SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan, 2 March 2023

On 2 March the Government published the SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan Right Support, Right Place, Right Time in response to the SEND Green paper that was published in March 2022 and proposed a number of reforms to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) system. The proposals set out in the improvement plan will focus on:

• fulfil children’s potential: children and young people with SEND (or attending alternative provision) enjoy their childhood, achieve good outcomes and are well prepared for adulthood and employment;
• build parents’ trust: parents and carers experience a fairer, easily navigable system (across education, health and care) that restores their confidence that their children will get the right support, in the right place, at the right time;
• provide financial sustainability: local leaders make the best use of record investment in the high needs budget to meet children and young people’s needs and improve outcomes, while placing local authorities on a stable financial footing.

The LGA published an initial media statement responding to the publication of the improvement plan.

Councils share the Government’s ambition of making sure every child with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) gets the high-quality support that they need. The previous reforms to the SEND system set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 have however failed to achieve the goal of improving provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Placing children and young people at the centre of the SEND system was right, but the reforms set out in the Act were not supported by sufficient powers or funding to allow councils to meet the needs of children with SEND or hold health and education partners to account for their contributions to local SEND systems.

We understand the need for greater consistency of approach across the SEND system, including through a single, digitised Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and we welcome the clarity that will come with national SEND and AP standards that will set out the support that children and young people should receive, as well as which partner in local SEND systems will be responsible for funding and delivering that support. We look forward to working with the Department and other partners in their development.

The focus on early identification of need and providing support to children and young people with SEND and their families at the earliest opportunity is also welcome and central to improving outcomes. The Department must ensure that early years settings are funded to be able to successfully fulfil this role.

We support a test and learn approach to implementing the proposals set out in the improvement plan, which acknowledges feedback from consultees that the Department paid insufficient attention to implementing the reforms set out in the 2014 Children and Families Act. Given the scale of the proposed reforms we are concerned that the £70 million in funding for the change programme will be insufficient and ask the Department to keep this budget under review and provide additional funding where necessary to build a strong evidence base to inform future policy development and implementation.

The improvement plan acknowledges that implementing reforms will take several years and while the additional high needs funding that has been made available via the ‘safety valve’ and ‘Delivering Better Value in SEND’ programmes is welcome, these programmes do not address the fundamental cost and demand issues that are driving more councils into deficit and threaten the future financial viability of local government.

We are concerned that the improvement plan does not include proposals to give councils additional powers to be able to lead SEND systems effectively. We do not believe it would be possible or desirable for the Department for Education (DfE) or Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) to build the capacity and expertise to hold partners to account in the detail needed for co-operation on both developing and delivering the local plans. Councils, education settings and Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) must instead be accountable to each other, not Whitehall.

Improving levels of mainstream inclusion will be crucial to the success of any reforms to the SEND system and we therefore welcome the proposal to “underpin the (national) standards with legislation for education at the earliest opportunity to facilitate intervention in education settings if standards are not met.” The introduction of these intervention powers will be crucial in impressing on all mainstream settings the need to take an inclusive approach, which will in turn reduce the use of special schools and independent, non-maintained special schools and relieve pressure on council high needs budgets, as well as improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND.  To ensure action is taken quickly where poor practice is identified, these powers should however sit with councils and not the DfE. It is also vital that the legislation needed to introduce these powers is brought forward at the earliest opportunity. 

We are concerned that the improvement plan will raise the expectations of children with SEND, as well as their parents and carers of what a reformed SEND system will be able to deliver and by when (“we have especially listened to the views of children and young people with SEND and in alternative provision, and their families.” Paragraph 5, page 17).  Parental confidence in a new SEND system will be crucial if it is to work effectively and the Government must be careful to manage expectations with regards to the pace of reform given the planned timetable.  

