SEN0421

 

Written evidence submitted by Isos Partnership

Isos Partnership is an independent research and advisory company that supports the public sector to improve

outcomes, working at every stage of the policymaking and delivery process. We have in-depth experience of developing policy and strategy, solving delivery problems, undertaking national evaluations and conducting research on a range of topics including education, local government, special educational needs, inclusion and children’s services. We have extensive knowledge of the SEND and AP system based on over a decade's work on national research (for the DfE, Local Government Association, County Councils Network and London Councils), as part of the DfE’s What Works in SEND programme, and through our work with many individual LAs and local SEND systems. In 2018 we argued that the SEND system in England was at a ‘tipping point’, and in 2024 we published new research making the case that the system has reached breaking point. Our research shows that reform is both urgently needed and unavoidable, in order to put the SEND system on a financially sustainable footing that delivers effective support for additional needs.

 

Our submission sets out:

  1. The case for change: why the current SEND system is financially unsustainable and unable to deliver against its stated aims.
  2. The two pillars of reform: building capacity and support for inclusion, and reforming the statutory framework.
  3. The pathway to reform: setting the direction, building inclusive system capacity, reforming the statutory framework and gradually transitioning to a new system.

1.    The case for change

1.1   The scale of growth in need and spend within the SEND system is well documented, for instance in our own research and research conducted by the National Audit Office. Since 2014 there has been significant growth in the number of children and young people we identify as having SEND, the number of children and young people we place in specialist provision, public investment in the SEND system and the cumulative national High Needs Block deficit.

 

1.2   Despite this significant growth in identification of SEND, investment and spending, outcomes for children and young people – in relation to educational outcomes and post-education destinations – have not improved, and the system has become more adversarial for children and families.

 

1.3   A system that has shifted towards statutory plans and specialist provision has not delivered better outcomes or experiences for children and families, but the opposite – and at much greater cost. Precedent demonstrates that simply putting more money into the system without reform will not lay the foundations for better outcomes or financial sustainability.

2.    The two pillars of reform

2.1   Through our research and work with SEND system leaders we have found it useful to talk about two pillars for reform, which are both necessary and interdependent. We have been discussing and testing these two pillars of reform in recent months through regional and national workshops with Parent Carer Forums, leaders from local authorities, education and health, and groups of young people with additional needs and disabilities.

 

2.2   Pillar 1 captures a set of recommendations which would create a holistic and inclusive approach to child development, education and adult life. Pillar 1 has three central building blocks:

i)                    The need for a clear vision, values and consistent expectations of practice. Reform here would include:

    1. the creation of a new National Framework and independent National Institute to provide consistent national expectations for meeting needs, backed by best practice.
    2. The alignment of responsibilities around and a strengthened focus on preparation for adulthood, through an aligned age of transition, a joint key-working service and clearer pathways.
    3. A national Preparation for Adulthood Framework which clarifies the roles and responsibilities of partners (education, health, care, housing, and wider community services) and what support should be available as standard to help young people prepare for adult life.

 

ii)                  The need to enable inclusion with a broader core offer of support that is not dependent on statutory plans. The key reform here would be the provision of new multi-disciplinary targeted support and CPD, giving every mainstream school access to a team of specialists (including but not limited to SALTs, mental health practitioners and EPs) who would be physically present, on site, for a specified number of days a week. Multi-disciplinary specialists would be able to carry out diagnostic assessments and direct therapeutic work with children, train teachers and teaching assistants in sustaining interventions, carry out professional supervision, and monitor the impact of interventions on the progress of children and young people. Access to these practitioners would be regular, scheduled and in person, and schools would be able to shape what the multi-disciplinary team focused their time on.

 

iii)                Fundamental reform of the wider education system to reward, incentivise and enable inclusion. Reform here would include:

    1. Funding reform for mainstream schools and colleges so that a much higher proportion of funding for additional needs comes through core budgets to enable maximum flexibility in how it is used, alongside reform of early years funding for additional needs so that it is sufficient and easy to access.
    2. Reforms to teacher training. Ongoing professional development in working with children with additional needs should be a golden thread that runs through every teacher’s career from start to finish, with mandatory training every year, for every teacher, on supporting children and young people with additional needs. Working with children with additional needs should form a much more significant element of initial teacher training, a required part of ongoing professional development for all teachers, and a core dimension of leadership development programmes.
    3. Placing inclusion at the heart of design standards for educational buildings.
    4. Wholesale reform of curriculum, assessment and accountability, so that there is a wider range of curriculum pathways for children and young people with additional needs to follow, that their achievements in those pathways count towards measures of performance, and that the work of highly inclusive settings, schools and colleges is recognised in performance reporting and inspection.
    5. A renewed focus on enabling inclusion in the early years specifically, by increasing the knowledge and expertise of the early years workforce in working with children with additional needs, developing new specialist teacher roles in the early years, providing more early years funding for additional needs, improving access to a high-quality early years offer, supporting effective transition into statutory education, and strengthening support for parents as children’s first educators.

 

2.3   Introducing the recommendations in Pillar 1 alone, without reform to the statutory framework and the role of individual statutory plans, will not lead to a more sustainable and effective SEND system due to three fundamental issues with the current system:

i)                    The definition of SEND and the legal tests for EHCNAs and EHCPs are woolly and circular. They do not create a basis for a clear state offer of special education (including access to statutory and specialist provisions); instead, they create the potential for disputes.

ii)                  The role and function of statutory plans (while clearly crucial in the current system as a way of accessing support and ensuring accountability for its delivery) has skewed the system. The current system conflates the practice of person-centred planning with the process of accessing support. We recognise why statutory plans matter in the current system, but we believe they have skewed the system – creating a vicious circle that reduces the overall level of support available.

iii)                Roles and accountabilities in the current system are misaligned. We hold bodies to account for things that they do not directly control (for example, we hold LAs responsible for delivery of the content of EHCPs), and have gaps in the system where we have no means of accountability for things bodies do control and that do affect children and young people with SEND (for example, there is a lack of accountability for schools in relation to inclusion of pupils with SEND). Current systems of accountability are therefore ineffective.

 

2.4   We therefore put forward a second pillar of reform: a set of recommendations which would move away from a system where access to support depends on individual statutory plans, and towards one where planning is valued in its own right and connects to a broader offer of ordinarily available support. Pillar 2 has three central elements:

i)                    Person-centred planning which is more personalised, flexible and strengths-based and is accompanied by a record of support.

ii)                  Access to ordinarily available support, available in all education settings, alongside a core offer of targeted, multi-disciplinary support.​

iii)                Mechanisms of redress and accountability in individual cases to ensure required support is put in place.

 

2.5   Moving to this system would involve:

i)        A new definition of additional needs which reframes the existing (vague) definition of SEND and is linked to clear expectations of needs to be met by mainstream education, to enable swift recognition of needs and support.

ii)      A Learner Record for all children and young people with additional needs, which captures what they can do and the support they need to thrive. Partners would have a duty to cooperate in fulfilling the contents of the Learner Record. The Learner Record would entitle a young person to:

iii)    A reframing of the role of statutory plans, with many functions of EHCPs fulfilled by the Learner Record. Statutory plans should remain for young people requiring significant personalisation beyond an inclusive mainstream offer and bespoke multi-agency support. We envisage a system in which a much smaller proportion of children would have statutory plans, with the threshold for these plans clearly set out in the National Framework.

iv)    Aligned admissions, whereby children and young people on the additional needs register would go through normal admissions – offering equivalent rights to all families, and reducing scope for settings to claim they cannot meet needs. Admissions for those with statutory plans would be via a multi-agency panel.

v)      Two new routes of redress and dispute resolution, available to all young people with additional needs, not just those on statutory plans: one route focused on the decision-making process (an Ombudsman); one route focused on the substance of support (a National Institute independent practitioner body).

vi)    Reformed accountability and responsibility, which would see stronger accountability for inclusion for education settings (in addition to stronger oversight and routes of complaint and redress) and stronger joint responsibilities and accountabilities for partner agencies, including health, aligned to key functions, through Local Inclusion Partnerships.

vii)  Moving away from funding for individual learners towards cohort-based funding models, enabling schools to meet the needs of all their learners with additional needs without funding being hypothecated for individual children. Schools should be given much greater flexibility in how they use their SEND funding and how they use the adults in their school to support SEND, as long as they meet at least the expected levels of support set out in national expectations. For those children and young people identified as having the most complex needs, who will be a smaller proportion of the population than the current EHCP cohort, individual funding entitlements should continue to be made available.

