SEN0371
Written evidence Submitted by NORFOLK COUNTY COUNCIL
In Norfolk we recognise the challenges within the SEND ‘system’ locally, regionally and nationally and we fully concur with the analysis and suggested ways forward set out in the three key reports on SEND in 2024 via the ISOS Partnership (on behalf of LGA/CCN), the NAO and IFS.
As a local area that is rated Good for our social care arrangements, has been recognised by Ofsted/CQC as addressing historic weakness areas for SEND and is innovating to further improve our SEND offer within the DfE ‘safety-valve’ framework we believe we are well placed to provide an assessment of the issues but more importantly an evidence base for a range of short, medium and long-term solutions.
We have recently met with senior DfE officials to set out our 6 recommendations based on our Local First Inclusion programme and offered to work in partnership with DfE to ensure that these recommendations, aligned with those from ISOS, NAO, IFS, can help with the SEND reforms nationally.
The key theme throughout all of the challenges that we face in Norfolk and nationally is linked to the unintended consequences of the 2014 SEND reforms, namely a reduction in the direct powers of local authorities and the inverse increase in parental expectations and lack of confidence in schools to effectively deliver within ‘SEN Support’. The combination of the C&F Act/Code of Practice regulations and subsequent case-law and LGSCO investigation outcomes has created a scenario where there is a lack of clarity, and associated lack of accountability, regarding responsibilities to identify individual C&YP SEND needs and put in place effective support early to prevent escalation of need; with subsequent requests/requirement for placement within specialist provision.
The Norfolk Local First Inclusion programme is benefitting from council capital funding of £120million to build more specialist provision and joint council/DfE revenue funding of £105million to design new services to ‘turn the tap off’ for unnecessary EHCP referrals. Our major programme of innovation is showing signs of impact, however, at every turn we are thwarted by the straight-jacket of Tribunal directions, unrealistic specificity within individual EHCPs (and the difficulty of considering ceasing to maintain EHCP’s when progress has been achieved - to celebrate success rather than ceasing to maintain being viewed negatively by parents and schools) and a lack of consistent inclusive practice across mainstream schools. The level of council investment required has had to increase through additional resources to support implementation of the programme as well as investment in services not funded by the High Needs Block, the cost of borrowing for the capital programme and the loss of interest due to carrying the DSG deficit, and the consequential cost of home to school transport for SEND provision where a child is not attending their local, mainstream school.
Our 6 recommendations to the DfE recently were designed to address a mix of practice issues and financial issues, which are:
To expand on the first three recommendations:
Since 2014 there have been unintended consequences derived from different parts of C&F Act 2014 / SEND Code of Practice that appear to contradict with other DfE regulations and guidance. In particular, with the Tribunal required to consider individual children and young people and ‘each case on its merits’ but with LA’s being required to also consider the potential for the ‘negative impact on the education of others’ and, at a strategic level, the need for all Local Areas to co-produce a Local Inclusion Plan. This means that in Norfolk we have a fully co-produced Area SEND & AP Strategy, and a government endorsed Local First Inclusion programme, but the Tribunal is not required to take account of these plans. This is compounded by the ever-increasing identification of SEND as a need that requires special / separate arrangements and ‘difference’ being seen as disability or deficit. This is counter-intuitive to a societal narrative of equality. Therefore, a solution will be for the Tribunal to be required to take account of each area’s Local Inclusion Plan to ensure that individual C&YP needs are considered alongside locally co-produced strategic / commission plans.
It is accepted that Educational Psychologists provide a significant service within the overall SEND system, but it is equally accepted that nationally they are one of the key professionals that is a scarce resource. In Norfolk we have been successful in ‘growing our own’ EPs in partnership with the University of East Anglia. However, a) we are still reliant on private / locum EP’s and b) the majority of their time is spent servicing EHCP assessment reporting. Therefore, we believe a solution for Norfolk and nationally would be the need to maximise EP time within the SEN Support cohort to meet needs earlier and prevent escalation of need / unnecessary referrals for EHCP. We believe a model based on EP supervision of specialist teachers and other SEND professionals can achieve this.
