Statement on the increase in demand for children with SEND

21 March 2024

Please see our statement below on an increase in demand for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities:

“We are aware of the planned demonstration from a group of parents today and continue to encourage them to join the many other SEND families who are working together with us and our partners on tackling these challenges.

“As a Council and as a partnership we have been open in recognising the challenges we face in terms of a significant shortfall of provision for SEND places across West Northants and overdue education, health and care needs assessments and the impact this is having on our children, young people and their families.

“We know the partnership has not delivered the services it should, and we are working extremely hard to put in solutions for this, including our plans to create an additional 600 places for children and young people with SEND by Autumn 2025 which we are on track to complete. We know this isn’t an instant solution and it will take time to embed, however these issues are unfortunately not a quick fix and are challenges being felt by local authorities across the country.

“We have also invested and continue to do so, in additional resources, such as additional EPs to address our timeliness, but we have been open that this will take time to address the issues which we have in ensuring children with SEN receive the best support possible and in a timely manner. We know we are not there yet, but we are doing all we can to improve this.”

“As we are sure most will be aware, we currently have our Local Area SEND Inspection, which will enable us to consider the services further and we will lake learning from their findings to continue to improve services.”