Suffolk Local Offer

July 2024: Open letter from Ros Somerville

Reflections from the Assistant Director for Inclusion on the year's work
23 Jul 2024

Dear Parent and Carers,

As the Summer term draws to a close, I would like to bring you up to date on what has been an exceptionally busy year across the Suffolk SEND Local Area Partnership.

Ofsted / CQC inspection of SEND Services

As you will be aware, Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) began their joint inspection of SEND Services at the beginning of November. Many of you gave your time to feedback to the inspection team of your experiences, and my thanks to all who took part. The inspection report was published in January, and you can read it here: Ofsted / CQC inspection report.

Following the inspection, we were required to submit a Priority Action Plan to Ofsted, which we did in early March. This was quickly approved, and you can read it here: Suffolk SEND Priority Action Plan | Suffolk Local Offer

As part of the ongoing monitoring of the Suffolk Local Area Partnership, a SEND Deep Dive has been undertaken by the Department for Education (DfE) and NHS England, the deep dive was focused on the timeliness and quality of Education, Health and Care plans. The DfE asked to meet with a range of practitioners, managers, and service providers across the partnership as well as parents and carers of children and young people with SEND. We are waiting to receive the feedback letter from the Deep Dive and again I would like to thank everyone that took the time to participate and share their experiences. Your voices are vitally important and play an integral part in ensuring that the improvements focus on the key areas of priority.

Suffolk SEND Strategy 2024-29

Alongside this, we have been continuing to coproduce the next Suffolk SEND Strategy, which will cover the period 2024-29 and become the overarching guide for all our work to improve SEND Services in Suffolk over the next five years. Once again, many of you took the time to give us your feedback on our proposals and the initial draft, and I would like to thank you for this too.

The final version of the strategy has now been published, and you can read it here: Suffolk SEND Strategy 2024-29 | Suffolk Local Offer 

Recruitment

You may have seen in the news that Suffolk County Council has invested an additional £3.4m this year and every year onwards to increase the number of staff to support the improvements needed. A massive recruitment drive is underway to recruit new officers, I am pleased to share that to date we have appointed 24 new members of staff, who have started or will start in September. Recruitment continues for the remaining posts.

New Annual Review form

We are pleased to announce that the new coproduced annual review form has been shared with educational settings who are now starting to use it. Initial feedback has been positive. We are identifying improvement suggestions too as we go and will seek to incorporate these in the next version.

Local Offer Website

I am pleased to see that there has been a great increase in the number of people using the Suffolk Local Offer Website. We will always be working to improve the information content and welcome all feedback. You will see on the pages you can now feedback on your experience - please do complete this to help us know what is helpful and what is not.

Education, Health and Care Needs Assessments

As part of the improvement work the teams in SEND are focusing on improving the timeliness of Education Health and Care needs assessments. I am pleased that with the change to our new team for a dedicated EHCNA Request team, we have been able to advise the requestor if an assessment is agreed in the 6-week statutory timescale and we have maintained this at 100% since last year. The assessment process for an Education Health & Care plan must have advice and information from an Educational Psychologist (EP), there is a national shortage of EPs and myself and colleagues across Suffolk County Council are committed to work to increase EP capacity in Suffolk. We have already contracted 3 external agencies to bring in more EPs, there are over 70 private EPs working in Suffolk through these contracts. In addition, the council has been investing in the SCC EP team and supporting and training our Assistant EPs. We are working hard to reduce the waiting time for EP involvement and provide advice and information for the EHCNA. We continue to address this to improve the overall number of plans that are completed in 20 weeks.

Education, Health and Care Portal

We have been working closely with our strategic coproduction partners Suffolk Parent Carer Forum (SPCF), to reflect on feedback from parents and carers about the EHC Portal which went live in April 2023. This is the way that a request for an EHCNA can be requested and there have been positives and areas for improvements identified. We want to continue to work on this over the summer and would like to continue to keep working with parents and carers to ensure that we develop the portal in-line with feedback from users. To support this work we will be hosting a focus group on the EHC portal on Tuesday 13 August from 1pm – 2pm on Teams, if you are interested in joining us we would really appreciate your views, please email SENDSystemPortalProject@Suffolk.gov.uk to receive an invitation.

Time To Listen

I have had the opportunity to meet with many parents and carers through the Time to Listen events. These meetings are humbling and helps me to connect with different parents and carers and listen to their experiences, both positive and many upsetting experiences too. All Time to Listen sessions are an opportunity for me to reflect and ensure our improvement work is addressing the areas of concern raised. I would like to thank all of you that have made the time to meet with me and share your stories. I really do want to help make things better. I encourage others to meet with me or other members of the partnership. If you would like to book a Time to Listen appointment you can find out more here: Time to Listen | Suffolk Local Offer 

Appointment of new Director of Children’s Services

Sarah-Jane Smedmor has joined Suffolk County Council as the new Director of Children’s Services.

Sarah-Jane has a wealth of experience with children and young people, having started her career as a social worker and worked her way to Head of Safeguarding and Standards at Cambridgeshire County Council and then Corporate Director Care and Protection for Children’s Services at Dorset Council before moving to Central Bedfordshire. She has a strong track-record in the effective engagement of staff, families and children and partners and in service transformation, including SEND, and has considerable experience of leading external inspections and performance oversight.

You will be aware that El Mayhew was the Interim Director for Children and Families and on a secondment from Hertfordshire County Council. El has made a significant difference since she joined us in October, and I’d like to thank her for all her hard work and commitment in helping us deliver service improvements.

We would also like to thank our Suffolk Parent Carer Forum members for their role in coproduction across the SEND Partnership and wish them a well-earned break over the summer.

Lastly, as the sun is shining and our minds begin to turn to summer at last, I invite you to look at our Activities Unlimited Summer Activity Guide, full of inclusive subsidised activities, groups and opportunities around the county and open to any child or young person with SEND.

I will write again in the Autumn term. Wishing you all a peaceful and sunny summer,

With very best wishes,

Ros Somerville

Assistant Director, Inclusion, Suffolk County Council