“Startling” examples of cuts to specialist provision being targeted under government Safety Valve deals have been revealed in a major analysis of plans from councils across the country.

Under Safety Valve agreements, councils receive Department for Education funding to reduce deficits in high-needs budgets, which fund support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Plans set out in documents from the majority of councils with Safety Valve deals, seen by Tes, include local authorities:

• Admitting what the deal “really means” is a reduction of education, health and care plans (EHCPs).
• Describing a reduction in EHCP assessments as “positive” without reference to pupils’ needs.
• Setting out a need to reduce “inappropriate referrals” in relation to parents’ seeking EHCP assessments.
• Targeting a 29 per cent increase in the number of pupils with EHCPs who attend mainstream schools.

The full findings, described as “deeply worrying” by one expert, come as school leaders in Safety Valve areas say the deals are making it harder for mainstream schools to meet pupils’ needs or to be inclusive.

The Independent Provider of Special Education Advice (IPSEA) charity, which shared its findings exclusively with Tes, warns that the conditions attached to Safety Valve agreements appear to “encourage local authorities to breach their statutory duties to children and young people with SEND”.

The documents shared with Tes include local authority Safety Valve monitoring reports sent to the DfE from 27 councils, along with the key performance indicators (KPIs) being used to monitor funding arrangements.

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Cambridgeshire County Council’s monitoring report sets out the conditions of its Safety Valve agreement - along with details of “what this really means”.

One such condition is to “improve decision making on awarding EHCPs”.

It adds that “what this really means” is to “increase the number of refusal to assess and refusal to issue decisions” for EHCPs.

In a briefing detailing its findings, IPSEA describes this admission as “startling”.

‘Failure’ to centre needs of children with SEND

IPSEA policy manager and report author Catriona Moore said Cambridgeshire “says the quiet part out loud” in equating better decision making with a reduction in EHCPs.

She said: “Our concern is that the Safety Valve intervention programme is purely about reducing expenditure, and fails to centre the needs of children and young people with SEND.”

The charity is also concerned about references to “inappropriate referrals” for EHC needs assessments from parents.

It highlights a Medway Council report stating that the number of EHCP requests from parents and carers “is declining”, adding that “there is further work to do to reduce the inappropriate referrals”.

The council ”assumes that the majority of parental requests for needs assessment are inappropriate”, IPSEA’s briefing warns.

Medway’s Safety Valve deal includes a condition for it to “appropriately manage the demand for EHCPs, ensuring EHCP requests are timely and appropriate and supported by education and health professionals”.

Pupils with EHCPs in mainstream settings

Other local authorities say they are implementing alternatives to the EHC needs assessment pathway, such as Hounslow’s Mainstream Inclusion Partnership.

But IPSEA warns that “this is a potentially concerning development if these alternatives bypass the statutory process, including the right to appeal”.

The briefing also raises concerns about councils taking steps to place more pupils with EHCPs educated in mainstream schools.

For example, a Bath and North East Somerset council report says there has been an audit of special schools that have “agreed to ensure that pupils whose needs can be met in mainstream are not placed in special schools; this will free up space to avoid independent school placements”.

Hounslow’s KPIs show that, by January of this year, it aimed to have 29 per cent of children with an EHCP placed in mainstream schools.

“It is not clear how these approaches tally with parents’ right to choose the placement named in Section I of a pupils’ EHCP,” IPSEA said.

The charity is also concerned that Safety Valve reports are focused mainly on reducing demand, without reference to how well pupils’ needs are being met.

In a monitoring report, Salford City Council frames a reduced number of EHC needs assessments as being “better” than a forecast number.

But IPSEA notes that “there is no information or analysis of whether this trend is meeting children and young people’s needs”.

‘Keeping the show on the road’

DfE officials maintain that efforts are being made to ensure Safety Valve plans do not detrimentally impact SEND provision.

At a recent conference, the deputy director of the DfE’s Funding Policy Unit, Tom Goldman, said the Safety Valve was not a long-term solution but was designed “to keep the show on the road” for the local authorities facing the greatest pressures.

None of the councils that have issued Section 114 notices - similar to declaring bankruptcy - had been forced to do so due to high-needs spending, Mr Goldman said. But he warned that this could happen, and added: “Our aim is to avoid that if we possibly can.”

He told the National Network of Special School for Business Professionals that the plans are “scrutinised” to ensure they “do not make any detriment to the support and outcomes for young people”.

However, IPSEA says this is called into question by the council documents it has scrutinised.