The improvement plan summarises the rationale for the publication of the SEND Green paper and its content, as well as providing details of the associated consultation process, including the number of responses that were submitted by councils, parents and carers, third sector bodies and other representative groups. The improvement plan then sets out the Government’s three priorities for delivering an improved SEND and AP system:

• Support and stabilise: We will support and stabilise the system, getting local areas working in the best possible way within the current system to ensure that the needs of children and young people are met, without escalating costs, and to ensure that local authority deficits are brought under control. This includes supporting local authorities with financial deficits through the Delivering Better Value and the Safety Valve programmes.
• Delivering capacity to address supply issues: In the short to medium term, we will take action to address supply issues – ensuring that there is sufficient support available for children and young people when they need it, in the most efficient way. This includes investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision, reducing the need for costly independent provision.
• Design and test for systemic reform: Our £70 million Change Programme will create up to nine Regional Expert Partnerships that will test and refine longer-term, systemic reforms including developing and testing National Standards, strategic partnerships and inclusion plans, the proposed alternative provision service and tailored lists. This will help guard against unintended consequences and build a strong evidence base to inform future funding and legislation.

LGA view:

While we understand the logic of seeking to improve the performance of the existing SEND and AP system in the first instance, we are concerned that this approach will not address the key issue of increasing levels of mainstream inclusion, which is central to improving outcomes and relieving pressure on councils’ high needs budgets. The improvement plan acknowledges that implementing reforms will take several years and while the additional funding that has been made available to all councils, as well as targeted financial support via the ‘safety valve’ and ‘Delivering Better Value in SEND’ programmes is welcome, these programmes do not address the fundamental cost and demand issues that are driving more councils into deficit and threaten the future financial viability of local government.

The LGA supports proposals to deliver greater capacity to address existing supply issues in the SEND system.  An additional £2.6 billion over three years for SEND capital is also welcome, as is the flexibility to spend this money on specialist units in mainstream settings, as well as new special schools. Feedback from councils however is that the speed at which new special school places can be brought online is too slow. We are keen to work with the Department to identify opportunities to speed this process up.

We support a test and learn approach to implementing the proposals set out in the improvement plan, which acknowledges feedback from consultees that the Department paid insufficient attention to implementing the reforms set out in the 2014 Children and Families Act. Given the scale of the proposed reforms we are concerned that the £70 million in funding for the change programme will be insufficient and ask the Department to keep this amount under review and provide additional funding where necessary to build a strong evidence base.

The improvement plan proposes to:

• Set up engagement across education, health and care during spring 2023 to develop National Standards. This will include parents, carers, children and young people, strategic leaders, frontline professionals, voluntary sector representatives, local authorities and cross-government civil servants. This will ensure we consider a wide range of perspectives, including those with expertise across a broad range of needs, and in specific settings such as alternative provision, early years, youth justice and further education.
• By the end of 2023, start testing some elements of the National Standards with Regional Expert Partnerships (who will help us co-produce, test and refine key reforms via the Change Programme).
• Publish, by the end of 2025, a significant proportion of the National Standards with a focus on those that are most deliverable in the current system.
• Introduce local SEND and alternative provision partnerships that bring together partners to plan and commission support for children and young people with SEND and in alternative provision, meeting the National Standards.
• Expect local SEND and alternative provision partnerships to create evidence-based local inclusion plans that will set out how the needs of children and young people in the local area will be met in line with National Standards.
• Develop and spread best practice of partnerships and plans through our Change Programme, starting with the Regional Expert Partnership areas from spring 2023.
• Invest £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to fund new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision. We are approving a tranche of applications from local authorities to open new special free schools in their area. We will shortly launch competitions to seek high-quality proposer groups to run these schools. This is in addition to 92 open special free schools and a further 49 which are in the delivery pipeline.
• Develop innovative approaches for short breaks for children, young people and their families with £30 million in funding being allocated to new projects over three years.
• Review social care legislation relating to disabled children so we can improve clarity for families about the support they are legally entitled to.
• Work with stakeholders to deliver a standard EHCP template, with supporting processes and guidance from 2025. This will include testing the impact of a consistent approach to supporting local authority decision-making through the use of multi-agency panels.
• Develop digital requirements for EHCP systems to improve experiences for parents, carers and professionals, reduce bureaucracy and improve our ability to monitor the health of the SEND system.
• Require local authorities to improve information available to families and provide a tailored list of suitable settings informed by the local inclusion plan. We will continue to listen to children, young people, families, SEND sector professionals and system leaders as we develop and test delivery options through the Change Programme.
• Create a three-tier alternative provision system, focusing on targeted early support within mainstream school, time-limited intensive placements in an alternative provision setting, and longer-term placements to support return to mainstream or a sustainable post-16 destination.

