DfE publish interim report on school exclusion trials

The DfE has published an interim report from its three-year school exclusion trial, which started in autumn 2011 and continues until July 2014. The trial sees schools taking on responsibility for placing excluded pupils in alternative provision (AP), funding the placements from money devolved from LAs; and gives flexibility for funding earlier intervention to reduce the need for exclusion in the first place. It involves around 180 participating schools in 11 volunteer local authorities (LAs).

An evaluation is running alongside the trial, with the final report due in spring 2015. The evaluation will assess the issues arising from the implementation of the trial and the impact it has on pupils, schools, LAs and AP providers.

The report focuses on establishing a qualitative and quantitative baseline for the evaluation, but also presents some early findings from the first year of the trial. It is based on schools in the eight LAs that were participating at the initial stage of the evaluation. Although at a very early stage of the trial, there was evidence from some trial schools that they have started to implement changes, such as:

§ changes to school processes (the introduction of new school-wide policies and strategies; the employment of new staff in specialised roles in schools; allocated budgets for AP);

§ additional training for existing staff; and

§ changes to the types of interventions offered (increased support for pupils at risk of permanent exclusion, including external AP and in-school provision).

Future reports will consider the outcomes of the trial, including the impact on pupils’ attainment, and provide case studies of how particular issues have been addressed.

The report is available here

If you have any questions please email policy@nas.org.uk

DfE publish indicative SEN Code of Practice

On Thursday 14^th March the Department for Education published an indicative draft of the (0-25) Special Educational Needs Code of Practice. This was published to help Parliament consider the SEN Clauses in Part 3 of the Children and Families Bill, which is currently being considered at Committee Stage in the House of Commons.

The draft that has been published is a "work in progress" and the Department has committed to providing a subsequent draft for formal consultation later in 2013 and before the Code is formally laid before Parliament. 

The NAS will be working with parents, young people and professionals to inform our response to the formal consultation later in the year. However we will use the space in between to shape the version of the Code that is put out to public consultation.

Education minister Edward Timpson sent a letter to the Council for Disabled Children setting out the next steps in the process, including reassurance that the current statutory provisions remain in place until the Children and Families Bill receives Royal Assent in 2014 (subject to Parliament).

The Department have also published draft indicative regulations to accompany the legislation.

The draft Code of Practice and Regulations are published on the Department for Education website.

The NAS welcomes the inclusion of timescales for assessments in the indicative draft regulations. It is vital that the Government carries over all existing protections for parents into the new system. As is currently the case, Local Authorities will have to let people know whether they will be undertaking an Education Health and Care needs assessment within 6 weeks of receiving a request. Under the new draft regulations, the  overall timescale for the assessment and planning process,  from responding to a request to sending out a finalised  Education, Health and Care plan, would be reduced from 26 to 20 weeks.

If you have any questions please email policy@nas.org.uk

BPP School exclusions project offers free representation

The School Exclusion Project at BPP Law School is currently offering free support to families who would like to appeal against exclusion.

As part of the project, families in England and Wales are assisted by trained student reps that will support them throughout the process, up to and including advocacy at the hearing.

The reps will be available to assist with appeals to the Governors Discipline Committee and the Independent Review Panel in fixed term and permanent school exclusions.

The service is free of charge, however travel expenses may need to be paid for hearings outside of London and South East England.

If you’re in need of support or would like more information, email schoolexclusions@my.bpp.com.

New duty on health to secure SEN services

Children’s Minister Edward Timpson announced on 5 March that a new legal duty will be put on the NHS to secure services in education, health and care(EHC) plans for children and young people with SEN. EHC plans will be replacing education statements as part of the major overhaul of the SEN system introduced in the Children and Families Bill.

The NAS welcomes this change as a step in the right direction for improving provision for children and young people with autism. Since the draft legislation was published for the Bill,   we have been calling for stronger duties on health to ensure that EHC plans genuinely deliver on the Government’s ambitions for more integrated and person centered provision.

