Do you have questions on the special educational needs and disability (SEND) Review? Ask Minister for Children and Families, Will Quince MP

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Created for Department for Education

The Department for Education is seeking views on the changes they want to make to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) system in England. For further information visit SEND Review.

Read below for Will Quince's answers to some of your questions.

About Will Quince MP:

“Will Quince is the MP for Colchester and was appointed as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education on 16 September 2021. As Minister for children and families, his responsibilities include children’s social care, families, children in care, children in need, child protection, adoption and care leavers, early years, special educational needs including high needs funding, alternative provision and vulnerable children.”

Here’s what DfE has to say:

“We have listened to many children, young people, parents, teachers and those who work for and advocate for children with special educational needs and disabilities, to ensure our proposals were shaped by those who work within the system and those who should benefit from it. However, it is critical that we hear from even more people to gain invaluable feedback and expertise from a wide range of perspectives before final decisions are made. Our public consultation is open until the 1st of July, and we want everyone to have their say and help to shape the future of the system. For further information visit: http://sendreview.campaign.gov.uk”

Thanks, MNHQ!

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My family don't qualify for legal aid as we have too much disposable capital.

Our supposed "disposable capital" turns out to be the equity in our home 😡So this awful government expect us to sell our home to get our children the support they need to access an education!
My boys have Autism. Their home is their safe space. Moving home would cause them so much upset and damage.

As @Silkierabbit said, unless you have an educational lawyer your child gets nothing. I do not work as my full time job is doing all the legal paperwork for my 2 children* *myself. I am self taught, and mentally it has destroyed me. My boys have another 8 years of education, and after all of that I doubt I'll ever be able to get a job due to being out of work for so long 😪

I agree with @Unformidable about the issue of accountabilty.

How will the green paper address the issues of mental health?

Yes there is no accountability, the LGO is toothless. LA's know that the compensation and penalties that LGO impose are negligible in comparison to the savings made by them ignoring their statutory duty. So it cost me £250 to get a solicitor to force the LA to hold the overdue Annual Review they were legally obliged to hold. I paid £150 yesterday to send a pre action protocol letter to try and get the LA to issue the EHCP they were legally obliged to issue 31st March. When I get it I will have to appeal to SENDIST because what they issue won't be worth the paper it's written on so more costs including independent assessments because our LA won't make any assessments even though they must (section 6 CoP). Dd is 19 the last assessment our LA made was when she was 3. Surely what the review should be looking at is accountability because if that was in place and LA's were forced to meet their statutory duty it would reduce demands on SENDIST and parents who don't have the means to fund solicitors and independent assessments would be better able to access support for their children too.

Will you introduce better advocacy to support families?

This Conservative government relies on charity instead of doing the work themselves. They make people use Food banks instead of finding a way to make sure people have enough money/vouchers for food and groceries. They use the RNLI to rescue refugees on boats. They use IPSEA to provide special educational legal advice when the system should never be so complicated in the first place!!!

My LA (and many others too) don’t stick to EHCP timelines. Even sending a pre-action petter threatening judicial review doesn’t seem to get things moving. Are LAs going to be held more accountable?

One of the excuses my LA has for missing deadlines is a lack of staff, are you going to address this as it’s causing huge delays in young people getting the support they need.

Why should my DD miss out on a camping school trip because of her special needs? I have asked for extra support for her as she is not fully independent and has difficulties with a few things. She has a learning difficulty and most likely has ADHD and Autism (being assessed) The school senco say that no funding is available for a LSA on the school trip. It almost feels like my DD is being punished for having SEND! Sorry just wanted to rant there 😥

When will provision be increased to meet all needs?. So many children are going without desperately needed placements where they are either stuck in mainstream schools which are totally inappropriate to meet need and leads to additional stress on child, family and staff which often leads to exclusion or even once in the specialist schooling system when children need to transition to new schools there is a lack of suitable placement. This is especially the case where children have higher needs. This leads to a lack of parental choice and children being put in to placements not suitable for their needs.