LGA view:

We understand the need for greater consistency of approach across the SEND system, including through a single, digitised Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and we welcome the clarity that will come with national SEND and AP standards that will set out the support that children and young people should receive, as well as which partner in local SEND systems will be responsible for funding and delivering that support.

We are however concerned that too great a focus on the ‘national’ part of the system could raise expectations amongst children and young people with SEND, as well as their parents and carers, that the same support will be available in every area and delivered in the same way. We look forward to further discussions on the shape of any national standards, which must retain a degree of flexibility to reflect available provision and differing levels of need, while focussing on the things most important to children and young people with SEND and ensuring they achieve good outcomes. National standards should also make the case for reducing or removing support where possible, reflecting the improvement plan’s focus on early identification of both help and need.

The establishment of local SEND partnerships is welcome and councils, with their democratic mandate, are ideally placed to lead them. For these partnerships to work effectively, councils must have backstop powers to hold partners to account if they fail to work collaboratively or make appropriate contributions to meet the identified needs of children and young people with SEND. Proposals for the development of local inclusion plans should give local areas flexibility to build on existing co-working arrangements and structures.

It is unclear how ICBs and schools will be represented on and expected to play their role in local SEND and AP partnerships, with ICBs being on a larger footprint and schools and MATs on smaller ones which in many instances cut across council boundaries.

We support the proposal to introduce a standardised, digitised EHCP template, which will help improve consistent and timely access to support for many mobile families. It is important that this is co-produced with councils, parents and providers to ensure it meets the needs of all partners.

The LGA wants to work with the DfE, National Network of Parent-Carer Forums and other partners at a national level to develop a set of shared principles that can underpin discussions between individual local areas and parent-carer groups on shaping a tailored list of suitable settings. A transparent and co-produced list of appropriate placements within a local area, as well as those out-of-area for children with more profound needs, will allow for a shared understanding of how needs can best be met and start to build trust in a reformed SEND system. Any such list should take into account the providers’ performance, availability and suitability of places to meet local need as well as the value for money offered by the placements. It will be important that the process is promoted widely so that other parents are aware of how decisions were made and understand how they can have a say in the process going forward.

The test and learn work undertaken in local areas on the development of a tailored list of suitable settings must identify how children with SEND, their parents/carers, councils and health and education partners will reach a shared decision on how a placement from a tailored list will be decided upon. It should clarify the role of providers in developing the list of suitable placements and how the local market will be managed in this regard.

In this chapter the improvement plan also commits the Government to “underpin the standards with legislation for education at the earliest opportunity to facilitate intervention in education settings if standards are not met.” The introduction of these intervention powers will be crucial in impressing on all mainstream settings the need to take an inclusive approach, which will in turn reduce the use of special schools and the independent, non-maintained special schools and relieve pressure on council high needs budgets, as well as improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND. To ensure action is taken quickly where poor practice is identified, these powers should sit with councils, not the Department. It is also vital that the legislation needed to introduce these powers is brought forward at the earliest opportunity.  

It will be necessary to ensure that the correct accountability mechanisms are in place to hold schools to account for their inclusive practice. We do not believe that any school should be considered to be a ‘good’ school unless it is good for all of the children in the school’s community, including the most vulnerable and those with special educational needs. This must be central to Ofsted’s school inspection framework and practice and the inspectorate must act swiftly where poor practice is identified.

We believe that councils, acting on local intelligence and with sufficient, complimentary powers, can support Ofsted in ensuring all schools are quickly held to account to minimise the impact of non-inclusive practice on children and young people. This should include delivering on a proposal in the Schools White Paper to give councils the power to direct all schools to admit pupils without a school place. Currently councils can only use this power in relation to maintained schools and not free schools or academies.

The improvement plan proposes to:

• Publish guidance to support effective transitions between all stages of education, and into employment and adult services.
• Conduct a pilot to consider the evidence required to access flexibilities to standard English and mathematics requirements for apprenticeships.
• Invest £18 million between 2022 and 2025 to double the capacity of the Supported Internships Programme.
• Continue to support the Department for Work and Pensions’ Adjustments Passport pilot to smooth the transition into employment.
• Improve the Disabled Students’ Allowance process, by continuing to work with the Student Loans Company to reduce the time for support to be agreed.