The single largest, financial, factor causing the in-year deficit to Norfolk’s High Needs Block is our historic/current over-reliance on the independent and non-maintained special school sector. With over 1000 placements at an average cost of £29,000 more than state-funded special schools this creates an annual pressure exceeding £29 million. Our ‘shift-left’ strategy, to build more state-funded special schools and specialist resource bases in addition to our focus on greater mainstream inclusion, is the centre-point of our strategic plan. However, we cannot achieve this without a complex multi-year change programme and the risks we hold cannot be mitigated without national reforms of this sector. The previous government’s green paper for SEND & AP outlined an intention to consider ways to create national bandings and tariffs for all specialist provision, however, this has not carried through into the national SEND & AP Improvement Plan. Due to our reliance on the independent sector we have had, relative, success in engaging the network of INMSS schools where Norfolk children and young people are placed and we want to share our experience and consider innovation in this sector to bring about sustainable financial change. We need to continually demonstrate to the independent school sector that we are resilient in our ambition to reduce our reliance on high cost provision of this type. However, in Norfolk we are currently experiencing a 12 month delay to the start of capital projects to build two new special schools (due to DfE decision making process) and this is having a material impact on our ability to increase state funded sector provision but also gives a signal to the independent sector that we may not be serious about reducing that reliance on them. Therefore, we believe a solution is possible by ensuring a focus on the combination of Ofsted inspection reports and the costs of these schools, to achieve a simple value for money equation. We believe change for this sector in Norfolk and nationally will help to address the themes in the National Audit Office report. Further, this approach can be fully aligned with the policy direction set out in Chapter 2 of Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive in relation to the children’s care market where drivers for profiteering mirror those in independent special schools (and involve the same providers).
If given the ‘power to innovate’ a number of local authorities can provide a test and learn model for these recommendations alongside those set out by ISOS/NAO/IFS.
The ‘history’ of SEND assessments and support shows progression from the original code of practice framework in the 1990’s that set out five stages of SEND assessment and provision, with Stages 1-3 being a graduated range of support put in place by schools, Stage 4 the statutory assessment process itself and Stage 5 the ‘Statement’ of SEN. This five stage process then become a three stage process with School Action, School Action Plus and Statements prior to the 2014 changes that saw a reduction to a two stage arrangement, with SEN Support and Education, Health & Care Plans. The next logical step would be to remove these ‘stages’ all together and simply have a framework based on support within mainstream schools and/or specialist resource bases and placement in special school. In this way a referral to the LA in future would be to set out the evidence for the need to move out of mainstream school and into a permanent special school.
This would transform the relationship between parents and schools, school and the LA and the LA and parents, with the LA providing advice and guidance to ensure consistency across each local area (and to co-ordinate the commissioning of services with health to create ‘teams around the school’) and, in the majority of circumstances, the view that a C&YP needed special school would not be a ‘surprise’ to the LA as these C&YP would be known already due to the joint working. The reduction in administrative burden on the LA, health and schools with the removing of EHCP within a mainstream context would free up professionals’ time to work with/within mainstream schools.
Local Authorities can continue to ‘commission’ specialist resource bases in mainstream schools but, as in Norfolk for the past decade, these do not require an EHCP to access. These LA commissioned resource bases can complement specialist ‘units’ that individual schools determine as necessary depending on their cohorts over a period of time and create funding models at LA level can ensure that the combination of schools block and high needs block funding is being used effectively and consistently across the area.
Special School admissions would occur when the LA, professionals within the current mainstream school and parents formed a consensus that continued inclusion within mainstream school would not be beneficial to the individual C&YP. However, the admission would also set out the need for key stage reviews to determine if a return to mainstream is appropriate in the future.
In Norfolk we have been developing our SEND provision over a long time period, starting to grow the number of special schools and amending our model for specialist provision prior to the 2014 SEND Reforms. More recently, with council capital investment of £120million secured in 2019, we have been expanding the range of specialist provision to ensure that we can reduce travel time for C&YP whilst trying to promote mainstream inclusion in parallel.
In March 2023 Norfolk joined the safety-valve process and this provided capital funding to build two more special schools and revenue investment totalling £105million (£70m from DfE and £35m from the council). This injection of revenue has enabled us to create new ‘School & Community Teams’ with a focus on supporting schools and families equally regarding advice, guidance, provision at SEN Support and with an explicit aim to meet needs more effectively / earlier and prevent unnecessary requests for EHCP. This focus on mainstream inclusion has also been supported through record investment in element 3 ‘top-up’ funding for mainstream schools (increasing from c. £9m in 2019/20 to £35million in the current / next financial year(s)).
We are approaching the two year stage of our original six year safety-valve plan and, whilst many aspects of the programme, such as the new teams and new specialist provision, are now up and running we continue to face difficulties with ongoing requests for EHCP (2000+ per year and with a 65/35% split with referrals from schools/parents respectively) alongside record levels of requests for special school placement and associated tribunal appeals and placement into special schools.
