In its report, The Special Educational Needs and Disability and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan: Right Support, Right Place, Right Time, the government set out plans to “transform” the current SEND system, underpinned by new national standards.

These reforms partially aim to address challenges stemming from 2014 legislation, which raised families’ expectations of SEND provision, but lacked sufficient resources to meet the rising demand.

In the first of a new series of video debates, editor of CYP Now Derren Hayes, welcomes panellists Gregg Burrough, Hazel Clarke and Annamarie Hassall for a debate on whether the SEND reforms will make the system less adversarial for securing support.

Watch the full debate on CYP Now's YouTube channel.

Guests: 

Gregg Burrough is the senior education solicitor at Coram Children's Legal Centre, which provides free legal information, advice and representation to children, young people and families in education, immigration, community care and family law. 

Annamarie Hassall is the chief executive of the National Association for Special Educational Needs (Nasen), a charitable membership organisation that supports and champions those working with children and young people with SEND.

Hazel Clarke is the SEND information and advice service manager in Solihull for Family Action, which provides community-based services that work with children, young people, parents and carers to support and strengthen families.

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CYP Now: At the heart of problems with the current SEND system is the mismatch between parents’ expectations of support and what service providers think they can deliver. Are there sufficient resources in the system to address this gap and meet demand?

Annamarie Hassall: Embedding change, that's going to stick and be transformational, requires investment, over and above what it usually costs to maintain the system.

We currently have around 87,000 members at Nasen, and a significant proportion of those members are special educational needs co-ordinators. They don't talk to us about money, they talk to us about the frustrations in securing the right people, the right resources and services to help implement an EHCP (education, health and care plan). The inability really to channel that resource at a local level is a source of frustration and disappointment.

If the resourcing was more readily available, if we had what is set out in the new improvement plan which is all about early identification and early support, that's taking us back to the position we should have had following the 2014 reforms.

Gregg Burrough: Unfortunately, the number of appeals that we see coming through the system is indicative of the amount of EHCPs and statements of SEN that have doubled since 2015 and 2016. The amount [of cases] we have taken on has greatly increased, caseloads are bursting and the SEND Tribunal itself is really struggling in terms of listing appeals.

If an appeal came through the system today and was lodged and registered, for the actual hearing date we’re looking at around 11 or 12 months further on. By the time they’ve had the local authority issue the final EHCP to even give them the right of appeal, you’re looking at around 14 or 15 months to even get to the door of the tribunal for the hearing. Now, depending on the age of the child, their needs might well have changed by then.

To circle back, yes, things are sort of bursting at the seams, so something will eventually need to give, I think. There is a child or a young person at the centre of the process and 12 to 14 months to even get to the door certainly isn't what we would say is acceptable.

CYP Now: A key proposal in the government's improvement plan is to introduce standardised EHCPs setting out the type of support available for specific conditions. This is designed to reduce the inconsistency in what support is available between areas, but is there a danger this will level down rather than up?

Hazel Clarke: When you see EHCPs from neighbouring authorities in different parts of the country, they can be so vastly different. It's also difficult for professionals because they’re working on different templates. In a school that's near a border you could have children from three or four different local authorities, and special schools will have children from many different local authorities. So having something of a national standard can only make life easier in that respect.

There is a concern that EHCPs may not take the best EHCP going. So families are very concerned that this might be a dumbing down of an EHCP rather than making everybody come up to a better level.

There's also a concern about the digitisation of EHCPs. So many families face digital poverty. It's going to be very difficult for them to have a digitised system, when the only way that lots of families access this is through a mobile phone. So we need to have some consideration about how that will work, and who's going to help and support families where this is a difficulty for them.

Annamarie Hassall: I’m a huge fan of digitisation, and I think that is the way to go. I respect Hazel's concerns about the potential for exclusion rather than inclusion, and I think that's something that needs to be addressed.

But if we really thought about children and young people who have special educational needs, for some of them that use assistive technology and digitisation could be supportive to address some of the barriers and make life more straightforward, enabling access.

Part of that offer, I think, should be to enable that young person to have digital access. And that would start to address and create a level playing field for parents, for families. We wouldn't be looking to the family to provide the device; it would be part of their offer.

CYP Now: Will government plans to introduce mandatory mediation between local authorities and parents help resolve disputes or slow the redress process down?