Transfer from SEN Statement to EHCP

[ASDMum1973]

As a volunteer for a SEN Charity I am receiving an increase in numbers of parents calling to advise that support is being removed on transfer to EHCP from SEN Statement without any evidence to support the removal of the provision. I have just experienced the same with my LA removing all (yes all!) of my son's Speech and Language Therapy at Amended Statement of Secondary transfer and will now be headed to Tribunal for a 4th time.

I am interested in hearing if you are experiencing this loss of support. Another one that LAs are doing is to claim they don't have to specify the hours in the draft EHCP - watch out for that as support must be specified and quantified - none of the "access to" and benefit from" woolly wording.

And finally the typical one that many parents aren't aware of; LA's not putting SaLT and OT as educational need and putting it in the Health section. There is case law to support S&LT and OT being an educational need so don't let them do this to you as you cannot appeal what is put in the Health section.

Look forward to hearing your comments

my friend has just had the no hours specified happen to her - I spotted it! she then called a meeting with the LA and went well prepared - LA were adamant they didn't have to but my friend said that the part they were quoting related to exceptional circumstances and this was not one of those!(don't know which part of the code they were referring to)

anyway they assured her she would get her full hours but she was not happy to just let the draft be unspecified and unqunatified and the LA dug their heels in - 24 hours later they then emailed her and back down and are now sending a second draft out

A group of parents (including me) are campaigning to get the law changed so that LA's cannot remove support at transition without having evidence to support the removal of provision. They are using as a method of cost reduction. Many of these families have been through Tribunal to get the support in the first place. It's utterly disgusting.

Unscrupulous LA's could be all of them are jumping on the transfer as an opportunity to remove provision! They are a complete nightmare and many, including mine have no regard to the law

I have signed a petition over the weekend calling for the removal of provision to to stopped.

Its all a money saving exercise!

This scenario has happened to a friend of mine but provision has thankfully now been reinstated (after complaints and many phone calls from parent). It was done purely on the basis of cost, there was no good reason to reduce provision as needs had not changed. LEA in question did not provide any concrete reason for such removal either; they were really just trying it on. Sending out the letter as well just before Easter was a low blow on their part too.

I always thought that transfer from a Statement to an EHCP was automatic as well; in my LEA it apparently isn't. Woe betide them if I receive any such letter from them!.

Can you signpost me to your group/petition or whatever you brilliant people are doing?

For the sake of balance, I know three families who have transitioned from statements to EHCPs so far.

All are from the same LA, and all of them have experienced a pretty seamless and problem-free process. All provision that was in the statement was transferred over to the EHCP, in the right places, to the right timescales, with a transition meeting that they all said was genuinely useful.

But I'm pretty sure that these families' experiences do not reflect the majority. If an LA thinks that it can get away with it, that there's a reasonable prospect of blindsiding parents successfully, and that there's no practical downsides to trying this, then why wouldn't they?

As ever, it's not the law that's the issue here, is it? It's the willingness of the LA to abide by it, and the ability of people to hold the LA to account when they breach it.

Do we have any Independent Supporters in the house? PCF reps? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Very worrying, but not surprising unfortunately.

uggerthebugger that's really good news - which LA was that? The worst offenders seem to be Surrey, Hampshire and Kent thus far.

Bit to the north of Hampshire... and I suspect that this LA isn't squeaky clean, it just picks its battles carefully...

The transfer from statement to EHCP isn't meant to be an automatic process anywhere. Before it can happen there has to be a transfer review and a reassessment, though it is open to all concerned to agree to reuse reports produced previously.

Icimoi

This is what I am led to understand from IPSEA re children who have statements:-

"The expectation is that all children with a statement will be transitioned to an EHC plan unless there has been a change in their individual needs which mean they no longer need the same level of support".

For the 3 families who had a good experience, parents were offered a choice of reassessment or reuse of old reports prior to transfer review. They all chose the latter - didn't want to risk it.

That is good news ugger, lets hope more LA's decide to toe the line and do the right thing by the young people they are supposed to be supporting!!

Yes, Attila, that's right. Every child with a statement who still needs support is supposed to be on an EHCP by April 2018. My point was that it isn't an automatic process, i.e. the LA shouldn't just cut and paste the statement into an EHCP but should go through the review and reassessment process.