3.    The pathway to reform

3.1   We know from our own research and engagement that a wide range of stakeholders, including parents and carers, support these reforms if they are delivered in a way that builds capacity for mainstream support before any reforms to existing statutory entitlements are introduced.

 

3.2   The principle behind the phasing of implementation is that it will be imperative to build the foundations and capacity for inclusion in mainstream education first, from early years through to early adulthood, before making any changes to the statutory framework. Our recommendations aim to create a better offer of education and access to additional support that does not rely on statutory assessments and plans, rather than removing entitlements without altering the foundations of the system.

 

3.3   Children and young people with EHCPs, and those in specialist provision, would not lose their plans and placements as a result of these reforms. Instead, we envisage phasing in the new system while running the existing system in parallel in order to strike the right balance between introducing a reformed approach and maintaining stability for those supported by the current system.

 

3.4   Our 2024 report illustrates how reforms could be sequenced. We are under no illusions that this reform programme would need to be a long-term one, lasting at least one if not two parliamentary terms. We have been working with SEND system leaders in recent months to test and develop this reform pathway.

 

3.5   Our overall blueprint for the sequence of reforms is:

i)                    Year 1: setting the vision and direction

There is no reason why a new definition of additional needs, focused on inclusion and preparation for adult life, could not be set out immediately and consulted on within a matter of months. This would establish the tone of the reform process. A National Institute for Inclusive Education could be established within six months. With the National Institute in place to provide expertise, leadership and direction, work could commence immediately to draft the national descriptors of need. These would enable much more consistent identification of need and a common language for discussing needs, and helpfully start to reframe the debate around the needs that can and should be met within the mainstream sector. The newly created National Institute would then be tasked with developing the National Framework and practice guidelines. Reviews of performance and accountability could produce interim recommendations after one year – signalling the intention through legislation to set out clear expectations of an inclusive mainstream system.

 

ii)                  Years 1 to 3: building mainstream capacity

Upon its establishment, the new National Institute could commence work on developing guidance on inclusive practice, principles for designing inclusive buildings for education settings, and workforce development and training programmes for schools and the early years. Work at local level should be undertaken to develop and recruit to the multi-disciplinary teams providing the core offer of targeted support, and the Destinations and Progression Service.

 

After three years, an established National Institute would have developed a new definition of

additional needs and National Framework of types and levels of need, overseen reforms of workforce training, and put forward recommendations relating to curriculum, qualifications and accountability that will enable and recognise inclusion in mainstream education. Mainstream early years settings, schools and colleges would have access to dedicated, targeted, multi-disciplinary support.

 

iii)                Years 3 to 5: reforming the statutory framework

With this core infrastructure in place, and as confidence in mainstream education rises among families and practitioners, the time would be right to reform the SEND statutory framework. We would advocate introducing legislation to establish the new Learner Record, underpin the new National Framework and the definitions of ordinarily available provision and statutory plans, introduce new dispute resolution arrangements, align the age of transition, and establish the new Local Inclusion Partnerships and launch their full range of roles. We envisage that some elements of these reforms – dispute resolution and Local Inclusion Partnerships – should be trialled in practice leading up to their establishment in law. This would also be the time to reform funding arrangements and establish the role of the independent sector.

 

iv)                Year 5+: gradual transition to the new system

With the new system in place and running in parallel, children and young people in the current statutory system would gradually transition to new arrangements at a natural point in their education career or when they turn 18.

 

3.6   Our written evidence submission to this Education Committee inquiry is based on insights derived from a decade's work on national research, our involvement in the DfE’s What Works in SEND programme, our work with many individual LAs and local SEND systems, and as a result of the conversations we have had the privilege of holding in recent months with young people, parents and carers, education leaders and SENCOs, health and social care leaders, LA leaders, councillors and representatives of national organisations.

 

From this perspective, all the evidence suggests the current system for serving children with additional needs is simply not effective and not sustainable, and that nothing short of significant and far-reaching national reform will be sufficient to address its current shortcomings.

 

We have set out a bold, evidenced vision for what that reform programme could look like, based on the core principles of offering an inclusive education and one that prepares children and young people well for their adult lives. The reforms that we have set out necessarily touch on all aspects of our education system and would represent a seismic shift in how we, as a society, think about the environment that enables children and young people with additional needs to thrive.

 

January 2025