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I passionately believe no matter where you are from or what stage of life you are at, you should always be able to get a high-quality education and receive the right support in the right place and at the right time. This includes children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and those in alternative provision (AP).

I know from experience that this is not the case. I have witnessed first-hand the challenges families have navigating a complex system in an effort to secure support for their child. Addressing this is a priority for me. It is a huge honour to be taking this work forward in my new role as Secretary of State for Education.

The new Minister for Children and Families, Claire Coutinho, shares my passion for this work. As the former Minister for Disabled People, she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the role. I know she has plans to meet parents and carers, children and young people with SEND, as well as voluntary and community sector groups in the coming weeks. Similarly, I will also be having such meetings of my own.

The SEND and Alternative Provision green paper, published in March this year, set out a bold and ambitious plan to equip children and young people with the skills they need to succeed in later life. It aims to improve experiences within a fairer, more inclusive and sustainable system across education, health and care, something I was deeply involved in while I served as a Health Minister.

In that role, and through my own experiences I know meaningful and significant change is necessary to deliver a system that allows every child and young person to reach their potential. I do not underestimate the importance of getting this right. That is why I, alongside the new ministerial team, want to take time to listen to children and parents as well as those of you who work tirelessly in the system. I want to understand the extensive feedback we received through the consultation, before publishing a full response to the SEND and Alternative Provision green paper, in an Improvement Plan. I will publish this early in the new year.

This plan will reflect the feedback we have heard throughout the consultation and be clear on Government's next steps. It will focus on delivery; outlining the immediate steps we will be taking, and how we will ensure long-term sustainable systemic change.

We know that children and young people need our support now. That is why, through the autumn statement, we committed to investing £2 billion in extra funding both this year and next, which will mean by 2025, we will be spending more in schools than ever before.

Ahead of our Improvement Plan being published, I'm happy to confirm that we are taking forward two additional measures to support children with SEND: investing £21 million into training 400 more educational psychologists, who play a critical role in the educational support available to children with SEND, and extending a training programme to up to 150 more schools for teachers to use assistive technology to better support their pupils. This money will continue to support the system to deliver change and continue to improve the outcomes and experiences of children and young people with SEND and those who need alternative provision.

My team and I very much look forward to working with you to deliver a change that supports all of our children and young people for generations to come.

The Rt Hon Gillian Keegan MP
Secretary of State for Education

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Message to the education and care sector on SEND reform from the Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan

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I passionately believe no matter where you are from or what stage of life you are at, you should always be able to get a high-quality education and receive the right support in the right place and at the right time.

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The government is determined to level up opportunities for all children and young people - without exception. We are just as ambitious for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities ( SEND) as for every other child.

The SEND review sets out government's proposals for a system that offers children and young people the opportunity to thrive, with access to the right support, in the right place, and at the right time, so they can fulfil their potential and lead happy, healthy and productive adult lives.

The reforms to the SEND system introduced in 2014 had the right aspirations and since then there has been much to celebrate. It is clear that the system is driven by a hardworking and dedicated workforce. However, despite examples of good practice, too often the experiences and outcomes of children and young people are poor. Parents and carers are frustrated at having to navigate an increasingly complex and adversarial system. Growing tension across the system is causing delays in accessing support and increasing financial challenges for local government.

The SEND review is a response to the widespread recognition that the system is failing to deliver for children, young people and their families.

Over the course of the review, we have listened to a wide range of people, most importantly children, young people and their families. As the review progressed it became clear that alternative provision is increasingly being used to supplement the SEND system. Therefore, we have looked at the specific challenges facing the alternative provision sector, and proposed potential solutions, as part of this review.

The review has identified 3 key challenges facing the SEND and alternative provision system.

1. Navigating the SEND system and alternative provision is not a positive experience for too many children, young people and their families.

2. Outcomes for children and young people with SEND or in alternative provision are consistently worse than their peers across every measure.

3. Despite the continuing and unprecedented investment, the system is not financially sustainable.

A vicious cycle of late intervention, low confidence and inefficient resource allocation

For both families and providers, the review has identified there is significant inconsistency in how needs are met. Decisions are too often made based on where a child or young person lives or is educated, not on their needs.

