Educational health care plans issued by Shropshire Council 'well below target'
The number of Educational Health Care Plans (EHCPs) issued by Shropshire Council is well below target.
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A report issued to the Transformation and Improvement Overview and Scrutiny Committee showed that only 14.3% had been issued within 20 weeks during quarter four of 2024/25, with the target being 50%.
Billy Webster, assistant director of transformation, said the decline “is disappointing” but expected given the radical restructure to the team. This, he says, has left a 40% deficit in staff and inexperience in the remaining ones.
“In Shropshire, we have 3,210 active plans and of those 2,977 are maintained by Shropshire,” said Mr Webster.
“The anticipated number of cases a case officer was expected to hold was 187. This took account of 12 case officers and four seniors holding a case load.
“Senior EHCP case officers are supporting case work whilst we experience vacant posts within the team. It is anticipated that seniors will be undertaking tribunal work and supporting the most complex of cases. The current plan numbers are 3,210.
“Officers report to be motivated by the target setting. This has been in place since April 1. In order for us to recover timeliness it is estimated that we would need to issue 40 plans per month from July to December to recover to 50%.”
Councillor Rosemary Dartnall, the Labour Group leader at Shropshire Council, said it was really worrying if experienced staff have taking voluntary redundancy, leading to a now inxperienced team.
“It’s extremely disconcerting,” she said.
Tanya Miles, executive director of people, said there is a variety of reasons why there’s been a reduction in staff during quarter four, not just down to voluntary redundancy.
“I can confirm we are now a fully staffed team,” she said.
“I was talking to the chair of the People Committee and suggested we put forward EHCPs as part of their work programme. The trajectory for change is that the recovery plan will be back to 50% by quarter three.
“That is the England average where we expect the EHCPs to be done within 20 working days. We would aspire to be a lot higher than that but we are confident we will get 40% by quarter three in this performance year.
“The target is 50% but also to reduce our backlog. We’ve got a new team in place who will going through induction and support at the moment to assure they understand that a EHCP is done in time.”
The report has also been sent to cabinet, who will meet on Wednesday (June 11).
