A 5 point primer on how to subvert your local area inspection

You want to impress Ofsted and the CQC. You've spent months preparing, but you know your services just aren't up to scratch. What can you do to get through the inspection? Here are some handy hints, in no particular order, from North Yorkshire's recent inspection.

1 Ensure that you minimise the feedback of independent or out of area (OOA) providers when Ofsted comes calling. These OOA providers generally have to pick up the pieces when a council has failed a child and can provide Ofsted with, frankly, awkward insights into gaps in services and details of the fights families have to endure to find appropriate provision. This will spoil the narrative you will have created of a successful service meeting the needs of the SEND population. The method employed by North Yorkshire is simple and can pay off handsomely, but is high risk in that you may be found out - plus you have to directly ignore a request from Ofsted:

The Local Area Inspection Handbook says Ofsted/CQC will :

request that the local authority ensures that providers within the local area, and those outside of this area but within the local offer, are made aware of the inspection and how they can contribute their views. Ofsted and CQC will provide a draft letter for this purpose, which may be adapted as necessary by the local area (p6)

It's a request right? Everyone knows requests don't have to be followed. Simply ignore it. This can pay off big time. North Yorkshire potentially took 101 OOA providers out of the inspection process in one fell swoop. Boom! You can do it too!

If you are found out, fess up but push the responsibility onto others. This wording may help:

They [out of area providers] were not directly informed of the inspection. The inspection team were made aware of the use of out of county placements used by NYCC so they could pursue further discussions as required. Parents and carers were made aware of the inspection via NYPACT and the Virtual Reference Group and we are aware that this will have included notification to some of our parents and carers of children in out of county placements.

You can follow that for good measure with:

They were not directly contacted although Inspectors were made aware of the numbers and types of placements used and indeed visited one such placement.

Give them numbers and types - that will be fine. Don't worry about informing Ofsted you haven't complied - that would really be foolish as that would defeat the purpose of this approach. And don't bother telling parents or the local Parent Carer Forum you are relying on them to notify OOA providers about the inspection either. This too will work against your aims. Handily, you can use this method for independent providers within your local area too.

2 Closely related to 1, this plays on the loose (some might say naive) wording from the Local Area Handbook. The qualifying phrase here is "within the local offer". So, if an OOA provider isn't in the local offer, it doesn't have to be informed, right? This is a green light for stripping your local offer back to council services only. Sure, this runs counter to the SEND Code of Practice, which says:

4.4 The Local Offer must include provision in the local authority’s area. It must also include provision outside the local area that the local authority expects is likely to be used by children and young people with SEN for whom they are responsible and disabled children and young people.

but you have to take chances your where you can. If you are caught out, the best approach is to quickly reverse your position:

The Local Offer contains the list of establishments approved for educational purposes by the secretary of state (section 41 list); additionally, as links are provided to other Local Authority’s Local Offers, all providers within these Authorities are included within the North Yorkshire Local Offer

This is dizzyingly good, though Ofsted may notice the lack of OOA providers in your local offer during the inspection. It is a risk you will just have to take. This method has the added bonus of reducing the amount of useful information parents can access about independent or out of area providers, which, as we all know, could cost you money down the line.

3 If you are asked about specific providers that should be included in the local offer, but really you don't want parents to know about, make sure they don't show up in your local offer's search facility. Reply with confidence to any request. For example:

The Lighthouse School is shown in the local Offer. 

This should hopefully confuse Ofsted for the length of the inspection and give the impression your Local Offer is more comprehensive than it actually is. Helpfully, it can throw parents off too.

4 Annoyingly, it will be well nigh impossible to ignore Ofsted's request to inform parents about the inspection. It will notice. I know parents can make things difficult with their grievances and complaints and requests that you follow the law and not your own policies and whatnot. The best you can realistically do is get parents to feedback via yourselves, rather than directly to Ofsted. That way you will have a chance to get your excuses ready before you pass the information on to Ofsted. Get your local PCF behind this approach. Win!

5 This is where you can really shine. Every local authority can submit to Ofsted a self assessment of the local area. It will be expected. This is where you establish your narrative about how great you are. Be realistic, you may have to cop to some minor failings (you always have a plan in place to deal with them at some unspecified future date, right?) but go to town! Realistically, this is going to take a team of crack managers many months to get right, but this prolonged turd polishing will be worth it!  With so many departments and organisations involved, you are likely to have to circulate a series of drafts, with your team making in document comments as you go. Remember, emphasise how well things are working by ignoring the crap bits and overplaying what an excellent service you are providing. The key words to have in mind here are DISTORTION, be SELECTIVE and don't forget, think OMISSION.

