Are SEN case workers to be trusted?

what do you expect the LA to do?

Whatever they need to do to fulfil their legal obligations. It isn’t the concern of individual parents.

My local authority commissioned a private EP to do my DD's assessment, presumably as an attempt to clear the backlog. She wrote a very thorough report with lots of specific recommendations so doubtless the LA won't want to use her again! They have now issued the draft EHCP, omitting the specifications that would cost them money. We had a meeting with the caseworker to ask for these things to be included. She said she had put them in but then didn't send me a copy of the amended draft, I had to request it. When I did, I saw that she had only vaguely amended the report, and had still omitted the specific detail. This is the sort of reason why people don't trust caseworkers.

Now we are in a position where we will probably have to go to tribunal, which we will win as the case law is clear, but my DD is of an age where waiting for the tribunal will probably affect her chances of getting any GCSEs.

Our caseworker is nice and has been polite and friendly. I don't doubt she went into the job with good intentions but I know the pressure from higher up will be to avoid spending money at all costs. I work in education myself and considered a move to SEND work in the past but I couldn't do it because I know I would be pushed at every turn to try to avoid giving the provisions that children need.

I believe the government is making plans to limit the right to SEND tribunal because LAs lose at tribunals, rather than putting extra funding into SEND.

I don’t think there’s any point in complaining about SENCOs or case officers. We all went into the job with a passion for supporting children with SEND and every complaint leaves us a bit more disheartened.

That’s why there is a high churn rate of SENCOs. It’s why so many SEN case officers are off sick with stress. Trying their best in a broken system and being constantly complained about. Burning out. Leaving with our qualifications and experience because we have gone above and beyond, yet it’s never enough.

So if every parent on that EP waiting list issues enforcement action, what do you expect the LA to do? Offer increasingly high pay to private EPs? I think at this point you’d probably have to go to £2k+ per case. If as an EP, I can make £2k a case, I’d drop down my capacity because I don’t need to work as much, so then you’re back to square one. That’s if the LA isn’t bankrupt by that point because you’re talking £3mil to clear one LAs EP waiting list.

To clarify, I’m absolutely not defending the LAs. I literally left my post because it made me feel sick and there was a complete lack of any action to do anything about it. However, I wish that more focus was put onto actually starting to resolve this EP problem because it’s not going anywhere and there needs to be a better solution than just pay them more. Because the other problem is, why would any EPs then work for the LA if you can get £££ per case privately? Work 2 days a week privately for a full time wage at the LA? So then the waiting list just gets longer the problem gets worse.

For what it’s worth, case worker wise, I met some great ones and some shocking ones. It’s a mixed bag but god I wouldn’t want to do that job, it’s no wonder turnover is so high.

How can you say ‘private EP reports are crap’

That’s like saying that all cars are crap. You go by recommendations, experience and kudos.

There is no incentive for independent EPs to write whatever the parents want if they want to be taken seriously.

My experience is the opposite. In my experience, it’s rare EPs recommend full time 1:1. In all of the cases that I’ve seen.

@AliceinSlumberland I didn’t say anyone was sitting around doing nothing. What I actually said is money talks (because it does) and it is amazing what LAs can arrange when faced with enforcement action (because it is).

Individual parents should not be put off enforcing their child’s rights because of other DC. Other DC are not their concern. Lack of resources or funding is not their problem. Instead those other parents should also be supported to advocate for their DC and enforce their child’s rights.

Yes, I do understand the risk of suicide having worked for many years in SEND, but there is not enough money in the system. People are also dying of late-diagnosed cancers and denied cancer treatments due to NHS cuts.

If they can find an independent EP to assess, with a space, should they not see the child waiting the longest?

Theres no area in the UK with EPs sitting around doing nothing. Sometimes they use virtual ones now but that’s got its own limitations.

