In the News
The government has released its long-awaited review of provision for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
A green paper proposes a series of reforms to SEND provision and there is an opportunity to feedback on them through a consultation.
The green paper can be found on the DfE’s website and the consultation is open until 1 July. As part of the consultation, the Department for Education (DfE) is also proposing reforms to alternative provision, while the schools white paper was also published the day before.
The review continues work started by The Children and Families Act 2014, which many considered to be well-intentioned but incomplete legislation. So does the new green paper complete the work started in 2014?
The green paper is jam-packed with proposals but is as notable for what it doesn’t do as what it does.
I’ve been writing for a while about the shortcomings, not so much with the educational provision for people with SEND, but with the funding and commissioning of that provision. One of the key problems has been the role of local authorities which oversee and commission provision.
Last year, while I was still with FE Week, I reported on a suite of Ofsted inspections into local authorities’ SEND work, which found many families of young people with SEND saw support drop off a ‘cliff edge’ once their young person was over school age. This included local authorities’ not regularly updating young peoples’ education, health, and care plans (EHCPs, which outline the support each child and young person with SEND needs between the ages 0 to 25).
Councils were also accused of not turning up to annual reviews of EHCPs and of refusing to work on transitioning young people with SEND from school to further education or employment until the very moment they turned 18, hampering an effective and comfortable transition.
Commons education select committee chair Robert Halfon wrote for Schools Week last week about how local authorities, social care, and health providers have been “shifting responsibility” for children and young people with SEND.
Yet the green paper seems to have little in the way of recognition or recommendations about this. There is a brief section on holding local authorities accountable but is greater action needed on local authorities? The SEND blog Special Needs Jungle has published a great piece on accountability and the green paper, well worth your time.
The green paper does not focus much on post-16 SEND provision at all really, as specialist post-16 provider network Natspec’s chief executive Clare Howard has highlighted.
Political OVErview
Associate director of Public First Ed Reza Schwitzer, who previously worked on policy for vulnerable and disadvantaged children at the DfE, highlights his concerns about how SEND reforms will be implemented.
The fact that we are sat here with a SEND green paper which is longer and (arguably) more ambitious than the accompanying schools white paper is a testament to the hard work of a few key, passionate people in DfE. Well done to them also for the unusually humble tone of the paper in addressing previous policy failures that have led us to this point. For too many in the department and the wider sector, SEND is a niche issue confined to the side-lines. It should not and cannot be; it is absolutely vital and affects hundreds of thousands of children and parents right across the country.
The paper correctly diagnoses the shocking status quo – a combination of appalling outcomes, a system that is nigh on impossible to navigate, and an unsustainable financial picture. Of course, much of this is not new. Edward Timpson said of the 2014 reforms: “For too long, families have found themselves battling against a complex and fragmented system. These reforms ensure support fits in with their needs and not the other way round…” That obviously didn’t happen.
Indeed, the 2014 reforms actively made some of these problems worse – for example, financial sustainability issues caused by incorrectly estimating the impact of extending support to age 25.
There are though some very welcome announcements. At the top of that list, a long-awaited attempt to clearly define roles and responsibilities in the system, between local authorities (LAs), the department, schools/colleges, and other major players. It is also to the department’s credit that they have considered LAs’ potential need for greater backstop powers on admissions, something I would wholeheartedly support.
For too many in the department and the wider sector, SEND is a niche issue confined to the side-lines
My concerns lie less around the vision and much more around implementation, particularly the implications of what I see as a system being made to rely even more on the DfE.
The headline announcement in the paper is that the department will create a new ‘national’ system of SEND and AP, with ‘consistency’ as the desired outcome: “These standards would make consistent the provision, processes and systems that should be made available across the country for every child and young person with SEND...”
This puts it at the department’s door to actively set out standards of provision and develop incentives in the system that drive the right behaviours.
This puts the SEND green paper at odds with, for example, the logic of academisation, which was all about putting power into the hands of school leaders. And it arguably puts it at odds with much of the current levelling up agenda – which is increasingly about devolving powers to local areas.
So to support this direction of travel, one would need to have confidence that the department (and specifically the department under this colour of government), rather than LAs, is the right body to determine not only the objectives of the SEND and AP system, but also how it is delivered.
And that’s where my support for the proposals wanes. Because if Covid has taught us anything, it’s that the department is poor at setting clear, consistent guidance, and equally poor at engaging collaboratively with LAs on the details of delivery on the ground.
