Wirral SEND families 'frustrated and helpless'
Parents, carers and professionals looking after young people with special educational needs are being left "frustrated and helpless", an inspection has found. Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission said both Wirral Council and the local NHS were failing young people who needed support. The inspectors said that despite some progress having been made, urgent action needed to be taken. Wirral Council said some improvements had been made but that not all families were feeling the benefit yet, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported.
'Delays and failures'
The inspection in January looked at both the services provided by Wirral Council as well as the NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board. It came after a highly critical inspection in 2021 and a government notice issued last year over a failure to make progress. The council has invested more money in its special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) teams, and the Department for Education described the improvements as significant.The January inspection, published recently, said there were long-standing failings "all too frequently characterised by waiting lists, and delays and failures to identify children and young people's needs". The inspectors said: "Children and young people bear the consequences of weak systems for education, health and care (EHC) plans. "Furthermore, many EHC plans are rarely, if ever, updated to reflect the reviews that education settings carry out. "Consequently, these plans no longer reflect the needs of the children and young people concerned and their needs sometimes go unmet."
'Dedicated staff'
Wirral Council leader Paul Stuart, a member of the Local Area SEND Partnership Board, said: "We have made progress in recent months, which has been recognised by the Department for Education. "While we continue to work across the partnership board to make large scale improvements for SEND children and their families, we recognise that these improvements are not yet consistently being felt by families themselves."He said there were still changes needed to improve the services and provide positive outcomes for all children and young people across Wirral. "We have a lot of work to do, but we're committed to our young people," he said. "There are a lot of dedicated and passionate staff across the partnership working hard to continue to drive that change and I'd thank them for their commitment to our borough and our young people."The momentum that Wirral's Local Area SEND Partnership has already built and the pace of work will continue to ensure that families feel the benefits of these changes and the needs of all children and young people with SEND across Wirral are met – and exceeded."Simon Banks, place director (Wirral) for NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, said a recovery plan had been endorsed to improve wait times for assessments.He added: "Wirral is an early adopter in the North West of a new neurodiversity profiling tool that will ensure that neurodevelopmental needs are identified early and support put in place across all areas of a child or young person's life."
Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
4 days ago
- The Guardian
Free school meal expansion in England will benefit fewer than claimed, IFS says
The expansion of free school meals will initially benefit far fewer children in England than claimed, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, as data shows more than one in four at state schools already receive free lunches. The figures from the Department for Education's annual school census show that 25.7% of all pupils now receive free school meals (FSM), up by more than a percentage point compared with last year and nearly double the 13.6% in 2017. The record of nearly 2.2 million children is an increase of 77,700 since January 2024. The figures come as Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, announced expanded FSM eligibility from September 2026, allowing all children from households receiving universal credit benefits to receive free lunches. Currently those with a net earned household income of below £7,400 a year are eligible. While poverty campaigners and teaching unions welcomed Phillipson's announcement, the IFS said the expansion would take several years to affect levels of child poverty. The IFS said in the long run it would lift 100,000 children out of poverty but 'in the short run, both the costs and the benefits of this policy are likely to be much smaller', because of the high proportion who already receive FSM. Christine Farquharson, associate director at IFS, said: 'Transitional protections introduced in 2018 have substantially increased the number of children receiving free school meals today. So in the short run, today's announcement will both cost considerably less, around £250m a year, and benefit considerably fewer pupils [than the government's estimate of 500,000]. This also means that today's announcement will not see anything like 100,000 children lifted out of poverty next year.' The previous government allowed transition arrangements in 2018, during the introduction of universal credit, to protect children receiving FSM and extend their eligibility. The transition ended in April this year, and would eventually have led to fewer children receiving FSM. The IFS said: 'The ultimate impact of these transitional protections is that many more children are currently receiving free school meals than would otherwise be the case. This makes the short-run costs of expanding eligibility lower, but also means that fewer families will benefit on day one.' Tammy Campbell of the Education Policy Institute noted that schools would not receive additional pupil premium funding for each child on FSM under the new extension. The funding, which ranges from £1,000 to £2,600 per pupil, will still be paid under the existing criteria including the £7,400 household income cap. 'There does not appear to be a clear rationale from government as to why the new free school meal eligibility criteria will not be reflected in pupil premium eligibility. The government is clear that these children are growing up in difficult circumstances. As such, they are more likely to have lower attainment and benefit from additional support in school,' Campbell said. Phillipson also said the government would review school food standards. Speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, she said school food had not been looked at 'for a very long time' and that the government wanted to 'make sure that the food that's being served is healthy and nutritious'. Henry Dimbleby, the restaurateur who chaired the last school food review in 2013, said a fresh review was overdue as some schools were not following existing standards. Campaigners have called for government guidance to encourage consumption of fruit, vegetables, and legumes and less use of processed meats.
