SEND performance

The SEN2 data is released every year. Local authorities provide the Department for Education with their data, so it can all be stored in one place. 

The data includes information about individuals with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), and appeals.

It is used to make sure that local authorities are doing their jobs how and when they should be. The data is one year behind, and is published in June with the data from the whole of the year before. 

An easy read version of our analysis allows children, young people and their families to see how Swindon performed last year compared to the rest of the country.

You can view this below:

• SEN2 2024 - easy read (PDF)

Previous year actual (PYA)

Please note: This data is taken from the October 2024 scorecard

Exceptions

Where there are exceptional circumstances, it may not be reasonable to expect local authorities, and other partners, to comply with the limits above. The Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014 set out specific exemptions. These include:

• appointments with whom the local authority has requested information are missed by the child or young person (this only applies to the duty on partners to comply with a request under the EHC Needs Assessment process within 6 weeks)
• where the child or young person is absent from the area for a period of at least 4 weeks
• exceptional personal circumstances affecting the child or his/her parent, or the young person
• where the educational institution is closed for at least 4 weeks, which may delay the submission of information from the school or other institution (this does not apply to the duty on partners to comply with a request under the EHC Needs Assessment Process within 6 weeks) 

Compared with the data for July 2023, the graph is showing us that the 20 week timeliness has decreased in July 2024. In July 2024 the 20 timeliness was at 51.7% compared to July 2023’s 88.9%. Some of the reasons timeliness has been affected in previous months can be attributed to:

• the volume of requests for statutory assessment received which puts pressure not only on the SEND Service, but also on the advice writing services who contribute to the assessment particularly - the Educational Psychology Service and Social Care
• pressure on the SEND Service due to staffing issues, annual leave and capacity

Swindon have commissioned Invision360 - an online EHCP auditing tool to ensure effective quality assurance. It promotes best practice by improving QA consistency and standardisation across the local area. 

Invision360’s quality framework draws on relevant legislation and several well-respected good practice guides that underpin local government practice (including, Council for Disabled Children’s EHCP Good Practice Guidance, IPSEA’s EHC Plan Checklist, SEND Code of Practice).

• An on-line step-by-step process, that provides greater consistency and objectivity to the EHCP quality assurance process
• Utilises criteria based on nationally recognised good practice and provides examples of ‘what good looks like’ to the auditor
• Allows benchmarking against other local authorities using the tool (more than 50 local authorities nationally) 

Please note: The Quality Assurance Framework is being updated to reflect the move to using Invision360. This is being monitored via Priority 4 of the SEND & Inclusion Strategy.

Audit summaries and explanations

Between, 17 May and 19 July 2024 (cycle 12) Swindon audited a total of 17 EHCPs using the Invision 360 tool. Between 20 July and 15 September 2024 (cycle 13) Swindon audited a total of 19 EHCPs using the invision tool.

During this time, there has been an increase in the number of plans being rated as ‘Good’, and the same number of plans rated as ‘Requiring Improvement’. However, the number of EHCP gradings overall this Cycle were higher than the last Cycle. During Cycle 12, 17 EHCP plans were graded. This means 2 more graded plans were completed during Cycle 13 than Cycle 12. 

Some of the reasons which could contribute to the decrease in total plans audited during this cycle are:

• staffing issues due to colleagues leaving the SEND Service meaning there is less capacity and time to audit plans
• a change in the percentage of audits being allocated from 100% to 60%, in a hope to see a impact of our Quality Assurance activity 

Swindon has had 15 EHCPs graded as Inadequate during this Cycle, the same number as the previous Cycle.

Swindon has not graded an EHCP as ‘Outstanding’ during this time, the same value as during Cycle 11.

Swindon LA EHCP Quality- Improvement Journey. 

On the ‘Percentage of Good and Outstanding Gradings’ graph you can see the percentage of each section of the EHC Plan graded as ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ for Cycles 12 and 13. Cycle 13 is the latest data gathered between 20 July and 15 September 2024. 

On the ‘Percentage of RI and Inadequate Gradings’ graph you can see the percentage of each section of the EHC Plan graded as ‘Requires Improvement’ or ‘Inadequate’ for Cycles 12 and 13. Cycle 13 is the latest data gathered 20 July and 15 September 2024. 

These graphs tell us that Swindon has areas of strength and areas of weakness when it comes to writing EHC Plans.