Here are some examples from draft 7 of North Yorkshire's self evaluation, to give you a flavour of  the team's thought processes:

Now the big risk here is that parents may find out about your drafts. This could really give the impression you are an untrustworthy organisation that will do anything to keep Ofsted from finding out the truth about your services. You could be really screwed. You do not want parents sending a draft to Ofsted in advance of your inspection. Oh no. This cannot be allowed to happen. If you receive a request, deploy the following tactics.

If the request says:

Please publish all self-evaluations the council has undertaken for the purposes of being inspected by Ofsted under the new framework for the inspection of local areas’ effectiveness in identifying and meeting the needs of children and young people who have special educational needs and/or disabilities.

You can easily deny any such document exists, because even though you have created a document for this very purpose, the Inspection Handbook says :

Any self-evaluation that is provided should be part of the local area’s usual business processes and not generated solely for inspection purposes.

so you can pretend your version is part of your "usual business processes". Decide you have no knowledge of Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act which requires you to provide reasonable advice and assistance.

On no account must you write in your draft assessment:

 The assessment was started by the Authority’s Inclusion Service based on the Ofsted local area Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) consultation document published in October 2015,

as this will give the game away. Try replying with this formulation:

Please note the Ofsted framework was only published at the end of April and as such we did not have a self-evaluation "for the purposes of being inspected by Ofsted under the new framework". We are in the process of revising our self-assessment to reflect the new framework and this will be released in a draft format in the next month for consultation with partners and stakeholders.

Do not realise any drafts. Remember, at this point you are playing with semantics. If parents happen to get hold of a version by some other means, it is time to lock and load. You must ignore all Freedom of Information legislation at this point and hit them with this:

The number on the document you received is just a number for internal version control, there are no previous versions of this as the framework was only released at the end of April. Versions one to six were early drafts of the document and were superseded by version 7, therefore the version number is like an “as at date.” We have only done one
self-assessment against the new framework.

Magnificent! Do not release any drafts. Do not inform parents they can appeal this decision. Hopefully you will have confused the parents by the audacious use of contradictory statements and the knowledge it will take 6 months to get the drafts via the Information Commissioner's Office anyway. They will simply go away.

Good luck!

Payments to SEND lawyers July edition

Following the fallout from the Baker Small affair, North Yorkshire County Council revealed it has started using barristers for legal representation at the SEND Tribunal. So far the Council has used one barrister, Joanne Astbury, from Park Lane Plowmen Chambers in Leeds for a one off fee of £3300. This was last September (2015) while it still had a contract for representation from Baker Small. It is not known why the Council opted to use a barrister over Baker Small. However, the Council continues to use Baker Small - it has a contract that runs until September.


Payments are detailed on the Open Data page of the council's website.

Total to date
09/15 Central services/ Corporate Legal Expenses/Legal Costs  £2750  (link)
05/15                                                                                              £8000
05/15                                                                                              £3500(link)
25/03/15 Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £8000.00 (link)
20/10/14 Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £3500.00 (link)
15/4/14   SEN Legal Advice- Other Hired and Contract Services  £1600.00 (link)
20/3/14   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £3500.00 (link)
20/3/14   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £3500.00 
1/8/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £7000.00 (link)
8/5/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £10000.00 (link) (Corrected figure 13.07.13)
6/2/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £ 7000.00 (link)
21/9/11   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £ 8000.00 (link)
29/3/11   Other courses - course fees                                           £   850.00 (link)
Total                                                                            £67200 (ex VAT)


Legal representation
The council contracts with a firm of solicitors that provides legal advice to local authorities on SEN appeals and tribunals. The solicitors represent the council at Special Educational Needs Tribunals for appeals that are for out of area placements or 'complex' appeals (ie placements that will potentially cost the council money because it cannot provide appropriate education within the authority).

It has calculated savings can be made to the council's SEN budget by adopting this approach, believing representation will increase its chance of winning some of these appeals (see here).  It has given a number of other reasons for using legal representation but these have all been refuted by the Ministry of Justice (see this post).

