Written evidence submitted by The Information, Advice and Support Services Network

(SFC0047)

Submission from the IASSN on behalf of SENDIAS services in England to the call for evidence by the Public Accounts Committee on Support for children and young people with special educational needs

About the Information, Advice and Support Network

As part of the Children and Families Act 2014 it is a legal requirement that all local authorities ensure children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) & their parents have access to an impartial Information, Advice and Support (IAS) service. The IASSN are funded by the Department for Education (DfE) to support this.

We do this by:

• Working with the SENDIAS services to ensure they have the resources and legal training to provide high quality information, advice and support to children, young people and parents in their area.           
• Listening to and working with SENDIASS' to understand their challenges and successes in order to feedback to the DfE to implement positive and necessary change.
• Working with SENDIAS services and other stakeholders to develop and promote the standards for SENDIAS services

The IASS Network is based within the Council for Disabled Children in the National Children's Bureau.

SENDIAS services provide impartial, confidential, free and legally based information, advice and support to children, young people and parents on education, health and social care. They are at ‘arms length’ from local authorities and 65% are jointly commissioned with health and/or social care. They are very small services with a mean average of 3.87 FTE staffing and a range of 0.8 – 13.32. In spite of this their impact is significant as reported in Wolverhampton’s Ofsted/CQC report:

Wolverhampton  - Ofsted/CQC published November 2021

Wolverhampton Impartial Advice and Support Service (WIASS) is a ‘lifeline’ to many parents, carers, young people and schools. When these stakeholders are aware of this service, they speak of the life-changing effect on the quality of provision for young people. However, too many families are not yet aware of the service and what it offers

Our main submission is a summary of some independent research carried out in the South West, looking at the impact of SENDIAS services, including impact on costs to local authority high needs budgets. We have also included an extract from our national data report which looks at the role of SENDIAS services in reducing the need for Tribunals.

In 2023-2024’s data reporting, SENDIASs service managers self-reported, including providing anecdotal evidence of how, that their service helped avoid an average of 43 Tribunals a year- primarily through fostering positive communication between children, young people and families and their local authority. Considering there are 151 services, this equates to 6493 Tribunals over the course of the year.

In 2016, the Department for Education commissioned CEDAR to look into SEND dispute resolution agreements. CEDAR published their report in March 2017. They concluded that Tribunal’s were estimated to cost the LA between £3500- £11000 per case. Even if we took the lower end of that figure, SENDIASs would have saved LA’s twenty-two million and seven hundred thousand pounds. Taking the upper end, they would be savings LA’s over seven hundred and fourteen million pounds.

The combined cost of every SENDIASs budget on 2023-24 stood at twenty-three and a half million pounds. This alone shows the benefits of an adequately funded SENDIASs.

You can find the full data report here:

The Impact of Special Educational Needs and Disability Information, Advice and Support (SENDIAS) services in the Southwest Region

Executive summary

Introduction

All Local Authorities in England have a statutory duty to provide information advice and support (IAS) to families of children and young people (CYP) with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and to report annually on the effectiveness of this support.

SENDIAS services commissioned to deliver IAS to families routinely report on service user experience, with national data collection demonstrating that services are highly regarded by parent carers and CYP.

Some services in the Southwest collect and report additional information from service users, however this is inconsistent. Few of the services report on the financial savings to Local Authority high needs budgets resulting from their support. Nationally, evidence for the contribution made by SENDIAS services to Local Authority financial sustainability is weak. This research aimed to address this gap.

Methodology

The research was commissioned by the Southwest SENDIASS Network to investigate the impact of the delivery of IAS services in the region in relation to:

1.   Outcomes for CYP with SEND and their families and

2.   Financial sustainability of Local Authorities high needs budgets

Twelve SENDIAS services across the Southwest participated in the research. Participating services were asked to provide existing information about the impact of their services from service user feedback, annual reports, case studies and reports to commissioners. Services also provided additional case studies to demonstrate the impact of approaches and financial information about the cost of SEND provision for CYP at different levels of support and in different placements.

Targeted surveys asking about impact were sent to families selected at random. In each of these cases, the SENDIASS worker and other professionals involved in the case were also asked for their views.

