SCN0183
Written evidence from the National Association of Independent Schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools (NASS)
About NASS
1. NASS is the national membership body for special schools outside direct local authority control. It was set up in 1996 and formally incorporated in 1998. It was established by a group of Non-Maintained Special Schools (NMSS) seeking a means of networking to reduce isolation. Independent schools were first able to join as associate members and later, in 2006, as full members. In 2012, membership was opened to special academies and free schools in recognition of their status as ‘independent schools’.
2. At the time of writing, NASS has 291 member schools and organisations. We are funded solely through membership subscriptions and income generated through conferences and training events. The organisation has two key functions – to support the sector through advice, training and events and to represent the sector with bodies such as central and local Government. NASS currently employs 4 staff (3.2 F.T.E.).
3.The evidence for this submission, unless otherwise referenced, is based on:
4. Summary of key points raised
Assessment of and support for children and young people with SEND
5. SEND Specialism and low-incidence needs - Local authorities place and fund children and young people in non-local authority special schools when they are unable to meet needs within their own provision and/or where this is the parents’ or young person’s preference. Despite assumptions that such placements are always residential and always at a considerable distance from the placing authority, fewer than half of our members (136) offer residential provision.
6. Almost all of our members specialize in meeting particular types of SEND. It’s very unusual to see the generic provision that characterizes many local authorities maintained special schools. Non-maintained and Independent Special Schools (NMISS) registration with DfE must specify the types of need that the school can meet. Schools should not take students whose needs are outside the terms of their registration.
7. Most schools are registered to meet more than one type of SEND. Almost all schools will now work with children and young people with Autistic Spectrum Conditions. Ten years ago, the most common designation for member schools was ‘Speech, Language and Communication’ needs. This reflects a pattern documented elsewhere (e.g. Pinney 2017) of increasing complexity in children attending special schools.
8. Location and Geographic Distribution of Provision - To date, there has been no mapping exercise that sets out all SEND provision in the country from special schools in our sector through to resourced units in mainstream schools. We think this is needed to be able to identify where there are actual gaps in provision and where there is existing provision that is not being used regionally or sub-regionally to its best advantage.
9. Looking at NASS membership, we have identified the following features of our sector:
10. Even where we can map the location of schools and services, we cannot necessarily indicate that there will be vacancies in each school or that authorities seeking to make local placements would most likely use these. Patterns of placement do not always seem to follow logic, i.e. London Boroughs placing children in Cumbria. This generally tends to be caused by a combination of school location, placement availability and commissioning behaviours.
11. Patterns of placements - In the past 5 years, there has been a significant increase in the number of children with SEND placed in independent schools. At the same time, there has been a decrease in the number of children placed in Non-Maintained Special Schools (NMSS). This is in part due to a reduction in the number of NMSS due to closures and mergers within independent groups and multi-academy trusts.
12. Each year, NASS surveys its members to establish a picture of placements within the sector. In 2017, 80% of our members had seen placement numbers increase or remain steady. In general, these tend to be schools catering for children with Autistic Spectrum Conditions or Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs. Of the 20% of schools that have seen declining numbers, many specialize in working with children with speech, language and communication difficulties and profound and multiple learning disabilities. We have no evidence to suggest that such needs are decreasing within the population of children with SEND, nor that new provision elsewhere is now meeting these needs. We hypothesise that this decline is largely as a result of local authority reluctance to place in such provision through concerns about perceived costs. At the same time, we are seeing local authorities struggling to find sufficient places for children and young people on the autistic spectrum and/or those with mental health difficulties. Much of our members’ provision for these children is now full and some schools have lengthy waiting lists.
13. NASS believes that the sector is seeing a ‘demand push’ that has its roots in the ability of mainstream schools to support children with SEND effectively. Where parents lack confidence in mainstream, they push for places in special schools. When maintained special schools and special academies are full, local authorities turn to the independent and maintained sector and seek opportunities to develop special free schools in their area. Whilst some authorities work effectively in partnership with our sector, many still use us as the ‘placement of last resort’. As discussed below, this sometimes leads to children experiencing an unacceptable number of ‘failures’ in other provisions before accessing specialist support.