The Tribunal system is supposedly informal and parents are advised by the Tribunal itself that they do not need representation. This can lead to situations whereby the local authority is legally represented out of the public purse and parents are not. There is no public funding available for parents to be legally represented at Tribunal.

Use the search term Baker Small when searching the open data links.

Payments to SEN Solicitors June update

The weekend twitter storm regarding controversial solicitors Baker Small prompted me to see if North Yorkshire  had made any more payments to them in the past few months. And lo! Two more totalling £11,500 have been made this financial year:


Payments are detailed on the Open Data page of the council's website.

Total to date
05/15                                                                                              £8000
05/15                                                                                              £3500(link)
25/03/15 Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £8000.00 (link)
20/10/14 Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £3500.00 (link)
15/4/14   SEN Legal Advice- Other Hired and Contract Services      £1600.00 (link)
20/3/14   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £3500.00 (link)
20/3/14   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £3500.00 
1/8/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £7000.00 (link)
8/5/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £10000.00 (link) (Corrected figure 13.07.13)
6/2/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £ 7000.00 (link)
21/9/11   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £ 8000.00 (link)
29/3/11   Other courses - course fees                                           £   850.00 (link)
Total                                                                                          £64450 (ex VAT)


Legal representation
The council contracts with a firm of solicitors that provides legal advice to local authorities on SEN appeals and tribunals. The solicitors represent the council at Special Educational Needs Tribunals for appeals that are for out of area placements or 'complex' appeals (ie placements that will potentially cost the council money because it cannot provide appropriate education within the authority).

It has calculated savings can be made to the council's SEN budget by adopting this approach, believing representation will increase its chance of winning some of these appeals (see here).  It has given a number of other reasons for using legal representation but these have all been refuted by the Ministry of Justice (see this post).

The Tribunal system is supposedly informal and parents are advised by the Tribunal itself that they do not need representation. This can lead to situations whereby the local authority is legally represented out of the public purse and parents are not. There is no public funding available for parents to be legally represented at Tribunal.

Use the search term Baker Small when searching the open data links.

"We are not the ones creating an adversarial system" - a previously unpublished post from 2014

Still relevant (and there are 12 reasons, not 11!):

It is gratifying to learn this blog has the ear of The Department. As a result of this post, the DfE requested clarification from North Yorkshire about its intention in April to move everyone to the EHCP process, before legislation was enacted. (It didn't investigate very hard.)

The Council responded by saying, in effect, what it wrote was not quite what it meant, and that of course, parents could still opt for a statutory assessment if they so wished. So how many statutory assessments were carried out since NYCC announced its move? There were none from April to mid June and post-April the Council was giving notably evasive answers about statutory assessments (see here at 27 May letter). We don't have the data up to September. 

That in itself is suggestive, not conclusive of an absolute policy change, but this blog was also given first hand information from two unconnected senior teaching professionals who were both told by officials that all assessments post-April were to be EHC needs assessments only. Evidence exists if the DfE cares to dig.

The Council then ended its response by quoting from this blog (our emphasis):

It is interesting to note that the blog ends with a DfE quote, 'new legislation which was, in part, created to "..minimise the adversarial nature  of the system for families and to maximise value for money.' I am fairly certain that we are not the ones creating an adversarial system.

We are not the ones creating an adversarial system.

North Yorkshire has been attempting to curtail spending on SEN and reduce the number of children with statements since 2003. It has used the recent SEN funding changes and Children and Families Act to systematically undermine statutory provision for children with SEN, and pitched schools against parents. Many families are not happy with the provision their child receives. Talk of battling the authority is common. Here are the some of the ways the Council has made it harder (and therefore more adversarial) for parents to access appropriate provision for children:

1"A greater focus on gatekeeping"
In January 2014 the local authority announced its intention to place "a greater focus on gatekeeping"  EHCPs and statements (Appendix 4 of page 75 here). It re-organised its decision making process so that a reduced number of senior staff make decisions about assessments, using the CAN-Do resource allocation system (RAS). 

This comes on top of a past declaration of "intensive 'gatekeeping'" by the authority in February 2010 (2) and an announcement to "tighten the processes of prescribing entitlement to statements"(4) in March 2012.

