SEND provision criticised by new report

A new report published by Child of the North and the Centre for Young Lives shows how the current system is failing many vulnerable children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The report put forward recommendations to tackle poor identification of SEND, the postcode lottery of EHC plans, and reducing the huge numbers of children not receiving the support they need to reach their full potential.

Over 1.5 million pupils in England have SEND, with 40 per cent of children identified as having SEND at some point between 5 and 16 years old.

However, the report suggested that the current system cannot cope and has been unable to keep pace with advances made in identifying and recognising when children require extra support.

Almost all (99 per cent) of school leaders have said that the funding they receive for pupils with SEND is insufficient.

As the report makes clear, thousands of children and parents are calling for a faster and kinder process and better early intervention support. It reveals how in 2022, only 49 per cent of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans were produced within the 20-week statutory limit.

The average wait for an ADHD assessment for young people aged 19-25 years is almost four years in one local authority in Yorkshire and the Humber.

In 2022, the percentage of EHC plans produced within 20 weeks in the North East of England ranged from 98 per cent to only 13 per cent. Similar disparities are present in other regions, such as the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber. There is a clear postcode lottery in the timeliness in which EHC plans are produced.

There is large variability in the extent to which local authorities run the Healthy Child Programme, which can facilitate identification of SEN(D) before school entry. In one local authority, one in five children do not receive their two-year developmental check, and in another this is as high as one in three.

The report makes a series of recommendations, including using holistic measures of child development to identify pupils with increased likelihood of having SEN(D), as new evidence shows that assessments of academic and non-academic abilities can identify those children at increased likelihood of needing SEND support.

The report also calls for improved and extended training on SEND for professionals and families, and to connect systems more effectively to facilitate earlier identification of SEN(D) and the provision of more appropriate support. Better connected public services would enable free sharing of information, speeding up identification of SEND and reducing structural inequalities.

The extent to which public services work together to produce support plans for children and young people with SEND differs considerably by local authority. Connected services would facilitate a more holistic assessment and understanding of children’s needs, drawing on expertise from across education, health, and social care, enabling more tailored and appropriate SEN(D) provision.

Anne Longfield, executive chair of the Centre for Young Lives, said: “The SEND system is broken. Many families talk about the traumatic impact it has on their lives as they struggle to find support for their children.

"They are often at their wits’ end, deeply frustrated at the waiting lists and the layers of bureaucracy and hoops they need to jump through, fearful that their children’s opportunities to do well at school and beyond are being held back by an inadequate, underfunded, and overstretched system.

“Tackling the delays, the poor early identification, and the postcode lottery they have inherited should be a priority for new Ministers. This report puts forward a new evidence-based plan to identify SEND earlier and cut assessment times."