LGA view:

The improvement plan acknowledges young people with SEND may need additional support to navigate their way through the post-16 education and training offer and flexible approaches to study including part-time or through a modular approach. At the same time, some Level 2 provision (BTEC and apprenticeships) has been removed resulting in a reduction of pathways to further learning. The recent investment in Supported Internships is welcome; however, appropriate Level 2 provision is a vital pathway to progression for many young people into education, employment or training (EET). It also helps those who may be SEND and at risk of becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training). Therefore, young people need a broad offer with alternative choices that are not unduly restricted, with a clear line of sight of what each post 16 route could lead to. Fundamental to this is being able to make informed choices through targeted and independent careers advice and guidance, but the system in and of itself is complicated and in consistent across the country.

The Department’s intention to publish guidance to support effective transition is welcome and we believe that councils should be consulted and have the opportunity to play a key role in its co-production. Councils have a wealth of knowledge and expertise which will ensure that it is helpful and fit for purpose.

The plan to conduct pilots for evidence to consider the flexibilities needed for the English and mathematics requirements for Apprenticeships is welcome, as this will improve the take up and completions of Apprenticeships by young people, particularly those with SEND or those requiring additional support. Many councils as employers are providers of Apprenticeships, including those with SEND and experiencing disadvantage, and can offer valuable insights to inform the pilots, so engagement would be welcome.

Our own analysis (April 2021) found that the employment and skills system, including careers advice and guidance, is complicated. Across England, around £20 billion is spent on at least 49 nationally contracted or delivered employment and skills related schemes or services managed by nine Whitehall departments and agencies, multiple providers and over different geographies. No single organisation is responsible for coordinating this locally or nationally.

The LGA recently launched Work Local: Unlocking talent to level up, our latest employment and skills devolution proposals which build on the Government’s Levelling up White Paper. It makes clear recommendations to Whitehall on ways it can improve its approach to employment and skills policy and provision for all places right now, and what is needed for a coherent framework for employment and skills devolution. We also point to local government’s leadership, knowledge and innovation bringing together partners and national schemes to make the best of the current system to improve outcomes for residents, businesses and other employers. But local government can and wants to do far more for its people and places.

To enable this, we believe the LGA’s Work Local model should be implemented. It would give democratically elected local leaders the power and funding to work with the full range of national and local partners to join up careers advice and guidance, employment, skills, apprenticeships, business support services and outreach in the community. By enabling this approach, local leaders would be able to design services targeted to local needs while meeting national priorities. Independent cost benefit analysis reveals a Work Local approach could each year result in a 15 per cent increase in the number of people improving their skills or finding work, delivering benefits to residents, businesses, the health and wellbeing of local communities while reducing costs to the public purse.

The improvement plan proposes to:

• Introduce a new leadership level SENCo (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator) NPQ (National Professional Qualification) for schools.
• Review the Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Frameworks (commencing early this year).
• Fund up to 5,000 early years staff to gain an accredited Level 3 early years SENCo qualification to support the early years sector, with training running until August 2024.
• Increase the capacity of specialists, including by investing a further £21 million to train two more cohorts of educational psychologists in the academic years 2024 and 2025; and, in partnership with NHS England, as part of our £70 million Change Programme, pioneering innovative practice through running Early Language and Support for Every Child (ELSEC) pathfinders to improve access to speech and language therapy for those who need it.
• Work together to take a joint Department for Education and Department of Health and Social Care approach to SEND workforce planning, including establishing a steering group in 2023 to oversee this work, which we aim to complete by 2025.
• Publish the first three practice guides for frontline professionals, building on existing best practice, including the Nuffield Early Language Intervention, the work of the Autism Education Trust, and the government’s guidance on promoting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
• Propose new guidance on delivering a responsive and supportive SEND casework service to families when consulting on the SEND Code of Practice.
• Develop a longer-term approach for teaching assistants to ensure their impact is consistent across the system, starting with a research project to develop our evidence base on current school approaches, demand and best practice.
• Strongly encourage the adoption of the DSCO (Designated Social Care Officer) role in each local area, including by proposing an amendment to the SEND Code of Practice.
• Extend funding until March 2025 of the alternative provision specialist taskforce (APST) pilot programme, which is testing co-location of a diverse specialist workforce in pilot alternative provision schools.
  