The law is very clear, and the legal threshold has not changed for many years. A child must have each and every special educational need met. The responsibility for this lies with the council, so talk of 'gatekeeping', 'containing' and 'tightening' outside of  The C&FA, The Education Act and SEN Code of Practice is extremely dubious.

2 Director's statement
In a statement in 2011 by the then Director of Children and Young People's Service:

...Cynthia Welbourn advised the Forum that there was a need to control expenditure better in what is a high spend area. Schools have a strategic interest in containing the number of new statements as the additional funding would have to be found from cutting school budgets. (3) 

3 Computer says no
North Yorkshire developed the Comprehensive Assessment of Need Tool for Education; Resource and Support Planning for Schools (CAN-Do) during the SEN Pathfinder programme. It is an RAS to be used as part of, or entirely for, the assessment for an EHCP. Feed in a description of the child and it spits out an indicative budget for the cost of provision. Contained within the RAS is the revised assessment criteria. The council has plans to commercialise the system to sell to others. And for that reason it has refused to publish the RAS or the revised assessment criteria (see here). It makes professionals who complete the RAS sign a gagging clause (see here). The council currently assesses a child using a secret criteria and will not allow parents or the wider public to know what those criteria are, which makes the indicative budget or provision allocated somewhat hard to challenge, and runs counter to natural justice.

4 National funding changes
Delayed by a year in North Yorkshire until April 2014, changes to funding mean that:

'The requirement for schools to meet the first £10k of provision could have a 'dampening effect' on the demand for statements (EHCPs).'(Appendix 4, page 75 here).

The Council did nothing to mitigate the potential risk that children who would otherwise have a statement will not receive one due to the reluctance of schools to apply due to new funding changes. In fact, it positively welcomed the move.

5 Partially funding statements
North Yorkshire has taken an additional step to make a school think twice before applying for or supporting an EHCP, or find reasons not to accept a a pupil with an EHCP on the school role in the first instance. For a school with more children with EHCPs than the 'notional number' allocated by the council, it will receive £1000 per child less than the provision costs.

A school with a good reputation for educating children with SEN, attracting a higher than anticipated number, will be penalised. Peter Dwyer, the current Corporate Director - Children and Young People's Service - put it this way :

In discussing these proposals with colleagues it is felt that we should go for the £5,000 as opposed to the £6,000 as a disincentive to schools from applying for statements if they believed the shortfall was to be fully funded. (Para 3.8 here)

Quite how this can be in the best interest of the unfortunate children counted over a school's notional number or applying to a new school is difficult to fathom. It also flies against the spirit and meaning of the SEN Code of Practice and law.

6 Poor management by schools
The council has decided no additional money will be given to a school if it runs a budget surplus over the last three years (1). It won't agree to an EHC needs assessment on this basis.

It would be beneficial for the local authority to clarify how a refusal to assess or provide an EHCP can be justified for a child whose needs are obviously above and beyond that which can normally be provided by a mainstream school even with a three year budget surplus. There is no provision in law to deny a child an EHCP on this basis, as far as we are aware.

7 Cutting funding for statements
Since 2011 the Council has reduced the funding for most types of statements/EHCPs from £540 to £460 per annualised hour, a cut of 15% excluding inflation.

8 Increase to local funding threshold
In 2013 the Government set the funding threshold for statements at £6000 + AWPU, and said local authorities which were highly delegating, such as North Yorkshire, should delegate less (Operational guidance for providers - high needs reforms, 2013). This was not the legal test. The Council didn't want to do this because it didn't want to go back to writing more statements, so it negotiated with the DfE and set the level at £9200 +AWPU. The result is it is harder to get an EHCP in North Yorkshire than most other local authorities.

9 Poor management by the local authority
In 2012 the council closed two special schools for children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BESD), Netherside Hall and Baliol Schools. It amalgamated the staff and students in converted facilities on the site of a former naval base in Harrogate and named the new school Foremost. It cost £11M to convert and £2M per year to run. The school was dogged with problems from the start - see here, here, here and here. It has only ever been half full. As a result of the problems, the council had to place some children in independent schools instead. At the beginning of the year the council said it had given up on Foremost and announced its intention to effectively close the school and tender for a private provider to take over from October. Only one bid was received and this did not meet the quality threshold. The authority reluctantly announced its intention to keep running the school until an alternative solution can be found.

