Support and Aspiration: A New Approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability

Please Specify:

ELAS members all have an interest in, or connection with, education law. Members include solicitors, barristers, educationalists, governors, LA and Diocesan officers, advisers, students, consultants and voluntary organisation officers and members

Comments:

• Ensure that all health professionals, especially GPs, refer very disabled babies for assessment immediately their health needs are known.
• If sufficient health visitors in post, re-introduce screening for all young children.
• Health visitors to be trained in identification of SEN in early years.
• Ensure that all early years providers are trained in identification of SEN
• More liaison between early years providers and health professionals
• Better communication with primary schools prior to phase transfer
• More detailed record keeping by early years providers

Comments:

It sounds attractive to have more joined up Education Health and Care plans. However, with whom does the “buck stop”? Who is legally accountable? In what way? How can such legal rights be enforced?  And what powers and legal responsibilities will education, health and social care have?

Indeed it is difficult to reconcile these proposals with the challenges that currently face the public sector. Whilst the idea of multi-agency provision of services is excellent, it is unclear where the responsibility will lie to make decisions and coordinate a joined-up package, especially post compulsory education.

Paragraph 24 implies reducing identification and needs-based assessment for joint planning only to those pupils who have needs that are outside those normally provided within school. This is a retrograde step. In effect provision would be cut for children with SEN and disabilities who do not require ongoing multi-agency input. There are concerns that services would be drastically cut and schools would carry the onus to provide for the majority of children with SEN and disabilities without any expert support or advice and without the necessary funding.

Since the Education Act 1981 was implemented in 1983 parents and education professionals have found it frustrating, and indeed incomprehensible, that health and social care have not been legally required to deliver the provision that their professionals advise the child requires. This has lead to confusion, in-fighting between services and unacceptable delays in the delivery of necessary provision.

Case law and SEN Code of Practice 2001 makes clear that ‘prime’ responsibility for health provision (including therapies) rests with the NHS, but if not provided, the ‘ultimate’ responsibility to provide currently falls on the LA even though Government does not provide funding.

If Education, Health and Social Care are to be set out in one plan, the Plan must be afforded the same statutory protection as a statement of SEN. This would require new legislation across all three statutory services. Without such statutory protection ‘across the piece’ the ‘EHC’ Plan would be unworkable and unacceptable.

The success of this working is about being able effectively to ensure (paragraph 1.40) that any new-style plan “is clear about who is responsible across education, health and social care for which services” and that Government is able to “include a commitment from all parties to provide their service”.

This Government “commitment” must clearly spell out and legislate for mandatory obligations and funding requirements in order for this to be workable and indeed cost effective. Government will need to be clear about which statutory agency has the funding and ensure that the funded agency has both prime and ultimate responsibility for delivery of specified services.

Such legislation will need to include mandatory requirements on GP commissioners and Clinical Commissioning Groups to provide health advice and health provision, otherwise there will continue to be a postcode lottery. The legislation will also need to clarify thresholds for social care as currently each local authority, under Children Act 1989 requirements, can use their own criteria for assessing ‘children in need’ including those with SEN and disability.

All-encompassing health, education and care provision delivered through a single plan from 0 – 25 years may be unrealistic especially in today’s economic climate and with the ongoing and unclear changes to the NHS and Welfare. The Scottish model of additional support needs arising from any factor causing a barrier to learning may be more achievable. Health, education and care provision (support) is provided so that the child can access learning. It is a narrower focus for multi-agency provision but probably includes a wider group of children than appears to be envisaged in the Green Paper.

ELAS is unclear as to how the enforceability of any new ‘EHC’ Plan would operate. Government must:

• clearly set out which elements of the education, health and social care statutory agencies are legally responsible for which provisions within the EHC Plan. 
• be clear in legislation how this will feed into the ability to enforce the new EHC Plan in the Tribunal and in the courts by way of judicial review

Sadly unless this is done, parents and professionals will continue to be frustrated and children will slip though the net and a lot more costly litigation will ensue.