Swindon local authority have a lower percentage of EHC Plans Quality Assured as ‘Good’ at 21.1%, compared to the National Average at 33.3%. Whereas the National Average has a has a higher percentage of Plans Quality Assured as ‘Requires Improvement’ at 49.0% compared to Swindon’s data at 78.9%.

Compared to the National Average, Swindon has a lower percentage of Plans Quality Assured as ‘Inadequate’ at 5.9%, to the National Average of 15.5%. 

Swindon has not seen any EHC Plans Quality Assured as ‘Outstanding’ during this cycle whereas, the National Average has seen 2.2% of Plans graded as ‘Outstanding’.

During Cycle 12, 17 May to 19 July 2024, a total of 24 Annual Reviews have been Quality Assured using the Invision 360 Annual Review tool. During Cycle 13, 20 July and 15 September 2024, a total of 23 Annual Reviews have been Quality Assured using the Invision 360 Annual Review tool. This means that during Cycle 13, 1 less Annual Review was quality assured compared to Cycle 12.  

During Cycle 12 and Cycle 13, a higher percentage of Annual Reviews were graded as ‘Gold’ than ‘Silver’.

Swindon annual review audit summary

During Cycle 13, the Percentage of ‘Good’ and ‘Outstanding’ Audit gradings by section graph shows us that Swindon have areas of strengths and weakness when it comes to Quality Assurance of Annual Reviews. 

During this Cycle, the SEND Service has worked closely with Invision 360 to review the questions within the Annual Review Tool, to ensure we are getting the most accurate grading of quality. 

Some of the reasons which could contribute to the total number of Annual Reviews audited during this cycle are:

• staffing issues due to colleagues leaving the SEND Service meaning there is less capacity and time to audit Annual Reviews
• a change in the percentage of audits being allocated from 100% to 80%, in a hope to see a impact of our Quality Assurance activity

Parent/carer feedback for the annual review process.

After the annual review process, a survey is sent out to parents to return feedback on how they view their child’s annual review process was conducted. It is important for the SEND Service to receive feedback on our annual review processes to help make improvements to the process and improve the experience for SEND families and children.

From this evaluation of responses, we can see that out of the 28 responses given that parents/carers who have young people with an EHCP feel that Swindon has areas of strengths and weaknesses around the annual review process.

We can see that Question 1 had the most positive response during this evaluation. We can also see that questions 3 and 4 has the most negative responses from parents/carers with question 3 having the only response of ‘strongly disagree’. From this we can conclude that Swindon needs to improve how the outcomes of an annual review meeting are presented as well as how well we parents/carers are included in the annual review meeting/discussion.

Older children’s feedback on the annual review process. 

After the annual review process, a survey is sent out to older children to return feedback on how they view their annual review process was conducted. It is important for the SEND Service to receive feedback on our annual review processes to help make improvements to the process and improve the experience for SEND families and children.

From this evaluation of responses, we can see that out of the five responses given, the annual review process was mainly a positive experience for the young people who answered the survey.

Please note: The tribunal data was gathered on 19 July 2024.

In 2023, we received 79 requests for tribunal. So far in 2024 we have received 79 requests for tribunal. 

In the month of October 2023 we received 2 new requests for tribunal. In the month of October 2024 we have received 4 new requests for tribunal. 

We have also seen an increase in the number of new requests for tribunal relating to section I of the EHCP (named placement) for October 2024 (compared to October 2023). This has increased to 3 requests compared to October 2023 in which there was 1 new request to appeal section I.

The total in 2023 for appeals against section I reached 43. So far in 2024, we have seen a total of 52 appeals against section I.

Please note: The Contact Log analysis includes all contacts received via the ‘Front Door’ via Email, Phone, Post or the SEND Portal. This data does not include communications sent to individual officers. 

Contacts into the service are RAG rated on a 24, 48, 72 and 96 hour time period.  

The pie chart shows the number of contacts received into the SEND Service in October 2024. It shows that 80.77% of communications received via the ‘Front Door’ are responded to before their allocated deadline. This is an 8.53% decrease compared to the data reported in the last SEND Performance Page, which showed as 89.30% overall. 

The table also shows an increase in the number of contacts RAG rated as Exceeded for the month of October 2024, which is an increase of 181 compared to October 2023 (964 contacts overall). There has also been an increase in the number of Met contacts during October 2024, reaching to 176 compared to October 2023 which was 83.