The problems at Foremost have caused additional unplanned spending by the local authority. It is projecting a further ~£650k spend per year in order to fund independent places, with no end in sight. Quite rightly it is reluctant to move children once they are settled in a placement. The knock on effect on other children with SEN is not clear, but the result of the overspend has led the council to review (again) decision making for out of area placements, attempt to negotiate reduced fees to independent schools, and fund additional "legal support for decision making" (Appendix 4 of page 75 here).

10 Legal representation
The council has spent over £50,000 on external legal advice since 2012 in a calculated move to make savings to the SEN budget by increasing its chances of winning at Tribunal. For any appeal involving an out of area placement or 'complex' (read expensive) case it will pay for legal representation, despite the Tribunal system being designed as an informal mechanism where legal representation is supposedly not needed. (See here).The council provided spurious reasoning for taking these steps, which were all refuted by the Ministry of Justice - see this post. Parents must bear the cost of legal representation at Tribunal themselves as Legal Aid is not available.

The council's attitude to Tribunal can be seen in this comment made when it submitted a response to the Support and Aspiration Green Paper consultation:

The SEND tribunal system does not take into account the fact that if local authorities were to put in the level of provision which they direct in individual cases for all young people in the authority with similar needs, local authority budgets would be significantly overspent. The system can lead to inequity of provision for young people with SEN. (5)

The job of the Tribunal is to stand in the local authorities' shoes and follow the SEND Code of Practice and the law. It is not in the business of awarding gold-plated provision, only what is appropriate to meet need. This statement is as close to an admission that the provision in the county is not up to an acceptable standard as we are ever likely to see.

11 Secrecy
The Council really doesn't like people knowing about the quality of the services it provides. It has been unwilling to disclose internal audits in the past and it refused to disclose an audit of its autism provision by the National Autistic Society. It was only when the Information Commissioner made a finding against the authority was it forced to publish.

12 Broken promises
During the consultation period for its Children and Young People's Autism Strategy, the council claimed it had begun Personal Intervention Programmes (PIPs) for pre-school children - for those who were most in need of early, intensive help. It had committed to them in the strategy. Except that, in reality, no children received a PIP because that part of the policy was abandoned before it began. Instead, the Council introduced a record of intervention. It substituted a programme of intervention for a piece of paper.


We will deal with the difficulties the new EHCP process causes to parents in another post.

References
1 Schools Forum paper High Needs Contingency proposal para 3.9 here, and agreed by the Schools Forum in the Minutes of 17 October 2013, para 550 here
2 Supplementary Papers to the Medium Term Financial Strategy and Revenue Budget 2010/11 p13 , here
3 Schools Forum minutes 21 September 2011, p14 here
4 Schools Forum paper Update on SEND Budgets, March 2012, Para 9.3 here
5 See this post

The Council's response to The Commission on Freedom of Information

North Yorkshire's response to the Independent Commission on Freedom of Information has been published.

This is the commission by which the government wants to restrict/reduce people's ability to question public authorities using The Freedom of Information Act.

1 The Council would like all internal communications to be exempt from FoI. Without the FoI in its current form, we would never have found out that there are approximately 1800 children who are missing out on an EHCP due to the Council's policy of delegating large amounts of money directly to schools (letter from Andrew Terry, former Assistant Director of Access and Inclusion)

2 It would like there to be a cost imposed on internal reviews of refused requests and submissions to the Information Commissioner's Office. I have complained to the ICO twice, one complaint was decided in my favour, requiring the Council to publish an independent review of autism provision in the County. In its finding the ICO stated that the Council had not considered the FOI correctly (both in its original refusal and in its review).

3 It would like to make it easier to refuse a request on the grounds that it would take too long by including things like redacting documents and considering exemptions when it calculates how long it would take to complete a request.

If you are interested in finding out more about making a Freedom of Information request, check out whatdotheyknow.com

North Yorkshire's autism strategy 2015-20 - Ignoring the evidence.

North Yorkshire County Council is about to launch its new autism strategy for 2015-20, available here. It has been preparing the strategy for some time, with the usual consultation involving people with autism, families and parents, in conjunction with Health. I read the consultation draft, went to a meeting and put in a written response. I also have a child with autism, so I have some skin in the game.

This post is about the employment and education bit on page 31:

Theme 5 - Employment and education  

Education and employment are critical
 for ensuring a positive future with good outcomes for people with autism. We know that young people with SEN including those with autism do less well than their peers at school and college and are more likely to be out of education, training and employment at 18. In order to aspire high for people with autism we need to improve education and employment opportunities locally. 