This cycle starts in early years and mainstream schools, where despite best endeavours, settings are often ill-equipped to identify and support children and young people. Inconsistent practice makes this worse.

It is not clear to families what they should reasonably expect from their local mainstream settings, and they lose confidence that these settings can meet their child's needs. As a result, education, health and care plans ( EHCPs) and, in some cases, specialist provision, are seen as the only means of guaranteeing the right and appropriate support.

Increasing numbers of requests for EHCPs and specialist provision means that children and young people face significant delays in accessing support.

Some children and young people, including those with more complex needs, face long journeys to get to school or have to attend a placement outside of their local area, taking them away from their local community.

Financial resource and workforce capacity is pulled to the specialist end of the system so there is less available to deliver early intervention and effective, timely support in mainstream settings. As a result, the vicious cycle continues with outcomes and experiences for children and young people continuing to suffer and costs increasing.

Turning this vicious cycle into a virtuous one

The vast majority of children and young people should be able to access the support they need to thrive in their local mainstream setting, without bureaucratic processes, or the need for an EHCP or a placement in special or alternative provision. They should have their needs identified promptly, with appropriate support put in place at the earliest opportunity.

For some children and young people, specialist provision will be the most appropriate placement for them to be able to learn and succeed. They should be able to access this with minimal bureaucracy.

The green paper is consulting on ambitious proposals to deliver greater national consistency in the support that should be made available, how it should be accessed and how it should be funded. It sets out plans for an inclusive system, starting with improved mainstream provision that offers early and accurate identification of needs, high-quality teaching, and prompt access to targeted support.

An inclusive system will also ensure that children and young people have timely access to specialist services and support, including specialist placements where this is appropriate. This will be underpinned by strong co-production with families and accountability at every level, and improved data collection to give a timely picture of how the system is performing.

A single national SEND and alternative provision system

The review concludes that there is a need for much greater consistency in how needs are identified and supported, so decisions are made based on a child or young person's needs in co-production with families, not where they live or the setting they attend.

We propose to:

establish a new national SEND and alternative provision system setting nationally consistent standards for how needs are identified and met at every stage of a child's journey across education, health and care - parents and carers will be confident that their child's needs will be met effectively in the most appropriate local setting, they will be clear about what support their child is receiving and will be engaged in decision-making at every stage

create new local SEND partnerships bringing together education, health and care partners with local government to produce a local inclusion plan setting out how each area will meet the national standards - when specialist support is needed, the local inclusion plan will set out the provision that is available within the local area, including units within mainstream, alternative and specialist provision

support parents and carers to express an informed preference for a suitable placement by providing a tailored list of settings, including mainstream, specialist and independent - they will continue to have the right to request a mainstream setting for their child

introduce a standardised and digitised EHCP process and template to minimise bureaucracy and deliver consistency

streamline the redress process to make it easier to resolve disputes earlier, including through mandatory mediation, whilst retaining the tribunal for the most challenging cases

Excellent provision from early years to adulthood

The review has heard that we need a more inclusive education system to ensure that children and young people with SEND are set up to thrive.

We will:

increase the total investment in the schools' budget, with an additional £1 billion in 2022 to 2023 to support children and young people with the most complex needs

improve mainstream provision, building on the ambitious schools white paper reforms, through excellent teacher training and development and a 'what works' evidence programme to identify and share best practice including in early intervention

build expertise and leadership, by consulting on a new SENCo national professional qualification (NPQ) for school SENCos, alongside increasing the number of staff with an accredited SENCo qualification in early years settings

invest £2.6 billion, over the next 3 years, to deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision

deliver more new special and alternative provision free schools in addition to 60 already in the pipeline

set out a clear timeline that, by 2030, all children and young people will benefit from being taught in a family of schools, with their school, including special and alternative provision in a strong trust or with plans to join or form one, sharing expertise and resource to improve outcomes

commission analysis to better understand the support that children and young people with SEND need from the health workforce so that there is a clear focus on SEND in health workforce planning

fund more than 10,000 additional respite placements and invest £82 million in a network of family hubs so more children, young people and their families can access wraparound support

invest £18 million, over the next 3 years to build capacity in the supported internships programme

improve transition at further education by introducing common transfer files alongside piloting the roll out of adjustment passports to ensure young people with SEND are prepared for employment and higher education

A reformed and integrated role for alternative provision

At their best, alternative provision schools are experts in supporting children and young people whose behaviour or other needs can present a barrier to learning. But, too often the role of alternative provision is unclear, and it is used too late or in a way that is not best focused on children's needs.