Comments:

No doubt the process could be modelled on the current ‘statementing’ process albeit delivered within a faster timeframe. It is the outcomes that must differ - a single plan encompassing education, health and social care with each body having a statutory duty to make provision.

Families might only go through one assessment process so reducing the necessity to keep repeating their concerns and needs.  However, by going through several assessments and seeing several different professionals a fuller picture of needs may be obtained and more information obtained from each assessment. 

There is indeed obvious confusion over the term ‘assessment’ and therefore a ‘single’ assessment process. For instance. A child could have an assessment to see if a particular service such as physiotherapy was required. This may be fairly straightforward and does not have necessarily to be performed by a physiotherapist but by someone with appropriate skills and training or the child has a condition that people know will require that intervention. Then there is the need for more detailed assessment as to exactly what intervention that child requires. This may not be a one off assessment but could be an ongoing process with interventions being tried and modified following further assessments as to progress and outcomes. Therefore there can never be a single assessment – but some of the key underlying pieces of information only need to be ‘assessed’ once.

To make sure that any new system works:

• test areas for the new assessments should look at how local authorities might work with other organisations, such as voluntary organisations, to develop assessment processes which parents feel is more independent
• health and social care elements of EHC Plans should have the same weight and accountability as the education parts
• streamlined assessments must not mean that relevant professionals are excluded from the assessment process

• all children with SEN or a disability should have an action plan that is regularly updated and sets appropriate objectives. This includes children who do not have a statement or EHC Plan
• children’s progress should be measured against these objectives, and this information should be used evaluating school performance

Comments:

Assessments and advice currently used for ‘statementing’ should be preserved – including advice/assessment from parents, school or early years setting (presumably to be extended to post 16 education and employment providers), educational psychology, health professionals and social care (where the child is already known). If a child is already receiving provision from the voluntary sector (or is known to them) such professionals should also give advice. Where there has already been a CAF this should form part of the body of evidence, but the CAF cannot replace specialist assessments.

There should be a designated professional to liaise across Education, Social Care and Health who drives the case forward.  Designated professionals could be from any one of the 3 agencies or from the voluntary sector. Monitoring (perhaps by Ofsted) should be undertaken to ensure that the process is truly based on the needs of the child and not unduly influenced by resources issues.

Comments:

There are already multiple challenges in planning transition from school to further education and employment due to:

1.  The differences between compulsory education and that pursued by choice.
2. Transition from paediatric to adult health services is also complex with no replication of paediatric services for adults in many spheres. It is likely to be ever more challenging as current proposals in the Health and Social Care Bill would see commissioning for children and young people's health split three ways between local authority-led health and wellbeing boards, the National Commissioning Board and GP consortia.
3. Social care provision/resourcing for adults is also very different, and a higher threshold than that for children.

Extending plans to age 25 will lead to even greater challenges and complexities unless all provision and its delivery are enshrined in law and protected. Therefore ELAS consider that expanding even further beyond education, health, social care and employment would lead to such complexities that the whole enterprise would fail. It would be a step too far.

Comments:

The voluntary and community sector, especially groups such as RNID and RNIB, already provide specialist advice for statutory assessment. Such knowledge may reside in other groups.

Where a child has an identified SEN or disability that has its own specialist voluntary body, such bodies could always be invited to support and help parents through the assessment process, if they so wish. However, some 3^rd sector organisations do not have the resources or expertise; therefore there cannot be a blanket agreement to use all such organisations.

Pathfinders should trial whether the 3rd sector could co-ordinate the assessment process and/or monitor the delivery of provision. It may be that the sector could help to separate decisions about arranging provision from the assessment process in order to ensure independence and to ensure that decisions are not solely made based on funding available.

Overall, ELAS are concerned that not too much is shifted to the 3^rd sector. At the very least the burdens must be shared with the statutory agencies.

Comments:

If the voluntary sector was more involved it would help to increase the appearance of independence, help to ensure parental views are always considered and thus hopefully improve parental confidence However, the voluntary sector cannot be expected to bear too much of the burden, especially as they are not sufficiently resourced to do so.