What is the progress so far? 

A “Review of Evidence Based Educational Interventions for Autism in North Yorkshire” has been written to highlight the national recommendations and best practice guidelines; leading to an NYCC statement regarding autism and evidence based intervention

OK. Education and employment are critical. Got it. A review has been was written (back in 2013). Yep. What does it say?

Generally it would appear that the interventions with the most robust research evidence are those which adopt a behavioural approach and look to enhance general behaviour, well-being and social communication. (p4)

Which interventions does the Council provide?

TEACCH, SCERTS, Intensive Intervention, Visual Supports including PECS, Social Stories and Comic Strips, and Lego Therapy.(p5)

Are any of these interventions behaviourally based? Any Applied Behaviour Analysis methods? Discrete Trial? Early Intensive Behavioural Interventions? Er, no. (Intensive intervention means intensive support to get excluded children, or children at risk of exclusion, back into their mainstream school.) Is the Council planning to use behaviourally-based interventions in the future? Er, no. Behavioural interventions don't make the list of educational priorities for the next five years.

So the Council seems to be deliberately ignoring its own report that sets out the interventions with the most robust evidence, despite claiming to "promote evidence-based practice" and use a "scientist-practitioner model". Why?

This is slippery behaviour. By referring to this report the Council is implying it is following its recommendations - what would be the point of including it if it wasn't - to give the impression of action. But then it doesn't follow it up. 

This leaves families with a second-rate service and children with poorer outcomes than would otherwise be the case. 

What's missing?

In the original draft strategy the Council said:

We will monitor a small group of people with autism during the course of the strategy to determine whether their lives have improved as a result of the actions undertaken. We will report the results so that everyone can see the progress that has been made. (p6)

This was dropped in the final version. This was a flawed idea in that there would be no statistical significance in monitoring a small number of people over what is a relatively short period of time, but the Council appeared to accept the principle of directly measuring the outcomes of individuals, which is, of course, the best way to see whether the intervention works, and should be top of the monitoring list, done robustly year on year.

The draft also laid out the following:

How will we know if it’s working? 􏰀
􏰀Increased teacher confidence in supporting children and young people with autism within Early Years settings, schools and post 16 establishments 

􏰀Children, young people and their families report better school experience 

􏰀The number of schools and settings using the AET competency framework
and national standards increases 

Reduction in school exclusion, family breakdown and out of authority
placement 

􏰀More people working with the Supported Employment service to achieve
employment are successful in finding and maintaining a job 

􏰀Employers feel more confident in making reasonable adjustments in the
workplace so that people with autism can keep their job 

􏰀The Department of Work and Pensions, on a regional level, become involved
in the work of the Steering Group (p27)

Most of these things didn't make the final version. Some of them did make it, albeit altered, e.g.

Reduction in school exclusion, family breakdown and out of authority placement

becomes

Increase access to intensive support for reintegration of children and young people with autism that are excluded or at risk of exclusion to reduce breakdowns in educational placements 

-dropping the pledge to reduce family breakdown and out of authority placements.

In a sidebar to the list above, is a small note:

What’s missing here? is attainment gap appropriate measure? Speech, indie living skills?Employer confidence?Define educational outcomes?

Yes!Yes!Yes!Yes!Yes!YES! This is the really important stuff. How many people with autism can speak, how many gain independent living skills - stuff that families really value- is missing . Families have been asking the Council to measure these things for years to no avail. I know that for some families these aren't priorities. But for many families they are top of the list. 

The SEN attainment gap is one of the worst in the country - again it doesn't get a mention in the final version. Perhaps it is too embarrassing. 

Instead we are left with a list of priorities which involve a lot of promoting, providing opportunities, and developing guidance. The pledge to increase the number of people in employment disappears. More soap and flannel.

Perhaps I am being too harsh. Towards the end of the strategy the Council says:

An implementation plan containing Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely (SMART) targets will be written following the publication of the strategy clearly demonstrating what we aim to achieve and how we will measure progress towards this.(p39)

Should I wait for that before I pass judgement? Somehow, I'm not optimistic. The key things for me are not there. or have been removed. There is no commitment to use the most robust evidence-based interventions, and a poverty of ambition for what remains. 

