The organisation
Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) is the sixth-largest council in the country. It’s responsible for a wide range of services, such as fixing roads, looking after children and adults who need care, and public health. Like all other local authorities across the UK, Hertfordshire has a statutory duty to provide services for children and young people with special education needs and disabilities (SEND) across the county.
The problem
In July 2023, Hertfordshire County Council underwent an inspection, which identified concerns with its provision of SEND services and its outcomes for children and young people. “SEND services are struggling across the country,” explains Hero Slinn, HCC’s director for inclusion and skills. “Ever since Covid, there’s been an increasing need from children and young people coming through the system.”
In December 2022, Ofsted’s annual report showed that SEND services for children and young people were strained across the UK, due to staff shortages and problems with recruitment. The following year, a survey of 115 industry specialists by the SEND jobs board Senploy revealed that this was due to low salary levels (70%) and a lack of experience (20%).
The challenges were no different at HCC, where in 2015 they had roughly 3,500 young people with education, health and care (EHC) plans. By March 2024, this number had reached 12,500.
“The SEND model doesn’t work anymore,” Slinn remembers realising. The situation resulted in high turnover, difficulty with recruitment and low job satisfaction.
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The inspection resulted in a recommendation that HCC review its services as a matter of urgency to address how to improve services to meet the demand for SEND care in the area. Another recommendation was for the team to recruit and train more staff, to better meet demand.
“We were trying to improve our statutory duty of compliance, improve the experience for our children and families, and recruit, retain and create job satisfaction for our staff,” Slinn explains. “We wanted to make a difference to the experience of children and families in Hertfordshire because we recognised that we hadn’t kept up with that pace.”
The method
Following the inspection, HCC invested £5 million into improving the quality and timeliness of its EHC plans by recruiting and training more staff. It was later granted a further £2 million.
HR developed a new model for the SEND team, which meant that candidates didn’t have to have a recognised professionalism or qualification. Their goal was to recruit for 138 roles, predominantly for the front-line role of EHC coordinators, but also quality assurance roles and provisional staff.
“The model was a very different way of doing things,” Slinn describes. “It wasn’t just adding more officers into the same team, it was actually turning it on its head in terms of how we deliver those statutes and duties.”
The HR, communications, recruitment and professional teams at HCC all came together to start an ongoing recruitment campaign that accepted applications from anyone with transferable skills from any profession, especially people with lived experience of SEND children and young people. “We welcomed applications from parents of a child with special educational needs,” Slinn explains.
“It has massive impact because a lot of parents out there aren’t happy with how things are but want to get involved in the solution. They have so much to give from their own experience that needs recognition.”
The approach extended to young adults with experience of trying to access SEND care. Taking notes from the council’s social care team, the alliance created specialist teams in the SEND department, which meant that new roles were available for candidates to apply for.
“We saw it as an opportunity to have a wider pool of talent to choose from,” Slinn goes on to explain. “It really did open that out.”
The strategy began with a recruitment event in September, attended by 150 people. HCC kept the job listing open for six months, during which time it received more than 900 applications.
As the HCC team was onboarding so many new candidates, it designed its own induction and training programme. The Hertfordshire SEND Academy is a six-to-10-week training programme that aims to professionalise employees’ skills and experience.
Cutting out the requirement for candidates to have professional experience in a specialist field prompted some scepticism, admits HCC campaigns manager, Rebecca Cussens. “People were concerned, saying that those with lived experience can’t just come in and do those roles because they require specialists,” she says.
The concern was particularly true for educational psychologists, as the role requires a specialist qualification. However, Cussens notes this is a nationwide issue, as there are too few places in institutions that offer this qualification to meet the demand for roles.
HCC took a ‘grow-your-own’ approach by creating eight assistant educational psychologist roles that do not require a qualification. The team now has five assistant educational psychologists coming in from September – the most that HCC has recruited since 2019. “We’re inundated with applications,” Cussens comments.
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Growing at a fast pace has posed its own challenges, too. “It’s evolving as we go,” Slinn says. “We’ve had to be quite strong on holding the line with not sending people into work without putting them through the SEND Academy, otherwise we would struggle to retain staff.”
The result
A year ago, HCC was struggling to recruit for its SEND team. That has now changed, Slinn explains: “A year ago, I would have said that recruiting people is a challenge, but we really know what we’re doing in this space now.” The team has filled 111 of the 138 available roles and achieved a consistent conversion rate of one in two from shortlist to interview.
The SEND Academy has also improved employees’ experience on the SEND team, as training is now a consistent offer for everyone during onboarding. “Before, even with the best fit and induction, because of the level of work, people needed to hit the ground running immediately, so you’d get issues with practice and consistency, and people feeling unsupported,” Slinn reflects.
The onboarding approach has also been valuable in helping new recruits form relationships with their colleagues and share their experiences, Cussens adds. “All these people from different walks of life were able to share their experiences and learn together, but also they were developing strong connections with their colleagues from the start. I think that has been an element of success in terms of moving forward.”
The campaign has highlighted the need to value lived experiences and transferable skills. “Be really open to it and value it. I’m a true believer that nothing beats actual lived experience,” comments Slinn.
“At the same time, professionalise what you’re doing. Think about your training, think about your induction but then be open to and value people who actually have experienced this because they’re going to be passionate; they’re going to be motivated by those transferable skills that you can’t find.”
This article was published in the July/August 2024 edition of HR magazine.
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