The number of new education, health and care plans (EHCPs) issued in 2022 continued its relentless upward trajectory, with a seven per cent increase on the previous calendar year, according to new figures released by the Department for Education (DfE) yesterday.
When carrying out an education, health and care needs assessment (EHCNA) that will result in an EHCP, local authorities have a duty under the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Regulations 2014 to issue the final plan within 20 weeks of the initial request.
Yet this was achieved in only 50.7 per cent of cases. The previous year, it was 59.9 per cent: a drop of almost 10 per cent in lawful timeliness.
With the numbers involved, this stark failure is disappointing but not surprising. The scale of the challenge is clear:
Chronic lack of special-school capacity
The majority of EHCNA requests originate in mainstream schools as need is identified and additional support required for individual children.
From this a small but significant number should, in the opinions of families and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) coordinators, result in children transitioning to special schools for more suitable, tailored education.
But we are increasingly experiencing that there are no special school places available. Tes reported yesterday that the crisis in alternative provision can no longer be ignored, and the same is true of special schools and resourced provision places.
In the case of SEND, in early March the government announced the “transformational reform”: 33 local authorities to have new special free schools, in addition to 49 already said to be in the pipeline; £2.6 billion investment in alternative and specialist provision by 2025.
But is this enough? With a dearth of easily accessible data regarding special-school capacity, it appears impossible to verify.
Furthermore, the DfE doesn’t yet capture data on requests by families for special-school places, and the numbers rejected. SEND tribunal statistics demonstrate a huge increase in referrals to appeals and mediation, with a resultant growing backlog. Most outcomes found in favour of families, against local authorities (LAs), too.
As such, while new special schools are a welcome initiative, the intended timescales lack the urgency to tackle the immediate crisis.
‘Operation Safety Valve’ and ‘Delivering Better Value’
Meanwhile the government is currently running two schemes to “support local authorities to improve delivery of SEND services for children and young people while ensuring services are sustainable”, according to an October guidance document.
Operation Safety Valve has “agreed” high needs reforms and savings targets for local authorities with the highest dedicated school grant deficits. So far, 34 agreements have been published and a further 20 have been agreed.
These LAs will receive millions of pounds in central government funding. In return they are expected to balance their books with regards to SEND spending as soon as possible.
Delivering Better Value “invited” the 55 local authorities with the next highest SEND deficits to work with external agencies the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and Newton Europe to “improve delivery of SEND services for children and young people while ensuring services are sustainable”.
These agreements “will hold the local authorities to account for delivery of reforms to their high needs systems, so that they can function sustainably and therefore in the best interests of the children and young people they serve”.
The four pillars of delivery are:
- Early intervention focus.
- Increased SEN support to reduce the number of referrals for EHCPs.
- Review EHCP procedures and thresholds.
- Culture change and work with school leaders.
Undoubtedly improvements and savings are possible. But, ominously, the DfE states: “If the conditions set in the agreements are not being met, we will not hesitate to withhold payments.”
There appears to be a disconnect in the disparate nature of these undertakings with local authorities caught in an impossible situation of expectations: improve inclusion and outcomes; ensure lawfulness and provision; work positively with school leaders and Sendcos; reduce spending.
What’s more, to add pressure to this boiling pot, the SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan in March committed to the creation of a local and national inclusion dashboard from autumn 2023 to “support the development of local inclusion plans, giving parents improved transparency of local performance, informing decision-making and driving self-improvement across the system”.
Essentially, another league table on performance with the onus on LAs and schools to evidence their prowess to parents.
Antagonistic and burdensome
All this at a time of rising demand and falling budgets means local authorities, schools, Sendcos and, most importantly, families continue to feel the burden and the stress of this broken system.
Local authorities are left with no option but to place children with the highest level of need in mainstream schools, as special schools are overwhelmed.
It also means that allocated top-up funding for individual children is cut.
Yet the EHCP is a legal document. Section F sets out provision required to support the child’s progress and development. The Children and Families Act 2014 states that an LA is responsible for ensuring Section F provision is funded and delivered.
In practice, though, resources allocated to schools, in terms of finances and training, are often insufficient.
Furthermore, schools have unsuitable physical environments, stubbornly large class sizes and the pressure of the national curriculum, attainment and Ofsted, not to mention the much-reported recruitment crisis of teachers and teaching assistants.
This also means families are forced to battle for the provision they should lawfully expect, usually by facing lengthy, stressful tribunal processes.
Forward-planning for social care
For schools all this is hard to manage but the real impact is on children, and ensuring there is adequate capacity and planning for the needs of adult and young adults social care in the future.
Many children with an EHCP will require support to live independently as adults, including many with significant and complex needs requiring partnership working between multiple agencies.
This has the potential to be a crisis that follows these children throughout their lives as they mature and move through an overwhelmed, underfunded system.
Families facing antagonistic systems now may have to battle every stage of their children’s lives if strategic planning in health and social care does not reflect the real, lived experience of individuals behind statistics published yesterday.
Deborah Hollingsworth is assistant principal for inclusion and Sendco at a school in north London. She has more than 20 years of experience in middle and senior leadership in both mainstream and specialist schools. She tweets at @debs_cares
