Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of regional disparities in the time taken for education, health and care plan assessments; and what steps she is taking to ensure local authorities meet the statutory deadline.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department wants to ensure that, where required, education, health and care (EHC) plan assessments are progressed promptly and, if needed, plans are issued as quickly as possible so that children and young people can access the support they need.
Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to assess whether children and young people have special educational needs that require an EHC plan. Plans must be issued within twenty weeks of the needs assessment commencing so that children and young people can access the support they need.
The department knows that local authorities across different regions have seen an increase in the number of assessment requests and that more needs to be done to ensure that local areas deliver effective and timely services. This includes better communication with schools and families.
The department continues to monitor and work closely with local authorities that have issues with EHC plan timeliness. Where there are concerns about a local authority’s capacity to make the required improvements, we help them to identify the barriers and put in place an effective recovery plan. This includes, where needed, securing the support of a specialist special educational needs and disabilities adviser to help identify the barriers to EHC plan process timeliness and put in place practical plans for recovery.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve access to independent special schools for children with complex needs in regions where maintained provision is (a) limited and (b) oversubscribed.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department recognises the vital role that special schools play in providing high-quality education and meeting the needs of children and young people. Independent special schools play their part in this, particularly in meeting low incidence needs. However, independent special schools typically have higher costs than their maintained equivalent, and we need to ensure that placements are used appropriately. Where a local authority has commissioned a place in an independent school, the local authority is responsible for all the funding for supporting that child or young person with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The department wants more children and young people to receive the support they need to thrive in their local mainstream school, reducing the need for pupils to travel a long way to access a specialist placement. Many mainstream settings are already committed to delivering specialist provision locally, including through resourced provision and special educational needs units.
The department has now published allocations for £740 million in high needs provision capital allocations for the 2025/26 financial year to support local authorities to deliver new places in mainstream and state-maintained special schools, reducing reliance on the independent sector to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of education, health and care plans across different local authority areas.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
An education, health and care (EHC) needs assessment ensures that a child or young person’s needs are assessed in a joined-up way across education, health and social care services.
Under this assessment process, the local authority must seek information and advice from a range of partners. These include the child or young person and their parents; their school or college (if any); health and social care partners; an educational psychologist; and other relevant professionals.
If it is determined necessary for special educational provision to be made for the child or young person, the local authority must prepare an EHC plan which will say clearly what the child or young person’s needs are and what help they will be entitled to.
If a child’s parent or a young person disagrees with a decision not to assess for a plan, the decision not to issue a plan, the description of needs in the plan, the educational provision set out or the educational institution named, they are able to appeal to the First-tier special educational needs and disabilities Tribunal.
Latest data held by the department shows that 1,887 appeals were heard by the First-tier Tribunal in the 2023 calendar year that were not regarding a decision not to assess or the decision not to issue a plan. This includes appeals heard regarding disagreements over the description of needs in a plan and the educational provision set out in a plan.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with local authorities on reducing the time taken to appeal an EHCP decision.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Whilst most education, health and care plans and assessments are agreed without recourse to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) Tribunal, some families struggle to get the support they need when they need it.
The department continues to work across government, with local authorities and the Tribunal to understand why appeals may take a long time to be resolved and what support we can give local authorities to improve decision-making. As an initial step, last year we jointly delivered eight training sessions on ‘SEND and the law’ for local authority SEND caseworkers to improve their knowledge of the law and help ensure that decisions are legally compliant.
The Tribunal is taking steps to reduce the time that families wait for a decision on their appeal. It has recruited and trained over 70 new judges who are now hearing appeals. It has also expanded the remit of Judicial Alternative Dispute Resolution (JDAR) to determine all ‘Section I (name of school)’ appeals and recently announced a rule change to allow for judicial discretion to determine whether more appeals can be heard on paper. The use of JDAR and paper hearings reduces the need for full oral hearings and therefore the time families wait for decisions.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve the accountability of local authorities in delivering high-quality SEND provision under the Children and Families Act 2014.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to achieve and thrive including as they move into adult life. The department is committed to taking a community-wide approach in collaboration with local area partnerships to improving support for all children and young people with SEND.
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) introduced a strengthened area SEND inspection framework in January 2023, leading to a greater emphasis on the outcomes being achieved for children and young people. It is the primary tool to maintain a focus on high standards in the SEND system across all partners.
The department works to monitor, support and challenge local authorities as needed, working closely with NHS England to tackle weaknesses that sit with health partners. Where a council does not meet its duties, we can take action that prioritises children’s needs and supports local areas to bring about rapid improvement. We offer a range of universal, targeted and intensive support through programmes such as our Sector Led Improvement Partners, which provides peer-to-peer tailored support.
The department will continue to work closely with Ofsted and CQC as they review the local area SEND inspection framework in response to feedback from the Big Listen exercise.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has undertaken a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed reforms in the SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision improvement plan was published under the previous government which did not complete a full cost-benefit analysis.
The department continues to develop and test reform proposals, including building on those in the plan, to support this government’s ambition to ensure that all children and young people can access the support they need to achieve and thrive in education and as they transition to adult life.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on improving integration between health services and local authority provision in the development of education, health and care plans.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Statutory duties are clear that health and local authorities must ensure the integration of educational and training provision with health and social care provision. They must also make joint commissioning arrangements with other local partners about the education, health and care provision to be secured for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission provide an independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the local area partnerships’ commissioning arrangements with an emphasis on the outcomes being achieved for children and young people with SEND. Where appropriate, they recommend what the local area partnership should do to improve the arrangements.
Where partners do not meet their duties, the department can take action that prioritises children’s needs and supports local areas to bring about rapid improvement. We work to monitor, support and challenge local authorities, working closely with NHS England to tackle weaknesses that sit with health partners.
The government is urgently looking at the SEND system and how it needs to be reformed. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education and my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care met with Cabinet colleagues earlier this month to discuss SEND system improvements.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many education, health and care plans were completed within the statutory timeframe in each of the last five years for which data is available.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Information on the number of requests for an education, health and care (EHC) plan issued within the statutory timeframe of 20 weeks, for each of the last 5 years, is shown in the table linked here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/1e7dc959-f459-4ef6-ba17-08dd866b22bc.
The latest available figures cover the 2023 calendar year.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 March 2025 to Question 35073 on Private Education: VAT, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the additional independent school closures over the next three years on trends in the number of (a) teaching and (b) non-teaching staff job losses.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
As made clear in the HM Treasury impact assessment, the introduction of VAT is anticipated to have extremely limited impact on the number of pupils in private schools. The department has not seen any evidence that contradicts the expectations set out in the government’s impact assessment.
It is a commercial decision for individual schools to decide how they will fund the additional costs around the VAT policy. There are a variety of ways in which a school may choose to do this, including reducing their surpluses or reserves, cutting back on non-essential expenditure and increasing fees.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of mandating CitizenAID training within the national curriculum.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
All state-funded schools are required to teach about first aid as part of the statutory health education set out within the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance. Independent schools are required to cover health education as part of their responsibility to provide personal, social, health and economic education.
The statutory guidance includes basic first aid for primary school children. For example, dealing with common injuries, such as head injuries. Pupils in secondary schools will be taught further first aid. For example, how to administer CPR and the purpose of defibrillators.
Schools also have the autonomy to decide how they teach first aid and which resources to use, so schools are free to incorporate citizenAID’s materials into their lessons if they choose to.
The department is currently reviewing the statutory RSHE curriculum, which includes considering whether any additional content is needed, including first aid and life-saving skills.