By Lauren Monaghan, Junior Local Democracy Reporter
More Nottinghamshire children and young people with special educational needs across are being assessed within a key deadline, after an improvement drive by the county council.
The authority’s Children and Families Select Committee today (July 15) held a meeting to discuss recent improvements for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Progress is being made compared with previous years, councillors heard.
Between January and May this year, there was a 24 per cent increase in completed assessments for people with SEND from 784 requests, compared with 632 requests for the same period in 2023.
Government targets say when an assessment request for someone with SEND is made, they must receive an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) within 20 weeks, but local authorities have struggled to hit this marker in recent years.
An EHCP is a legal document detailing a young person’s educational, health and social care needs, the support they require and the outcomes they would like to achieve.
Across the county, the number of ECHPs being issued within the timescale has more than doubled this year compared with 2023, with 34.2 per cent from January to May this year. It was just 15 per cent in the same period last year.
Just 4.5 per cent of EHCPs were issued within 20 weeks in Nottinghamshire in 2022.
The report put to the committee today read: “The County Council is fully committed to reducing the length of time it takes to complete Educational, Health and Care needs Needs Assessment requests through statutory processes and reduce the length of time it takes to issue EHCPs… Nottinghamshire aims to issue 40% of new EHCPs on time by July 2024.
The council has given extra funding to the Educational Psychology Service and Integrated Children’s Disability Service’s assessment team to help achieve the timescale target.
The Educational Psychology Service has also been given a four-week deadline to complete their assessments of young people with suspected SEND from the date of allocation, which will reduce the timescale by two weeks.
Peter McConnochie, Director of Education and Learning Inclusion, said: “At this point in the year we’ve had an 87 per cent increase in our timeliness of statutory assessments in under 20 weeks which is in light of continued rise in demand, which is showing a positive impact.
“I think we’ve got some work to do in stabilising that position.”
Councillor Jim Creamer questioned whether the resources were available to secure a sustained decrease in wait times for an ECHP.
Mr McConnochie responded: “I think the fact we have had an increase in assessment requests over a period indicates that there is a continued demand and pressure in this area… we will need to secure our investment and our resourcing and we have done some of that over the last year in the County Council… It will require continuous investment in the services.”