   

LGA view:

The development of the workforce as set out in the improvement plan is welcome and we agree with the overriding principle that ‘the workforce will be crucial to every aspect of system improvement.’  Therefore, we think the Department must go further to support schools, educational settings and councils to attract, recruit and retain adequate high-quality candidates into teaching and other relevant specialist professions as long-term career choices. To do this, schools and other educational settings need to be funded and supported to enable employers to reduce workloads where appropriate, improve staff wellbeing and offer competitive salaries as part of a total employment package.

If we are to increase levels of mainstream inclusion then the Department must go further and develop training and support for all teachers and school staff to ensure they can meet the needs of pupils with SEND in mainstream settings, providing additional funding for schools to cover staff when their Continuing Professional Development (CPD) takes them away from the classroom.

All staff should be upskilled to support children with additional needs before feeling that they need to refer on to get more specialist support. When this happens, early years education and childcare practitioners also need to be supported by the wider system and have clear referral pathways into services such as speech and language, occupational therapists etc where appropriate.

Training and development opportunities need to support the inclusivity agenda and upskill all staff to support children, rather than refer them on to more specialist services. Therefore, we support the proposed introduction of a SENCo National Professional Qualification (NPQ) to replace the existing NASENCo statutory award for SENCos. This reflects the complexity of the system in which SENCos work and will help equip them with the skills needed to lead on the delivery of SEND support within schools. The implementation timetable will need to encourage and allow adequate time for existing staff who do not hold the current qualification to gain the SENCO NPQ, so as not to add to any capacity issues in the sector.

We welcome the recognition of the importance of getting it right in the early years to ensure children are enabled to thrive, needs are identified early and staff have the skills and confidence they need to provide support to children. Providing training and support to staff is essential and the proposals setting out a review of the Level 3 early years educator qualification is welcomed, as is a greater focus on specific support for SEND. However, the sector has experienced significant challenges which have been exacerbated by Covid-19, and recruitment and retention of skilled staff remains an ongoing concern.

The improvement plan recognises the interconnection between special educational needs, emotional needs and mental health which is welcomed. However, the current proposals do not go far enough in tackling the rising demand of mental health need, nor sufficiently focus on the particular needs of children with special educational needs. In particular, roll out of mental health support teams in schools to all of the country is required as is investment in community mental health support for children who cannot access school-based mental health provision.

We are concerned that the improvement plan does not explicitly mention school nursing, health visiting or the Healthy Child Programme. Health visiting and school nurse services are leaders of the Healthy Child Programme, the national evidence based universal programme for children aged 0-19. The programme provides the foundations for health improvement, public health and supporting families to identify problems early and give children the best start in life. The Healthy Child Programme shares many similar workforce concerns to early years; recruitment, retention and capacity.

Health visitors provide a vital service in early identification of needs and ensuring children get the best start in life. However, we know that many areas are struggling to recruit Health Visitors, with the number of Health Visitors falling by almost 40 per cent since 2015. Current projections estimate that there is a shortfall of over 5,000 health visitors in England.

Councils commission school nurses through their ringfenced public health grant, many of whom are based within SEND settings. School nurses provide enhanced specialist support for children to ensure that children who have complex health problems have their health needs assessed and care needs are planned and delivered in school to a high quality. The number of school nurses has fallen by over a third in the past decade.

We are therefore calling for a properly resourced, integrated workforce plan that underpins the current refresh of the Healthy Child Programme. In addition to ensuring we have a sufficient supply of specialist public health nurses, a workforce strategy should recognise the benefits of having a diverse range of health visiting, school nursing, children’s centre and other early years staff in children’s and health services. We believe this will ensure councils are able to provide a consistent service which leads to better outcomes for children and families.

The Healthy Child Programme in councils is funded through the ringfenced public health grant, which has been vastly reduced in real terms since 2015-16. Despite more recent increases in cash terms, the public health grant in 2021/22 was 24 per cent, or £1 billion, lower per head in real terms compared to 2015/16. Councils are still waiting for their Public Health grant allocations for the next financial year (2023-24), A lack of certainty around councils’ public health funding is exacerbating existing challenges as demand continues to increase for essential services such as health visiting.

