A programme to test key government special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reforms is “nine months behind schedule”, and some of the proposals are going down like “a bucket of cold sick”, a conference has been told.
The School and Academies Show 2024, held in London today, has heard from leaders who are involved in a Change Programme testing some of the reforms in the government’s SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan.
Olive Academies CEO Mark Vickers, who is part of a consortium of organisations working with the department to run the programme, told the event it was nine months behind schedule and that this was “down to, particularly, the start-up phase”.
Amanda Allard, director of the Council for Disabled Children, who is also involved in the programme, told the same event that three parts of the Change Programme were “going down like cold sick”.
‘Take a second look’, DfE urged
These were standardising the format of education, health and care plans (EHCPs), creating an advisory tailored list of settings for children to attend and introducing mandatory mediation when families are not happy with a council decision or provision.
Speaking to Tes after the event, she said: “The improvement plan had to wait for ministerial sign-off. During a really critical part of that process, there were significant government changes.
“We want to encourage the Department for Education to take a second look at whether the current challenging environment for SEND is the best possible environment for trialling some of the reforms.”
Ms Allard said the idea of standardising EHCPs is an area where “some local areas have been reluctant as they’ve put a lot of time and energy into co-producing their own templates and approaches”.
The government is pushing ahead with plans for tailored lists of providers for children with SEND, despite some concerns from parents during the consultation process.
The Change Programme is being run across nine different areas, each including multiple local authorities, to test key elements of the SEND and AP improvement plan.
Ms Allard added: “There is a danger that, with current capacity issues in special schools and AP provision, schools on those lists may not have places available, so testing is more problematic.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “We are actively delivering against our SEND and AP improvement plan, reforming the system across the country with earlier intervention, consistent high standards and less bureaucracy.
“One element of the plan - our Change Programme - started slightly later than anticipated but is on track to meet our objectives.
“The programme is intended to test proposed reforms, and the department is working closely with local authorities to understand how the reforms are working in practice.”
Continuing the reforms
The Council for Disabled Children is part of the REACH consortium, whose contract to help run the Change Programme runs until March 2025, Ms Allard explained during her presentation.
After that point, the government of the day will have to make a decision about whether to continue testing the reforms.
“Given the size of the problem and the fact that it’s not going to go away, I think we’re reasonably confident that a new government are unlikely to just chuck it all out,” she added.
SEND and AP improvement plan
The SEND and AP improvement plan was published last year and marked the latest step in a bid to improve provision for those with SEND that started almost five years ago.
In 2019, then education secretary Gavin Williamson launched a SEND review amid warnings that a generation of young people was being let down.
The completion of this review was delayed during the Covid-19 pandemic but resulted in a SEND Green Paper being published in 2022.
A year later, in response to the consultation on that Green Paper, the DfE published its improvement plan.
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