The problem is though some of them are literally shocking, there’s one near us who recommends full time 1:1 support for every. single. kid. I’ve never seen a report from him that doesn’t say full time 1:1 and often it just doesn’t match his assessment at all, there’s no evidence that that’s what the child needs.

To be honest though, the main reason we turned down private EP reports was because they were crap. They didn’t include proper outcomes and provision or just listed endless chat GPT stuff. I worked for an LA that had really quite specific EP reports though so we definitely didn’t turn down for that reason, normally the opposite.

Parents should pursue enforcement action rather than a complaint. The timescales of a complaint mean it isn’t a suitable remedy because it takes too long. As I said, it is amazing what enforcement action can do. Other DC also waiting is irrelevant to individual cases. Parents shouldn’t be put off enforcing their DC’s rights just because they have been fed the line ‘think of the other DC waiting’. It doesn’t always result in DC jumping the LA EP’s queue - sometimes it means the LA finds an independent EP to assess. There is nothing limiting LAs to EPs who normally work within the region.

Oh yes, LAs don’t bother with small time solicitors - they put barristers up against me when I fought them. Not that it did them much good because they lost.

So they can’t be all that cash starved can they?!

An LA near me has 1500 children on the EP waiting list. I’d say there’s probably max 30 private EPs working within the region? And maybe another 15 LAs also trying to use those same EPs? And many of those EPs prefer to work directly for schools so that’s them off the possibility list. So much of my time was spent trying to get more locums. Also lots of the private EPs will only do certain cases, no chance they’d do a secondary school age perm ex kid, they all wanted early years cases.

Yes if a parent launches a complaint sometimes the LA will leapfrog that child to the front of the queue because what else can they do? It doesn’t mean there was an EP sat around doing nothing waiting for the case, it means that they’ve skipped the queue due to the complaint. There’s still another 1499 kids to be seen.

There are more SEND children, and the number of staff, places, and funding does not appear to have kept pace.
Add to that staff off sick, on maternity leave, retiring, a backlog of paperwork, errors made, paperwork prepared and then a change to an online system.
Just completed over 100 reports for EHCP applications for 4 places.

None of this will show up as work completed but will clog up a system while the information is reviewed and checked, and refusals sent.

I think the demands on the funding and time and complexity of the applications have not been correctly assessed and considered. We need more places but again the deadlines for when these will be completed keep being move back.

The system is working beyond the capacity it was designed for in many areas and this means delays and errors and more assaults as we squeeze more children into unsuitable environments.

Ed Psychs are not all created equal. Some of them are ex-teachers who are kind of cardboard cut out EPs who say whatever the LA tells them to say.

A bit like how LAs force teachers to impress their arbitrary rules on parents, such as ‘we don’t do statutory assessments unless the child is 3 years behind academically’ which is illegal.

At the last appeal for DS1, my LA paid a barrister to turn up to the hearing (late!) and concede.

Tell that to the children who have taken their own lives due to lack of provision (resulting in social isolation/burnout/permanent state of stress leading to suicide)

Can you show me where the duty to decide whether a report is fit for purpose is the decision of the LA EP?

also isn't if funny how LA find millions to defend tribunal cases (of which they won last year about 1.3%). of course there is money. But instead of funding assessment and placements, it's wasted on fighting families.

No there’s an EP on here telling you they’re booked solid. That’s not the same.

The point of the EP reviewing it is to decide if it is fit for purpose.
This is literally in line with the regs you have just quoted.

@CleverButScatty it is the case. I do this day in, day out. It is amazing what can happen when parents pursue enforcement.

how the LA decide if they are satisfied the previous report is sufficient is by having an EP consider it and provide a view as to whether it is sufficient for use in the EHC assessment.

No. Not always. Sometimes LAs decide it isn’t sufficient without an EP even seeing the existing evidence.

That’s a difficult comparison because the child is not going to die if they don’t have an EHCP. NHS funding and LA SEND funding come from different sources.

God, the picture of his pool. Arsehole.

The NHS does not provide the cancer treatment available in some countries because of costs.