IMPACT has written to all Oireachtas members about the ongoing challenges facing special education needs organisers (SENOs) due to reduced staff numbers and growing demand for the services they provide to schools.
The SENO service is integral to the planning of the academic year for each school and the careful management of the overall SNA (special needs assistant) allocations. IMPACT national secretary Andy Pike has outlined to TDs and senators the growing pressures they face.
In his letter, Andy says: “The National Council for Special Education was instructed to reduce staff numbers over the period 2011-2014 under the Employment Control Framework. During this period the numbers of SENOs fell from the previously authorised number of 98 to 76 at the end of 2014. To date, the fall in SENO numbers is just over 20%.
“While this has led to an increase in the volume of work for each SENO, it also left some counties without a SENO. This diminishes the original premise for the NCSE, in which SENOs were to provide a local service, with knowledge of schools, parents and agencies in their area.
“These reductions, and their knock-on effects, have occurred against a backdrop of changes to the resource and SNA allocation process, expansion of the SENO role and most significantly, increased demand for services, due to increased numbers of applications from schools for students with disabilities and special educational needs.
“The increasing number of children with special educational needs requiring the service also brings with it an increase in the number of concerned parents with whom we interact.”
Andy added that SENOs are a very committed group of professionals who are working above and beyond in order to ensure that, as far as possible, our service users do not suffer. He added: ”As a result of the significant staff reductions, and the huge increase in demand for the service that we provide, SENOs have been to struggling to provide an adequate and appropriate service to students with special education needs, their parents and the schools.”
In 2010, and 2014, SENO staff were surveyed and asked if they ever worked beyond their contracted hours. Results indicated that, despite an increase in the hours worked per week in 2014 (as per the Haddington Road Agreement), significantly more staff were working in excess of their contracted hours in 2014 than had been the case in 2010. This is a clear reflection of the increasing demand for service as well as decreasing numbers of staff available to provide that service.
Oireachtas members were supplied with a comprehensive briefing document to show how the ECF has affected the SENO service, with IMPACT’s projections of the increased demand for services that SENOs are facing.
Andy’s correspondence to the Oireachtas, including the comprehensive briefing document, is available HERE.