The expectation is that rather than lumping support into a block of hours at the end of the provision as in statements, ie 25 hours of TA support, the hours should be broken down specifically into the exact areas where it's needed within the provision section F. For example, you might have '30 min per day in a group of four with one adult to work on literacy targets', 'direct support from a trained TA for literacy and numeracy to ensure understanding and provide prompts' and so on according to your child's areas of difficulty. If your child needs someone with them at all times this should be explicitly stated in F as well as a description of exactly what the person should be doing, ie supporting personal care, facilitating social interaction and so on. The reality is that this is very hard to put into practice because that level of detailed information is unlikely to be readily available and many LAs are having to recruit inexperienced staff due to the labour intensive nature of the new system. Many of them have probably never written a statement let alone a plan so would have great difficulty working these things out. With regard to therapies, what is specified in the statement cannot be changed in the plan without recommendation from the relevant therapist, ie there should be an up to date report for the review meeting that takes place at the start of the transfer process to determine whether the level of input needs to be changed. It would be wise to ensure that these reports are in hand ahead of the meeting and discuss with the therapist as well if poss. If there is no updated report then the therapy should not change but to do the job properly the LA should really seek up to date advice as it is in fact carrying out an EHC assessment to do the conversion. Existing reports can be used as long as parents and the professionals who wrote them are in agreement. The Council for Disabled Children and IPSEA have very useful guides to what should be in each section of EHC plans on their websites. To be fair I don't think many LAs will be deliberately using the new regs to take provision away or make things harder for parents, the system is so different and time consuming a lot of them are in meltdown and struggling to keep up with the shorter time scales and much more detailed and personalised way of carrying out assessment and writing plans. To my knowledge, most have needed to triple or quadruple the size of ther teams, training has been patchy and it's generally agreed that the system wasn't fully trialled before the legislation was rushed through, the pathfinders hadn't yet fully tested the areas they were focussing on. In many areas also it's proving very difficult to get health and social care on board with their new responsibilities under the system. This is a steep learning curve for everyone and there's a long way to go before the system works in the way in which it was promoted.

Many LAs are not carrying out any additional assessments during the transfer process. I have asked for clarification as to what constitutes an assessment. I agree that if there is no updated report then the therapy shouldn't change but nowhere is it written in the COP or in law that is this the case hence LA's free reign to remove what they please. The only recourse we have is mediation which is worthless unless they send a decision maker to it or SENDIST Tribunal.

The problem is that you couldn't conceivably frame the law in terms of making it compulsory to retain in the EHCP everything that is in the statement, because in a fairly large proportion of cases it will be appropriate to make changes - especially where the statement is very out of date.

If you say they can only make changes if they are supported by evidence, then (a) that is in fact the law as it stands currently in that all provision in statements or EHCPs should be supported by evidence; and (b) it isn't really any safeguard, because we all know that EPs and NHS SALTs etc will write essentially what the LA wants them to.

The worst offenders seem to be Surrey, Hampshire and Kent thus far.
I wish I could say that I was surprised.

Surely you can't have seen the utter rubbish that Lewisham, Croydon and Sutton are producing?

I just had my third and supposedly final EHCP meeting today with a London LEA. It was with the co-ordinator and a variety of professionals mainly to focus on section F, the Provision. They all told me hours would not be included except perhaps for OT and SLT.

They insisted that the way it works is that the panel would look at general provision and then give an amount of money based on hours but it wouldn't be in the plan.

We had a long discussion/argument about what the SEN code of practice says. Eventually the SEN officer said she would have to speak to her boss. She emailed later to say that if we were insisting then hours/frequency etc could be added. It seems like none of the LEA people were aware of the requirement that provision must be specified and quantified.

Still no idea what will happen when it goes to panel though....

Can parents still go to tribunal if they don't agree with what the LA want to put in the EHCP?

You can appeal part B which is description of needs, part F which is educational provision and part I which is placement. You can't appeal part A or the outcomes part E. Before lodging an appeal you have to consider mediation and get a certificate from a mediation provider to say you've done this. The LA must tell you about mediation arrangements in your area when the final plan is issued and details should also be in the Local Offer. If you only want to appeal I you don't have to consider mediation. If you disagree with the health or social care parts of the plan you have to follow the complaints procedure of the relevant service, the tribunal doesn't deal with these parts. Not exactly straightforward.

For what it's worth, you can use the mediation process to deal with health and care issues, and mediation is supposed to happen within 30 days of referral. No idea how successful it might or might not be, though.

Icimoi I'm about to start a transition in a few weeks with Lewisham. What's the problem with them? Changing provision or just cuting and pasting the statement?

I am transitioning with Hertfordshire. What's the problem with them? They don't seem to know what they are doing? We have gone through the review meeting which was rubbish basically cutting and pasting with or without the say so of the "experts" from the statement. No new assessments done apart from the SALT. They could have quantified and specified but choose not to in some sections. An hour given to the review which was just not enough time.

DS2 has SPD there is no information given anywhere from any of the "experts" concerning his environment so I have written it in Section A and submitted that. There never has been anything put in any of the reports. I wonder is they just don't notice it because DS is either not coping or modulating himself to cope loosing vital brain power when he should be concentrating. Or that it is an important money saver not putting a child in the right environment. SPD mums will know what I am talking about here.

"SaLT and OT as educational need and putting it in the Health section." I am worried this is happening to us too but will point it our at draft stage.

I am planning on taking them to Tribunal anyway as I am sure they will refuse our choice of school so will try and clear up all problems then. I understand I can only do Tribunal on sections B, F and I.

Hope this helps someone.