14. How and why children and young people come to be placed in non-local authority special schools - In 2017, NASS carried out a survey of over 300 parents of children placed in our member special schools as part of our evidence gathering for Christine Lenehan and Mark Geraghty’s review of residential SEND provision. Thinking about how children and young people come to be placed with us, our parents’ survey showed that:
15. These data and evidence from our schools suggests that many parents have high confidence in the ability of our special schools to meet their child’s complex needs, and have found support in less specialist settings inadequate. They also face significant battles and educational failure before they can secure a place that meets their child’s needs.
16. The flexible and dedicated combination of specialist staff, environments, therapies and support across education, health and social development that special schools offer were cited as reasons parents felt they were the best option for their child.
17. More can be done to ensure placements in special schools are made with less conflict, delay, expense and distress for children and families. Current commissioning and procurement practice is very patchy, creating problems for families and schools alike. NASS is keen to see national support to improve commissioning and procurement practice and the placement process.
18. The pattern of provision across the country and how it is commissioned and procured - As previously noted, there is an uneven geographical distribution of provision. There are significant regional gaps in some specialisms, such as sensory impairment, and in some areas, for example in London.
19. While some local authorities have worked hard at creating regional partnerships, without a national overview and steer we believe it will be almost impossible to get the strategic planning of low incidence, high needs provision right. There simply aren’t enough young people with very specific needs in some local authorities - or even regions in some cases – to make local service development viable. Free Schools are the current route for developing new provision, and without some strategic national and regional input we fear we will not get the right new provision in the right places for children with low incidence complex needs. We still hear of authorities seeking to develop free schools with the explicit intention of reducing demand for independent and non-maintained special schools. To date, special free schools have not reduced demand for our sector and the creation of a new special school appears to increase demand for specialist provision in that location. Free Schools can be a good means of creating new SEND provision but, to date, their development has lacked a strategic focus and a full economic analysis of at what point building new provision becomes cost effective when compared to using existing provision in the independent and non-maintained sectors.
20. We have concerns that the rise of ‘framework’ approaches (see section on procurement for definitions) from local authorities as the preferred procurement solution for making placements in our sector are inequitable, and can lead to a focus on contracts and costs, rather than young people’s individual needs and value for money (see pages 8 and 9 below).
21. What good quality support looks like for children and young people, both pre- and post-placement - Our parent survey showed that the majority of children and families don’t get the support they need locally before they are placed in one of our special schools. The examples from our schools that run outreach projects (for example Seashell and Mulberry Bush) demonstrate that successful partnerships between specialist providers and local schools and LAs can help meet children’s needs earlier and avoid an escalation in needs and costs.
22. However, these projects are few and far between. Funding for early intervention is notoriously difficult as budgets are squeezed. Tensions in relationships between some LAs and their local non-maintained and independent schools lead to the potential of these local specialist resources to be used to support children to stay in their local schools through an outreach model being over-looked.
23. Many of our members are keen to develop these relationships and their models of service, in order to work with children earlier in their journey. Schools connected to charities told us the recent reduction of LA services (e.g. behavior support, SLT) was impacting on children with SEND, and they were keen to work collaboratively to plug that gap.
24. We have seen some excellent examples from member schools of supporting young people to achieve good outcomes. Many employ transitions coordinators to support young people and families to research and plan the move from their special school back into a less specialist setting, or on to further education, employment and/or adult services. A number have partnerships with further education providers and employers to create post-school development routes for learners. Some (e.g. SENAD group) employ their own adult community support teams to provide continuity and a smooth transition to greater independence, including independent living, for young people post-school.
25. The experiences and outcomes of these children and young people and their families, and how these can be improved - Our evidence from young people and parents is overwhelmingly positive about their experiences and outcomes in special schools:
26. Parents told us they value the specialised educational, social and health approaches in our member schools, and the power of bringing these together in an approach based on the very individual needs of their child. Parents also valued the flexibility and partnership approach of residential special schools for children with particularly complex needs. For example, a family who asked Pegasus School to host Christmas dinner for their entire family so they could confidently enjoy time with their son, and were delighted when the school said ‘of course’.