Comments:

If the ‘EHC plan’ includes aspects of social care that is specified, detailed and quantified and its delivery is protected by legislation,  it might provide clarity for children and young people who are significantly disabled but currently have to ‘fight’ to get a social worker, or any input from social care.

However, it could also mean that once ‘social care’ was written into a Plan there might be a family perception that it would continue and be guaranteed ‘ad nauseum’, however this would have to be subject to at least an annual review, as would the rest of the plan. Thus ‘continuity’ can never be presumed.

Comments:

• Timescales should be shortened.
• More detailed questions asked of health professionals to guide them in the issues they need to address
• Health professionals should attend Statutory Reviews or provide updated advice at least annually.

Of course if health had a statutory obligation to provide, the ‘ultimate’ responsibility, then it is likely that health advice would improve and attendance at reviews would be more consistent!

Comments:

Reducing time limits as is a good idea as long as this is enforced by means of :

• A penalty if late
• Means of taking action against professionals/services who are in breach

There is no point in setting unrealistic timescales if these are not met or no penalty occurs if these are not met!

ELAS is sympathetic to the Government’s desire to reduce burdens on schools, however would suggest that there must be clear and sufficient guidance for schools as to exactly what to do, (including possibly national proforma) as sadly leaving too much to schools’ discretion can sadly mean they don’t do it at all!

Comments:

For a Local Offer to be effective:

• parents should be consulted during the development of the Local Offer, as local areas are currently required to do when developing their short breaks services statement
• the local offer must be available in a clear and accessible format, with independent support and advice to help parents make the right choices for their children. It should be reviewed every year in consultation with local families
• the information provided must be genuinely transparent
• One stop shop for initial information and advice
• in relation to school provision, the information set out in the Local Offer should include:
  • a named member of the school’s senior management and school governor with responsibility for SEN
  • details of how provision is made for children with SEN and disabilities in the school, including the training available to staff
  • details of specialist SEN/disabilities expertise available to the school
  • details of the school’s SEN budget and how this is spent
  • information about the experiences of children with SEN/disabilities in the school, including annual progress against objectives and rates of exclusion for children with SEN/disabilities

Ofsted should assess the quality and accuracy of the Local Offer set out by schools as part of its inspection framework

Comments:

Parents should be given as much statistical information as possible together with clear statements of ethos from the school regarding SEN and disability

Information should include:

• a named member of the school’s senior management and school governor with responsibility for SEN/disability
• details of how provision is made for children with SEN/disability in the school, including the training available to staff
• details about any specialist provision made for specific areas of SEN/disability
• disability access arrangements
• details of specialist SEN/disability expertise available to the school
• details of the school’s SEN budget and how this is spent
• information about the experiences of children with SEN/disability in the school, including annual progress against objectives and rates of exclusion for children with SEN/disability

Comments:

Until evaluation of current pilots is in the public domain it is not possible to know whether this is a viable or efficient proposition.

Personal budgets will only work if they are optional, and if there is a real choice of appropriate services for families to choose from. Therefore:

• evaluation of the personal budget pilots, due to be published in October 2012 should look at the role of local authorities in developing the market so that parents can have an appropriate range of services to choose from.

Comments:

Parents will require the support of expert case managers to ensure that each package is truly in each child’s best interests, based on best available evidence and is value for money.

This will be unachievable in an equitable way unless, alongside expert case managers, a new system for monitoring and evaluating across-agency provision at the individual family level is put in place.

Thus personal budgets, even if some families prefer the apparent freedom of choice, could be a greater drain on public resources.

Comments:

The statutory guidance is, in some places unlawful. In addition, the advice on when placement could militate against the efficient education of the other pupils is, of necessity, vague and leads to confusion and confrontation and indeed to court action.

The law should revert to pre SENDA which is easier to understand and operate and does not confuse by implying a bias towards inclusion.

Comments:

The current SEN Code of Practice is incredibly useful to parents and professionals alike.

