Officers’ departure considered a ‘risk’

Slough: Cabinet hears five officers will leave SEND roles

Five Slough council officers have given notice that they will be departing from their roles delivering special needs education.

At a cabinet meeting on Monday, councillors heard the how loss of the SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) officers – whose reason for departure was not discussed – was considered 'a risk’.

SEND provision in Slough has been under scrutiny after a review found improvements were not completed quickly enough and Government intervened in the service last year.

The council has accepted that SEND education had ’not been good enough’.

Cabinet member for children’s services Cllr Puja Bedi (Cons, Colnbrook & Poyle) said: “Maintaining a stable team of case officers has been identified as a significant strength so it needs to be flagged as a risk that five officers have given notice and need to be replaced.”

Sue Butcher, Director for children’s services in Slough told the meeting: “I think we’ve really reached a point in our improvement journey where – some people – we needed to improve the skills and that’s really where we’ve got to.

“We’ve had a lot of scrutiny in terms of SEND recently.

“We are making progress although we know that parents may not be yet seeing it, because they are sort of – this may be the wrong phrase – but they are the end users of that.”

Staffing has previously been cited as an issue for Slough’s SEND provision. At a meeting in February, Ms Butcher described recruitment difficulties and a ‘high turnover’ of staff.

She added: “We’ve improved but it is from a low base, a very low base.

“So, in terms of distance travelled I’m more satisfied than I am with actually where we are in terms of a good service.

“But none-the-less we have some very dedicated leaders in the service and I’m confident that we will continue with the journey of progress.”

In Monday’s meeting, councillors unanimously approved a move which will see SEND updates put before cabinet on an annual basis.

In addition, the lead member for children’s services (Cllr Bedi) would receive more regular updates.

Summarising the latest report to council, Cllr Bedi said: “There was clear evidence of increased pacing completing individual actions within the written statement of action, since a new action plan was agreed in June 2023.

“As a result, the backlog of EP (Education Psychology) assessments has been cleared and the backlog of EHC (Education, Health and Care) plans have been slowly reduced.

“Issues remain on communication with schools and families as well as a failure to achieve statutory time scales and the quality of the EHC plans.”