1. what number of children with an EHCP (in process or existing) are currently in mainstream or at home as of beginning of this September school term where there was an indication at last review to place the child in a specialised environment? please provide as an absolute number and also as a percentage of the denominator (children placed or not placed in past 8months or appropriate interval – please state and provide reason for interval chosen).
We do not maintain a central database of this information and to find it would therefore require a review of a total of 2,991 files. Allowing for an estimate of a 20 min check in each to gather the information needed to calculate the review date, response times and date of entry into specialist setting this would take approximately 997 hours. This is in excess of the appropriate time limit and we are therefore not obliged to provide this information pursuant to s.12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
2. What is the target response time for the 0-25 team following a review requiring change to provide a finalised offer of education and what is the team’s performance over the past three years including the period covered by the last OFSTED/CQC review?
Please refer to our response to question 1. For clarification regarding response times we can confirm that there is no target; response times are set out in SEND regulations.
The local authority is required to respond to a review report 4 weeks after the meeting – the decision to amend, maintain or cease must be communicated to the parent or young person.
If the local authority decides that amendments are required then they should start these without delay.
It should be noted a review report is not a requirement for change; it is a recommendation about the progress made against the EHCP and if there needs to be any amendments due to significant changes of SEN needs.
This data is not collected at this time and as in question 1 would need a check of the same number of files.
3. What oversight does the executive arm of the council have over this performance, has it been deemed satisfactory or otherwise and could you provide notes of the relevant board meetings where public? and what actions were recommended if unsatisfactory?
The council look at the key performance measures in an annual SEN report – which is provided to scrutiny. This includes numbers, timeliness of support and education outcomes. Additionally information related to progress towards the written statement of action and the SEND transformation programme are provided through the year. Minutes from scrutiny meetings can be found here.
Information about the timeliness of EHCP plans is provided on the website; for further information please see the answer below.
Finally, what are the current external regulatory arrangements for the work of the 0-25 team – does it remain with OFSTED and CQC? Are there any current action plans that can be released regarding the performance of the 0-25 team against the last CQC/OFSTED report?
Ofsted and the CQC jointly inspect the Local Area’s arrangements for SEND. The last inspection report is available online and Devon’s progress against the written statement of action, resulting from the inspection, can be found on the link below.