What comes through very strongly in Member research is that whatever system is in place, parents want and need a way of making sure their child’s needs are met, that progress is being made, and that support cannot be removed without proper consultation with parents and staff working with the child, whether or not they have a statement or an EHC Plan.  

A re-written SEN Code of Practice must remain clear, accessible and set out parents’ and children’s rights. These rights must include:

• clear timescales and processes, including communication between agencies
• a named and trained senior person in each school with responsibility for SEN/disability
• an identified teacher, with relevant training, in each school who has responsibility for coordinating SEN/disability provision
• ways for parents to challenge the system, including clear and accessible complaints and appeals processes
• rights for children with SEN/disabilities without EHC Plans or statements
• clear and enforceable lines of accountability between schools, local authorities and other agencies involved in providing support
• regular objective-setting for individual pupils.

These rights will ensure that families are better able to express a preference for an appropriate school.

There needs to be better information about the range of possible educational placements, including exactly what can be provided in each setting and what the goals and objectives and previous outcome data for children with similar levels of impairment have been in that setting.

ELAS members have found some parents confused by the current, extremely long, list of independent and non-maintained special schools that DfE require LAs to provide. This Regulation should be reconsidered and more useful and user-friendly system for accessing information on schools appropriate to the individual child’s age, ability and SEN should be devised.

Comments:

Not before registration of an appeal but alongside. But it depends on how mediation works

Mediation needs to be:

• run by skilled mediators
• make provision for experienced parental  representatives
• well promoted
• work to timescales  to ensure that there is no delay  in provision being made
• ensure timescales do not delay any appeals to the Tribunal
• be seen to be effective (see below)
• be clear as to who are the parties to mediation (see below)

Effective

Tribunals often “focus the mind” much more within local authorities than mediation which may be seen to be a remedy “without teeth” – the mediation has to be seen to be effective

Parties

It needs to be clear as to who is responding to the mediation and who has the power to make decisions as to what should be added into a child’s Education Health and Care Plan (and within which agency’s  budgets any decisions will fall) – it is no use mediating with the wrong person from the wrong agency attending! This would need to be carefully resolved – also with regards to who would be the parties attending (from the statutory agency ‘side’) to any Tribunal claims

For it to work the following steps need to be taken:

• parents should be able to take a supporter with them if they choose to
• mediation should be available between parents and schools where necessary, as well as between parents and local authorities and/or parents and health
• mediation should happen as quickly as possible to prevent unnecessary delays to a child’s education
• any introduction of mandatory mediation must not delay the time it takes to get to tribunal
• professionals who attend mediation must be able to make commitments on behalf of the school, local authority or other agency they represent
• parents must have ways of making sure that the decisions made during mediation are stuck to.

Comments:

If it is clear who should attend and who can make decisions- see comments as set out above at question 16

Comments:

ELAS welcomes the proposals to give professionals more opportunities to learn from colleagues in specialist settings, and to develop ‘clusters’ of schools that share good practice. This could be very cost-effective: preventing mainstream school placements from breaking down, and reducing the need for more expensive out-of-area placements.

However the current emphasis on competition between schools militates against co-operation. There needs to be an emphasis on networking and a concept of shared ownership of all local children, if not some form of shared governance.

Education staff are not solely the repositories of specialist expertise. Health professionals working in or with schools should also be enabled to share their expertise, both with other health professionals and with education staff. Multiagency school forums could serve as a starting point.

SEN expertise could be improved by including more on SEN in the initial teacher training and, because there are many existing teachers who have not received any training in this area; it must also be a mandatory for CPD and not just an offer.

There should be a basic requirement for ALL education staff to have awareness of a range of SEN and disabilities and know how to access specialist expertise if faced with a new issue. All schools should be made aware of where and how to access such specialist expertise and support.

Comments:

Independent establishments are in competition with each other. It is less likely that they will be willing to share expertise and train others unless there is a financial incentive.

Comments:

ELAS welcomes the Government’s proposal that training for head teachers will have a focus on SEN. This training should be available to both newly appointed leaders and experienced head teachers. 

