The Children and Families Act 2014 imposes a number of duties on local authorities in relation to Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans. For example, young people with an EHC plan have the right to request a personal budget which may include elements of education, health and social care provision.
The official webpage at GOV.UK entitled ‘Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)’ is currently at a ‘beta’ version, with the notification that ‘This part of GOV.UK is being rebuilt’. It simply lists 27 (!!!) links to currently relevant webpages. The page is attributed to ‘Department for Education, The Department of Health, and Standards and Testing Agency’. We hope the rebuild is proceeding apace.
In the interim, we point out that The Preparing for Adulthood Programme has revamped its website. ( The Preparing for Adulthood programme (PfA) is funded by the Department for Education as part of the delivery support for the SEN and disability reforms. It is delivered by a partnership between the National Development Team for inclusion and the Council for Disabled Children). In particular, it has published new factsheets on transition and post-16 provision.
Parents and carers of under-16s may care to refer to websites such as Special Needs Jungle which has a section dedicated to the SEN reforms.
Finally, there is now an urgent requirement for schools and local authorities to liaise on how they intend (together) to implement the changes required by the legislation. Not least, those at ‘the chalk-face’, teachers and classroom assistants will requires training. We found this interview in the ‘SEND Prctitioner’ e-zine with an eminent educational consultant and former head-teacher very illuminating. She predicted:
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The biggest difficulty for schools will be that they will have to run a dual system.
- There will be children who currently have statements, who will continue to have statements until they are transferred to Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). The transition process will take years.
- From September 2014, any new child entering the statutory assessment system will be assessed for an EHCP. However, in some places, children are already being assessed for a plan.
- There is also concern that some children in the future will not get a plan when they may have been eligible for a statement.
Schools are also going to have to be very good at finding out what the LA wants in order to go for a plan. Schools should ask the following questions:
- What will the process be once the school has identified a need?
- We’ve done everything in school, but now we need to go for statutory assessment… what does that process look like?
In the draft Code there is very little process. In light of this, schools will have to discover the particular process that their LA employs.”