Are SEN case workers to be trusted?

[Ricecakesaremyjam]

Are local authority SEN case workers to be trusted? Do they work to serve the child, or on behalf of the school who aren’t delivering EHCP interventions?
Can anyone advise?! Thanks x

If that is the case, they should dilapidate the whole system, say it as it is and let people live in peace rather than going to tribunals

I’m an EP, there are no private EPs either. Until not very long ago it was part of my role to commission private EPs to do cases for us, we literally could not get enough despite paying £1200 a child. It was soul destroying to put kids on a waiting list. Private EPs have their pick of the work and only need to see a couple of children a week to make a decent wage.

I left, now I’m a private EP which I never imagined I’d be, and I left because I couldn’t bear to put children on the waiting list. I’m completely full until Sept and I’ve not advertised at all, and I get calls from agencies constantly offering me LA private work. There’s this idea that the LAs refuse to pay private is madness, literally all of them do and are using agencies to try and help too. There just aren’t enough EPs, the situation is awful.

Some LAs spend hundreds of thousands of pounds a year on shitty solicitors who are not even good, just so they can ‘beat’ parents.

Imagine if they used that money for the education of disabled children instead?

Anyone as old as me on this thread will probably remember the Baker Small scandal.

How does that excuse the ignoring all emails and phone calls for 6+ months? No correspondence until escalating to a stage 2 complaint?

How does that excuse lying about not recieving paperwork when there is a recorded paper trail?

How does that excuse not turning up to crucial meetings (KS transfer AR)?

Well aware case workers don't make the decision. I could forgive not responding in a timely manner as I know their overworked. But no correspondence whatsoever is just pathetic.

That is so shameful and cruel. Reminds me of another thread about private care home owners taking people's inheritance to fund their own million dollar homes and lifestyles

Totally agree with this, I was LA EP one day and private EP the next, often they’re the same people. Also I don’t really want to do endless LA work, I like working directly with schools instead of doing one off assessments. I do a bit but I’m not sure how much per case people expect LAs to offer, the cost is already eye watering.

Lack of resources and funding does not excuse the outright lies some caseworkers tell parents.

It has to have been commissioned as as statutory advice for an EHC needs assessment.

No, it doesn’t. During an EHCNA, advice and information has to be sought from an EP (Reg 6(1)(d) of the SEN Regs 2014). However, Reg 6(4) states “The local authority must not seek any of the advice referred to in paragraphs (1)(b) to (h) if such advice has previously been provided for any purpose and the person providing that advice, the local authority and the child's parent or the young person are satisfied that it is sufficient for the purposes of an EHC needs assessment.” So as long as the existing evidence is sufficient, it can and should be used. The problem is, even when an existing independent EP report is actually sufficient, the LA often claims it isn’t because their own will be more woolly and vague. Even if it is deemed not to be sufficient, the information should still be considered since Reg 7(b) states the LA must "consider any information provided to the local authority by or at the request of the child, the child's parent or the young person."

LAs can find EP time if push comes to shove when parents pursue enforcement action. This includes sometimes finding independent EPs to undertake the work. Money talks. Sometimes £1200 isn’t enough but going higher can secure someone.

LAs are also outsourcing EHCP writing. I regularly get emails from agencies looking for EHCP writers at £300/day so goodness knows what the agencies are charging LAs.

Mine was illiterate. Couldn’t even use the same name for my child throughout the plan. Copy and paste fail. No pride in their work.

Would you accept the NHS refusing you cancer treatment because 'theres not enough money to go round '?

So why should disabled children be sacrificed because 'theres not enough to go round'?

There is literally an EP on here telling you that's not the case.
And with regards to the quote above, 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.

You are so determined to see people in the system badly.

You need to also look up the Send Regs - and there you will find that firstly the LA cannot seek a second report/advice where there is existing evidence which is fit for purpose and that they must show why they reject existing evidence. So in summary if you already have an up to date EP report produced for whatever purpose but by definition it will relate to education and educational provision, then the LA must use it and not seek other opinions.

And also the sen code is guidance. The Regs are a statutory instrument.

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

God, the picture of his pool. Arsehole.

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.

@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.

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.

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

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.

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

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)

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

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.

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.

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.