Legally binding support plans for children with additional support needs (ASN) in Scotland are “in terminal decline”, an academic has warned.
Coordinated support plans (CSPs) are the only education documents with legal force, and outline how various services, such as education and health, need to work together to support children with additional needs.
However, according to Professor Sheila Riddell, an inclusion expert from the University of Edinburgh, while the number of children with ASN has “rapidly increased”, the number of CSPs has declined. If the trend continued, she warned, CSPs “may virtually disappear”.
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Official figures published last year show the number of Scottish pupils with ASN rose from 118,034 in 2012 to 199,065 in 2018, an increase of 68.7 per cent. Pupils identified as having an ASN now make up more than 27 per cent of the total pupil population.
Over the same period, the number of pupils with a CSP decreased from 3,448 to 1,986, a drop from 2.9 per cent to 1.0 per cent of those with ASN, about 0.3 per cent of the school population.
Professor Riddell, director of the Centre for Research in Education Inclusion and Diversity at the Moray House School of Education, said: “Thus within the Scottish context, CSPs are an essential means of ensuring the children’s rights are realised. Official statistics suggest that the number and proportion of children identified as having ASN has rapidly increased, but CSPs appear to be in terminal decline.
“In England, by way of contrast, the use of education, health and care plans (EHCPs, the CSP equivalent) has increased, and now just under 3 per cent of the school population has an EHCP.”
According to Professor Riddell, local authorities argue that they prefer to use other types of plan, such as Child’s Plans, “despite the fact that these are not specifically education documents and have no directly enforceable rights associated with them”.
May Dunsmuir, the president of the tribunal to which families and children can turn when they believe are not getting the right support in school, echoed Ms Riddell’s concerns.
Last year, cases dealt with by the tribunal hit triple figures for the first time and rose by more than a third.
Ms Dunsmuir, whose official title is president of the Health and Education Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland, said: “The Child’s Plan is not an education document and is not intended to replace the CSP. Some education authorities are citing the existence of a Child’s Plan as a reason to refuse a request for a CSP.”
She added: “Failure to provide an adequate CSP could amount to a failure to make reasonable adjustments in respect of a child’s education, which amounts to discrimination on the grounds of disability.”
Both made their comments in submissions to the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee ahead of giving evidence to MSPs on Wednesday.
The committee undertook a short inquiry into ASN in 2017 and will follow up on that work this week.
