Oxfordshire SEND: Action plan for kids 'failed' by service

Plans are being put in place to prevent children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) being failed by their council.

An Ofsted report in September found vulnerable young people in Oxfordshire were being made to wait years for help or appropriate school places.

Parents protesting in Oxford on Friday called for more specialist schools and quicker access to diagnostic services.

Oxfordshire County Council will draw up a priority action plan by 24 October.

At a council meeting on Friday, Claire Brenner, from Oxfordshire SEND Parent Action, said children's lives were being "ruined" due to failings at every level.

"Children are being actively restrained in mainstream primary schools because they're displaying such extreme levels of distress that their behaviour is unsafe," she said.

Ms Brenner also cited examples where parents had experienced mental health breakdowns, given up work or borrowed thousands of pounds for private medical assessments so their children's needs were recognised.

She also said the private reports were then often ignored, with children left for years with no school place, or offered a place in inappropriate schools which were hours from their homes.

SEND Reform England has been holding protests across the country, including one in Oxford on Friday, calling for an overhaul of the system.

One parent in Oxford, Pete, said his daughter, Katie, had been "scarred" by the way she was treated by the service.

He said the 16-year-old had even written to one of the services' senior managers, asking for a face-to-face meeting to talk about the "appalling" state of the services and the "disregard" for her mental health, but was ignored.

"The fact that this is a vulnerable person's view of how they have been treated by this council should worry all of us," Pete added.

New Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans should be processed within 20 weeks. In January, just 4% of assessments hit that target - a number which has since risen to 48%.

Conservative councillor Eddie Reeves said he believed some of Oxfordshire's most vulnerable children had been let down.

"Cases seemingly take an age to progress, some kids have been left without an education for over a year - I'm actually aware of one case where a child has been without education for six years," he said.

Mr Reeves also described the department's communication with families as "minimal" or "non-existent", and very often "curt or impolite".

The Ofsted report found there were widespread and systemic failures and leaders had not acted effectively enough.

But Labour councillor Michael O'Connor called for a national solution to the problem.

He said: "We can't ignore the fact that there is a £3.6bn deficit in SEND services across this country.

"It means that we have this huge, gradually accumulating deficit, large enough to sink many councils that simply nobody is doing anything about."

Oxfordshire County Council will submit a priority action plan, outlining where improvements will be made, to the Department for Education by 24 October.

Liberal Democrat councillor Kate Gregory will also undertake a new role as the authority's cabinet member for SEND improvement.

Last week saw a major restructuring of the council's children's services after a coalition between parties fell apart following the damning Ofsted report.

Labour left Oxfordshire County Council's alliance last month, claiming the Liberal Democrats were not interested in "working together" to solve issues regarding children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

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