Bristol City Council “Really Really Really Making Sure” EHCNAs Take Less Than A Year

Bristol EHCP Delays causing ‘distress and uncertainty’ to the city’s families

Bristol City Council is trying “really, really, really” hard to make sure delays to Education Health Care Needs Assessments (EHCNA) and the subsequent issuing of plans stops exceeding 52 weeks.

The on-going delays to the process were discussed at the Children and Young People Policy Committee on 17 October 2024, across several of the meeting’s agenda items.

In an initial update to the committee under agenda item Children and Education Service Update, Executive Director for Children and Education, Hannah Woodhouse, told members that she was ‘really conscious’ of the ‘distress and uncertainty’ delays were causing to Bristol families.

She said: “We continue to look closely at the performance of the children requesting EHCPs. There continues to be a heavy demand for children with EHCPs as we know. We continue to try and process and support those plans to develop as quickly as possible, but that there is a timeliness issue still, as we’ve reported here before.”

The delays to the timely issuing of EHCPs has been something that has escaped Bristol City Council since changes made to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Send) in the Children and Families Act 2014.

A finalised EHCP must be issued with 20 weeks of a local authority (LA) receiving a request for an EHCNA. The only time it may exceed this is in Exception Cases. This would be where there are ‘exceptional personal circumstances’ affecting the child or family. It might also include cases where the family has not lived in the LA for a continuous period of 4 weeks or more. Or, where the request is made at a time corresponding with a week before the end of the summer holiday up until a week before the start of the new academic year.

Labour Councillor for Bishopsworth Ward, Susan Kollar asked about the cut-backs to Top Up funding and how it would impact upon children and young people needing extra support.

She asked: “It’s just a question because of the type of young people that I work with. I work with children that are Send that have EHCPs and stuff. But I also work with a lot of young people that don’t quite get an ECHP [sic] so they’re what we call High Needs. The reduction in High Needs money have had an impact on the way we manage and work with our young people. I don’t know how it works in terms of, we talk about EHCPs and Send and stuff like that, but we don’t always talk about High Needs in respect of we recognise what our young people need, but to provide that you need things like High Needs money and stuff. But there’s not always enough.

“And I don’t know if that is just lack of funding or we’re waiting on our budget? I don’t know how it does. But it’s about how we are making an impact on young people’s lives that don’t quite fit into all these little niches of other things but have obviously additional needs. Especially around things like pastoral care. Because that is actually for us just as important as the actual education. You can’t educate if they’re not happy. You can’t educate if they’re struggling in some other way, shape or form. So it’s like how do we support those young people, children and young people that don’t quite fit into those like EHCPs and stuff like that.”

Woodhouse replied: “What we don’t need is lots of different pots of money which as you say don’t necessarily always cover…

“The first point to make is school funding has been really challenging over the last tenish years. I understand there’s a pay deal which has been struck, which you know is fully funded which is good news. However, I think if you had school leaders here they would say we don’t have sufficient funding to be able to meet children’s needs full stop so the base funding for schools is challenging still. And we’re in a recruitment crisis at the moment particularly around teachers and shortage of subjects.

“So I think there’s obviously an issue in any case with the sort of quantity of funding the schools have got. Then you’ve got things like Pupil Premium which reflect deprivation indicators. I think it it’s probably the better indicator because it covers when you have been under that measure for any time under the last six years so it’s a sort of a fairer position than we’ve had before.

“But yes it is the case that we removed the top-up funding which was part of the funding of high children without ehcps in Bristol. And that was the decision that was taken last year and we have replaced it with an early intervention which Emma [LLoyd] can talk to. But I suppose I just wanted to recognise the point around how do we support children with high needs which may be intersectional, may be using a number of different categories and it continues to be a challenge I think. The challenges around how can schools work together with each other and with us in order to get the best provision in place across the city and that’s the work that we’ll be wanting that we’re doing.”

Bristol City Council’s Head of Service – Inclusion – Emma Lloyd said: “In terms of the early intervention fund, we are trying to make sure that we are in that prevention and early intervention space. It has been really welcomed by schools and SendCos and leaders in terms of the fact that we are trying to recalibrate where we are to make sure we don’t have children at crisis. We’re putting in that intervention really early.

“Without knowing the children and young people that you’re working with I would say if their needs are that high then that’s a conversation that possibly needs to be had with the Sendco in terms of whether actually it is appropriate for an EHCP needs assessment for those children and young people. Or actually, is there something else that could be done. And access to that Early Intervention Fund might be able to help.

“So, for example, if they are struggling with Social, Emotional and Mental Health, actually the reason is because their learning is behind their peers, some money from the early intervention fund might help to boost them and close that Gap and actually some of those other needs may then be more manageable in school. But without knowing the children without knowing the circumstances, you know, we’re trying to get upstream to make sure we don’t have children in crisis. But we also recognise there will be children that possibly were masked in that high needs funding bracket before. And it’s right and proper if that’s appropriate for those children to then have an EHCP.

“But we’re hoping that actually, if we get in there early, we will prevent the demand that we’re seeing at the moment coming through the front door.”

