THE new Staffordshire County Council leadership have been told fixing the process for supporting children with special educational needs must be among their immediate priorities.
Elections last week saw Reform UK sweep into power at the council after winning 49 of the 62 available seats.
But Cllr Jacob Marshall, a Labour member of Lichfield City Council who lost out in the Lichfield City South county council seat vote, said it was important the new administration was quick to address issues that were key for residents.
He said that issues with the assessment process for education, health and care plans (EHCPs) – legal documents outlining support needed for children – should be high on the list of priorities.
“I made Staffordshire’s broken special educational needs system a key focus of my campaign in the election just gone – and I’m glad I did.
“So many parents have written to me with their experiences – all of them bad – and I’m working with those parents to support them in any way I can.
“The real problem is the broken system though. Staffordshire is the fourth worst performing authority in the country for sticking to assessment timelines. They’re legally obligated to assess kids within 20 weeks of agreeing to assess, but they manage to do this in a paltry 26% of cases.
“Before assessments are done, schools can’t provide appropriate support. Without appropriate support, kids can’t reach their potential and in this way, not providing the support now robs them of their future.
“Successful countries invest in their future, their children, and that’s what we should be doing in Staffordshire.”
Cllr Marshall said it was important that new Reform UK county councillors were tackling the issues under their control locally.
He said:
“In the Reform leaflet that came through my door, there wasn’t much in the way of local issues. There was something about them being straight talking though.
“So will Reform commit to sorting out one part of Staffordshire’s broken SEND system by sticking to the 20 week assessment timeline?”
Would be interesting to know if any of these Reform Cllrs. know anything about SEND or anything else for that matter. Time will tell.
AnnS – You could have stopped after your first thirteen words. Your point would still be well made.
My guess is they don’t know about SEND and they don’t care: all Reform are interested in is shouting from the sidelines.
So it would seem that Reform see ticking boxes is a cure for all ills? The SEND code of practice is a wonderous piece, but any suggestion that actual bespoke analysis and T&L can be delivered by our education system as reality is laughable. As the old adage says, those that can, do.
It’s unfortunate that local authority staff and even Councillors tend to operate in myopic silos rather than learning from best practice, even if it’s on their own doorstep. Stoke-on-Trent City Council is commended in national media today for utilising AI (with suitable security protections), plus other efficiency processes to raise it’s EHCP compliance from 43% to 83%, and thus way above the National Target of 60%. Could we but hope that a former Conservative, now Reform based authority could learn something from a Labour based authority ?. I’m surprised that the defeated Labour candidate didn’t crow about that one himself.
Jacob is absolutely right in his analysis of the woeful state of Special Needs provision in Staffordshire. It is in a terrible state, and our kids are being betrayed. It is refreshing to find a local politician with such an astute awareness of this ongoing situation.
It is bizarre to me that some expect councillors, be they city or county, to be expert at everything before being in post.
Fresh thoughts from anyone whether they are politically associated to a party or not can be a good thing. I don’t remember criticism of any other new councillors, so why now?
Time will tell whether the new councillors are effective or not, sufficient time has certainly not yet past since the May elections.
I welcome the councillor’s comments on an important area to improve.
@ian: Why now?
Because Reform are already implementing Far Right policies that undermine British values.
The Reform UK leader of Kent County Council, for example, plans to remove the Ukraine flag from the chamber. Who’s side are Reform on? Putin’s?
So glad I didn’t vote Reform.