Ms Moore said that the progress reports that councils were providing to the DfE “seem entirely focused on financial targets, not children’s outcomes”.

KPIs, she said, were “all about costs...and there’s very little acknowledgement that children and young people have a legal right to special educational provision that meets their particular needs”.

A DfE spokesperson said: “Safety Valve agreements do not, under any circumstances, excuse or prevent local authorities from delivering on their statutory requirements for children and young people with SEND.

“We only make agreements with local authorities if our expert SEND advisers agree with authorities that their proposals will give children and young people a better service.”

Reduction in SEND top-up funding

Some mainstream schools appear to be struggling with the savings being targeted under Safety Valve deals.

A headteacher of a secondary school in one Safety Valve area told Tes the biggest impact on mainstream schools in their area has been a reduction in the top-up funding that schools receive for pupils with SEND who do not have an EHCP.

The head, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “There is now a flat rate of top-up funding. This is very challenging and means that it is actually more difficult for schools to be inclusive because we will have less money at a time when the number of pupils with challenging needs is increasing.”

The change “creates a series of perverse incentives”, they said, potentially encouraging schools to “flood the system, registering as many pupils with SEND as possible to ensure sufficient funding”.

It also makes it “more likely that a school will want to push for an EHCP and more likely that exclusions and suspensions will rise,” they warned.

“The reality is that the council has built up a large high-needs deficit because there isn’t enough going in,” they added.

Pupils placed wrongly in specialist settings

Special school leaders also question the aim under several Safety Valve deals to reduce the number of pupils being placed in their schools.

Warren Carratt, CEO of Nexus Multi-academy Trust, which consists of 19 special schools, questioned how many children were being placed wrongly in specialist settings, given that the vast majority of tribunal decisions are found in parents’ favour.

“The tribunal decisions reflect the failure to provide sufficient places, and reflect the reality of our state education system,” he said.

SEND overspends had been brought about by “the government’s pursuit of academic attainment above all else in mainstream”, making school “an increasingly hostile environment for marginalised learners” and pushing up demand for special schools, he said.

‘Deeply worrying’

Margaret Mulholland, SEND and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, described IPSEA’s findings as “deeply worrying”.

She said: ”[It] suggests the conditions that local authorities must fulfil as a result of Safety Valve agreements is directly impacting the support available to children and young people.

“The whole special needs system is suffering as a result of a lack of resources. Local authorities have racked up huge deficits and schools are not remotely adequately funded for this or any other purpose.”

IPSEA received responses from 27 local areas with Safety Valves. Five councils - Barnsley, Hillingdon, Southwark, Stoke-on-Trent and Wokingham - refused the Freedom of Information (FOI) request and two - Darlington and Haringey - did not respond.

Since the FOI was submitted, four more councils have agreed Safety Valve deals: Bracknell Forest, Bristol, Devon and Wiltshire.

The DfE has also said that Safety Valve agreements with Bath and North East Somerset, Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Hillingdon and Norfolk are currently under review, with payments suspended until revised agreements are reached.

IPSEA has recently been commissioned by the DfE to deliver training aimed at improving decision making among local authority SEND caseworkers across England.

The charity said the training spanned nine DfE regions and “was designed to deepen participants’ understanding of the SEND legal framework, examining local authorities’ legal obligations under the Children and Families Act 2014”.

‘Local areas struggling to meet increase in need’

This week Ofsted has published a highly critical SEND area inspection report for services in Bury - one of the first areas to agree a Safety Valve deal.

The report warned that “too many children, young people and their families have experienced limited positive change over time”.

It adds that many children and young people wait too long for some services and diagnostic pathways.

The Ofsted and Care Quality Commission report warns “there are widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND, which the local area partnership must address urgently”.

This is the worst outcome the inspectorates can give under their new framework.

Asked about this report and what it says about the Safety Valve programme at the Confederation of School Trusts SEND and Inclusion Summit, children’s minister David Johnston said: “We do think the Safety Valve programme is working, it is obviously a long-term programme where the changes will take time.

“In Bury’s case, in particular, they actually revised their plan with us quite recently.”

A statement from Bury Council and NHS Greater Manchester said they accept the findings of the SEND area inspection report.

The statement says: “It is clear that, while improvements have been made for children and young people with SEND, these have not been at the pace required.

“A major reason for this has been a huge increase in requests for support. Nationally, there has been a 60 per cent rise in the number of children with EHCPs in the last five years. In Bury, the rise has been even higher - 85 per cent over the same period.

“All local areas are struggling to meet this increase in need.”