To address these barriers, we propose to:

make alternative provision an integral part of local SEND systems by requiring the new SEND partnerships to plan and deliver an alternative provision service focused on early intervention

give alternative provision schools the funding stability to deliver a service focused on early intervention by requiring local authorities to create and distribute an alternative provision specific budget

develop a bespoke performance framework for alternative provision which sets robust standards focused on progress, re-integration into mainstream education or sustainable post-16 destinations

deliver greater oversight and transparency on children and young people's movements into and out of alternative provision

launch a call for evidence, before the summer, on the use of unregistered provision to investigate existing practice

System roles, accountabilities and funding reform

The review has heard the need to align system incentives and accountabilities to reduce perverse behaviours that drive poor outcomes and high costs in the current system.

We propose to:

deliver clarity on roles and responsibilities for all partners, across education, health, care and local government through the new national standards - with aligned accountabilities, so everyone has the right incentives and levers to do their role and be held to account

equip the Department for Education's new regions group to take responsibility for holding local authorities and trusts to account for delivering for children and young people with SEND locally through new funding agreements between local government and the Department for Education

introduce a new inclusion dashboard for 0 to 25 provision giving a timely, transparent picture of how the system is performing at a local and national level across education, health and care

work with Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission to deliver an updated local area SEND inspection framework with a focus on arrangements and experiences of children and young people with SEND and in alternative provision

deliver funding reform through the introduction of a new national framework of banding and price tariffs for funding, matched to levels of need and types of education provision set out in the new national standards - providers will have clarity on how much funding they should expect to receive for delivering support or a service, whilst ensuring the right pricing structures are in place, helping to control high costs attributed to expensive provision

Delivering change for children and families

The publication of the green paper marks the start of a 13-week consultation process, closing on 22 July 2022. We encourage everyone to reflect on the proposals in the green paper and respond to our consultation. Alongside the written consultation will be a series of events to gather additional views and contribute to the overall consultation.

We know that there are immediate changes that can be made now to help stabilise the current system. We are taking immediate steps to stabilise local SEND systems through the safety valve and delivering better value programmes. The proposals set out in the green paper will align with wider reforms around levelling up, including policy set out in the recent schools white paper, as well as the forthcoming independent review of children's social care and wider reforms to the delivery landscape across health and care.

Later this year, following the completion of the consultation, we will publish a national SEND delivery plan, setting out the government's response to the consultation and how the proposals will be implemented. Together, we can ensure every child and young person with SEND and those in alternative provision can thrive and be well prepared for adult life.

To find out more about the SEND review visit sendreview.campaign.gov.uk.

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Summary of the SEND review: right support, right place, right time

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The government is determined to level up opportunities for all children and young people - without exception. We are just as ambitious for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities ( SEND) as for every other child.

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Applies to England

This consultation has concluded

Detail of outcome

The government's response to the consultation is available in the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan.

This plan sets out our responses to the feedback we received and the improvements we'll make to the SEND and alternative provision system in England.

Feedback received

Detail of feedback received

This report is an independent analysis of the responses to the consultation.

Original consultation

Summary

We're seeking views on our green paper about the changes we want to make to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) system in England.

This consultation was held on another website.

This consultation ran from

Consultation description

The government is committed to improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND and those in alternative provision.

To achieve this ambition we want to work with and hear from:

children and young people

parents and carers

those who advocate and work with the SEND sector

local and national system leaders

We encourage you to consider the proposals set out in this green paper and respond to our consultation.

