Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve the value for money of education, health and care plans.

For too long, the education system has not met the needs of all children, particularly those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), with parents struggling to get their children the support they need and deserve, particularly through long and difficult education, health and care (EHC) plan processes.

The department wants to drive a consistent and inclusive approach to supporting children and young people with SEND through early identification, effective support, high-quality teaching and effective allocation of resources. Our approach will support families and break down the barriers to opportunity for their children.

The department recognises the complex financial challenges facing the existing SEND system and the strain that the rising costs of SEND provision are putting on local government. But this government also understands that more money is not always the answer. What matters is how the money is spent and what behaviours we are incentivising within the system from funding allocations. The government wants to focus on meeting more children’s needs in mainstream which enables children to thrive, provides high value and ensures more families have confidence that their children’s needs will be met without having to pursue an EHC plan. Where EHC plans are needed we will consider what further can be done to deliver these through inclusive mainstream provision.

The Delivering Better Value in SEND programme worked with 51 local authorities to review and improve the way their services are structured so they can support children and young people with SEND more effectively and sustainably. The programme required local authorities to develop action plans that place greater emphasis on early intervention in order to meet children and young people’s needs early.

The department has published an independently-commissioned insight report which showed that if the system improved, 65% of children and young people could have their needs met in a more effective way, and that this could lead to tens of thousands more children having their needs met without an EHC plan, in a mainstream setting, rather than a specialist placement.

The department has published a toolkit to help other local areas learn from the experience of those on the Delivering Better Value in SEND programme.