27. Schools told us of a range of positive outcomes their young people were achieving. These included returns to less specialist settings, moves on to further and higher education, achievement of qualifications, and moves into work. They also included more nuanced outcomes such as:
The transition from statements of special educational needs and Learning Disability Assessments to Education, Health and Care Plans
28. In common with the rest of the sector, our member schools have not found the transition from statements to plans easy. General difficulties reported by many schools, such as local authority refusal to reassess children and the burden of writing the new EHCP falling on the school tend to be reinforced when a child is placed out of area. Local authority staff attendance at reviews in our member schools is generally poor and we have little evidence that extra effort was made to attend transfer reviews, where statements have moved to EHCPs.
29. In practice this has meant that schools are working with EHCPs of variable but, generally, poor quality. Below we discuss the impact of commissioning and procurement on our schools. One of the key issues of poor quality EHCPs is that it makes it very difficult for local authorities to commission placements for specific outcomes and to hold schools to account for delivering these. The EHCP should be a powerful commissioning tool which, alongside the annual review process, informs local authorities about whether the placements they make are securing the desired and best possible outcomes for children and young people with SEND.
The level and distribution of funding for SEND provision
30. NASS has a particular interest in how placements in its member schools are funded via local authority commissioning and procurement practices. Funding is a major source of tension between schools and local authorities. Local authorities perceive our schools as a serious drain on High Needs Block funding. There is often a poor understanding of what underpins costs, how these compare with alternative packages of provision and the needs and experiences of the children and young people for whom placements are being sought. NASS has heard its member schools blamed by some local authorities for overspend on their High Needs Block and yet placements in our schools represent only a small percentage of placements in special schools. They are also actively sought out by local authorities, for children with the most complex needs, as discussed above.
Procurement and High Needs Funding background
31. In 2013, DfE introduced a new system of funding for High Needs students. Placements in all types of special school are funded via the ‘place plus’ funding model in. Under this model, funding is split into three elements – the first two make up ‘place’ or core funding whilst element three represents funding to meet the individual needs of a given child or young person above the core cost. For maintained special schools, all funding comes direct from the local authority. For special academies, special free schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools (NMSS) the first £10k for a given number of placements comes direct from the Education Funding Agency and the remainder of the placement is ‘topped up’ by a direct payment from the Local Authority making the placement. For placements in independent special schools, all three elements are rolled into a single amount and paid direct by the placing local authority.
32. Historically, placements made in NMISS have been made as what is termed ‘spot purchases’ i.e. the local authority makes a one-off placement at a school based on the needs of the individual child or young person. Whilst many of our schools still have the majority of placements made via spot purchase, the past 5 years have seen the rise of ‘frameworks’ being introduced to drive placements – particularly since the Public Contracts Regulations were revised in 2015. Whilst the amendments did not substantially change requirements, they provided a ‘wake-up call’ to authorities to revisit procurement practices.
33. The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 place duties on public bodies to follow certain processes and principles when awarding contracts with a value in excess of £650,000 in provision that it does not maintain. This includes special academies, special free schools, NMSS, independent special schools and where one local authority places in a special school run by a different local authority. The value of contracts is cumulative, i.e. at the point at which placements are made, local authorities must take the following into account when assessing whether the contract value is above the Public Contracts Regulations (PCR) threshold:
34. Turnover of placements in special schools is generally quite low – a child placed at age 5 or 6 might reasonably be expected to remain in placement until the age of 16-18 (or even 19). Consequently, it is feasible that a very small number of placements might take the value of the contract above the threshold. For most non-local authority special school placements, it is inevitable that the contract value will lead to those placements being ‘caught’ by the Public Contracts Regulations.
35. In practical terms, education placements fall under what the Crown Commercial Services describe as the ‘Light Touch Regime’. Local Authorities don’t have to do a huge amount to be procurement compliant but must:
36. The issue is in particularly sharp focus for Non-Maintained and Independent Special Schools (NMISS), where local authorities increasingly use very rigorous procurement processes prior to making placements. This can include requiring schools to be on a framework before placements can be considered and then running ‘mini competitions’ to decide at which school a specific placement is made.