SEN expertise and skills needs to be recognised as valuable both in staff status and remuneration. Too often SEN is regarded as low priority and low prestige. Such recognition will encourage staff at all levels to opt for specialist training.

Comments:

To build expertise across the country:

• SEN scholarships for teachers should include scholarships on specific areas of SEN/disability. There should be incentives for teachers, and teaching assistants, to take up these scholarships up and share their knowledge.
• local authorities should work with schools and other services, such as health, to make sure that all schools in their area can access specialist training for SEN/disability.

Training should not to be just for staff at the school, but for those who oversee the management of the school, too:

• training for Chairs of governing bodies must include a focus on SEN/disability.

Comments:

Such an approach could be counterproductive.

What definition of SEN will be used? There is a suspicion that the idea that the number with SEN will be reduced is for financial reasons rather than meeting the needs of the children.

Parents of children provided at the new school SEN stage will be concerned that, although they may require additional or different provision, they may fail to get it. There will be less consistency of approach for an amorphous ‘lump’ of children at the school stage. The ‘graduated approach’ made apparent when more resources were provided for an individual and provided a tangible concept of an in-school process. Removing such an approach may indeed lead to a push for more statements or greater numbers of the ‘EHC’ Plan than Government anticipate. Indeed, if EHC Plans require provision from all 3 agencies, then it may even lead to a greater push for more resources across all agencies.

The idea that all problems can be identified very early and are then set for life is at odds with the changing needs of individuals that call for a flexibility of response to needs. There must not be a system of an initial screening plus intervention equaling no further problems to be identified.

There is a danger that schools will be left responsible for most children and young people with identified need without input, support, resources unless access to external education and health advice continues. This would be a retrograde step.

There is also a danger that, if the Government proposals for educational psychology end in most EPs being independent, schools will no longer be able to access EP advice unless a child has an EHP Plan that so specifies. This would be detrimental to the education of the great number of children with SEN leaving them to languish without recourse to statutory provision and at the mercy of the (possibly) limited expertise of school staff.

Comments:

Changing categories and structures does not necessarily make for a different approach.

There should be a common driver towards the best possible outcomes that matter for each individual child, whatever the extra challenges posed by their SEN and disability and whatever system is in place. The system must also protect the rights of the child and the family.

Comments:

It is important that children with BESD are recognised as having needs and difficulties - and not simply seen as hard to handle or liable for exclusion. The current label/category helps professionals ensure this is dealt with as a special educational need and addressed appropriately.

The current label, backed up by the guidance in the SEN Code of Practice, also recognises that children have very varied difficulties within BESD category and this must be retained.

There is a risk if the term BESD is reduced in how it is used or indeed replaced with a different label and set of descriptors, that more children will simply be excluded for “bad behaviour” which may lead to challenges in Tribunal under the Equality (discrimination) legislation as the majority of BESD difficulties equate to a disability.

Comments:

If this question, and question 24 above, is actually a proposal to cut down the numbers of pupils with BESD by re-labeling or to ‘lose’ BESD as an SEN category altogether, what happens to other umbrella categories such as specific learning difficulties and also to single order special needs such as dyslexia?

Of course, whatever the overarching labels first applied by the school, there must be recognition that an assessment of the underlying difficulties or reasons should be undertaken. However, education should not revert to the purely medical model of diagnosis and prescription. The whole ethos of SEN since 1978 and the Warnock report has been about meeting needs, both evident and underlying, rather than a merely delivering according to a label.

Comments:

Training and collaboration with other schools - although it should be recognised that the ‘clientele’ in special schools often exhibit more extreme ‘behaviour’ and emotional difficulties than are found in the mainstream.  It is also likely that classroom management techniques which are successful in special schools with high adult to child ratios are less likely to succeed in the mainstream.

Comments:

It is not clear from the Green Paper whether alternative provision means education provision for excluded pupils or alternative options for placement of children and young people with SEN and disability.

