Executive summary

CSDG welcomes the Public Accounts Committee’s inquiry into support for children and young people with SEN, which follows the recent publication of the National Audit Office’s (NAO) report.
CSDG’s position is that critical to driving forward improvements in the support that is provided to SEN students, both within mainstream and specialist settings, is closer joined up working between the Department for Education, local authorities and education providers, including the independent sector which provides the majority of very high needs placements.
Reform of the SEN system has come into greater focus following the General Election, with a commitment of a billion in additional funding for SEN announced in the recent Budget.
Alongside enhancing the ability of mainstream settings to support more pupils with SEN, we must see far greater partnership working between local authorities and independent providers to ensure the system can provide sufficiency for a wide spectrum of needs.

Performance of the system

As outlined in the NAO’s report, there are broadly two categories of support for children with SEN based on the acuity of their need. Most children and young people will receive additional support at school. Those with the most complex needs, whose Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan determines cannot be met within a mainstream setting, will receive care and education from a specialist provider such as one of CSDG’s members.
As of January 2024, the number of children and young people with an EHC Plan reached 576,000, an increase of 58,914 (11.4%) from January 2023 [1]. While we welcome the increase in the number of pupils whose needs are being evaluated to ensure that they can receive the appropriate level of care and education, this increase has put pressure on a system that is already under strain and recovering from the impact of Covid-19.
Across the country, local authorities, the independent and not-for-profit sectors are responsible for ensuring and overseeing the effective delivery of education and care services for those with SEN.
We must collectively acknowledge and celebrate the tireless efforts of a sector and workforce that strives to ensure that vulnerable children and young people are educated in a happy and safe environment that also facilitates a stable transition into adulthood.
However, there are serious structural challenges that the sector must overcome, with a lack of suitable provision to support a huge spectrum of complex needs and deliver child-centric outcomes.
The sector’s inability to meet increasing demand for EHC Plans and high needs placements has created an issue of placement churn, where children and young people are placed in settings unable to meet their needs and are subject to frequent transfers across settings.
In addition to creating unnecessary stress and anxiety for the individual, this has sadly resulted in a breakdown in trust between parents and carers, and education providers.

The overall picture on the support available and outcomes achieved for those with SEN

It is CSDG’s view that a “perfect storm” has emerged from tightening local authority budgets and an increase in demand for high needs placements, which means that children and young people are waiting too long for an accurate assessment of their needs and to receive appropriate education.
CSDG welcomes the previous government’s decision to bring forward the extensive SEND Review, which culminated in the publication of the SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan. However, these reforms, particularly the National Standards and Change Programme, were being implemented at too slow of a pace to make a significant improvement in the support available to and outcomes achieved for those with SEN.
CSDG welcomes that SEN has come into greater focus under the new government. The decision to move the SEN brief into the remit of the Schools Standards Minister is also welcome and clearly reflective of the government’s ambition to boost the inclusivity of SEN in mainstream education.
CSDG is supportive of this ambition and recognises that for many children and young people, mainstream settings can or certainly should be able to support their needs and deliver good outcomes. The recent Budget commitment of a £1 billion year-on-year uplift for SEND funding will help to improve this.
However, there will always be a cohort of children and young people with acute needs whose requirements are significantly greater than their SEN peers. Our members are proud to educate these students and ensure their settings can prioritise their needs by tailoring their education services, providing a well-trained workforce that is equipped to support a range of physical, emotional and intellectual needs, and championing innovative new approaches to education.

Government action to create a more sustainable SEN system and restore confidence

Partnership working with the independent sector

CSDG welcomes the recent clarity from government over its plans to apply VAT to private school fees, with confirmation that for students who attend a specialist school upon recommendation of their EHC Plan and therefore their place is funded by the local authority (LA), the LA will be able to reclaim the VAT they are charged.
This clarification is essential and demonstrative of the government’s understanding that SEN students with acute needs often require specialist support that can only be met by the independent sector.
Going forwards, CSDG would greatly welcome the opportunity to work more closely with the Department for Education, local authorities and education providers to ensure the needs of all children and young people with SEN can be met in either mainstream or specialist provision, with a sufficiency of suitable placements in all types of settings.
This joined-up working will also help with commissioning to ensure that appropriate provision is commissioned the first time around to address the issue of placement churn.
CSDG believes that a suitable platform for this joined-up working could be the Local SEND and AP Partnerships that were committed to as part of the SEND and AP Improvement Plan to bring together local partners to plan and commission SEN services.

Reform of EHC Plans

CSDG has been a longstanding advocate of reform to EHC Plans to simplify the process, speed up assessments, and restore some of the confidence and trust in the system that parents and carers have lost over recent years.
CSDG greatly welcomed the SEND and AP Improvement Plan’s commitment to digitise EHC Plans, creating a secure and central location for families, carers and professions to upload and view key information regarding a child or young person’s plan.
Despite some initial concerns around accessibility, for the majority of the population digital platforms are popular and easy to use, demonstrated by the widespread uptake of the NHS Covid-19 app during the height of the pandemic. A similar template could be deployed for EHC Plans and should be introduced as an urgent priority.

Speeding up the building and registration of new services

The independent sector is eager to complement the government’s investment in SEN provision in mainstream schools by increasing specialist provision that can cater to children across a spectrum of complex needs.
However, there are consistent registration delays and constraints which act as barriers to the development of new specialist provision, which has implications for the pace and effectiveness of commissioning decisions.
We would like to see the planning and registration process of SEN services streamlined and sped up so that the independent sector can help to fill the immediate gaps in high needs provision that already exists.

About CSDG

CSDG is a coalition of leading independent providers of care and specialist education services for children and young people with complex needs. We have worked and campaigned together since 2006, championing outcomes-focused care and education for looked-after children and those with SEN.

Our members are Aurora Group, Compass Community, Horizon Care and Education, Pebbles, Polaris and SENAD Group. As an organisation, we support more than 16,500 children and young people, and 87% of our education provision, 90% of our residential homes and 95% of our fostering provision are rated Good and Outstanding by Ofsted.

November 2024