Senior Planning Co-Ordinator

The Opportunity

Salary: NJC Grade 10 £38,626 to £41,511 per annum

Contract Type: Permanent

Working Pattern: 37 hours per week, Monday to Friday

Location: County Hall, Chichester

Closing date: 10 September 2025

Interview date: 16 September 2025

Do you have experience working in the special educational needs sector?

Do you enjoy supporting children and their families?

This is an exciting time to join our Special Educational Needs Assessment Team (SENAT). As a Senior Planning Coordinator, you will work closely with children and young people who have complex SEN, their families, early years providers, schools, colleges, and external agencies to provide advice and guidance.

Your main responsibility is to ensure that statutory processes and timescales are followed and to provide quality monitoring, including checking draft EHCP's (Education, Health, and Care Plans) written by Planning Coordinators.

In addition, you will be responsible for providing effective monitoring and review of Education, Health, and Care Plans, ensuring the best outcomes for children and young people and the effective use of resources in settings, schools, and colleges both in and out-county.

You will be responsible for the following key areas:

• Undertaking EHCP learning audits.
• Being a subject matter expert and a lead point of contact for the team.
• Providing supervision, training and advice for Planning Coordinators and Caseworkers.
• Contributing to and creating new initiatives, developments, mapping, and identification of needs across the service.
• Making recommendations for improvement of information, service delivery, and customer service.
• Developing and maintaining reports and statistical information.
• Sharing accountability for financial processing and funding allocation of an allocated budget of £250,000.

For more information on the Key Skills, Qualifications and/or Experience required, please refer to the Job Description attached. Please refer to the key skills in your expression of interest.

About Us

The Special Educational Needs Assessment Team (SENAT) manage the decisions and processes concerned with the statutory education health and care needs assessment process for learners with an education, health, and care plan (EHCP), the placement of children in learning settings and the allocation of resources to settings.

The team considers suitability of and, where appropriate, arranges the assessment and placement of children, young people and young adults with special educational needs in accordance with the provisions of the Children and Families Act 2014 (Part 3, SEN) and associated regulations, including the SEN Code of Practice, to ensure that the statutory assessment procedures are followed and that EHCPs are issued and reviewed within the timescales laid down by the regulations.

This will be achieved through direct work with parents, educational settings, young people, health, social care and other external customers and partnership organisations to establish the best ways to support learning for children and Young People (0 - 25).

Benefits

As an employer we recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive and dynamic working environment where employees can achieve their full potential, achieve a healthy work-life balance, and are rewarded for the work they do.

For a full list this can be found at our Rewards and Benefits page.

Upon joining us you will have access to a range of benefits including the following:

Employer Pension Contribution: 18.70% (this alters per annum on the 1 April each year).

Annual leave: 27 days holiday + Bank Holidays = 35days

How to Apply

The reference number for this role is CAFHE05950.

For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Ivana McCafferty, at

To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV and Cover Letter.

In your cover letter please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV.

Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults.

This post is subject to three years referencing and an occupational health check.

Equity, inclusion, and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application help page.