BBC News
6 days ago
- BBC News
'Inadequate' Halton children's services improving
Improvements have been made to a council's under-fire children's services department after being told it was failing but there remains "more to do", inspectors have Borough Council's children's services department was rated "inadequate" in all four areas of its inspection by Ofsted in May last was criticised for a lack of "stable and effective leadership" and "workforce instability", with a government inspector being sent in to help turn things around and a new department head was also has now published the results of a a two-day monitoring visit in April which found "strong political and corporate support" and "significant additional investment" was supporting progress towards improvement. In a letter to head of department Zoe Fearon published online, Ofsted said: "There is a refreshed recruitment strategy and more social workers have become permanent."Social workers have been provided with a wide range of training. The learning from training is supporting social workers to consolidate, refresh and develop their practice. This training is starting to impact positively on children's experiences." 'Increasing stability' However, the letter said that for some children, what it called "inconsistent management oversight" was not supporting timely decision continued: "There is more to do to ensure that children's individual needs inform the social work response. There is not a consistently effective response to children living in private fostering arrangements."In specific relation to fostering arrangements, the headline findings said for some children, there were "delays" in the initiation of private fostering assessments and the completion of full statutory checks, which "created uncertainty" about the safety and suitability of each fostering inspection took in a range of evidence, including electronic records, performance management information, case file audits and other information provided by senior managers and staff, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said. Their report added: "Once arrangements are approved, not all children receive the appropriate levels of management oversight."This means that any emerging needs and risk may not be responded to in a timely and effective way. There is more to do to raise awareness of private fostering and embed more consistent practice."The council has relied on significant numbers of temp agency social workers in the past, which had also resulted in large overspends due to the increased the report said there had been increasing stability in the workforce as well as training which had led to more purposeful "direct work" with children and families. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas to
BBC News
6 days ago
- BBC News
Staff turnover fears despite improved Medway Council child service
A council's children services have been praised for improvements, but inspectorate Ofsted has warned staff turnover has "hindered progress".Medway Council has made changes since being rated "good" in 2023, the education watchdog said after a recent reinspection, but added that they still needed time to were raised that the positive steps made were on shaky ground because of ever-increasing demands for the service and the high turnover of staff and retention Price, Medway Council's portfolio holder for children's services, said the service had been on a "significant improvement journey in recent years". The visit, conducted in April, was to look specifically at the authority's performance in relation to children in need or the subject of a child protection plan, according to the Local Democracy Reporting inspectors said improvements had been made to the support given to children, particularly to 16 or 17 year olds at risk of homelessness, and there was a focus on developing the response to disabled children and teenagers at risk of of the service was also raised as an issue, with inspectors saying quality and impact of assessments, plans, interventions, management oversight and supervision could vary widely.A letter from the inspectorate to the council read: "Recent turnover of staff threatens to undermine the tenuous progress made."The stability and experience of the workforce continue to be the most significant and stubborn challenges and barriers to progress."Ofsted also recognised the leaders of the service understood the issues it was facing and the key areas for service was previously rated "inadequate" in Joy, shadow cabinet member for children's services, also welcomed the progress but said it remained "fragile given the continued challenges around permanence within the service".