The nature of the original negotiation and subsequent ‘Enhance, Monitoring, Support’ re-negotiation – as opposed to partnership working with the DfE – has created significant difficulties for the LA. The reporting burden alongside the negative perception of safety-valve has meant that our iterative SEND strategic improvement programmes are at risk of being focussed more on report / justification and less on delivery / evaluation of effectiveness. Fundamentally, the safety-valve plan in Norfolk (as elsewhere) cannot deliver the financial and non-financial benefits without national reforms.
Our in-year deficit is now forecast at c. £61.8m and cumulative deficit at c. £127.8m at 31 March 2025. Clearly, if the statutory override was removed without any mitigations nationally then the council would be at significant risk of needing to consider S114 arrangements.
The Local Authorities (Capital Finance and Accounting) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020, provide the statutory override in relation to the accounting for DSG. This sets out that the Council should hold the accumulated DSG deficit in an account “used solely for the purpose of recognising deficits in respect of its schools budget,” effectively a negative unusable reserve. This is then disregarded in terms of assessing the Council’s financial sustainability. Within the Local Government Finance Policy Statement published in December 2022, the Government announced the extension of this DSG statutory override for a one-off period of three years up to the end of the 2025-26 financial year (31/03/2026). When this statutory override expires, there is a high risk that the accumulated DSG deficit will exceed the level of the Council’s total available reserves. In such an event, and if the statutory override were not extended, then the S151 Officer would need to consider the requirement to issue a section 114 notice as it would potentially not be possible to set a balanced budget either immediately in 2026-27, or in a subsequent year. However, even if the Government chooses to extend the statutory override beyond 31 March 2026 and the current treatment continues, then this is likely to become an urgent issue for us, as it will for many other LAs. Nationally, a significant number of other local authorities are in a similar position with a material DSG deficit.
The core issue for sustainable SEND reforms will relate to ensuring that high quality inclusive practice, focussed on teaching and other staff who support provision in the classroom, is developed and enabled to embed. Ultimately parental confidence will flow from their day to day experience through their local school and the progress that their child or young person makes.
The role of TAs needs to be funded and recognised as a skilled job and regardless of whether this is in mainstream or special school. We are routinely informed by headteachers that they have recruitment and retention difficulties due to the earning/terms of other local employment through delivery and supermarket roles; with delivery drivers paid in line with skilled labour unlike Teaching Assistant pay/terms and conditions. With TA’s expected to de-escalate SEMH situations, meet complex medical needs defined in medical plans, understand how to move learning forwards in maths, English and cross curricular ways and support young people in an inclusive approach through taking on learning and training around pedagogy which is a skill set that should be valued and paid at a higher level than it is currently regarded.
With the increase in cost of living and the increased needs in schools many lower paid staff have left in part because they couldn’t afford to stay but also because there are ‘easier ways to earn the money’ (longer holidays are no longer a sufficient balance in the equation to persuade people when bills and fuel need paying).
Training needs to be visible and promoted through all layers of the education system and to be reflected in how training, knowledge and experience of SEND/Inclusion should be central to career progression and into leadership within schools/MATs. Currently it is possible to become a leader in education with little to no involvement directly in the overseeing of young people with SEND/SENCO responsibilities particularly where people can consider themselves a subject specialist rather than SEND being their responsibility.
There is insufficient training made available around meeting even basic complexity of learning needs from Teacher Training onwards. This needs prioritising along with sharing understanding around how to shape curriculum offers to meet a range of learning needs through mainstream settings. School leaders lack the awareness and have been constrained through a limited curriculum that hasn’t leant itself naturally to SEND inclusion and Ofsted pressure to stray into being creative – educators need to be shown explicitly ways forward in this regard.
Workforce need a joined up single language around SEND so people understand and equate needs in the same way - this would help shaping provision, meeting need, communication amongst professionals and between all partners including families.
Investment in quality initial teaching training, alongside sustained CPD for the teaching and non-teaching workforce in schools is required to ensure quality, consistency and resilience in meeting SEND needs confidently in mainstream schools. The workforce in many schools is still depleted following on from the impact of COVID and, in some cases, needing to rebuild confidence and skills for to address the subsequent apparent escalation of needs.
Fundamentally there is a need to ensure that teaching/non-teaching within mainstream schools occurs with an equal focus on attainment, progression and inclusion and leads to sustained and quality recruitment and retention; instilling confidence in professionals and families alike that mainstream inclusion is effective and provides the best chance to celebrate success in all aspects of children and young people’s lives.
January 2025