Staffing shake up at Luton council aims to streamline special educational needs and disabilities management

A staffing shake-up by Luton Borough Council aims to streamline management of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services

The local authority wants to create an integrated inclusion and SEND service with a senior managerial role, according to a report to its administration and regulation committee.

“The head of inclusion and principal educational psychologist would have an overview for all key functions within SEND to ensure the most effective operation of services,” said the report.

“The education service is working hard to improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The proposal has been put forward to create a more seamless, integrated SEND team.

“The alterations to the management structure proposed in this organisational change assessment (OCA) lead to a cost saving for the service. That also enables better management oversight and coordination within SEND services.

“This will allow much needed investment into the SEND teams to ensure each has appropriate staffing to meet demand.”

LBC’s service director education Abi Preston explained: “We’ve had four teams somewhat operating in silo previously.

“These are the SEND assessment team, the SEND advisory team, the behavioural inclusion service and the education psychologist team.

“The plan is to create a new head of inclusion role with oversight of those four functions which would support joint working across the different SEND services.

“This is really important, particularly in light of the new SEND framework and ensuring we’ve clear oversight of all our SEND services we offer.

“We’ll also create a deputy principal education psychologist role and we delete the previous principal education psychologist role and the senior education psychologist role.

“Moving forward we’re planning a further OCA within the teams to ensure there’s the right capacity to manage demand for SEND, as this is increasing.

“So we’re considering using our current resource in a more effective and efficient way to get the best out of our service.”

Asked if it meant people moving offices to avoid the silo scenario, she replied: “We’ve been operating this on an interim model initially to test how well it would work.

“We moved our office, as the education service was in the Leagrave Centre and switched to the Town Hall.

“Part of the planning was to arrange for them to sit together. That initial model has been working well, so I’ve full confidence this is the right way to go.”

The special educational needs assessment team (SENAT) service has historically been line managed by a service manager for SENAT and SEND, added the report.

“Behaviour Inclusion Support Services (BISS) moved over to sit under the same manager, but the SENAT team has been working in silo and found it challenging to keep up with increased demand on the services.

“A more holistic approach to working across SEND is required to improve outcomes and provide a more joined up approach to supporting our families across Luton in line with the expectations of local areas.”

Councillors agreed the recommendation for an integrated inclusion team with a senior managerial role.