This meeting of the Education and Local Economy Scrutiny Commission included a presentation on support for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and an update on the progress the service has made in processing Education and Health Care Plans (EHCPs) within the legal time limit. The commission was also scheduled to interview Councillor Jasmine Ali, the Cabinet Member for Children, Education & Refugees and discuss its work programme for the coming year.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Southwark Council has a Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Strategy. One of the strategy's key aims is to ensure the timely identification of children's needs and the timely provision of support.

In pursuit of that aim, the council's SEND service has been implementing several new initiatives and schemes, including:

• A new Communication and Social Interaction Pilot, which provides group and individual support to Key Stage 1 pupils who need help with their speech and language development. The pilot aims to help these pupils access mainstream education and avoid the need for an EHCP.
• A new Specialist Resources Provision at The Grove Nursery, which provides 12 part-time and four supported places for children with significant and complex social communication needs and/or significant learning needs.
• A new multi-agency transition panel to help children with additional needs moving from primary to secondary school.

The report also provided an update on the performance of Southwark's SEND service at providing EHCPs to the children who need them. In January, at the height of a backlog in EHCP assessments, only 10% of plans were issued within the 20-week legal timeframe. By July, the service had significantly reduced the backlog and 45% of plans were issued on time.

The report acknowledged that there continued to be problems with the timeliness of partner advice within the EHCP process. This is a key concern for the new SEND Strategic Partnership Board, which will receive regular performance updates on the matter.

Southwark Council has increased its Early Years SEND Inclusion Fund budget by 147% to £680,000. SENDIF provides funding for three and four-year-olds with SEND so that they can access their free early years entitlement at a mainstream pre-school. This could allow an additional 140 children to access support.

Early Intervention in SEND – Speech, Language & Communication

The meeting also included a presentation from Lindsay McLelland, Head of Therapies at the Evelina London Children's Hospital and Cathy Johnston, Speech & Language Therapist – Early Years & Community.

The presentation described the scale of the need for speech and language support for children in Southwark and Lambeth and provided details of the services available. This included a description of the WellComm speech and language toolkit, which is used by the service to identify children's needs and track their progress.

Ms Johnston and Ms McLelland explained that they used WellComm in conjunction with the Ages and Stages Questionnaire, Third Edition (ASQ-3), a developmental screening tool for children between the ages of one month and 5 1/2 years.

The presentation also described the Evelina London Children's Hospital's new targeted nursery offer, which is due to begin in the 2024-25 academic year.

Proposed Work Programme 2024-2025

The commission was scheduled to consider its draft work programme for the 2024-25 municipal year. The work programme included a meeting on 26 September to discuss a draft Town Centre Action Plan with Councillor John Batteson, the Cabinet Member for Climate Emergency, Jobs & Business. No further details of the Town Centre Action Plan were provided.

The Commission also noted that it would like to schedule a meeting to interview representatives from charities working with children with SEND. The charities they hope to invite to speak are:

• The Council for Disabled Children, a national charity that supports disabled children and their families.
• Mencap, a UK charity for people with a learning disability.
• Scope, a UK disability equality charity.

The commission also made time to receive an update on the work of the Southwark Safeguarding Children Partnership.

The meeting also included a discussion of the minutes of the meeting held on 14 March 2024. The minutes included a discussion of the partnership's work on:

• Child protection plans
• The challenges of recruiting social workers
• The over-representation of Black and minority ethnic children in the youth justice system
• Female Genital Mutilation
• Support for care leavers

The minutes also showed that the commission received an update from Alasdair Smith, Director of Children & Families, Children's and Adults' Services about the work of the Southwark Safeguarding Children Partnership (SSCP) and discussed its draft scrutiny report and recommendations for 2023-2024.