The Department for Education has postponed publication of a white paper setting out fundamental reforms in policy and law covering special educational needs. Announced by chancellor Rachel Reeves in June’s spending review, the white paper’s publication was scheduled for autumn. It will now appear ‘early in the new year’.
The announcement came yesterday afternoon in a letter from education secretary Bridget Phillipson to Helen Hayes, chair of the Commons education select committee. Hayes’ committee published a report last month Solving the SEND Crisis after months of hearings and taking evidence.
‘I have taken the decision to have a further period of co-creation, testing our proposals with the people who matter most in this reform – the families – alongside teachers and other experts as you highlight in the Select Committee’s report,’ Phillipson wrote.
The prospect of reform is controversial because ministers have repeatedly refused to rule out the removal of existing legal rights for children with special educational needs. Key DfE advisers on SEND policy have floated the possibility of removing or limiting education health and care plans (EHCPs). Around half a million children have EHCPs, which have legally enforceable elements, and set out the support needed by the child including the educational setting that will deliver it.
The cost of such support is met by local authorities, and their representative bodies have long called for reforms. The chair of the Local Government Association‘s children, young people and families committee Amanda Hopgood called the delay ‘disappointing’. She added: ‘Councils have been pushed to the brink by rising high needs deficits’.
Phillipson’s letter does not address the issue of whether existing legal rights will be maintained, instead she said: ‘Where specialist provision is needed for children in mainstream… we will ensure it is there, with clear legal requirements and safeguards for children and parents.’
In June, the Gazette reported on a threat to the status of the SEND Tribunal as a forum for education disputes. The tribunal is not mentioned in the letter. Phillipson does reference Breaking the Cycle, an IPPR report, published today, as deserving consideration. The report labels the increase in EHCPs as ‘a self-perpetuating vicious cycle’, and envisages EHCPs and the ‘statutory entitlements’ attached to them being phased out.
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