Will there also be proper investment in the supporting therapies our children often need-speech and language therapy, occupational therapy etc? Often these are crucial to our children achieving their full potential educationally, but they are underfunded and difficult to access, with long waits and barriers to access-for example our local SALT service specifically excludes therapy for children with autism who have language in line with their condition. This is despite evidence of benefit for children with autism. And too often their autism is used as an excuse not to see them at all, with an assumption that language is in line with condition-which in our case resulted in other speech and language difficulties being missed until we paid for a private assessment. These may be health services but our children can’t succeed educationally unless these needs are also addressed.

I have a question, but please if I win the voucher can it please go to @duvetdayforeveryone

I want to tell our story as sometimes numbers mask the real human suffering involved in the current SEN set up.

My dc has been diagnosed with both ADHD and ASD. From around 18 months it was clear dc had a significant speech delay with both very limited vocabulary and poor speech sounds. No referral was ever made by the health visitor to speech and language therapy. My child failed almost every element of the two year check and there was no follow up whatsoever - not even a call or further appointment made for him. We paid for private speech therapy in the end, which cost us thousands of pounds. This has meant dc has normal vocabulary and speech sounds now, a huge difference in his life chances. Our private speech therapist had come from the NHS and told us public provision has really been slashed over the last few decades.

When we got to school my son was assessed as struggling to cope in school in both in nursery and reception but school put absolutely no extra support in place and didn’t refer to speech and language, which he was still struggling with at this age. This appeared to be because they were a small village school and didn’t want to pay for any extra help.

How will this SEND review help children like my son?

The Green Paper talks about the piecemeal and inconsistent approach to SEN across the country, and that an aim is to even this out, so all areas deliver similarly.

This is nonsensical. The law is already even across the country, and clearly laid out in the SEN Code Of Practice. The inconsistency comes from LAs ignoring the law and applying their own policies instead, almost always to the detriment of the children, which is why 95% of parents succeed if they appeal.

Why are you seeking to create new law, instead of trying to force the LAs to abide by that which already exists - which would create that consistency?

Hi Will,

Given the emphasis on diagnosis and support to ensure early intervention, what accountability and expectation will there be for primary schools? My 14 years in education has shown year on year that parents and pupils are repeatedly "fobbed off" with excuses and that it will get sorted in secondary school. This is unfair for all involved and delays that intervention and places a disproportionate load in terms of work and money on secondary schools.

@duvetdayforeveryone I have done 7 appeals and never used a solicitor or barrister. I represent myself with help from ipsea. I won a independent specialist school without paying a penny in legal fees. Appealing is like going to Tesco for me. Easy but necessary to survive. If you need and guidance dm me.

I would happily sit in the Royal court of justice every week, feeling like a criminal to remove my disabled child from the black hole of SEN funding that is state education in the LA.

People telling me there is mo cash no staff. I'm not a recruitment agency neither do I have a blank check. My LA can sort their act out by pushing back. It's my child drowning. To think I have sympathy on the receiving end of funding cuts is obnoxious. I live it, breath it. I can neither switch off at 5pm, move posts or resign so how dare LA staff whine to be about funding and staff. Theres one of me ONE. Private EPs cost 1400 and I gave up my carer to fight my LA

Mainstream education is not always appropriate for children with SEND. Why are there so few alternative options for them? Children with SEND should have the right to access education that meets their needs.

Another one donating any voucher to @duvetdayforeveryone .

I have parented four children with varying E levels of special need, from full time residential care to a support plan in mainstream. We have been extraordinarily lucky to get most of the provision that we need so far (counting no chickens as we’re nowhere near done) once we’ve accessed diagnosis, after the usual eternal wait for that diagnosis. Mostly because I am comfortable with reading law, codes and guidance, and seeking advice from professionals and peers on the best way forward. Not because the system helps.

I entirely agree that the existing legislation if applied properly would offer children the rights they need, especially if accompanied by serious government investment in special schools and additional mainstream SEN funding. How can the Minister assure us that this review is not in fact seeking to reduce statutory obligations to and opportunities for our vulnerable children, which is I’m afraid the impression I currently have?

