Special Educational Needs

(asked on 24th March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the leadership of United Learning and other groupings of state-funded and fee-paying independent schools regarding their provision for children with special educational needs.


Answered by
Will Quince Portrait
Will Quince
This question was answered on 1st April 2022

The department closely monitors the timeliness of local authority assessments of education, health and care (EHC) plans. In the calendar year 2020, national special educational needs (SEN) 2 data showed that the proportion of plans completed within 20 weeks was 58% (in Kirklees it was 83.4%). The department recognises there is variation across local authorities in assessment and that delays may have an effect on the delivery of provision that is needed by children and young people. That is why local authorities can make provision and placements available during an assessment, rather than waiting for the final plan to be issued.

The department is committed to supporting and monitoring local authorities and their partners to improve special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services, including providing direct support and challenge to individual areas, and delivering regular training programmes on statutory EHC plan duties. Additionally, the department works with SEND and National Health Service England (NHSE) Advisers on improvement work with local areas where significant performance issues are identified in an Ofsted/Care Quality Commission (CQC) joint area SEND inspection. We are currently working with partners on a new area SEND inspection framework.

The SEND and Alternative Provision Green Paper was published on 29 March 2022. These set out a suite of proposed reforms that seek to create a coherent education, health and care system that works in the interests of all children in England and levels up opportunities. The department is providing opportunities for children, parents, carers and those working across the SEND system to provide feedback during the 13-week consultation period.

In the 2022/23 financial year, local authorities will have access to £54.1 billion core spending power (£3.7 billion more than this financial year and a 4.5% growth in real terms) to deliver their services, including for children and young people with SEND. As part of this, the government also boosted the social care grant, increasing it to over £2.3 billion.

United Learning consists of two charities, which are responsible for the operation of the Group’s schools. The Schools White Paper sets out the vision for a stronger and fairer school system that works for every child, encouraging the growth of the best school trusts as the collaborative structure best suited to supporting quality teaching. This will be delivered in close alignment with the findings of the SEND Review.

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