Issues around EHCPs arose again during the meeting, this time during the agenda item Performance Management Report Q1 24/25.

This report was presented to the committee by Children’s Services Performance Advisor Shaine Wells.

Papers stated that in the year to date, just 33.1 per cent of EHCPs were finalised – excluding exception cases – within the 20 week timescale.

Bristol City Council wrote: ‘we are still seeing a significant increase in demand for EHC needs assessments (+ 17 per cent compared to Q1 last year).

It was also written that ‘Over the next quarter this is anticipated to rise considerably when looking at June and July’s figures. As the rise in EHC needs assessments continues, this puts pressure throughout the assessment process and particularly the 50-52 week bracket. Last year we were able to bring the average week wait down for those assessments superceding 20 weeks. This year the average wait time will rise considerably. The SEND service is working with colleagues to increase panel capacity alongside work within the EPs focusing on 3 key areas – Recruitment changing the balance of the EPs work and changing the ways EPs work so that the approach to EHCNAs is targeted for different groups and according to the information that already exists so that quality psychological advice is provided in less time.’

But hopping back to September 2022 when families were also waiting over a year for EHCPs, it was the same story of recruitment issues with both Educational Psychologists and ‘increase in requests’ for EHCNAs.

The Quarterly Performance Progress Report for Q4 – 2021/22, which went to Cabinet in July 2022, blamed insufficient recruitment as well as a rise in requests causing a backlog of EHCP delays.

Report Papers then said: ‘The percentage of final Education, Health & Care Plans (EHCPs) issued within 20 weeks (excluding exception cases) remained significantly below target, ending the year around 34%. Overall between Jan and Dec 2021 there were 546 EHC plans finalised, of which 185 were within the 20-week timescale, equating to 33.9% on time. Reasons for the poor performance include an increase in requests, coinciding with recruitment and retention issues in the SEND and EP teams; a further growth bid for the team has been successful and recruiting new staff is underway to support improved performance. We recognise that previous recruitment was not sufficient to secure the progress required.’

Despite having moved through four Executive Directors with responsibility for Send as well as some five Directors of Education since the 2018 Send Judicial Review, the same delays continue to be blamed by the same issues, showing the council cannot get to grips with managing EHCPs.

In the 2024 meeting, Wells said: “The timeliness of Education Health and Care Plans issued within 20 weeks excluding exception cases, which as previously mentioned is also a challenging area.”

Green Party Councillor Ellie Freeman for Bedminster Ward asked: “I wondered how you’re measuring – so having gone through this process myself – how you’re measuring when an EHCP gets rejected and then appealed and then comes back, because obviously, that extends the period that it gets approved.

It would be interesting to see whether the ones that go straight through whether they actually they’re hitting target and how that all inter-plays?”

Emma Lloyd was unable to answer the question, promising to get back to the councillor.

Children and Young People Policy Committee Chair Christine Townsend said: “One of the things that was mentioned at the Send launch in the week is what we’ve had is a target of 20 weeks – and I understand why we have a target of 20 weeks because that’s what the law says it should be. But we also have an average that was much later than 20 weeks. It was something like 36/38 weeks, something like this at one point. What that also told us was there was this other bunch of assessments – and some of them will have gone beyond 52 weeks. So it had this huge, long, very possibly, very thin tail.

“It is the analysis at this bit that enables us to see which bits of the system are working or which bits of that multi-agency system are working. And so bringing this tail in. And it might mean that actually, the 20 week target slips a bit and we have seen that.

“I’m not exercised by that. Others may well be exercised by that. I would prefer to bring the tail in so that the system is kind of working in a better shape than something that’s sort of like that [gestures with arms].

Emma Lloyd added: ” But in terms of this time last year, our waiting time for an EHCP was 36 weeks. We’ve now not improved it greatly but it’s down to 33 weeks and we’re working really hard to make sure it gets closer to that 20 weeks. But we are really, really, really making sure that we don’t breach that 52 weeks as well.

“Because as you know Councillor Townsend just said, we don’t want there to be families waiting for the length of time that is sounds like you waited for your child’s EHCP. So we’re trying really hard to make sure that we might not get down to that 20 weeks, but we certainly want parents and families to be waiting for less time on average, but making sure that nobody waits too long for their EHCPS.”

Councillor Freeman responded: “I think understanding that 20 week target maybe not being realistic for us at the moment is actually really helpful for parents and schools to have to sort of convey that message as well. So as a parent, you’re not thinking ‘oh my gosh you know what is happening 20 weeks is long gone’. But actually, there’s more realistic target that you are managing to hit and that just helps people get their heads on I think.”

Emma Lloyd replied: “I’m working with our brilliant Parent Carer Forum in Bristol and we are looking at how we help communicate all of this information really clearly in a timely way, not only to families which is obviously vital, but also to schools as well so that they can support families. And that means having that realistic – you know we know what the statutory timeline is and of course we are working really hard to meet that, but making sure that where we’re not going to meet that, families aren’t just left.”

Featured Image: Dan Ackroyd

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