I want to echo the questions about why you are introducing new rules rather than ensuring Local Authorities abide by the existing ones? We had to appeal our local authority’s refusal to conduct an EHC needs assessment. It was a perverse decision in the first place when our child was already on a split placement with an alternative provision. Why are you adding an extra step forcing us to go to mediation? Our local authority backed down before tribunal because they clearly had no defence for their actions. Yet we get criticised for being sharp elbowed parents and they get no comeback for their failure to uphold their legal duties.

Given the number of cases won at tribunal, why is there no scrutiny of local authorities and their decision making? It is clear they use the tribunal process to delay and avoid having to provide appropriate support.

I have no faith in this review to make changes that benefit children.

Would like to support this.

Two ways SEN provision could be improved overnight:

1. As @Ilikecheeseontoast says, ringfence the money. And harshly - there should be serious penalties, preferably criminal ones, if schools or LAs use that money otherwise. I am so sick of hearing about headteachers who pay a class TS using a 1:1 budget from a disabled child's EHCP, when the parents have fought tooth and nail to secure that to begin with, only to have the head bleat that, "We have to think of all the children!" It's theft. It should be punished as such.

2. Make it impossible for any school to be Outstanding if they have fewer than the national average number of SEN supported and EHCP supported children on roll. Right now, there's a huge incentive for heads to provide badly and treat parents poorly, so we vote with our feet. Make it OFSTED incentivised to keep them - and just watch the heads fall over themselves to improve provision, and listen to parents.

Hi Will
The LA (Essex in fact!) Consulted 15 mainstream primary schools for my child. They all said no.

Having read the responses, it's abundantly clear they are on their knees struggling to manage children with rising and often clashing needs. Often in schools that are short of space and money.

The LA did get one school to agree but tribunal found it was unsuitable. My child attends one of those pesky independent special schools with a long journey, that apparently are poor value for money.

It's disturbing that you seek to force children into schools that cannot cope by making it even harder to appeal.

Particularly when you are so critical of Elective Home Education, and seek to make it as difficult as possible.

Why is the government so intent on crushing some of the most vulnerable? What is with the desire to have all schools in MATs? One of my children's MAT makes the schools in their chain buy services from them. What kind of nonsense is that?!?

I agree about the ringfencing and the issues with 'outstanding' schools who achieve this by kicking out SN. There is also nowhere for parents to report these outstanding schools too if the governors are in collusion to kick SN kids out as happens at ours and block parents complaining. Same as discrimination, all you can get is an apology. So schools have every incentive to treat SN kids badly.

I actually in desperation sent it to Dept of Education and they did call Ofsted into the school after getting all the written proof from me and asking my permission to use it and Ofsted downgraded them 2 grades. But little has improved and the few caring teachers they had left.

There is no provision at all in the county for selective mute, no assessment, nothing so almost all these kids are at home worsening. We had a very vulnerable SN child at the school excluded and now at home in a home where certainly the other children believe the girl at 12 is being pressured into illegal underaged marriage. But everyone turns a blind eye.

It is hard to know where to start. The Green Paper says that there will be:
“nationally consistent standards for how needs are identified and met.”

Setting a standard is one thing, but children still need expert assessment. Getting those assessments is almost impossible; to improve that will require a massive increase in the resourcing of ancillary health services. Like the other respondents on this thread, I feel completely battered by my experience of trying to get support for my child. My LA does not refer to the OT service during the ENCNA assessment process because, apparently, the OT service is so short staffed. When we tried to submit our own referral to the OT service it was refused, then the school referred and that was also refused, then the GP referred and that was also refused. At the same time the LA refuses to make provision because there is no report from the OT service. This is ludicrous! We had similar experience with CAMHS – three referrals refused before our child became so seriously ill that they finally accepted the referral. Two years on from that referral he has still not seen a consultant psychiatrist or a psychologist, or had any therapy. The local CAMHS service is now so appalling short staffed we have been told we can expect a further two year wait. In what world does a government thinks it is OK for a child to wait FOUR YEARS before they receive medical treatment? Once again however, the LA refuse to make any provision because he hasn’t yet been assessed. My question is how are you going to improve staffing levels in these services? Because without changing that, our children will continue to be failed.