37. A Freedom of Information request from NASS in 2015 revealed that no local authority is currently following the Public Contracts Regulations when making placements in either Special Academies or Special Free Schools. Technically, those placements are ‘void’ in procurement terms. In practice, this means that a school that had not been given the opportunity to ‘bid’ for those placements could challenge their validity via judicial review.
38. Given that placements made at NMISS, Special Free Schools and Special Academies all fall under the PCR, NASS believes that local authorities have a legal duty to treat all sectors, and placements made in them, equitably. We have recently sought professional legal advice that supports our view that there are procurement obligations in respect of all non-local authority special school placements.
39. Why does this matter? The impact on children and young people - The Children and Families Act 2014 puts the needs of children, young people and their families at the heart of the SEND process and stipulated that the choice of placement should enable the achievement of the ‘best possible’ outcomes. The Act also enshrines parents’ and young peoples’ right to express a preference for a given school in law. This right covers a choice of local authority special schools, special academies, special free schools, NMSS and independent schools approved under S41.
40. There is a ‘clash’ between local authorities’ obligations under SEND legislation and their obligations under procurement legislation, which stems from a EU Directive. Our experience is that, increasingly, local authorities are more likely to give procurement primacy when making placements in NMISS. In practice, this may mean:
41. Why does this matter? The impact on schools - We surveyed 25 NASS member schools about their experience of frameworks. The schools surveyed each work with between 8 and 52 different local authorities. One school in membership works with 82 different authorities! Most frameworks require completion of large amounts of paperwork to join – financial information, quality statements, policies and procedures etc. To join one framework is labour intensive but most schools take placements from local authorities covered by multiple frameworks. Schools have to make decisions about spending time on frameworks versus risking the local authority not making placements if they are off framework. In practice, it is generally only larger groups of schools that can afford to bid for all frameworks, which tends to skew the provision available on most frameworks.
42. At their best, frameworks can improve relationships with local authorities and may make them aware of schools that are local but which they have not previously used. However, in practice, despite being labour intensive, most frameworks offer few benefits to schools or, we would argue, local authorities. We generally see:
43. Frameworks and procurement-based activities place a great emphasis on processes and structures, we would argue at the expense of relationships. NASS and its member schools believe strongly that we need to do more to encourage relationship-based commissioning of SEND placements. In 2013, the Cabinet Office began to run ‘Commissioning Academy’ events to improve knowledge and practice amongst public sector commissioners. In 2015, DfE ran a special cohort of the Academy for children’s social care commissioners. We believe a similar initiative is required for SEN commissioning and that this should involve all those parties with a stake in getting commissioning right for children, young people and families.
44. Whilst individual relationships are crucial, we would like to see Government recognize the impact procurement is having on SEN placements and the unequal approaches taken to different parts of the sector. Local authorities tell us that if Government ‘told’ them to take a specific approach they would respond. Leaving the EU gives the UK a chance to review its own procurement legislation and decide which services it wants regulation to cover. This is a good opportunity to take SEN services away from a ‘free-market’, cost-driven approach. Even if Government decides that such services should remain under the PCR, more could be done centrally to lessen the bureaucratic burden on schools such as by centrally ‘pre-qualifying’ all special schools and specifying a single contract to use for SEN placements. We note that this was a recommendation made in the Lenehan/Geraghty review ‘Good Intentions; Good Enough?’ in October 2017. The Government has yet to offer a formal response to this.
The roles of and co-operation between education, health and social care sectors
45. Our members report a very mixed picture of engagement and support from other agencies. As many of our schools work with a wide range of LAs and CCGs, it was interesting to see that the same school could have excellent engagement from some, and zero engagement from others.
Common themes include:
46. Most schools either employ health, therapy, and transitions staff directly, or buy in services as needed for individual young people, rather than reply on local services, which were described as patchy and ‘under pressure’.
47. NASS has particular concerns about the lack of capacity or engagement from some LAs in reviewing progress, planning transitions, and monitoring the well being of young people placed away from home. We are keen to work on joint solutions to this.
