Reforms ‘need stronger accountability’, says minister
Education Minister Georgia Gould OBE has said the Government’s SEND reforms will need “stronger accountability” in every part of the system, including on councils, health and schools.
The Government recently consulted on major reforms to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system, which it announced in February.
Speaking at an LGA annual conference session on ‘Inclusive neighbourhoods: supporting children and young people with SEND locally’, Ms Gould said the Government continued to explore what system-level accountability looks like.
She said: “There’ll be accountability on local authorities, there’ll be accountability on schools, and there has to be accountability on health, and that’s something that’s come up really strongly in the consultation.
“We have committed to new accountability measures on health. We’re working through with health exactly what that looks like.
“We’ll set out our minimum expectations of all schools and then Ofsted will hold schools to account on those standards.”
Ms Gould, a former Leader of Camden Council, said the reforms would mean support is provided earlier and closer to families, without having to face long waits or “bureaucratic processes” to get support.
She said the Government was setting national inclusion standards – where teachers can identify needs early, rather than having to wait for a health diagnosis – and has developed new inclusive-by-design guidance to help create schools in which all children can be comfortable.
Ms Gould added that the reforms would create “much greater consistency for specialist provision”.
She said there was currently “very little clarity” on which children should be in specialist provision, what high-quality provision looked like or the range of provision that should be available in every area, leading to “a massive postcode lottery”.
She also spoke of the vital role councils play as leaders of place and convenors of services – “having that view of all children in an area” – but warned they would “need the levers to hold other partners to account”.