Thank you, North Yorkshire, for the invitation to the launch event, but I won't be attending.

UPDATE
Perhaps I should explain that although PECS is behaviourally based (it was invented jointly by a behavioural therapist and a speech and language therapist) I don't believe the Council is implementing proper PECS programmes. In the words of Pyramid, the company that runs PECS, "In order to really be able to teach others how to use PECS and its 6 phases, an individual must be a PECS Supervisor," As far as I am aware, none of the autism outreach service (ASCOSS) are qualified  PECS Supervisors.

Payments to SEND solicitors

March 2015 saw another substantial payment of £8000 to external SEND solicitors to defend Tribunals against parents.

Payments are detailed on the Open Data page of the council's website.

Total to date
25/03/15 Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £8000.00 (link)
20/10/14 Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £3500.00 (link)
15/4/14   SEN Legal Advice- Other Hired and Contract Services      £1600.00 (link)
20/3/14   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £3500.00 (link)
20/3/14   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £3500.00 
1/8/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £7000.00 (link)
8/5/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £10000.00 (link) (Corrected figure 13.07.13)
6/2/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £ 7000.00 (link)
21/9/11   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £ 8000.00 (link)
29/3/11   Other courses - course fees                                           £   850.00 (link)
Total                                                                                          £52950.00 (ex VAT)

Legal representation
The council contracts with a firm of solicitors that provides legal advice to local authorities on SEN appeals and tribunals. The solicitors represent the council at Special Educational Needs Tribunals for appeals that are for out of area placements or 'complex' appeals (ie placements that will potentially cost the council money because it cannot provide appropriate education within the authority).

It has calculated savings can be made to the council's SEN budget by adopting this approach, believing representation will increase its chance of winning some of these appeals (see here).  It has given a number of other reasons for using legal representation but these have all been refuted by the Ministry of Justice (see this post).

The Tribunal system is supposedly informal and parents are advised by the Tribunal itself that they do not need representation. This can lead to situations whereby the local authority is legally represented out of the public purse and parents are not. There is no public funding available for parents to be legally represented at Tribunal.

Use the search term Baker Small when searching the open data links.

Payment to SEN solicitors

North Yorkshire's latest payment to solicitors specialising in special educational needs is available on the Open Data page of the council's website.

Total to date

20/10/14 Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £3500.00 (link)
15/4/14   SEN Legal Advice- Other Hired and Contract Services     £ 1600.00 (link)
20/3/14   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £ 3500.00 (link)
20/3/14   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £ 3500.00 
1/8/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £ 7000.00 (link)
8/5/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £10000.00 (link) (Corrected figure 13.07.13)
6/2/13     Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £ 7000.00 (link)
21/9/11   Other Hired and Contract Services                                 £ 8000.00 (link)
29/3/11   Other courses - course fees                                           £   850.00 (link)
Total                                                                                          £44950.00 (ex VAT)

Legal representation
The council contracts with a firm of solicitors that provides legal advice to local authorities on SEN appeals and tribunals. The solicitors represent the council at Special Educational Needs Tribunals for appeals that are for out of area placements or 'complex' appeals (ie placements that will potentially cost the council money because it cannot provide appropriate education within the authority).

It has calculated savings can be made to the council's SEN budget by adopting this approach, believing representation will increase its chance of winning some of these appeals (see here).  It has given a number of other reasons for using legal representation but these have all been refuted by the Ministry of Justice (see this post).

The Tribunal system is supposedly informal and parents are advised by the Tribunal itself that they do not need representation. This can lead to situations whereby the local authority is legally represented out of the public purse and parents are not. There is no public funding available for parents to be legally represented at Tribunal.

Use the search term Baker Small when searching the open data links.

Edited for clarity 14:00 3/6/14

North Yorkshire's Local Offer - a description of what SEN services are available

The council must have its Local Offer published by 1 September. There has been a draft available for some months here. It should set out what services the council 'expects to be available' - not just those provided by the council , but by independent and private providers, within the county and close by. Many areas of the Offer are still missing data.

It has recently added a description of its autism outreach services, which can be found here.

Updated quarterly performance data

From a report to the Children's Trust board, dated 11 June, available here.
Includes total number of statements, new statements, number of high needs statements, sum allocated to schools for low and high needs, sum allocated to schools for high needs, percentage of statements issued within 26 weeks.