1. If the alternative provision is for those excluded from mainstream, whether or not the individual has identified SEN, then the barriers are those of finance and accountability. It would be inappropriate if special schools and special academies admitted excluded pupils where their needs were not such as required specialist provision as exclusion does not necessarily equate to SEN.
2. If alternative provision means widening the school offer for SEN pupils, barriers could include quality, governance, expertise, not for profit principals and the potential for segregation and separatism depending on sub diagnoses.

ELAS is also concerned about the possible lack of staff expertise and availability of qualified staff.

There are already a number of independent special schools, all recognised by DfE, where staff are not expert or qualified in SEN, and indeed some schools have staff who do not even hold qualified teacher status. This must not be replicated in special academies or special free schools. It would also be unfortunate and unnecessary for such schools to ‘poach’ expert and qualified staff from existing maintained schools, or indeed the independent and non-maintained sector, as that would not add to the pool of available expertise which is what is required.

Comments:

Special academies, who currently are ex-maintained schools, should continue to be part of the same local authority clusters and support mechanisms. It may need Government to promote and fund such work as academies may perceive that they are in competition with the maintained sector.

Comments:

Placing children in a “wider, regional community” means that children either have long journeys or may need to live away from home. This is not acceptable. If Government are determined to have special academies and special free schools as part of a varied offer for parents, such extra or different provision, should mean more choice near home.

There would appear to be no barriers to being centres of excellence except for the culture of competition which is encouraged and engendered by this Government. Thus this culture needs to be overturned and/or academies are likely to require financial incentives.

Comments:

ELAS feel that this would be disastrous – non-Statemented pupils would not reach their potential and specialist provision would not always be available to those who really required it.

Comments:

It is demoralising to be constantly compared negatively with others. Equating low performance (bottom 20%) to SEN and disability will be a disservice to those SEN children who perform above this percentage.

Low attainment may cluster in areas of significant social deprivation. This needs to be understood and taken into account in any systems and information about outcomes. Low attainment does not necessarily equate to SEN.

The bottom 20% of pupils (who are not labelled SEN) may have greater difficulty in admissions especially now that Government has announced that schools failing to achieve 50% of pupils with five A – C’s at GCSE will be considered failing.

The only possible advantage of such league tables is that currently many schools disproportionately focus on “borderline” pupils – those on the cusp of gaining a decent C grade at GCSE – at the expense of the very brightest or the worst performers. But this would not necessarily provide an advantage for those with the greatest learning difficulties.

Comments:

Parental comments show that ‘soft data’ is important in assessing a school’s support for SEN. Therefore there should be more data and examples of how individual children have performed and what support was available to them- e.g. information about educational outcomes for each individual (anonymised) child.

Statistical information on performance at intake (the baseline) and outcomes at end of school phase so as to demonstrate how much progress pupils make both generally and according to SEN or disability.

Comments:

Extend post-16 offer to include qualifications at appropriate level with correct levels of support.

Recognition by Government that the decision, based on the Wolfe Report, that all young people must persist until they achieve at least Grade C in English and Mathematics at GCSE is inappropriate for many young people with SEN.  However, it would be counter-productive to automatically exclude all young people with SEN from this requirement; there must be a more nuanced approach.

The new all-age Careers Services should provide have specialist advisors to support and advise SEN and disabled young people and/or Government should fund schools and other post-16 education and training providers to provide appropriate careers advice and support so that young people with SEN and disabilities are able to access appropriate education or training.

Comments:

New all-age Careers Service must provide tailored advice so that the young person can be appropriately placed and the workplace and young person are both sufficiently prepared.  Use skills of agencies such as Remploy for initiatives to support into work.

Comments:

Supported internships do not equate to an apprenticeship or ‘real’ work. Schemes would need to be fully supported and funded through schemes attached to special schools and colleges or through specialist disability organisations. But there must be recognition by Government, statutory and voluntary agencies and families that such an experience may not necessarily ever lead to paid employment.

Comments:

Work experience placements are often irrelevant to other young people let alone those with SEN and disabilities.

Insurance cover and safeguarding issues have made all work experience placements less attractive to employers.

‘Encourage’ employers with financial incentives initially.  Education for employers and information to make sure that they feel it is possible to include such young people.

