Key to resolving SEND crisis is ensuring children receive provision the law says they should have, not in changing the law: IPSEA
The Independent Provider of Special Education Advice (IPSEA) has warned that resolving the SEND crisis lies in finding a way to ensure that children and young people receive the provision and support the law says they should have, not in changing the law.
In a submission to the Education Committee in response to its ‘Solving the SEND crisis’ inquiry, IPSEA noted that although “diluting” legal rights and entitlements would reduce what schools and local authorities are required to provide for children and young people with SEND, this would not reduce their needs.
It went on to warn that the “lack of enforceability” of Special Educational Needs (SEN) support enables “non-inclusive practice” in mainstream schools, such as a failure to ensure that children who have SEN engage in the activities of the school together with children who do not have SEN.
The organisation noted: “This is at odds with the Government’s policy of greater inclusion of children and young people with SEND in mainstream settings.”
It therefore recommended that SEN support be put on a “statutory footing” for children who need special educational provision, but who do not require an EHC plan.
Further, the organisation called for the jurisdiction of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) to be extended, to enable it to investigate complaints about support in schools for children with SEN.
It noted: “Parents/carers of school-age children often seek an EHC needs assessment because their child’s needs are not being met by their school. Individual complaints of this sort could be investigated by the LGSCO, if the LGSCO’s remit were to be extended to enable this. At present, the LGSCO cannot currently investigate schools’ delivery of SEND provision, which leaves many families with no route of redress when their child is not receiving the support they need.”
Discussing a solution to the sharp rise in appeals to the SEND Tribunal over the last decade, the organisation noted that the system should be made “less adversarial” by the adoption of a zero-tolerance approach to non-compliance with SEND law.
It said: “Rather than making it harder for parents/carers to obtain redress, local authorities should be expected to make lawful decisions about provision for children and young people with SEND and sanctioned when they do not.”
Catriona Moore, IPSEA’s policy manager, said: “There is no magic solution to the SEND crisis. The choice is either to insist on compliance with the current legal framework, which offers legal rights and protections to children and young people, or to change it. IPSEA firmly supports the former – children and young people’s existing rights to an education which meets their needs must be upheld and protected, not weakened. But if the law is changed, policy-makers need to consider how – when children and young people so often struggle to get the special educational provision they need within the current rights-based framework – this situation could possibly be improved by diluting or removing their statutory right to support.”
Lottie Winson