I believe that in the next decade the SEND crisis and how this government is failing a whole generation of children will be a national scandal.

Therefore, I have many questions, but will ask just 3:

1.Will the Government put in a system that holds LAs accountable for their failuresto provide an education to children with SEND?

My son is 12, he has ASD, PDA, ADHD and severe anxiety. He has been out of mainstream secondary school for 6 months because they cannot meet his needs and is receiving no education while the LA use delay tactics of claiming mainstream school can meet his needs when the school have advised them they can’t, so they don’t have to pay to educate him this year. Meanwhile, I’m spending thousands of pounds, I can’t afford, to take the LA to court Tribunal in an effort to make them pay for the only school that believes they can meet his very complex needs - an independent special school. We’re not the only ones, there are tens of thousands of children in the same situation.

LAs use bully boy and delay tactics hoping parents either don’t know how to fight or can’t afford it. And despite losing repeatedly at Tribunal they continue to do this and get away with it. When will they be held accountable for this? Will you put this in place?

2.Will the Government actually provide LAs with the funding needed to fully support SEND children in an education system/special schools that actually meet their needs and help them fulfil their potential, or will they continue to utilise the narrative that mainstream schools can ably support our SEND children when parents are telling them mainstream schools are failing them?

3.Will the lived experience of our children actually be taken into account in the SEND review? Or will you just pay lip service to it?

Amen to this @perfectstorm . Brilliant idea about the Ofsted rating!!

I would also say that the whole SEN system is based on the false assumption that schools and the LA can and will identify SEN. They can't and don't so early intervention doesn't happen, then entirely predictable problems happen again and again for families across the country. As it is far more difficult & expensive to sort out the resulting mess the NHS & SENDIST pick up the bill for early failures. What will the SEND review do about this?

What we measure, we care about. The DfE and Ofsted measure schools on rates of whole school exam passes and attendance. Not publishing separate figures for the vulnerable populations encourages schools to eject "difficult" pupils to game the system. There are mainstream schools with resourced provisions with more EHCPs on roll than actually attend - where is the incentive to get children engaged with learning when the schools aren't held to account about whether they are there but can keep their annual funding allocation? Will you change reporting standards so that schools publish outcomes specifically for pupils on SEN Support and EHCPs? Also attendance percentages of those on EHCPs (eg <50% and >90%)?

Why is school funding for SEND based on hypothetical numbers of children with additional needs not the actual reality? There are many schools that have excellent reputations for inclusion and do very well for these children, but are effectively punished financially as they get a standard amount of money which is spread more thinly than the school down the road that helpfully suggests to parents that they move their children to the more inclusive school.

Why is provision for academically able children with SEND so limited? My son has autism and needs a small class but a mainstream curriculum - the number of places per year group for this provision within an hours drive of our home can be counted on my fingers. Fortunately, after a tribunal case, we have one.

Excellent questions and awful how dire the situation is.

My question is - how are you going to support mainstream schools to provide specialist provision the children with SEND deserve? I'm not talking about adult support but facilities.

Small village schools with no spare rooms who cannot provide children with quiet workspaces or sensory rooms or private spaces to do physiotherapy to give children the dignity they deserve. All these thing cost money and fit for purpose buildings. But at the moment schools and parents are just expected to get on with it and accept substandard care as it's not physically possible to provide it.

I also echo the question - what is going to happen to LAs that continuously break the law in regards to SEND? Parents and schools should not be having to constantly appealing in order to get provision for their children. The laws don't need changing - they need enforcing.

I agree with the previous poster who said it is a national scandal how our most vunerable are treated. Don't even get me started on Young Carers. How this is still legal is shocking.

All the best to everyone trying to navigate their way through the system.

I do agree about Ofsted ratings and SN. A truly outstanding school is an inclusive school. Really low numbers of children with SN should be a red flag