Comments:

Good transition. Greater involvement. Attendance at Reviews.  Keep open case files.

Comments:

It is important to involve the GP as young people move from paediatric to adult services.

GPs could become involved in transition meetings in year 9 or, at the very least attend annual reviews for young people from age 16.

GPs also need to attend health transition coordination meetings and be prepared to take on the role of lead physician from the community paediatrician with the responsibility to monitor and review the young person’s health care plan regularly, including emergency care plans.

Comments:

This is a wish list and will take a lot to make into reality!  The financial difficulties of all services are more likely to lead to fewer opportunities for all young people, let alone those with additional needs unless it can be demonstrated that such an offer will lead to a lesser call on the health and welfare budgets.

Comments:

Comments:

Local authorities are clearly key to planning and securing local provision, and getting different agencies to work together. As Government has recognised, services for SEN and disabled children are too often disparate and uncoordinated.

To make sure that local authorities’ roles are effective, we recommend that:

• the proposed Health and Wellbeing Boards include greater representation from schools, to help ensure joined-up, more cost-effective work when planning and commissioning services
• local authorities should use SEN specific data (such as the Pupil Level Census, Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) and information from statements or the new Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) to inform their planning
• the Department of Health should make sure, as part of its review of data collection, that local authorities and the appropriate health commissioning groups are collecting sufficient information on children and young people and adults in their area with SEN and/or disabilities (by need)
• proposed guidelines on JSNAs should help local authorities to better identify the needs of people with autism in their area, in line with the commitment in the Adult Autism Strategy, this should be replicated for all categories of SEN and disability
• parents should be consulted about what local provision is needed and this information should feed into the planning and commissioning of local services.

Local authorities as champions for parents

ELAS would welcome a role for local authorities in championing and supporting parents, although in some areas work will be needed to build the trusting relationship between the local authority and parents and carers which will allow them to perform this role effectively.

ELAS recommend that:

• as part of their role as parents’ champion and to increase transparency, local authorities should always publish their strategic plans for children with SEN and disability
• Government should work with local authorities, parents, the voluntary sector and other stakeholders to develop further details of how they see the role of local authorities changing to become the parents’ champion. This information should be made available to parents, local government officers and elected representatives
• local authorities should work with parents as they develop their role of parents’ champion, and their approach should be set out in their Local Offer
• local parent carer forums should have an increased focus on education, such as an education group. To support local authorities in their new role as parents’ champion, this group should feed into strategic planning and report back to the local authority on education services locally
• local parent carer forums could also have social care and health groups to link with the local authority and the appropriate health commissioning group
• the Government should continue to fund and to support local parent forums to act as a strong voice for all parents of SEN and disabled children in their area.

Comments:

• Assessing SEN – in conjunction with checks on the assessment process to ensure it is not unduly  driven by resources

• Monitoring- the performance of children with SEN and the provision for SEN within the  local authority

• Enabling enforcement mechanisms- for parents to enforce all of these remedies

• Ensuring a good range of local provision

Comments:

• Ensure local authorities are adequately funded to do their job properly and do not have unrealistic targets

• Providing a complaints mechanism for parents if local authorities do not meet timescales and effective penalties to ensure compliance

• Supporting and funding regional SEN partnerships or equivalent

Comments:

This question appears to have been partly overtaken by the government’s apparent ‘U turn’ on commissioning!

However, GP consortia, clinical commissioning groups and the local authority-led Health and Wellbeing Boards need to be advised by experts in the SEN and disability field in their locality.

All local health commissioning groups need to establish effective channels for listening to and heeding the voices of children and young people with a range of SEN and disabilities and the opinions of their families about what matters most to them and the outcomes to which they aspire.

All local health commissioning groups need to understand the education context when planning and purchasing services for SEN and disability.

Comments:

There needs to be more meaningful consultation with children, young people and their families to define the outcomes that matter most to them. It is likely that young people with SENH and disabilities want the same as all other young people – to be as healthy as possible, to lead a full and independent life with access to leisure activities and friends and to have a job.

