The LGA has responded to the Government’s implementation plan for reforming the special educational needs and disability (SEND) system
Fulfilling the potential of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), building parents’ trust, and providing financial sustainability are the focus of proposed reforms to the SEND system.
Councils share the Government’s ambition to make sure every child with special educational needs gets the high-quality support they need, as per its improvement plan, ‘Right support, right place, right time’, published in March.
Previous reforms to the SEND system, set out in the Children and Families Act 2014, sadly failed to improve provision.
Placing children and young people at the centre of the SEND system was right, but the Act’s reforms were not supported by sufficient powers or funding to allow councils to meet children’s needs, nor to hold health and education partners to account for their contributions.
The LGA understands the need for greater consistency of approach across the SEND system, including through a single, digitised, education, health and care plan (EHCP), and we welcome the clarity that will come with proposed national SEND and alternative provision standards. These set out the support that children and young people should receive, as well as which partner will be responsible for funding and delivering that support.
The focus on early identification of need and providing early support is also welcome, and central to improving outcomes. However, we cannot forget our early years settings, which must be funded so they too can fulfil their role.
Given the scale of the proposed reforms, the LGA is concerned that the £70 million for the change programme will be insufficient: we believe the Department for Education (DfE) needs to keep this under review and provide additional funding if required.
We are also concerned that the improvement plan does not include proposals to give councils additional powers to lead SEND systems effectively.
It is not possible or desirable for the DfE or the Department of Health and Social Care to build the capacity and expertise to hold partners to account in the detail needed for cooperation on both developing and delivering local plans.
Councils, education settings and integrated care boards must, instead, be accountable to each other, not Whitehall.
Improving levels of mainstream inclusion will be crucial to the success of any reforms. We therefore welcome the proposal to underpin national standards with legislation to facilitate intervention if standards are not met.
The introduction of these intervention powers will be crucial in impressing on all mainstream education settings the need to take an inclusive approach. This will, in turn, reduce the use of special schools and independent, non-maintained special schools, and relieve pressure on councils’ high needs budgets – as well as improve outcomes for SEND children.
To ensure action is taken quickly where poor practice is identified, these powers should, however, sit with councils, and not the DfE.
We are concerned that the improvement plan will raise the expectations of children, parents and carers of what a reformed SEND system will be able to deliver, and by when.
Parental confidence in a new SEND system will be crucial if it is to work effectively. The Government must be careful to manage expectations about the pace of reform, given the planned timetable.