The Committee of MPs responsible for scrutinising and amending the Bill, who met for the first time on 5 March, welcomed the new duty on health but raised a number of concerns about accountability and enforcement. Pat Glass MP (Lab, North West Durham ) asked the Minister whether the role of SEN tribunals will be changed to take account of the new statutory duty on health (in the existing system only the education components of a statement are legally enforceable). The Minister replied “that was not the intention” and that redress for health services would be through the NHS ombudsman, which would “in future to have regard to the SEN code of practice when considering such complaints.”

The NAS remains concerned about the ongoing lack of clarity around accountability and enforcement of provision across services. As it stands parents lack a single point of redress in the new system, with the potential for greater fragmentation than is currently the case. We are awaiting more specific details on the new health duty, which will be published as an amendment to the Bill in the next few weeks.

MPs on the Committee also highlighted the need for the legislation to define time limits for local authorities to respond to requests for assessments for EHC plans.   The NAS has been vocal in calling for all existing parental rights to be carried over in to the new system. We will continue to work with parliamentarians to amend the legislation so that these rights are protected.

The committee stage of the Bill is expected to last until late April.

To read more about the new health duty click here

To read the debate from the first session of the Children and Families Bill Committee, click here

Tell MPs to defend parental rights in the Children and Families Bill

The Children and Families Bill, which will introduce major changes to the SEN system, will be the first to undergo a new parliamentary process of Public Reading. This initiative gives members of the public the opportunity to provide their views on Bills before they are made into law. Comments on the Bill will be made available to the Committee of MPs responsible for examining the Bill in detail so that they can take them into account when deciding whether to make changes to the Bill. The public reading will close on 26th February.

The NAS is particularly concerned that existing rights, which are explicit in current legislation, and which parents rely on, are not included in the Bill. Parents frequently tell us that they have to battle to get their child’s needs identified, recognised and then met. Following campaigning by the NAS, parent’s right to request an assessment have now been reinstated. However, the Bill does not indicate any duty on local authorities to respond to the request within specific timescales.

We need to send a clear message to MPs that omitting timescales from the new SEN system would be a major step backwards; undermining the Government’s commitment to end parent’s battle for support. 

The Public Reading section on SEN reform allows for both general comments and comments on specific clauses of the Bill. Let MPs know how vital timescales for assessments are by commenting under the subject heading "Clause 36 Assessment".

Under Clause 36 of the Bill, parents will have the right to request an assessment but there is no time limit within which the decision has to be notified to the parent, and the clause does not provide that regulations may or must provide one. It is vital that this is amended by the Committee of MPs examining the Bill to include clear timescales for local authorities to respond to requests for assessment.  

More information on the Public Reading initiave can be found here

If you have any questions please email policy@nas.org.uk

Government publishes Children and Families Bill

The Government published the long awaited Children and Families Bill on 5 February. The Bill contains provisions for the biggest overhaul of the SEN system in thirty years. The NAS has won important concessions on parent’s rights and their ability to access specialist support for children with the most complex needs.

The Bill will introduce:
• Joint co-operation and commissioning duties to underpin new Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), which will replace education statements
• Extension of the SEN law to cover academies and free schools
• Extension of the system to cover young people in further education up to the age of 25

Following our campaigning, the Government has made a number of changes to its original proposals:

• Independent Special Schools: The NAS called on the Government to amend the legislation to enable independent special schools to be included in the list of schools which can be named in an ECHP. The Government have listened and changed the legislation accordingly. This is particularly important for children with the most complex needs.

 • Parental Rights: Families of children with autism have told NAS they fear that changes could lead to their rights being diminished. Some of these rights, which currently exist, and which parents rely on, were not explicitly included in the draft provisions – even though they exist in current legislation. The Government has gone some way to addressing these concerns. The NAS welcome the specific inclusion in the Bill of the right for parents to request a statutory assessment. However, the Bill does not indicate any duty on local authorities to respond to the request within specific timescales. It is vital that timescales are included if parents’ rights are to be meaningful.

