Introduction

In 2014, as part of SEND reform in the UK, Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) were introduced into practice and replaced previous statements of education. EHCPs are legally binding documents that outline a child or a young person's (0-25 years) special educational, health and care needs. Within the plan, it also outlines the personalized support and provision that they need in place to ensure that they can achieve their desired outcomes across education, health and care. An EHCP places the child/ young person at the centre and gives them ownership and a voice regarding their own wants, needs, interests and aspirations, which all need to be considered and acknowledged within their plan. It also places a greater responsibility on education, health and care services to work together to meet the needs of a child or young person, with a shared accountability all written within one document.

Proposed overhaul of EHCPs

However, in recent statements made by the UK government and officials as part of ongoing consultations surrounding reforms to the wider SEND sector, there are discussions about the future of EHCPs. Although it appears that there is no definitive plan as to what is going to happen with EHCPs, the current ripple of thought seems to swing between scrapping them all together or narrowing them down to only include children in specialist schools. Both suggestions seem very problematic and could leave many children without the support and provision that they need. It is well researched and publicized that the UK SEND system is in crisis and there are not enough specialist school placements for children who need them. This has resulted in an increase in the number of children with complex SEND needs being placed in mainstream educational settings. However, with the potential proposed overhaul of EHCPs, not only could children with SEND be continuously forced into mainstream educational placements that are not suitable for them, but they will be placed there without the safety net of having an EHCP in place to ensure they can access the appropriate level of support and provision that they need.

In the UK, I feel that we have become so reliant on EHCPs as a ‘plaster’ to cover up the gaps in the current SEND system, to a point where they are being used as a remedy as opposed to a cure to the wider SEND crisis. Parents and professionals will cling on to EHCPs as a lifeline to ensure that children receive the support they need because there is not a robust system in place to support children without one. Simply taking EHCPs away or restricting them only for the minority of children in specialist schools will only serve to make the crisis worse and to the detriment to our children.

The wider picture

That being said, anyone who has experienced the EHCP process or is implementing one within their own practice, knows that it is not without challenges. It is far from an effective system, albeit being the only system that we have. As I previously suggested, EHCPs have become a ‘plaster’ to cover up some of the wider gaps in the SEND system, and they cannot continue in the form that they are. The process itself in applying for and gaining an EHCP has become overly bureaucratic, with people writing the plans who have never come into contact with the child they are writing them for. The assessment process can take over 6 months to be completed and in some local authorities a personal budget attached to the plans is not available due to funding cuts.

Furthermore, since 2014, local authorities across the UK have spent £435.6 million on taking parents through appeals and tribunals regarding granting their children EHCPs. Where initially, an EHCP had been denied, over 90% of the cases brought to the appeal or tribunal stage were awarded. Rather than fighting parents on granting an EHCP or not, that £435.6 million could have been used by local authorities to create more specialist educational placements and resources for children, which would have directly benefited them. Also, in a recent report published by the National Audit Office, it was highlighted that the current model of EHCPs is financially unsustainable, with many local authorities across the UK running deficits of more than £100m, due to the associated costs of provision being outlined within each EHCP. So, with a SEND sector in crisis as a whole and EHCP’s not being financially sustainable, a much-needed overhaul is desperately required, but hopefully not at the cost of a child’s education or wellbeing.

Conclusion

As a parent of a child with an EHCP, my initial reaction to the potential news of scrapping them was fear and anger, I had fought for a long time to get an EHCP in place for my child. However, when thinking about why I wanted my child to have an EHCP, the foremost reason was to ensure that she got a placement at a specialist school as a mainstream school was not suitable for her complex educational and medical needs. I was using an EHCP as ‘educational currency' to enable my child to get the best educational placement. This was not the initial purpose of EHCP’s. Initially they were introduced to ensure that children’s needs were clearly outlined, how their needs should be met and by who. It stretched across education, health and care to ensure the holistic needs of a child were being supported. However, in the current landscape of SEND, there are not enough specialist educational placements for children and EHCPs have become the golden ticket to gain access to the most appropriate educational placements for some of our most vulnerable children. This again highlights the need for a complete overhaul of the UK SEND and education sector to ensure that families are not relying on ‘golden’ tickets or a postcode lottery to ensure that their child can enact their right to access the most suitable educational placement.

The recent ripple of thought from the government surrounding the future of EHCPs has sparked a mass fear that without EHCPs many children will lose their support and provision and will not be able to access or achieve their full educational potential. It is not good enough to announce that EHCPs could be scrapped or restricted without providing an alternative. It adds extra anxiety to children and their families and places further pressure on educational providers who are already nearing breaking point. Therefore, to ease this fear and if any reform is going to have a positive impact, there needs to be a clear plan set out on how children will be best supported with a robust safety net in place to catch children who are the most vulnerable from educational exclusion. Unfortunately, without any actual suggestions of what or if anything will replace EHCPs we continue to work in uncertain times. It is very much a case of watch and wait to see how the situation will unfold.