“What’s the alternative?” I hear you ask. Well, the DfE agrees that some of the biggest problems with the current system are a lack of early identification of need and poor multi-agency working. My plea would be to look at the root cause of those problems. Because the reality, as any director of children’s services will tell you, is that there is a fundamental lack of strategic capacity within LAs and other partners to do this vital work. LAs are stuck in a cycle of firefighting, unable to do the preventative and multi-agency work that the department will now be telling them they ought to be. And the more firefighting they do, the more issues about SEND and wider children’s services pile up.
So let’s hope that following this consultation, DfE focuses more on empowering local leaders and systems to improve, and less on making itself the author and arbiter of best practice.
Sector Overview
Natspec chief executive Clare Howard sets out how the SEND green paper falls short in its support for the FE sector.
Pressures across the system… delays… frustration… financial pressure… low confidence… failing to deliver… just a few of the phrases littered throughout the SEND green paper. This long list of challenges has been documented in multiple reports since the 2014 SEND reforms.
In 2019, the Education Select Committee demanded quick action after finding “a treacle of bureaucracy” and an “absence of responsibility,” with the government “presiding serenely over chaos” in the SEND system.
There was nothing quick about the SEND review, but does the green paper promise the action we need? Despite some helpful proposals (standardised digital ECHPs, for example), its aim to “set out a plan to deliver improved outcomes, restore parents’ and carers’ confidence and secure financial sustainability” has not been achieved. There’s no plan in the green paper, just a set of broad proposals lacking detail on implementation.
Having spent years presenting evidence to DfE about the role of specialist colleges, Natspec was disappointed they were barely mentioned. So, in the absence of a government plan, we will be using the consultation to write our own, filling the gaps to show how the proposals might work for FE.
For example, the government proposes statutory consistent national standards for provision. We will argue that in setting out “the full range of appropriate types of support and placements for meeting different needs,” these standards should fully acknowledge how needs change as students move from childhood to adulthood, so support required in college could differ from school.
It is hardly fair nearly 30 per cent of EHCPs are held by those over the age of 16 while they are allocated less than 10 per cent of funding
Standards need to set out the specialist provision required for young people with very complex needs or low incidence SEN, but they should not rely on narrow definitions of primary need. Two young people with the same impairment may not share any personal circumstances, aptitude for study or aspirations in common. The standards also need to include unequivocal guidance on when EHCPs should be maintained beyond the age of 19, or first issued to a young person aged 19 or over. Most importantly, there should be accountability measures if the standards are not upheld.
Another proposal is new local SEND partnerships, “convened by LAs who will continue to hold responsibility for high needs funding”. What must change is LAs’ habit of excluding post-16 from planning and funding decisions. Partnerships should be mandated to include representation from general and specialist FE, equivalent to mainstream and special schools.
The children and families minister Will Quince recently told MPs, “The department does not prescribe in detail how local authorities should allocate their high needs funding… spending decisions should be fair and reasonable.” From now on, either the government must prescribe proportionate representation and funding to 16-25 providers or define “fair and reasonable”. It is hardly fair nearly 30 per cent of EHCPs are held by those over the age of 16 while they are allocated less than 10 per cent of funding.
Local SEND partnerships will write strategic local inclusion plans, “setting out the provision that should be commissioned”. The issue for FE here is the regional nature of both general and specialist providers.
There is a big disconnect at DfE between those responsible for FE policy, who are busy implementing skills reforms across wider than local areas; and the SEND team who work within a local schools-based geography. It is essential the plans work across boundaries to avoid duplicating highly specialist provision in every local area.
The 2014 SEND reforms were the right ones, but they need stronger accountability measures. But where accountability lies is contentious. The Local Government Association hopes new reforms will give local councils “backstop powers to hold education partners to account”; while providers hope DfE will hold local authorities accountable. Parents and families are stuck in the middle.
The green paper missed the opportunity to clarify these measures. New legislation must not completely re-write the 2014 reforms – government must avoid watering down duties or making fundamental changes to the law. It should focus on strengthening accountability, and work with Natspec, AoC and other post-16 bodies to create a far stronger vision for FE students with SEND.
There cannot be another missed opportunity for the specialist FE sector to have its contribution acknowledged and to shape the system so it works for young people.