SEND reform: the lessons government must learn from the current system

By David Holloway, Senior Policy Manager - SEND at AoC

Every year at AoC, we ask colleges in England to tell us about the reality of delivering education and training to young people with SEND. We then analyse their responses and publish a report which details the trends and patterns across the country.

In the past, this report has highlighted the systematic failures and funding pressures that colleges have to shoulder when ensuring young people with SEND have a safe and supportive environment in which to learn.  

I’d argue that this year’s report, however, is our most important one yet; not only because most colleges in the country took part, but because the context in which our findings are published is radically different.

In February, the government announced widescale reform of the SEND system and set out a new vision in a consultation: SEND reform: putting children and young people first.

At AoC, we firmly agree that reform is needed. However, for it to be successful in genuinely improving the education and training of children and young people with SEND, policy makers must listen to colleges about the issues they are facing right now, and how those barriers threaten their ability to be truly inclusive.  

You can read our full report here, but in this blog, I’m going to pull out some of the essential areas which need careful consideration in reform.  

Student experience of transition

Our survey showed 67% of colleges reporting inaccurate information in education health and care plans (EHCPs), meaning that students will arrive at college without the right information to meet their needs. Meanwhile, 82% of colleges say they are receiving consultations too late.

Every instance of disorganised commissioning means that a real student has been left without knowing where the next phase of their education will take place. What students need is the right transition decision, made in plenty of time, supported by accurate information.  Clearly, a mechanism is needed to ensure the accuracy, not just of EHCPs, but of the individual support plans (ISPs) that all students with SEND will have in the future.

Viability of provision and disincentives to inclusion

We know that one aim of the SEND reforms is to make mainstream schools more inclusive. In colleges, however, the question is not how to create inclusivity but how to sustain it. Only 21% of colleges, for example, say that their main local authorities consistently took into account the actual costs of the student places being commissioned. The specialist provision packages (SPPs) proposed as part of a new system are, among other things, cost bands. To be successful, SPP costs will need to be set at a realistic level.

We also learnt that high needs income is a large slice of colleges’ entire budgets, standing at 8.7% on average for colleges other than specialist SEND colleges. This demonstrates colleges’ inclusiveness. However, the more inclusive they are, the more vulnerable they become to places being commissioned below cost. The commissioning and payment practice revealed by our survey is a threat, not only to the viability of high needs provision, but to colleges themselves.

Our finding that 90% of colleges have specialist SEND provision demonstrates an important inclusive feature of the college sector, similar to the inclusion bases now being encouraged in schools. But we also found a significant positive relationship between the percentage of a college’s high needs students enrolled on specialist courses, and the percentage of total income derived from high needs. This may not be very surprising, but it may disincentivise not only the recruitment of SEND students in general, but of students on specialist provision in particular.

Our responses showed other disincentives too, like the delays in agreement or payment, and the lack of capital investment to create the facilities students need.  

The proposed redirection of some high needs funding into core budgets might mitigate some disincentives, but not those related to specialist provision, as it is largely students on this provision who would retain EHCPs.

Individual versus cohort-based planning

Under the current system, provision is commissioned on the basis of individuals’ needs as described in their EHCPs.  This individualised approach should guarantee that each student receives the support they need. But, as the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) observed last October, the “individualistic nature of the EHCP process creates thousands of different planning documents for each local authority, which is then responsible for arranging provision on a plan-by-plan basis. This process is slow and inefficient. Rather than being able to proactively and strategically commission support, based on population needs assessments, local authorities are required, by law, to be reactive.”

This view is consistent with our finding that only 37% of colleges report that their local authorities consistently engage them in high needs planning, including strategic planning. Our results therefore lend support to the reforms’ intention to shift from individual planning to a more cohort-based system in which students would be assigned to a limited number of SPPs.

The duty to admit

We found that 71% of colleges have been directed to admit students under their duty to admit, even after the college had said they could not safely meet their needs. Colleges’ comments show deep concern about placement decisions they see as reckless, for example if physical health needs or behavioural needs cannot be met in a mainstream college.  

It is especially concerning that survey responses show that 66% of colleges reporting EHCPs being amended after consultation. It would be logical to use an accurate description of a student’s needs as the basis of a placement decision. What colleges are reporting is the opposite: the description of needs being amended to fit the proposed placement.

There are implications for both the current and future SEND architecture. The risks to student and staff safety mean that measures are needed in the short term to address the misuse of the duty to admit.  

Similar situations could also arise under a future cohort-based model: two different applicants in the same cohort could have quite different needs.  Of course, better strategic planning under a new system could help colleges meet more needs by getting the right staff and facilities in place, but that would still not mean that every college will be able meet every possible need. It ought to be possible to design an enrolment process that would assess behavioural or clinical risk, without compromising the advantages of cohort-based planning through SPPs.

The role of local authorities

Colleges and local authority SEND departments both work to support the education of young people with special educational needs and disabilities.  Under DfE’s proposals, local authorities will continue to have a crucial role, but it will be a different role. They will no longer negotiate prices for individuals, but will assign individuals to SPPs with set costs. They will also be expected to plan strategically for place numbers for each SPP. Collaborative relationships with colleges will still be vital.

Around 66% of colleges say variability between local authorities is a difficulty with place commissioning while 83% report that variability creates difficulties with cost negotiation. Colleges also report that processes set out in the High Needs Operational Guide and the SEND Code of Practice not always followed.

This all suggests that new accountabilities are needed, beyond the current tribunal system and the Ofsted-CQC area inspections every three to five years. For example, the digitisation of EHCPs could provide an opportunity to collect data on the health of the system in each local area, like whether local authority staff attend Year 9 reviews. There would be little point in SEND reforms that revise both guide and code but without improving compliance to either.

Accountabilities alone will not produce good decision-making if the local authority workforce is not supported appropriately. SEND reform proposals have rightly recognised the importance of developing the school and college workforce, and of the availability of the health workforce, but the local authority workforce represents a distinct profession, albeit one without explicit professional standards or qualifications.  A better supported workforce would reach better decisions, benefiting tens of thousands of students, and all the dedicated college and local authority staff who work so unflaggingly on their behalf.

The need for reform

Our results show that in the current high needs system, strategic planning is rare, inadequate payments are common, and decisions about student destinations are often inappropriate and sometimes physically dangerous. For students, this results in uncertainty around transitions. For colleges, this results in numerous disincentives to inclusive enrolment. It is doubtful that inclusiveness can be sustained in the longer term unless there is system change.

It is striking that we heard about such widespread dysfunction despite 81% of colleges saying their relationships with local authorities were collaborative. Colleges gave many examples of college and local authority collaboration. Dysfunctions arise not from a failure to collaborate, but because the structure of the system cannot function well, even when colleges and local authorities do collaborate.

Our results therefore lend support to the proposed shift to more cohort-based planning system, using a limited number of SPPs, which would better support numbers planning by commissioners.  

At the same time, there are risks involved in the introduction of SPPs because, if designed for special schools, they might be contain elements not age-appropriate for students in colleges. Reforms also have to succeed for the very numerous students who have SEND but not high needs.

The government’s proposals are not the only proposals imaginable, but any reforms need to address the disincentives that threaten colleges’ ability to be inclusive. It would be a tragedy if reforms designed to make schools more inclusive had the opposite effect on the colleges that young people go to next.