Provision for 19-25-year olds including support for independent living; transition to adult services; and access to education, apprenticeships and work
48. In February 2017 NASS launched an online survey to gather data about transitions to adulthood for young people attending our schools. 17 member schools responded, allowing us to capture the experiences of 161 young people that have left those schools in the past 12 months. The schools represent the range of NASS membership in terms of specialism covered but we are not making claims that these findings can be generalised across the sector as a whole.
49. Common concerns from schools were of little to no engagement from local authorities in transition planning, of chronic under-funding of the transition process, and of a serious lack of positive services for young people to transition into.
Planning for the future – Year 9 transition reviews
50. In the schools surveyed, 104 children were eligible for a transition review in the past 12 months. Schools reported that they carried out 91 reviews, indicating that 13 young people missed out altogether on this vital review. Of the 91 reviews held, only 50 (55%) had someone from the placing local authority in attendance.
51. The transition review is a crucial point in the life of a young person with SEND. It should take place in Year 9, to allow several years to ensure a smooth transition to the young person’s next life stage. It is of great concern to NASS that 52% of young people in the survey had either a review that was not attended by the key decision-maker in their future or did not have a review at all. Several schools in the survey made comments about local authorities generally leaving transition discussions to Year 11 reviews and we are aware that this sometimes leads to very hurried ceasing of the young person’s placement or EHCP, against their will and the wishes of their families.
52. NASS is aware that the Year 9 review will take on much greater importance when the replacement for Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards is announced shortly. We know that the new regime will apply to young people aged 16 and over in all settings. The Year 9 review is seen as a key vehicle in the planning for authorisations that may be required at age 16. Current poor attendance from LA staff at reviews suggests that this will be difficult to implement in practice. We know that local authorities struggle to attend reviews where they have placed a child at some distance from them but we believe that more needs to be done to ensure that these children do not miss out on reviews or the input of those responsible for making financial decisions about their future.
Destinations for these children and young people
53. Our survey of members showed that the majority of young people moved on from special schools to some form of further education or training. This ranged from moves back into mainstream or maintained schools, to moves to general or specialist further education, to internships, apprenticeships, university or employment.
54. It also demonstrated that living arrangements post-school varied, with the majority of young people returning to live with family, some moving into supported living, and some to adult care homes. These moves were roughly split between returning to the young person’s home community and staying near school.
55. We are also aware that options for many of our young people at age 16, 18, 19 and 25 are very limited. We have particular concerns for children with the most complex and severe disabilities who are at particular risk of having their EHCP ceased at age 16 or 18 when assumptions are made that their future lies in an adult social care setting. Within this sample, transition into adult social care homes is unusual. We are aware that adult social care packages can be a positive option for some young people, particularly where there is an explicit focus on managing the life transition from childhood to adulthood and the skills need for this such as increasing independence, improving self-care skills and supporting self-management of enduring conditions. However, we have been concerned by reports from schools that young people’s life chances are being limited by low expectations of their capacity for lifelong learning. Few young people make major and long-term decisions about their activities and living arrangements at age 18 and young people with complex needs should not be ‘forced’ down a social care route.
56. We would like to see authorities working in partnership with young people, families and providers to recognise the value in maintaining education provision for those with the most complex needs and work to identify services and pathways to better meet these needs. Because our schools and families currently say positive post-16/19/25 options are so few and far between, we would like to see a real emphasis (and financial incentives for) partnerships between LAs, schools, colleges and adult and community services to strategically plan to fill these gaps
57. The findings from this sample do not support the perception that young people attending non-local authority special schools do not return to their homes or home area after school. However, they do support a need for more work developing positive post-19 and post-25 options for young people with complex needs, to ensure every young person gets the chance to continue their learning and development, and grow their independence, as they move into adulthood.
What changes would NASS like to see to the current SEND system?
Greater recognition of the role cultures and relationships play in delivering good outcomes for all parties and investment in this
58. Funding is important, and we will address this at a later point. However, we do not believe the issues we have discussed in our evidence would simply go away if a magic wand was waved and overnight all services had all the funding they wanted and needed. Strong, adult, respectful relationships are at the heart of good practice, whether that’s within schools, between parents and schools or between schools and local authorities.
