Families with children who have may have special needs continue to face delays for psychological assessments to be carried out by Kent County Council (KCC).

Just 29% of child referrals for education, health and care plans (EHCPs) were completed on time, within 20 weeks, by County Hall in August. This is below the national target of around 65% and a performance drop since February.

EHCPs outline any special educational need a child has and before deciding whether to issue one, a psychological assessment is carried out.

However 283 youngsters remain on a waiting list as KCC seeks specialist outside aid. An extra 1,000 EHCP applications came in during 2020.

This comes nearly two years after Ofsted inspectors found KCC had failed to deliver EHCPs in a 'timely manner' and called for urgent action to rectify this.

Cllr Trudy Dean (Lib Dem), the opposition spokesman for education, said: "This was one of the first issues I had to deal with as a county councillor in 1985 when we had children who had been waiting for years to get their care plan, and that was half of a primary school child’s career. Here we are back again."

Her comments came during a virtual meeting of KCC's education committee yesterday where councillors discussed new plans to issue a contract worth up to £2.8million to an unnamed outside agency to help reduce the backlog.

Nearly 13,500 children and young adults, aged up to 25, were registered with a care plan in January 2020, marking a 14% increase of 1,736 from the previous year. The rise was described as 'unsustainable' in a KCC report from last week.

This comes alongside a growing pressure for special school provision in the county, with 712 new places likely to be needed over the next five years.

KCC's main opposition leader Cllr Rob Bird (Lib Dem) said: “We have a serious backlog. I thoroughly welcome the fact that we are going out to tender to get a locum provider who would give us much quality assurance.”

Other councillors called for more accountability as the County Hall committee was told that the new company would be expected to carry out, on average, 70 assessments each month, for at least a year, as KCC makes in-house reforms.

It is hoped the backlog will end by March 2021 as three extra staff are also being recruited by KCC but will not be available to assist until next September.

Maidstone county councillor Cllr Gary Cooke (Con), a committee member, said: “The problems that we have and have had are somewhat historic with the educational psychology service, which goes back over many, many years.

“I am sure that relates to the problems in acquiring the services of educational psychologists."

KCC education director Matt Dunkley outlined other issues with the service. He later said that the proportion of children with EHCPs was "way above" the national average while parental demand for specialist support has also risen.

He added: “All the time we have been trying to catch up with our backlog, the number of requests coming through the door and requests for an EHCP have gone through the roof.”

A key vote was held. Eight councillors voted in favour of the new contract offer and three abstained. The new service is likely to go live in December.

News from our universities, local primary and secondary schools including Ofsted inspections and league tables can be found here.

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