council can rely on what's called statutory override, where the government will pick up the costs.
05:32In two years, in two years, that ends. And the cost goes from £9 million to £67 million. And the county have only put £20 million in the budget for it.
05:44So if the government do not bail out Lancashire County Council, this is a £67 million black hole on top of the £100 million black hole of savings, which they won't make. Thank you.
05:55I can't believe that the books of every council in the country, as it's not just Lancashire County Council, and some of them are already in the red.
06:08Absolutely. But this is just wrong, that the parents go through hell on earth, they love the children, and they can see the children suffering, and getting more withdrawn, and getting more frustrated.
06:22So the damage that's done takes far more to undo because of these delays.
06:27So Paulie.
06:29Do we have a Cheryl Semple here? Cheryl submitted a question. Cheryl, would you mind asking your question directly?
06:35Because you wanted to ask it to our Conservative representative, Scott here.
06:39Yeah, I actually wanted to ask why our Conservative council have let some of the most vulnerable children in our council suffer to the extent that they did.
06:57I mean, it's not just the children. Some of these children suffered to the point where they were self-harming because they weren't getting the help that they needed in schools and at home.
07:09And some of these parents actually suffered breakdowns because they were trying to get the help for their children, but were being turned away.
07:17And in some ways, were treated with disdain from Lancashire County Council because funding was being withdrawn or withheld for months and months and years sometimes.
07:29And I know because I was one of those parents, and my child was one of those children that was self-harming,
07:34and I've acted as an advocate for other parents who I've had to write letters where I've had to actually threaten legal proceedings towards Lancashire County Council
07:47because they have withheld funding that they have legally had to, needed to provide.
07:53And then I had to, why is it that you have treated some of the most vulnerable people, children, in Lancashire that way?
08:01Why is that okay?
08:03Cheryl, thank you for that.
08:04First of all, thank you for sharing your family story.
08:09I'm sorry that you and your family have had such a difficult time of it.
08:12I mean, it's not, this isn't an issue of which I have personal experience, but I have a mum back in Scotland who works in Ascendant Viren.
08:17So a small insight into the pressures that the frontline and families face.
08:24There are a few things I would say about this issue in general.
08:27First of all, it's a partnership that is responsible for central vision in Lancashire.
08:34We have the NHS as well as the County Council.
08:37For our part, as has already been mentioned, we're investing £5 million extra this year to make sure that we speed up that EHCP process because we know that once a child gets that EHCP, it sounds like a key that unlocks those services that make such a difference to that child and their family.
08:54And we are, we will speed up that EHCP process with that extra investment.
09:01But the other thing I would say is that this is very much a national problem, as you alluded to Paul, particularly after the pandemic, there was a huge explosion in Sen's demand, which is understandable, kids were locked away for, kids were locked away for months, if not years on end.
09:18So that was bound to have an impact, and we're still feeling the effect of that now.
09:22Now, the last thing I would say about this is that, and I would pick up on what Gina said, is that I was really disappointed by the tone that the last meeting took.
09:32Matthew and his group had absolutely every right to bring this up at Council.
09:36We are held accountable by residents and by the representatives on an issue such as this.
09:41But to make it about personalities rather than about the children and young people that we're here to serve.
09:47It's not about responsibility, though, it's not personality, is it? It's responsibility if somebody is carrying the can.
09:53We have taken responsibility for the services that have been provided.
09:59We have set out the action plan, as I've described, and I think, you know, we would have achieved a much more productive outcome,
10:05and been able to communicate that better to our answer to residents, if it wasn't sullied by Labour not having the strength, actually,
10:13to stand up to his group and prevent it turning into a personality contest.
10:19I do want to come back on that, because what you've just seen there is an absolute demonstration of the failure of leadership that I talked about before.
10:29Scott has just blamed the NHS, he's blamed a national rise, and this is not us.
10:34This is what you've said. It's the NHS, it's a national problem.