59. Perceptions of scarcity of resource (which are valid in many cases) do not encourage disparate parties to come together for the common good. We may like to think that we all pull together in a ‘crisis’ but it appears to be more the case that we become entrenched in our own ‘in groups’ and view anyone who is not part of our group as a problem. Consequently, whilst the reforms set out with the good intention of making a less adversarial SEND system, the simultaneous cuts to local authority funding and changes to the national curriculum ensured that implementation occurred at a time when those responsible were under extreme financial constraint.
60. Values and attitudes are at the heart of good practice that recognizes the contribution each agency and individual has towards achieving good outcomes for children with SEND. NASS recognizes the value of events that brings groups together to problem-solve. For example, in our experience, the best relationships between schools and local authorities occur when there are many opportunities to meet and discuss issues, working towards shared solutions. With this in mind, and with a need for more strategic thinking about low incidence provision, NASS is keen to see the return of the SEND Regional partnerships, which ran from 2002-2010. These were supported by a dedicated resource which allowed time and space to invest in relationships between the disparate parties that must work together better if we are to see improved outcomes for children with SEND.
Address the tension created by local authorities acting as both commissioners and funders for those with the most complex needs
61. You will receive evidence from other parties that suggests that high needs funding is put under particular pressure by small numbers of high cost placements for those learners with the most complex needs. NASS does not believe that the evidence for this is convincing but recognises that the perception itself is damaging. It makes relationships between authorities and schools more hostile and can cloud accurate assessments of which provision would be best to meet the needs of an individual child or young person.
62. In the past, post 16 funding for high needs was managed centrally by the Learning and Skills Council. Local Authorities commissioned places but were not directly responsible for funding them. The system was not perfect but it did allow for more focus to be on finding the right provision at the right time for those who needed it most. Calls to centralize funding for those with the most complex needs have been rejected by government but NASS would like to see this reconsidered. It would also be feasible to see more investment in regional commissioning for low incidence needs, which would enable a greater connection between placing authorities and the young people they are responsible for.
63. The Department for Education has invested c £270 million over the past 12 months in increasing places for children with SEND. We would argue that once this has been distributed across all local authorities, without much in the way of targeting, this results in relatively small amounts that are unlikely to lead to meaningful structural change.
Improve partnerships between special and mainstream schools to better meet needs of children with SEND
64. Special schools have a role to play in directly educating and caring for those children and young people that need a specific intensity or focus of intervention. There are suggestions that the complexity of needs seen is increasing and this may account for some of the increase in demand for special school places. However, NASS believes that we are seeing a ‘demand push’ for ever more specialized provision that is fueled by a lack of confidence in the ability of mainstream provision to include and educate children with SEND.
65. Most special schools have some positive links with local mainstream schools – most of which have grown up due to the personal qualities and investment of the school leaders involved. However, practice is patchy and where school leaders are not interested in working in partnership, there are few drivers – neither incentives, nor fear of sanctions – to influence behaviours.
66. NASS is pleased to be part of the Whole School send consortium, which recently won DfE funding to improve links between special schools and mainstream schools. We think this will be a great vehicle to share expertise between special and mainstream schools to benefit children with SEND and improve value for money. However, we will be working with schools that have already recognised the value of partnership working and there are still challenges to be faced in convincing some school leaders of the value of this work. We would like to see a move away from the role of special schools as providing training to mainstream schools on discrete issues such as behavior management or condition-specific awareness towards a fuller partnership between mainstream and special schools that can enhance general teaching and learning performance in both sectors. SEND teachers have to be excellent pedagogues – they have to know how to engage students with limited attention spans, how to differentiate a curriculum to make it work for all their learners and how to embed that learning in such a way that it can be used and applied. It has been said often before but we would reiterate, good SEND teaching and learning practice is good practice for all teaching and learning. We would like to play a role in a system that recognizes and actively promotes this.
Ensure the right support for children with SEND is in the right place by:
67.
June 2018