The improvement plan proposes to:

• Publish a local and national inclusion dashboard from autumn 2023 to support the development of local inclusion plans, giving parents improved transparency of local performance, informing decision-making and driving self-improvement across the system with ongoing updates and iterations in response to user feedback.
• Deliver updated Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) Area SEND inspections from 2023 with a greater focus on the outcomes and experience of children and young people with SEND and in alternative provision.
• Create a ladder of intervention for local areas from 2023, greater powers for the Secretary of State for Health through the Health and Care Act 2022, and robust action for all where statutory duties for children and young people with SEND and in alternative provision are not met, to strengthen accountabilities across all parts of the system.
• Require every Integrated Care Board to have a named Executive Board member lead accountable for SEND.
• Facilitate a more joined-up response between the Department for Education and NHS England to improve outcomes and experiences for children and young people with SEND, including social, emotional and mental health issues, and tackle systemic failings leading to significant concerns.
• Strengthen redress for individual disagreements by clarifying who is responsible for resolving complaints and undertaking further testing of effective mediation approaches.
• Set up an expert group to support the development of a bespoke national alternative provision performance framework.
• Work with local authority, trust and school leaders to review processes and develop options for ensuring transparent and effective movement of pupils without EHCPs, such as those requiring alternative provision, to address behavioural needs.

LGA view:

We are concerned with the improvement plan’s focus on intervention as the response where poor performance is identified, specifically with the focus on councils who are only one partner in local SEND systems.  This top-down approach to accountability does not adequately reflect the complexities of the SEND system or take account of existing issues. As mentioned previously, councils have raised concerns about the time-consuming, bureaucratic process that needs to be completed to access funds for new special schools; in this instance it is clear that councils should not be held accountable where responsibility sits with the DfE. To increase trust in a new SEND system accountability must be proportionate, work both from the top down and bottom up and focuses on what partners have responsibility to deliver.

Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) have key responsibilities for meeting the needs of children and young people with SEND, providing adequate and timely funding for community health provision including occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language therapy. It remains to be seen whether the greater powers for the Secretary of State for Health and Social will result in timely and effective intervention in health where performance issues are identified. Further clarification on the form that these powers will take, accompanied by examples of situations where they would be used, as well as how they will support local accountability between partners locally, will help provide reassurance that health partners will be held to account where they are not making effective contributions to local SEND systems.

The improvement plan rightly identifies that existing programmes of improvement support will continue to play a key role in supporting councils to deliver better SEND support, but there is an absence of information on the improvement support that will made available for health partners, beyond “a more joined up response between Department for Education and NHS regional and national teams."

There is a clear need to undertake work to define what ‘good’ looks like, both within the current and also in transitioning to a new system. A shared understanding of ‘good’ should be reflected in the local and national inclusion dashboards. While these dashboards will provide some information on the performance of national and local SEND systems, they will not on their own signify how well a system is performing.

Dashboards should include measures that identify quality measures as well as outcomes for children and young people receiving support from SEND systems. Data should not be used in isolation by the Department when deciding whether to intervene in a local SEND system. Key metrics should be taken from existing data collection measures to minimise any additional burden on councils and their partners. We are concerned that national and local dashboards will be introduced from the autumn of 2023, while many of the other proposals set out in the improvement plan will not be implemented until 2025 at the earliest.

We support the proposed strengthening of early redress approaches to ensure disputes can be resolved as soon as possible and which we hope will help the shift to a less adversarial system. The concept of mandatory mediation will need careful consideration to avoid it being seen as an additional hurdle for families. As parental confidence in the system increases, the use of redress mechanisms and the Tribunal should reduce and only become necessary in exceptional cases where disagreements can be resolved via mediation.

We support a statutory framework for pupil oversight and transparency of placements into and out of alternative provision. For such a framework to be effective it must be backed by sufficient powers for councils to act swiftly in the interests of children where poor practice is identified.

