Teachers could be forgiven for being disinclined to pay much attention to the government at the moment.
Ministers seem to have little interest in negotiating an end to the pay dispute, even as new figures show the desperate state of teacher recruitment.
The leaked messages between former health secretary Matt Hancock and ex-education secretary Sir Gavin Williamson dismissing teacher unions as workshy during the pandemic will only strengthen the apparently mutual contempt between the profession and government.
Nevertheless, it is worth engaging with the long-awaited special educational needs and disability (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) improvement plan if only to understand the difficulties of policymaking in the current environment.
SEND plan shows why change is so difficult
Indeed, the whole thing is an allegory of why it’s so hard to make anything work in this country.
For a start, it’s taken over three and a half years, since the review was launched, to even get to this point.
Over that period six different ministers under six different secretaries of state have been responsible for the policy, so it’s hardly surprising progress has been slow and bumpy.
And where have we got to? The Green Paper early last year set out a fair analysis of the problems with our current SEND system: the frustration of parents at inconsistencies in processes and outcomes; the misuse of AP as a long-term dumping ground for young people who could be given a second chance in mainstream education; the spiralling costs of a dysfunctional system.
Will the plans be implemented?
The Green Paper’s proposed solutions - such as national standards/payments and a simplified process for applications - were by no means perfect but most saw them as having potential for real improvement.
There was concern among parents about some of the apparent cost-saving measures, particularly mandatory mediation and a narrower choice of schools for those children with an education, health and care plan (EHCP). But again, there was hope that a sensible consultation process would iron things out.
The “plan” released this week, though, while written in the standard technocratic language of such things, is close to an admission of defeat.
There will be no legislation in this Parliament, and none of the core elements of the plan can happen without that.
If we assume that Labour retain enough of their current poll lead to win power next year, it will be up to them to legislate, and they will have their own priorities and ideas.
They have said little about SEND but it’s unlikely they’ll want to make this contentious topic a focus of their first bill, even if they agree with at least some of the content.
Lack of funding
Perhaps even more importantly, there’s barely any money attached to the proposals.
A £70 million change programme will not make any meaningful difference to the affordability of the SEND system, which is driving multiple local authorities towards bankruptcy.
Clearly part of the rationale for these proposals is to bring down costs but the first rule of any serious attempt at comprehensive reform - which this would be if done properly - is that you have to invest upfront to release savings.
If overworked Sendcos, local authority leads and special school trusts are not given any resourcing to deal with the changes, while also running the current system, then the changes won’t happen.
Huge amounts of additional training are envisioned - but it’s unclear how any time will be made for this to happen.
Exactly the same mistakes are being made in the implementation of the MacAlister report on children’s social care.
Even where positive change could happen without cost, the government has backed off.
The Green Paper proposed enabling local authorities to force academy trusts to taken students who had previously been excluded from other schools.
This is necessary to enable AP to become a turnaround system for young people who need a second chance, as some trusts refuse to participate properly in fair access protocols.
But this has now been watered down to the point where it’s not clear how it would be different from the current system.
The need for political consensus
This is a case study in why governments that aren’t prepared to - or are unable to - invest either parliamentary time or financial resources in reform shouldn’t try. There will now be 18 months of effort put into developing national standards and tariffs.
Busy school leaders will have to read pages of guidance and planning documentation.
And then we’ll have a new government that either starts all over again from scratch, or at the very least spends months or years reviewing the whole thing. Meanwhile, costs will keep rising, parents will keep being frustrated and schools will struggle to cope with a broken system.
I’m generally not a fan of cross-party commissions: consensus can be overrated. But if there was ever a time to have such a commission, it was for this.
An issue where the problems are obvious to all, the solutions are tricky and technical, and a programme of reform is likely to cross multiple Parliaments and require agreement on investment.
Instead we have the same old litany of mistakes and I fear we’ll end up with the same result.
Sam Freedman is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and a former senior policy adviser at the Department for Education
