Local authorities will be stripped of their responsibility for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services where they are judged to be persistently failing, the government has said.
In a letter to local authority leaders, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said she will use statutory powers including transferring SEND responsibilities to an independent trust if other interventions, such as support from expert advisers, commissioners and sector-led partners, fail to result in improvements in services.
The measures are part of what Phillipson and the government are calling a “zero-tolerance approach” to local authorities, schools and other agencies that fail children with SEND.
Exercising the Secretary of State’s power to strip councils of their responsibility to deliver services has been used by governments for failing children’s social care departments over the past decade, but has never been used for SEND provision.
In the letter, which was also sent to integrated care board leads, Phillipson sets out the government’s expectations for each area to develop a Local SEND Plan by June, with payments to clear most of councils’ SEND spending deficits dependent on these being approved.
High Needs Stability Grant payments will be made in the autumn, delivering on the government’s pledge to write off 90% of the estimated £4 billion of SEND deficits up to 2025/26.
The extra financial support from the government – first announced last month – will be matched with strong accountability including “time-bound expectations for better outcomes”, with inspections holding all partners to account, a Department for Education briefing states.
Operational areas the government will be closely monitoring include children left out of school without a placement, delays in annual reviews of SEND plans, extended waits for basic support including short-break provision, inefficient SEND transport arrangements, and a failure to resolve disputes with parents.
Last month, the government published its long-awaited SEND reforms, which set out a root and branch overhaul of the system.
Source: CYPNow
