OFSTED Inspection of Suffolk LEA
The following points were submitted in writing to the Lead Inspector, Mr Bartley, on September 26th.
(1) Overall, the NUT considers the Suffolk LEA to be a "slim" authority, where all available resources (perhaps too much!) is put out to schools. We acknowledge that this has meant hardship in other areas of the County Council’s work (Social Services, Libraries, etc) as a result. It has also meant that the Education Department at County and Area levels is frankly understaffed, particularly when savings are made by not filling key vacancies. This has the effect in the end of affecting the service that the LEA can offer to schools. This "lean and mean" approach prefaces all the following comments, too. This is particularly keenly felt in the areas of Special Needs assessment and "additional hours" or other support.
(2) Communications: There is often an inordinate delay in obtaining responses to queries or contractual points. This does lead to problems of motivation and affects staff morale. It makes representation of members’ interests difficult, too, because of a failure to disclose material information in the course of, or prior to, negotiation. Consultation periods often do not allow time for the seeking of members’ views, and a response from the NUT counts as "one response" when the pros and cons are added up. There has been no weighting.
(3) Communications are made more difficult because of a lack of clear "job specifications" known to the LEA/schools. This is particularly the case where there are "acting-up" and "doubling-up" situations in Area Offices and, specifically, in responsibility for areas such as Health & Safety in Schools, EOTAS, Special Needs.
(4) In the case of EOTAS and Special Needs, there is a divide between local delivery and County-wide responsibility (County can veto the local area needs). The Area Offices need more control over the decision making / budgetary decisions for these services, if they are to be able to make meaningful management decisions to meet needs.
(5) In general, there is some confusion, inherent in the legislation which set up LMS, over the role of Education Personnel Department and that of the County Personnel Department. Teachers often feel that, although employed by the same employers as Librarians, the extra layer of employer function (Governing Bodies) means that school employees lag behind the rest of the Council’s employers in areas such as Equal Opportunities, Family-Friendly Employment Policies and Practices, up-dated procedures for the fair treatment of employees (Grievance, etc.) There is often a long delay in producing LMS versions of SCC employment policies which are already in place for all other employees.
(6) The balance of powers and responsibilities between school and LEA is nowhere more important than in ensuring Health and Safety in Schools. However, there is no clear channel of communication between school employees and the top management of the LEA for this purpose. Where concerns arise, urgent matters which need rapid attention, can be left on the "wrong" person’s desk, with no one claiming responsibility for the item. There is a written policy, but it is not well known at school level and does not work in practice. There is also another cross-over between LEA responsibility and SCC overall operational oversight. For example, incident forms from schools are first seen by Area Education Offices then sent to COUNTY personnel department for collation, etc. This means that there is no Education Department follow-up to patterns which might be discerned in the collation of those forms.
(7) Consultation and Negotiation Arrangements: The so-called JNC is neither joint nor does it engage in negotiation. Since reorganisation of the County Council and the disappearance of the elected members the teachers’ panel never come into contact with the elected members, formally. There is no formal minuting of actual agreements reached! This can lead to further communication problems: eg. advisory teachers were informed of an "agreement" to pay them on Soulbury Scales. The Union had not made such an agreement and had expressly rejected Soulbury scales for these employees.
(8) Negotiation: Because the JNC is in practice more of a consultative body, any actual negotiation goes on in an ad hoc way, with meetings arranged with County Secretaries of the TOs. This is a tortuous and long drawn-out process, because each meeting has to be called separately at short notice, causing diary congestion. These "negotiations" are not clerked and there is no record of decisions reached. We often find that the officer negotiating with us is not then empowered to make any decisions. The one time we all come together (at JNC), we do not conclude negotiations. Instead we agree to set up another ad hoc negotiation meeting.
(9) The new arrangements for the County Council, while meeting with Government approval, further confuse responsibilities. There is no single elected representative responsible for all Education issues and education issues can be dealt with by more than one "theme panel". It again makes it very difficult to track down responsibility and accountability.
(10) One area of continuity and clear avenue of advice would be to keep the expertise of the Teacher Representatives (co-opted members of the Council). Since the disappearance of the Education Committee, their role has been in some confusion. Having elected a teacher representative for Special Education, for example, this representative has had no role to play in advising on Special Education matters. She has had to keep out of all such matters so as to serve on the Scrutiny Panel. This was a ridiculous waste of her experience and advice at a time when the LEA was reviewing EOTAS and SEN policies.
(11) We are most critical of the LEA in the area of SEN and EOTAS. Their Achilles heel is EBD provision. Firstly, the LEA refuses to consider EBD as a Special Educational Need and therefore does not recruit, recognise or seek to retain EBD specialist staff by offering even the first SEN Allowance.
Secondly, Suffolk LEA’s provision for EBD is lamentable. They forced the closure of Oakwood Special School putting 58 severe EBD places out into the community or into mainstream schools. Despite many assurances, no alternative provision for these lost places has been made. They claim to have a programme of increasing EBD places, particularly in the creation of further PRU units (staffed by demoralised teachers not considered to be teachers of SEN!). Not one of these units is up and running, two years after the closure of the only facility for these pupils. The first, in the old premises of Oakwood, is still not functioning, even though it was originally planned to open in January 2001.
Mainstream Schools are therefore overburdened with pupils for which they cannot make adequate provision, causing great distress, teacher (and headteacher) illness and failing to meet special needs (because they are not considered special?). The Home Tuition service is also overstretched and having to cope with pupils who need specialist education, best provided by teachers and a set-up designed to work with EBD. There is no provision in-County for a sizeable group of pupils who have been clearly identified by the Advisory Service, Social Services, and Educational Psychologists as having particularly sever Special Needs, much of which stems from a lack of recognition of EBD.
Martin Goold, Suffolk NUT
September 26th 2001