Results

Impact of SENDIAS services on parent carers and CYP

72 surveys were completed by parent carers. Only one young person returned a survey. To maintain the anonymity of this service user, their feedback was not analysed separately as part of the research. 96 professionals including SENDIASS officers completed surveys. 35 case studies were analysed.

Analysis of the parent carer/ CYP surveys showed that:

• 59% of participants said the type of educational setting their CYP attended
• following SENDIASS involvement did not change.
• 51% of the participants reported that the kind of support the CYP received in their educational setting did not change following SENDIASS involvement.
• 31% reported that neither the type of educational setting nor the kind of support changed.
• 79% of participants said that other things changed after involving SENDIASS. 93% of these participants said that some things got better. Of these participants,
• 87% felt listened to
• 85% found out new information 83% learnt about their rights
• 70% felt less worried, upset or angry
• 68% said their CYP received better support
• 68% said their CYP’s needs were understood better 43% said their CYP felt less worried, upset or angry

Comments also demonstrated that SENDIAS services have a significant positive impact and result in parent carers:

• Being able to navigate the SEND system, feeling empowered, having someone to advocate for their family
• Knowing about the support available, their legal rights and the choices available
• Feeling listened to, improved well-being, the reassurance of SENDIASS being there when needed

Comments also highlighted the impact of SENDIAS services on CYP:

• CYP receive the right support at the right time and access education
• Improved outcomes: emotional health, academic, behaviour, relationships and independence
• CYP’s views are heard, and their needs are better understood

Analysis showed that SENDIASS involvement improved responses from Local Authorities and educational settings and encouraged services, educational settings and families to work together more effectively.

Financial sustainability of Local Authorities high needs budgets

Comments were made in the professional survey and case studies about how the involvement of SENDIASS prevented situations from escalating. Examples included parent carers who decided not to request an education health and care (EHC) needs assessment or a special school place, disagreement resolution at mediation avoiding tribunal hearings and permanent exclusions avoided. Each of these cases resulted in increased costs being avoided, contributing to the financial sustainability of Local Authority high needs budgets.

The average cost saving across 10 examples identified in the professional feedback in the randomly selected cases was £13.3k. Approximately 10% of the cases fell into the category of having avoided escalation and therefore contributed to financial sustainability of Local Authority high needs budgets. This suggests that a relatively small SENDIAS service supporting 600 families will save a Local Authority high needs budget approximately £798k per annum. A large SENDIAS service supporting 2700 families will save the budget over £3.5 million.

Case studies describing the impact of targeted intervention also provided evidence of avoidance of escalation and cost savings to Local Authorities. One case study described the impact of a new targeted SEN support role, offering early intervention to 41 families. Following intervention, parent carers had increased confidence in schools meeting their children’s needs and 53% of families who said they were considering requesting an EHC needs assessment did not go onto do so. In a similar larger scale, 74% of families support did not go onto request an EHC needs assessment as parent carers felt confident needs could be met at SEN support.

Enablers and challenges

The two biggest enablers to SENDIAS services having a positive impact were relationships and knowledge and understanding. The two biggest challenges to SENDIAS services having a positive impact were capacity and demand pressures, and responses from schools.

Capacity and demand pressures were particularly relevant to financial sustainability of high needs budgets. All of the services reported increases in referrals from one year to the next from 17% to 54%. Most services had not been funded to increase capacity to meet this demand, and some had experienced reductions in staffing.

The potential risk of reduced capacity (either because of increased demand or actual cuts to services) on outcomes for parent carers, CYP and the sustainability of Local Authority high needs budgets was evident. Although examples of avoiding escalation could be seen at every level of intervention in the professional survey responses, the case study examples demonstrating even higher levels of potential savings were focused on earlier intervention. In some services, reduced capacity means that less of this work is now happening. The findings of this research suggest that this shift in delivery may be a false economy. Although Local Authorities may save money in the short term by either reducing funding or failing to increase funding to SENDIAS services, these savings are likely to be far outweighed by increased costs to high needs budgets.

This report was independently researched and compiled by
Dr Gabrielle Stacey – SEND Consultant. The full report and additional evidence on the work and impact of SENDIAS services is available from the IASSN.

November 2024