ONE family had to wait more than a year and a half to get help with special education needs support as concerns are raised about the number of families getting “stuck” in the system. The figures were revealed in a recent report by Wirral Council into its SEND Services.

The report was published on September 19 to provide an update to Wirral’s Health and Wellbeing Board about the progress made with services for those with special education needs and disabilities (SEND). The same report is also up for debate at a children's and education committee meeting on September 23.

The Department for Education published an improvement notice on May 15 ordering the local authority to take action due to “poor progress” in addressing 10 areas of “significant concern” highlighted in a 2021 inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission. This report looked into services for young people and children with SEND.

The 2021 report said the council has been “too slow” to implement reforms from 2014 with changes following “the letter of the reforms, not the spirit.” Its plans lacked “sufficient detail” while families and carers said “the system is broken.” The report said promises hadn’t been delivered, with many families feeling “completely let down.”

Wirral Council has been told it should have improved services by October 2025 or sooner but the notice will not be withdrawn “until sufficient progress has been evidenced.” If the council does not comply with the government’s notice, this could lead to government intervention to direct the council on how to improve services.

Presenting the report, Elizabeth Hartley, Wirral Council’s director for children, families, and education, said the local authority was making “positive progress” and was on track in 20 out of 27 areas. On Education, Health, and Care plans (EHCPs), she said there was a link between plans being done on time and the number of complaints.

She said she expects a recent £1.1m funding boost to the council’s SEND team to help cut down on delays by increasing staffing and bringing in mandatory new training. Demand for EHCPs has surged with nearly three times as many people applying for plans in 2023 than in 2019.

The report shows some progress was made in July with 26% of plans completed on time, up from 17% the previous month but well below a target of 75%. Thirty out of 37 families said they were satisfied with the service.

For 2024 so far, 427 plans have been finished with just 72 finished in the required 20 week timeframe. Seventeen per cent have been issued in 20 weeks while 33% were approved between 21 to 30 weeks. Twenty eight per cent were issued in 31 to 52 weeks with 22%, or 94 families, issued plans after a year.

The report said the longest waits were 81 weeks for one family and 75 weeks for another. The council report noted that “those plans with the longest completion rates are often due to lack of suitable provision and where cases are in tribunal processes.”

However, Cllr Jean Robinson pointed to a section of the report that referred to families getting “stuck” with meetings with the NHS every two weeks to try to resolve this. She said the report gave an overall impression that things “had got worse.”

In response, Ms Hartley explained the word stuck was used as this was a word families could “make sense of” and there were a number of reasons for the delay, adding: “Sometimes that’s about having the right provision available and sometimes that’s about having the right support packages as well.”

She said: “Unfortunately those stuck cases have gone beyond 20 weeks so they’re already in the 20+ weeks section so although they’re having those fortnight meetings to try and resolve those, they’re not going to impact the compliance rate because they’re already out of time.” However, she said these cases were being resolved.