Five years ago, the Lamb Inquiry into special educational needs (SEN) provision said this about the UK system: “In many places and for many parents it can and does work well, but for too many parents it represents an unwarranted and unnecessary struggle” - a description that no doubt chimed with many parents of children with SEN.
The government has been making a big fanfare about the changes to the SEN regime introduced this September in the Children and Families Act 2014 – there are new regulations and a vast (281 pages!) new Code of Practice. The government's emphasis has been on involving parents and young people in decisions and giving them greater control - but how much of the new regime is really new? And what do parents need to know?
First off, statements of Special Educational Needs and Learning Difficulties Assessments (LDAs) for young people will be replaced by ‘Education, health and care plans’ (EHCs).
This isn't particularly radical. Jane McConnell, the chief executive of the charity Independent Parental Special Education Advice (IPSEA), describes EHC plans as ‘SEN statements with a bit of health and a bit of care. The commitment had been to a holistic approach to education, health and social care but legally it is not clear that will happen.’ Although, as the name suggests, EHC plans will cover health and social care needs, those aspects of the plan - unlike the education parts - cannot be appealed to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal. So, it will still be harder to challenge decisions about health and social care and harder to get the help children need. Commentators have also expressed disappointment that there will be no EHC plans for disabled children who don't have SEN in order to give them the statutory protection children with SEN have.
What’s important for parents to know is that now, any child or young person who has a SEN statement/LDA should ultimately be entitled to an EHC plan, unless there has been a change in needs.
There is some good news in the form of a new upper limit on what age young people are entitled to a plan – something Jane McConnell describes as ‘the saving grace of the whole legislation’. Up until now, a young person up to the age of 19 with SEN who remained at school was entitled to a statement. A young person who went to a further education college at 16 or left school at 19 would have to have an LDA instead. Now, all children and young people with SEN up to the age of 25 who need one will have an EHC Plan and the right to challenge that plan at a SEN and Disability Tribunal.
However, it’s worth noting here that now, in most cases, before you can challenge an EHC Plan in the Tribunal, you will need to get a certificate to say you have spoken to a mediator, even if you are not interested in pursuing mediation. Whilst for some, mediation could sort out disagreements about EHC plans without the need to go to the Tribunal, having to take this step will delay resolution for other children. The requirement to get the certificate and the process of mediating (if that’s what you decide to do) will eat into the time you have available to appeal to the Tribunal, so it’s worth taking specialist advice or reading up early so you don’t miss any deadlines.
Personal budgets are something entirely new. A personal budget is a notional amount of money allocated to a child to pay for the special educational provision in the EHC plan. Any child or young person with an EHC plan who wants a personal budget is entitled to have one. There are various ways a personal budget could work. At one end of the spectrum, direct payments would be made to the child’s parents to arrange SEN provision. At the other end, the budget would be managed by the local authority.
In theory, this could be good news - having a personal budget could give a family more control over the SEN support a child receives and who provides it. But it is an entirely new system and local authorities and clinical commissioning groups are going to have to figure out how to make it work in a cost-effective way, particularly where different bits of the budget relate to education, health and social care. Expect some teething problems and don’t expect it to be easy to get direct payments.
Local authorities will now have to publish comprehensive information (on a website but also somewhere else for those without internet access) about the support they expect to make available for children and young people with SEN. This is called ‘the local offer’. Again, this has the potential to be great - the local offer could provide up-to-date, accurate information, but it needs to work. Look out for ways to contribute to discussion of what the local offer should include by way of parent carer forums, young people’s forums or other local groups.
So, what now? If you have a child with a statement of SEN, or an LDA, your local authority has four years to move all children and young people to an EHC plan. Young people who now have an LDA and request an EHC plan should get one within 20 weeks of a request, and young people with LDAs who stay in further education or training after 1 September 2016 must also get an EHC plan. But Jane McConnell from IPSEA fears that local authorities have simply not been provided with the resources or training necessary to achieve the changes in the time-scale, and that they are ‘being set up to fail children’. Sadly, under the new regime, as under the old, it looks like it is the children whose parents are able to work the hardest who will get the help they really need.'
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Guest post and Q&A: Changes to SEN legislation - what you need to know
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MumsnetGuestPosts · 01/10/2014 12:04
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