A frank apology has been issued by Suffolk County Council over failings in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services, after a damning report produced from an independent review.

Lincolnshire County Council inspected the county's struggling service following a swathe of parent comments over problems in the system.

One Shotley peninsula parent, Emma Nicholson, published a heart-wrenching letter from her 10-year-old son Issac on social media, as he begged to return to Shotley primary school, after feeling let down by the system.

The report, published this afternoon following 29 virtual meetings with families, children and industry staff, concluded that weaknesses existed in a host of areas and made nine recommendations for future improvement.

Suffolk county council this afternoon issued a stark apology to all families let down.

"The review has found that we must change what we are doing in a number of areas," the authority wrote in an open letter penned to parents.

"We accept without reservation the findings of the review and are grateful to the Lincolnshire team for their attention to detail, professionalism and advice.

"We are sorry for the difficulties that some families have experienced as a result of how we have been doing things.

"We recognise that we have let down some children and young people as certain aspects of our services have simply not been good enough."

Measures in the action plan, which will begin this week, include better co-production on developing education health and care plans (EHCPS) – documents with specific measures for SEND youngsters required in their education.

It also includes work to identify gaps in knowledge and skills in the team, collate a review of policies in line with the code of practice, address gaps in sharing of information with health service colleagues and robust annual review processes – particularly as youngsters transition from one phase of education to another.

A new partnership will also be launched with Impower, a specialist organisation which has worked with 15 other local authorities nationwide on improving SEND provision.

Conservative cabinet member for education, Rachel Hood, said: "As we anticipated, the report has shown that SEND services in Suffolk are not good enough, and I want to apologise to those children and young people we have let down.

"I want to be clear that this report does not cover all SEND services and many children or young people who have specialist educational needs in Suffolk are very well served, but significant changes must be made following this hard-hitting report.

"We must learn from this report and implement fundamental change as quickly as we can."

Jack Abbott, former Labour group spokesman for education at Suffolk County Council who is now an education campaigner, said: "This is a damning report, but its findings will come as little surprise to the families who have been desperately seeking change for years. It is they who have had to endure long, exhausting battles just to get the support they need.

"Let's not forget either that Suffolk County Council limited the scope of this report – the criticisms highlighted here only reflect part of the systemic problems that exist. Yes, communication with families is important, but the quality and accessibility of provision is critical. If Suffolk County Council really wants to drive improvements, then they will finally listen to families and conduct a full investigation."

While the review highlighted some strengths in the service, such as improvements in the time it took to process education health and care plans (EHCPs) – plans detailing individual requirements for youngsters' education – and increased understanding of social, emotional and mental health needs, it said a host of areas were not performing well enough.

Key issues from the report include:

A necessity for families to be involved in the EHCP assessments

Timeliness in responding to calls and emails

Lack of specific measures in some EHCPs

The specialist education panel being "overwhelmed" with requests for specialist provision

Pupils inappropriately placed in specialist places not suited to their needs

Lack of identified caseworkers for children once they have an EHCP

Requests for statutory assessments are not recorded

High numbers of mediations over refusal for assessments

Lack of routine tracking on annual reviews of EHCPs

Lack of consistency in how parents are contacted

Lack of transparency about process and decision-making

Only pupils with EHCPs are eligible for specialist places, but the number of youngsters with EHCPs has nearly doubled since 2014.

Education staff believe the earlier testing of pupils coupled with more knowledge of those needs or conditions is behind the increase.

The report has made nine recommendations which will form the basis of an action plan for the authority, with education chiefs explaining that work had already begun.

Ros Somerville, the new assistant director for inclusion has now begun in post, while consultancy firm Impower has been hired as a "strategic partner" to review case management and processes with EHCPs.

That organisation has already worked with 15 other local authorities with similar problems, with the tie-up beginning on Monday (September 20).

It is not yet clear how much that partnership will cost.

Other measures in the action plan include an analysis of training needed for the service, review of processes against the code of practice issued by the Department for Education and bolstered protocols with clinical commissioning groups over sharing necessary health data.

The authority said that additional resources may be required, which would need to be signed-off by the authority's cabinet.

That is above and beyond the £45million already pledged for creating 870 new SEND places.

Parent campaigners had called for the review to include a legal audit, but the council has again ruled out any lawyer-led approach as it said Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission already carried out those.

Read report here...