Hertfordshire councillors hail improved SEND system for parents

A meeting of the council’s Impact of Scrutiny Advisory Committee (ISAC) was held on Thursday. Following previous recommendations to improve communications with SEND families in 2024, a review of the service was undertaken.

The report stated: “Improving the accuracy, quality and timeliness of communications to both families and schools has been a priority for Hertfordshire’s local SEND partnership over the past year.”

The document noted that “progress has been made in driving forward a shift in communication” in various ways. These included the council’s Accurate, Compassionate and Timely Communications (ACT) Framework, co-produced with families in 2024 in order to create a “more empathetic and consistent communication approach across services”.

It added this communication approach was being taught in staff training in the SEND Academy, which saw 138 people recruited by the local authority last October “to build expertise across our front-line professionals”. Elsewhere, practical guidance notes on SEND issues have been shared with front-line staff across the council.

One new communication channel was highlighted in particular – the Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) Portal – allowing families to access their applications for help online and check the progress of their needs assessments.

Other improvements include a new SEND provision manager appointed in March 2024, to oversee multi-agency discussions on EHCPs where there is contention. It was noted the number of appeals had fallen by 7%.

The report also noted that complaints had fallen: “Overall, the rolling year rate of complaint has fallen from 5.1% at the end of June 2023 and 4.8% at the end of June 2024 to 3.7% at the end of June 2025.”

Cllr Mark Watkin, executive member for education, SEND and inclusion, who formerly chaired the ISAC committee, appeared remotely while making a visit to Heathlands School for deaf children in St Albans. He told the committee he hoped members could participate in the Hertfordshire SEND summit on September 15, to be held digitally from 10am to 12.15pm.

Clr Watkin said: “What I would say now as the recipient of the report [is] the team has moved a long way. Communication is first and foremost the most crucial thing I am trying to improve.

“You will see in the initiatives, they’ve set up such things as the EHCP online access tools [where] you can see the state of your EHCP without having to write lots of emails to find out where it’s got to.

“If I was still chairing the committee, I would be minded to believe that the organisation has moved significantly in the direction I was hoping it would go… There is still more work to be done and we are pressing on to make sure that parents feel they are receiving the communication in an effective and timely manner, and schools too for that matter.”

Reflecting upon the report, Cllr Seamus Quilty said: “Do you think that scrutiny produced the right result in relation to this particular topic?”

Cllr Watkin responded: “I think it helped a lot. I think it focused the organisation’s minds specifically on an area of massive concern when the scrutiny was being carried out. I think it was a major player in actually having the organisation review what it was doing to communities and how it could improve its services.

“So I think yes, and I’m very grateful that the review of recommendation group has insisted on continuing to hold the service to account until such time as it was felt to be doing the job as well as it could. So yes, it did achieve what I hoped it would achieve, it just took rather longer than I might have expected.”

David Butcher, strategic lead for insight and intelligence at Herts County Council, summarised the findings of the report. He said previous ISAC recommendations around recruitment, retention and training of staff had already been satisfied, as well as co-working with families.

“The concept of the ACT framework was starting to develop at the point we came. That’s now very much implemented and embedded within the service, so that [ACT] framework is there,” he said.

“The capacity that has come from that workforce transformation is enabling much more ongoing work as a result of lower levels of portfolios for children and young people that the checker is working with, and also the capacity to really strengthen communication with schools.”

Chair of the committee Cllr Penelope Hill praised the review’s findings and said: “I would say that it’s very heartening, whenever the education officers do come to meetings, that there’s recognition of the journey you’ve been on as a department and where we are now.”

Cllr Paula Hiscocks said: “I know that it’s been a long journey and we have made amazing progress from where we were to where we are now. This communication aspect has been one of the main things and I can totally understand as a parent and actually as a councillor as well.

“I’ve had a lot of emails about this, and when things aren’t answered or aren’t answered with respect and empathy, the anger builds up even more. I think I’m right in saying we are checking quarterly, but in reality, how often are replies monitored? Guidance notes [are there] checks that they’re followed?

“Is it just spot checks? How is it actually organised? It’s very easy to get everything right and then it gradually slips back to, ‘Oh, I haven’t got time to answer that’ or just a one-word answer.”

Hero Slinn, director for inclusion and skills at Hertfordshire County Council, responded: “It has been a journey and it continues to be a journey. All the services that work within my directorate and Tony Fitzpatrick’s [education] directorate are really focused on achieving this.

“When things weren’t being answered before, or perhaps the responses weren’t in line with the way that we would want that to be, it was very much linked to the level of caseload that officer had. You could see that, so either their stress levels would rise or there would be that disengagement or not getting to it at all, because of the numbers they were dealing with.

“Hand in hand with having those numbers, they’re being enabled to act in this way, so it isn’t just an attitude thing or a cultural thing, it was literally a real, significant capacity issue.

“Part of that capacity that we have put in has been the infrastructure around them, so those support networks around them, the team manager level to monitor, support and check. That has been more challenging, particularly for schools and statutory SEND services to recruit and retain those management levels.

“So it’s a real focus for us coming forward… as part of the next steps in our improvement plan to do monitoring of the implementation.

“Because at the moment, it’s much more like as you say, spot checks, discussion and supervision, rather than a really consistent methodology, or monitoring the impact of that.”