 • Mediation: The NAS called on the Government to scrap arrangements for compulsory mediation for parents before they could go to a SEN tribunal. The Government accept that mediation should not be compulsory: parents wanting to appeal the Local Authority’s decision about a Plan will have the option to use mediation, but can choose not to.

However NAS Chief Executive Mark Lever has said “much more needs to be done if all children and young people with autism are to receive a fulfilling education”. Areas of the legislation the NAS will be seeking to strengthen will include:

• Integration of Education, Health and Social Care: The NAS called for the health parts of the new Education, Health and Care Plans to be on the same statutory footing as the education parts and for there to be greater duties on health around delivering support for children with SEN. The Bill introduces new duties on joint commissioning and cooperation, which we hope will lead to a helpful culture shift. However, the Bill does not place duties on the NHS to ensure all parts of the new Education Health and Care Plans are enforceable. We are concerned that while joint commissioning is a step forward, if the health and social care parts of the Plan are not statutory, children and young people will have no enhanced rights to these services, compared with the current system.

 • The Local Offer: The Government intends that the local offer will be the key tool with which families whose children do not have an EHCP could access the right support. It should provide information about the support available to families. We are pleased that the Bill has included the need for local authorities to consult families about the contents of the Local Offer. However, the Bill states that the Local Offer will outline the provision the local authority “expects” to be available, rather than what is actually provided. This could mean that the local offer will fall short of what is needed to ensure transparency and accountability. The Government must ensure, for example, that it can be used by parents in a tribunal. The NAS will continue to campaign for the Local Offer to be underpinned by national standards which set a minimum level of provision for children and young people with autism.

• Replacement of school action/school action plus: The Government plans to replace school action/school action plus with a single school based category of SEND. The Education Select Committee highlighted concern about the lack of clarity as to how pupils currently receiving support under these categories will be supported in the future. The Government has not stated, either in its response to the Select Committee report, or in the Bill and associated documents, what will take the place of School Action and School Action Plus categories. The NAS will be calling on the Government to be much clearer on what is expected of schools in delivering better outcomes for pupils who are not entitled to an EHCP.

Much of the detail of how the new system works will be hammered out in regulations accompanying the legislation and the revised SEN Code of Practice. These have yet to be published but the Government have indicated draft versions will be published during the Bills passage through Parliament.

The NAS will be working to strengthen the legislation as it goes through Parliament to ensure the new system works for all children with autism.

The full details of the legislation can be found here

 Please let us know what you think of the changes by commenting below.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email policy@nas.org.uk

Education Minister responds to debate on SEN reform

Angela Smith MP (Lab, Penistone and Stocksbridge) used a debate in Parliament on 30 January to raise concerns about key SEN reform proposals in the upcoming Children and Families Bill. In particular she drew attention to the Local Offer; the effectiveness of which will be vital in improving support for young people with autism who don’t qualify for the new Education, Health and Care Plans.

In the draft legislation on SEN reform, the Local Offer is designed to set out which services are available to support children and young people with SEN and their families, reflecting those services that could be made available from within existing local resource. The National Autistic Society has called on the Government to strengthen the Local Offer through minimum standards and a national framework.

Angela Smith MP argued that, as it currently stands, the Local Offer "only reinforces the status quo" and asked "where is the vision to improve both the quality and the availability of services?” 

Responding, Education Minister Edward Timpson said to “drive up consistency the revised SEN Code of Practice, which is not in the primary legislation, will set out a common framework showing what should be in the local offer". However he wanted to avoid a “race to the bottom” where local authorities only provide what is in the framework.

The Minister said he had taken on board much of what the Education Select Committee had said in its pre-legislative scrutiny report on the draft legislation.  He said  the new system must have “young people and parents at its heart from the start, rather than when it is too late and when there is too much division between them and the services that should be there to support their children”.

The Bill is expected to be introduced to Parliament in the next few weeks. The NAS will be working to ensure the legislation delivers a SEN system where children and young people no longer have to battle for the services they need.

If you have any feedback on the reforms, please comment below or email policy@nas.org.uk

To read a full transcript of the debate, see here