The improvement plan proposes to:

• increase core school funding by £3.5 billion in 2023-24 compared to the year before, of which almost £1 billion of that increase will go towards high needs. This means high needs funding will be £10.1 billion in 2023-24.
• support local authorities through the Delivering Better Value and the Safety Valve programmes and share the best practice from local areas with inclusive and sustainable high needs provision more widely.
• develop a system of funding bands and tariffs so that consistent National Standards are backed by more consistent funding across the country.
• publish a response to the consultation on the schools National Funding Formula in 2023 which includes proposals on funding for SEND, including the notional SEND budget, and a mechanism for transferring funding to high needs budgets.
• develop new approaches to funding alternative provision aligned to their focus on preventative work with, and reintegration of pupils into, mainstream schools. We will do this in consultation with mainstream schools, the alternative provision sector and local authorities.
• re-examine the state’s relationship with independent special schools to ensure we set comparable expectations for all state-funded specialist providers.

LGA view:

The improvement plan acknowledges that implementing reforms will take several years and while the additional high needs funding that has been made available via the ‘safety valve’ and ‘Delivering Better Value in SEND’ programmes is welcome, these programmes do not address the fundamental cost and demand issues that are driving more councils into deficit and threaten the future financial viability of local government.

While the decision taken by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to extend the Statutory Override on the treatment of DSG deficits to March 2026 provides some breathing room, we do not believe that councils have the levers to work with partners “to put themselves in the best position so that when the ‘statutory override’ comes to an end, local authorities are able to demonstrate their ability to deal with remaining DSG deficits." The Department must go further and guarantee financial support to ensure that every council’s Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) deficit will be eliminated by 2026 when the Statutory Override ends.

The LGA supports proposals to deliver greater capacity to address existing supply issues in the SEND system.  An additional £2.6 billion over three years for SEND capital is also welcome, as is the flexibility to spend this money on specialist units in mainstream settings, as well as new special schools. Feedback from councils is that the speed at which new special school places can be brought online is too slow. We are keen to work with the Department to identify opportunities to speed this process up. Delivering additional capacity focuses on education and the Department should provide further information on their work with the Department for Health and Social care to secure additional capacity in both health and care, for example the provision of therapeutic and preventative mental health services which remains a huge challenge for children and young people with SEND to access.

The LGA has conducted research looking into the Special Educational Needs Inclusion Fund and believe there are some quick fixes that could be made, so the proposal set out to look at this are welcomed. However, we have long highlighted that early entitlements are underfunded and that the early years sector needs to be properly resourced to support the Government’s ambitions set out in this paper, therefore consideration of a wider review of early years funding is welcomed.

To support successful post-16 transitions, sustain education, employment and training for young people with SEND, councils need flexibility of funding to provide the appropriate level of wraparound support.

The LGA welcomes the development of banding and price tariffs, evidencing what is available for identified needs and associated cost, including the responsibilities on health to jointly fund and invest in placements for children with complex needs. Requirements for health partners to financially contribute to such placements should be set out in statutory guidance to avoid disputes at a local or individual case level.

Councils already make use of ‘banded’ funding arrangements and the Department should build on this work when developing a national framework of funding bands and tariffs. We agree that a national framework will help to improve consistency between areas and reduce the administrative burden on education settings that accept pupils from multiple councils. We also welcome the acknowledgement in the improvement plan that there will need to be a degree of flexibility for councils with the national framework.

Any reform of the school and high needs funding formula should both provide long-term certainty on the overall amount if funding being made available, and also address anomalies in the existing system, such as deficits sitting with councils while any budget surpluses sit with schools. Allowing councils access to these surpluses would speed up efforts to manage down their high needs deficits.

The concept of the notional SEN budget (the threshold for which has not changed since 2014) has not worked in the existing system. One alternative option would be to replace it with a reformed funding formula that is based on pupil need which includes a clear SEN budget. If the notional budget is to continue, it must be included in bandings, providing transparency as to how schools are funded for this and what they are expected to deliver.

We welcome the proposal to re-examine the state’s relationship with independent special schools and to ensure that they align with the national standards. The improvement plan rightly highlights the need to define the provision that they offer, as well bringing consistency and transparency to their costs.

We look forward to working with the DfE and partners to make sure the SEND system meets the need of all children with special educational needs and disabilities.

If councils would like to get in touch to share any challenges or opportunities from your areas, to inform our work on local government’s behalf, please get in touch with your Principal Adviser or via the contact details below.

Clive Harris

Senior Policy Adviser

Phone: 020 7664 3207

Mobile: 07747 636931

Email: [email protected]