Comments:

Recommending that local authorities and health have IT systems that ensure that certain reports and assessment of children with SEN etc are automatically required, triggered at least annually and kept up to date rather than needing to be requested time and time again.

Government could produce more pro forma assessment documents for completion and guidance for professionals to insert into boxes their views, but this can be counterproductive as has been shown with safeguarding assessments as reported in the Munro review.

Comments:

Far more regular liaison across teams from health, education and social care at both strategic level and in respect of individual children

Comments:

Hopefully setting up the new Health and Wellbeing Boards ought to improve collaboration

Comments:

Expertise needs to be retained!

In order to retain sufficient staff and expertise it may be necessary to retain SEN services as provided to all schools by local authorities, including academies and free schools, on a ‘buy back’ basis from delegated school budgets.  It would ensure that SEN and disabled pupils at the school level, with statements or ‘EHC’ Plans attending any state funded school were provided with appropriate expert support, thus protecting the individual pupil and services.

Alternatively if all funding for support were delegated and maintained schools, Academies and Free Schools were free to choose the source from which to buy support, it might encourage multiple providers but there is no guarantee of quality nor even the availability of very specialist services for low incidence needs such as sensory support.

High quality services will only continue to exist if there is a guarantee of a regular income and accountability mechanisms. Drivers should include a range of outcomes not just academic progression and achievement. Funding needs to link with those services that achieve the best outcomes across a broad range of domains.

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A more proactive use of EPs would help with early intervention and monitoring and also ultimately reduce cost if their time was more effectively deployed. However there appears to be a lack of EPs in some areas so much so that schools complain that they are never available when required.

Some ELAS members report that local authority EPs appearing at Tribunal appear hidebound by the Local authority budget as to what they can say or do for the child. It is important that EPs are empowered to be creative in recommendations they make for SEN provision and that they have some confidence that their recommendations will be acted upon.

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Training must be targeted on ensuring that EPs are aware of all provisions in the local authority area and versed in many different types of therapy and other approaches  for children with SEN and think “outside the box” in ways to meet children's SEN.

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More local authority networking groups and regional groups to work together- reinstate and fund SEN regional partnerships or similar.

Groups of schools across authorities working together in partnerships re particular areas of SEN or disability.

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Specialist provision for children with low incidence needs nearer to home including health, education and social care provision that is individually appropriate.

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There cannot be too much local freedom and flexibility because services must be delivered in an equitable way across England and do not degenerate into even more of a postcode lottery than is the case at the moment.

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• Supporting and advocating for children, young people and their families at national and local level.
• Helping individuals and their families make real, informed choices about education, health and social care.
• Supporting individuals and their families in some aspects of managing the system.

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Great caution must be urged with regard to ensuring that banded frameworks  do not limit  the ability to meet the individual needs of each child – i.e. that children  are simply seen as being within a band

Theoretically could cut out postcode lottery.  Parents would know the level of funding and what level of service their child should therefore receive. However Young people with SEN require different levels of funding at different times in their lives – would need to be regular assessment re funding.

Government would need to work with the independent sector to ensure that banding levels did not mean that some school were too expensive for any child.

Different authorities and regions currently have easy access to different education, health and social care provisions with different costs so initiating a national funding regime could disadvantage some families and lead to even more disagreements and tribunals. There might no longer be a ‘postcode lottery’ on funding but it would lead to an even greater disparity of provision and lack of choice all round.

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Alignment would mean:

• extra funding for children’s social care – to bring in line with adults
• extra funding for adult health services so as to offer specialist services that mirror paediatric services
• extra funding for further education so as the SEN offer was the same as that in schools

In any event alignment and consistency may be unnecessary. At different ages and stages children, young people and adults have different requirements and hence differing calls on services.

However consistency is required with regards to rights and legal entitlements.

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ELAS are extremely concerned that these proposals will not lead to greater rights and protection for children and young people with SEN or disabilities due to the current legal aid proposals which will mean that there is no legal aid for any such cases.

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Questions were very complex and widespread.