Government plans to change the way special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support is funded could deepen the current “crisis”, experts have warned.
Devolving more money to schools would be a more effective way of tackling the problems, according to a group of experts from academia, research, policy consultancies, local authorities and voluntary organisations.
The SEND Green Paper set out government plans to develop a national framework of funding bands and tariffs.
Under this, specific types of education provision would be clustered into different bands, with tariffs setting the rules and prices commissioners use to pay providers.
However, a paper written by the SEN Policy Research Forum group states that this system is “likely to reinforce” problems and “could even make them worse”.
Funding should be devolved to schools
This, the paper says, is partly because some definitions of additional needs are “predominantly social or behavioural” - meaning they are “subjective and therefore difficult to fit into bands”.
Dr Peter Gray, the group’s coordinator, said the proposals also fail to acknowledge inequalities in funding received by different local authorities.
Instead of the tariff system outlined by the government, a proportion of the funding that is currently held centrally should be devolved to schools or groups of schools to manage themselves, Dr Gray said.
He added that this would enable schools to make decisions on how best to make necessary adjustments for pupils.
Experts also said there is “limited evidence” that the government’s Safety Valve programme, which helps bail out local authorities with high-needs deficits if they reform their provision, is having “a significant impact on financial sustainability”.
The forum has published a policy framework setting out the areas of the system it thinks need development.
Experts have also called for a clearer definition of what an inclusive system looks like, with developed accountability mechanisms to ensure all schools are inclusive.
This would include changes to the inspection system and more evaluation of the effectiveness of the national system.
The DfE has been contacted for comment.
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