Email from Richmond Parent Carer Forum – 2 July 2020
Dear Voluntary Sector Partners,
Please could you share this email with your mailing list.
1,494 EHCPs were recently audited as part of the LGSCO’s (The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman) recommendations in his report dated 18th October 2019. The audit considered information from 1st April 2018 to 31st December 2019 relating to active EHCPs in the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames.
Richmond Parent Carer Forum have launched a Post Audit Survey for all parents of children with SEND to ask them how they feel about the audit, SEND services in general and what they think should happen next. The survey takes just a few minutes to complete and your views are really valuable in planning the way forward. A link to the survey is here:
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RichmondSENDPostAuditSurvey
The Auditors’ Report was published in June and you can read it here Richmond ECHP Audit Report May 2020 The original LGSCO report investigated and upheld 3 complaints about SEND services in Richmond and recommended a full audit. You can read the Ombudsman’s statement and find the report here Richmond SEND Complaints Ombudsman Statement
Here is a brief summary of the auditor’s findings:
43 children and young people were found to have spent a fixed amount of time out of education due to Local Authority failings.
227 children and young people were found to have been impacted by the delayed provision of Therapeutic Support, Learning Support and Specialist School Placement due to failings in the Annual Review process. 47% of EHCPs that were due for Annual Review were not updated in a timely way and in 227 cases this adversely affected the outcomes achieved by the child or young person. The backlog of EHCPs requiring updating is currently being worked through by the Local Authority under the supervision of one of the Auditors.
The 37 ‘escalations’ listed in the report are not the total number of serious failings identified by the audit, but are the most serious failings that remained unresolved at the time of writing the report. 7 of these are young people that are still NEET (not in education, employment or training.)
In addition to these findings the audit identified poor communication with parents and inconsistent record keeping as common issues along with systemic failings in Post 16 transition processes and support for children transferring into the Borough.
The audit report also identifies areas where LBRuT performs significantly above the national average, in particular the number of plans finalised within 20 weeks and the proportion of children with EHCPs being offered their first choice of school placement.
If you are concerned about the LGSCO report, the EHCP audit or anything else relating to your child’s SEND support, please contact us at information@richmondpcf.org.uk
Many thanks
Claire Richmond
Richmond PCF Co-chair
Post Audit Survey weblink https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RichmondSENDPostAuditSurvey
Auditor’s report weblink https://5f2fe3253cd1dfa0d089-bf8b2cdb6a1dc2999fecbc372702016c.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/uploads/ckeditor/attachments/7185/EHCP_independent_audit_-_final_report_02.pdf
LGSCO report weblink https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2020/jan/ombudsman-finds-multiple-failures-with-richmond-children-s-services-provider