10:43One of your councillors in full council blamed headteachers, and one of your cabinet members at the last cabinet meeting blamed Ofsted.
10:52Now, you know, responsibility, it's all well and good, a cabinet member of the county council going around the county,
10:59having the photograph taken in a hard hat and a high biz, this is great, look at what we're doing,
11:04and having it published in a document that cost you £250,000, by the way, to be delivered through your door just before the election period.
11:12But then they don't want to take responsibility when things are not going well.
11:19As I said before, we accept that things go wrong. Things do go wrong.
11:24And what is important when things go wrong is you accept your part in the failure and you put things right.
11:30And you've never, ever accepted your part in the failure.
11:33The issue with my son and the self-harming and my breakdown all happened before Covid, so Covid was not an issue for him getting his EHCP and his fall in there.
11:43Cheryl, I hope, sorry, Cheryl, I hope you've got a resolution now, but if you don't, I'm very happy to talk to you afterwards.
11:48It's all sort of, I've managed to sort it all now.
11:51Okay. I'm glad to hear that. I'm sorry it took so long.
11:53Just finally to you, John, on this, just to broaden out the point that Cheryl was making now about her son's issues that occurred before the pandemic.
12:01Why do you think there has been this rise? There's been a more than doubling of EHCP's educational health and care plans issued by Lancashire County Council over the past decade.
12:12Is the speed of that process the problem, or is it a problem somewhere further along in the system, further back downstream, that's causing people to then need those plans because situations worsen?
12:24Yeah, so there's a complexity to this.
12:26So you cannot deny, and I've got a friend who's an education psychologist, and Covid did have a monstrous effect on young people's well-being.
12:36And like most emergencies and disasters that happen, you often see the effects of that years later as well.
12:44But let's just go right back to that report, the Austed report, and I'm on education scrutiny.
12:49Reading that report was so utterly damning, we're not talking about a couple of isolated cases, we're talking about hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of families let down.
13:03Now how we address that, how we address this going forward is the most important thing, because this has to be rock bottom.
13:08We can only get better, and what the system does, there's no slack in the system, so when things like this happen, and it has been an existential rise in it,
13:19so again, I'm not going to just absolutely let the Tories off the hook or blame everything on the Tories, because I'm a sensible politician,
13:26I know there are multiple factors to why such a mistake happens, but going forward, we've got to have more flexibility in the system.
13:33Any school that is expanded or new school that is built should be thinking, okay, can we have a special SEND provision added to it to allow more of the system to get better,
13:45and so there isn't such a stretch on the system, and unfortunately, it's going to cost money.
13:50Again, we talk about magic bullets, but we need lots more assessments, we need assessments done quicker,
13:56and we need schools to be able, when they're expanded, to have greater capacity.
14:01So, whatever happened in that Ofsted report, which is utterly damning, and you should all read it, never happens again.
14:10Just very briefly, John, you mentioned you're on scrutiny, these are issues that crop up and that is discussed during the term of an administration.
14:19Can councillors ever really get a handle on a problem like this coming down the track?
14:24Should they be able to?
14:25It's difficult, and you know, because, you know, politicians such as myself, and other politicians in county council,
14:33the county is a £2 billion organisation, okay, so if you think of other like-minded organisations,
14:39would you expect every single employer to know every single one else's job?
14:43No, that's not realistic, but what you want councillors to do is be able to scrutinise the professionals that do it day in, day out.
14:49That is what scrutiny is about, and it was evident, and the officers will be the first to admit it,
14:56they absolutely drop the ball on this, but the cabinet members are the people that make the decision.
15:02There is no decision that you can blame the civil servants, because ultimately it gets signed off by politicians,
15:08and it's a too easy a fix to say, actually, not because, you know, it must have been the staff not quite doing right,
15:15or whatever, because ultimately, Conservatives signed off that plan, and so they have to take responsibility for it.
15:23Thank you very much indeed. Thanks again, Cheryl, for your question and comments.