Part Three: What concerns remain for parents of children with SEND?
The Department for Education has published its Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan. This is the outcome of a long process where parents and carers were consulted about changing the SEND and AP system. Parentkind responded to government citing evidence from 276 parents of children with SEND who completed our online poll about the proposed changes.
In examining the proposals, Parentkind’s reservations can be summarised in two key points:
1. How long will it take for families to secure the provision their child needs?
The DfE’s roadmap suggests that the actions they will take to create a national system underpinned by national standards for SEND and AP are scheduled to be implemented by the end of 2025. Although a lot of groundwork will begin this year, the reforms will come too late, or may seem a long way off, for families already needing support in finding suitable education provision for their child, but who face an adversarial system. A £70 million “change programme” – which will run for two to three years in certain local authorities – will pilot the proposed changes first. This is expected to take a few years, and the changes will be finalised after that.
2. Will SEND and AP provision be adequately funded?
The plan acknowledges that providing financial sustainability will have to underpin the successful implementation of the proposals. The plan says that the government will, “Invest £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to fund new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision. We are approving a tranche of applications from local authorities to open new special free schools in their area… This is in addition to 92 open special free schools and a further 49 which are in the delivery pipeline. This will mean that more children and young people have timely access to sufficient local special school places.” It goes on to specify: “£400 million of the £2 billion additional funding for schools, announced in the Autumn Statement, will be allocated to local authorities’ high needs budgets in 2023–24. In 2023–24, high needs funding will be rising to £10.1 billion — an increase of over 50% from the 2019–20 allocations.” However, during an APPG meeting parliamentarians heard that the issue of funding for SEND isn’t currently lessening, and more councils are struggling to budget for increasing demand and more EHCPs. A data analyst for the National Education Union said that the number of children that have high levels of additional needs has doubled since 2015, but finding has only increased by 80%, creating a gap of around £3 billion per year. This is leading to Local Authorities carrying huge deficits. Part of the government’s intention is to improve capacity and to reduce the need for EHCPs to ensure there is less demand on the system and it is better able to cope. Whether or not this will prove sufficient to overcome the funding concerns of educationalists will be revealed during the implementation of the reforms. Undoubtedly though, funding of SEND and AP will be closely monitored by the sector to ensure that the proposals are being delivered and providing the positive change that so many families need.
Additionally, the Shadow Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has asked the Children’s Minister about reducing demand for the number of EHCPs. Phillipson sought, “reassurance to parents, already facing an adversarial system, that an EHCP will not become more difficult to obtain for children who do need that level of support.”
