Under new legislation, 60% of DC with a Statement will not get HSC Plan

[Doomsday2014]

Have name changed, but often ask questions on here.

I was at a meeting today where a high profile member of the SEN Dept of my LA was speaking about the Children and Families Bill and the implications for children with SEN. It was meant to reassure parents that children with SEN would be better off under the new legislation. However, the representative admitted that come Sept 2014, my LA's remit will be to ensure that only 40% of the children who currently have Statements will be considered to have needs complex enough to require a HSC Plan.

We were told that all children with Statements would be re-assessed under new criteria (this would probably happen at Annual Review), and that it could be the case that even children currently considered to require a fairly high level of provision, could potentially be left with nothing more that a PRA, which is not legally binding.

Even our LA (which has one of the highest tribunal rates in the country), admitted they were concerned about what would happen to those children who currently have Statements but would not be eligible for EHC Plans.

No one knows what the criteria might be for EHC plans, but apparently they could vary between counties, so no standardisation.

I'm really worried for my child.

Interesting. I thought they might make it 18 not 16 to be consistent.

No, it's still 16.

The speaker was Andre Imich, ?SEN and Disability Professional Adviser (DfE).

Oh he's good: I sat next to him for something once. Is it sixteen now? I'm rusty on sixth form plus.

Yes, there's a requirement to be in education or training between 16-18, so that can mean a FE setting, an apprenticeship or something like that.

Andre Imich also confirmed that there was an absolute commitment that no rights that parents currently have would be lessened by this overhaul, only kept the same or enhanced, which I thought was reassuring.

He said there's also a plan to publish a 'parent friendly' version of the CoP this time, alongside the official one, so that those parents who find the detail very overwhelming will still be able to read what it is that they should be able to expect for their child.

A 'parent version'?

FFS.

The official version should be the parent version. What planet are they on?

Will teachers be expected to know the parent version or the 'professional' version?

Two Codes is a barmy idea.

"Andre Imich also confirmed that there was an absolute commitment that no rights that parents currently have would be lessened by this overhaul, only kept the same or enhanced, which I thought was reassuring."

I fear this doesn't sit consistently with reports of reducing the number of children on statements with the transfer to EHCPs.

Legal rights may be retained but it is possible that LAs will use the transfer to dump a load of kids off statements from what some have said.

Not sure about two codes either - the devil is often in the detail.

Glad to hear Hants are issuing statements as well as EHCPs - very sensible

Star I don't think the intention is to have two codes. It's the intention to have a Code and a 'guide'. So that parents who (unlike us) don't want all the detail can get the basic message of the code.

Regards the legal rights, he wasn't talking about LA implementation. He was talking about the statutory rights for parents. I share your concern about implementation.

Somebody asked a question about the rights of parents to request EHCPs, and he said 'we got it wrong. It was always a right of the parents, but we used clumsy wording and didn't communicate it well enough, so we've changed it.'

The Local Offer business looks to be an absolute waste of space. The woman presenting was confused in her message, stating that on one hand each school had to produce a document specifying their Local Offer, but on the other hand, some clusters of schools are getting together to produce such a document. She couldn't see the incompatibility of the two. When I pointed out that this means that parents would not be able to meaningfully discern the difference between schools, she said 'no, no, because each school would tweak the document to make it specific to them

She showed us an example of a Local Offer and said 'this is a good example'. I said 'are you serious?'

The two codes thing is a red herring. There was always a booklet called something like sen: a guide for parents and carers available as a hard copy.

Innappropriately, have you seenthis thread? - especially the later developments

I've found a financial penalty natural consequence for any LA failing countless future un-statemented, non-EHPC'd dc. It's that any dc charged with offences, will suddenly become very expensive. If the magistrates deem them unsuitable to go home pending trial, they automatically become a looked-after child EVEN if they're sent to a bail hostel or a young offender's institution. And central govt will bill the LA for the full costs. Given that most young offenders have serious SEN, this might eventually focus minds on preventing struggling dc from going down that path.