SEND services in Birmingham are slowly improving but a wider “malaise” at the council could pose a “threat” to progress, the first government-imposed commissioner has warned.
John Coughlan said relationships between schools and Birmingham City Council are “under considerable general strain”, especially over SEND.
But after “challenging period and slow start”, SEND improvement in Birmingham is “evidently progressing”, he said in his third annual report, published yesterday.
The ex-Hampshire County Council chief executive said, despite ongoing challenges, there were a “number of growing positives upon which to build a stronger system”.
Ministers dispatched Coughlan to take over SEND services in Birmingham in 2021, in a first-of-its-kind intervention after the council failed to remedy “significant weaknesses”.
Conflict of interest concerns allayed
Coughlan last year warned how a “deep-set culture of political adversarialism” was hampering improvement to SEND services in Birmingham.
The council’s leader Ian Ward has since been ousted by the national Labour Party, following claims of a “dysfunctional culture”.
The council effectively declared itself bankrupt last year.
Coughlan said “conflict of interest behaviours that seriously impeded the early stages
of the intervention… have significantly abated” since the national party intervened last year.
The fixer’s last report was deeply critical of the city’s SEND information, advice and support service (SENDIASS), previously run by the partner of Ward.
But Coughlan said the “wicked issue of SENDIASS has been finally resolved”, and “overt and unhelpful political interference has now abated”.
The service is now under new management, with a largely changed team and “much closer to full compliance”, he said.
But political improvements have been “hard fought and…also damagingly slow”.
And there “remains little evidence of genuine political appreciation of what went wrong and why”, he claimed.
The “wider political culture and function in Birmingham – the foundation of this malaise – have not substantially changed and it is hard to see how any of these or other improvements can be accelerated or sustained without a major shift in governance and culture”.
Calls for improvement were not implemented
He said calls in earlier reports to improve that culture were not properly implemented and, if they had been, “arguably the ‘best value’ intervention might have been averted”.
This government intervention was triggered after the council issued a section 114 notice last year, meaning it is unable to set a balanced budget.
The council has proposed £300 million of cuts, which the fixer said will have big implications both for children services and SEND.
He said the wider government-led intervention at Birmingham City Council arguably subsumes his own work.
But his SEND process has been allowed to continue as a “free-standing one”, within the “architecture of the wider improvement and recovery programme”.
The “wider malaise in (the council), financial and otherwise, which has triggered the best value intervention, represents a potential further threat to (SEND) improvement,” he said. And “concerted efforts will be required to ensure otherwise”.
But ‘best chance in years’ of stability
However, the two interventions working together could also offer the “best chance in many years of achieving a stable and effective council which is a good home for these crucial SEND services.”
Birmingham’s SEND improvement board, chaired by Coughlan, meets every six weeks, and has representation from the council, schools, the DfE, NHS England and other key agencies.
Areas of progress being reported include strong performance in completion of education, health and care plans within the 20-weeks, “now significantly better than national averages”.
He said around 34 percent of children with EHCPs are now being retained in mainstream placements – up from 29 per cent last year but still below national averages.
IT system ‘failings’ have hit schools hard
Schools Week previously reported how an IT system that left leaders unable to plan budgets and threatened with bailiffs because of unpaid bills will be withdrawn from Birmingham’s schools.
Birmingham City Council introduced an adapted version of the Oracle finance and HR platform in April 2022. But the system was fraught with issues and costs ballooned to £100 million, five times the original budget.
The commissioner said issues with the IT system had damaged the “fabric of the essential relationship” between schools and the council.
“Schools have been struggling to manage their own finances and close their own books” because of the failings, he added.
“This is reinforcing their sense of being within a local authority that is poorly run, doesn’t understand or care about their problems and exacerbates the SEND related problems.”
The DfE said: “It’s positive to see progress being made in the delivery and development of Birmingham’s SEND services but the report is clear that there is more to do.
“There are currently no plans to remove the statutory direction which was issued to Birmingham City Council, while much progress remains to be seen.”
The commissioner’s contract has recently been extended to September 2025.
A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: “We would like to thank the commissioner for his continued work to support the council to improve the city’s SEND offer to our children and families and we accept the recommendations in the report.
“The report acknowledges the improvements made which reflects a huge amount of work by all involved. We will collectively do all we can to continue to drive forward further improvements so families get the service they need and deserve.”
Cllr Ward has been approached for comment.
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