Together, we can ensure every child and young person with SEND and those in alternative provision can thrive and be well prepared for adult life.

A separate summary covering the SEND and AP green paper and responding to the consultation is also available.

Documents

Thank you for your feedback

Report a problem with this page

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SEND review: right support, right place, right time

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We're seeking views on our green paper about the changes we want to make to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) system in England.

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A report about the experiences of children and young people with SEND and their families during the pandemic, in the context of the SEND reforms over the last 10 years.

Applies to England

Documents

Details

The last 10 years have been a period of reform to the way in which the needs of children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities ( SEND) are identified, assessed and met. This report reflects on these reforms and their impact. It also considers what has been working well in the SEND system over time and areas where the reforms have not had the desired impact. It looks at SEND at the start of 2020, when the pandemic began: the number of children and young people who are part of the ' SEND system', their outcomes and experiences at different ages, and their experiences of receiving services. This sets the context for the findings from Ofsted's visits to local areas, where we found out about the experiences of children and young people through the pandemic.

Thank you for your feedback

Report a problem with this page

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SEND: old issues, new issues, next steps

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Skip to main content We use some essential cookies to make this website work. We'd like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services. We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.

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National Disability Strategy and related publications

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Natspec Log In AC2021

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4_13 - Exciting new developments in SEND in FE

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Log in AC2021

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3_9 Inclusion-making good business sense

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Developing a student support infrastructure

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Developing a student support infrastructure

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Log in AC2021

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2_4 Developing a student support infrastructure

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People led by Weston College

How to ensure organisations take care of their staff and all learners with a particular focus on their mental, social and emotional needs.

Curriculum led by Derby College

How to ensure that the curriculum always has a clear purpose so that learners with SEND have the potential to achieve their aspirations.

Community led by City College Norwich

How to ensure that learners with SEND are progressing into and being present within communities who recognise and embrace their potential.

Please share this information as widely as possible and use social media es for both leaders and communities of practice to explore#SENDinFE to identify them .

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Centres for Excellence in Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND):

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People led by Weston College How to ensure organisations take care of their staff and all learners with a particular focus on their mental, social and emotional needs. Curriculum led by Derby College How to ensure that the curriculum always has a clear purpose so that learners with SEND have the potential to achieve their aspirations.

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Arrangements for planning, commissioning, funding and supporting provision of post-16 high needs students

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Arrangements for planning, commissioning, funding and supporting provision of post-16 high needs students

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Issues emerging:

·        Intelligent provision planning: Strategic and operational planning activity needed. Involve all providers

·        Better commissioning: Should mean – effective EHCP’s in place, with early FE-based input on which to rely. Outcomes not inputs. Earlier placements confirmed ideally in advance of 31 March

·        Improved transitions for young people

o   “into” post-16 provision: Meet the Code requirement for a “key worker”. Build young people’s / families’ confidence in non-school options at 16 early, reduce late switches and no/shows. Actual transitions to post-16 can only start when the next placement confirmed – 31 March really is last possible date

o   “out of” post 16 provision: Must be planned and phased. Education needs to be allowed to step back and others including Health need to step up

o   LA Input: Identifying proposed outcomes, regularly reviewing and amending, Attend annual reviews (if only!). End of programme review – were outcomes achieved

·        New approaches to contracts and funding

o   A differentiated model. The need for greater and earlier certainty for all parties including the young person. Reduced administration, especially for multi-LA providers, reduce instability and delay for smaller providers.

o   How to get there: Differentiated contract / funding models including “block” funding where possible. Link to planning relationship. Guaranteed funding in advance, subject to necessary caveats, linked to review of outcomes, in-year reconciliation to actual, risk sharing

o   Is a new HN dedicated /ring-fenced disadvantage block possible ?

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LGA AoC Natspec - final report (30-11-21)

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Operational guide

Read the operational guide to find out how the high needs funding streams work for all types of provision.

Use the operational guide to help plan your 2020 to 2021 financial year high needs funding.

Special free schools adjustments: a guide for local authorities

Use the special free schools guide to find out how place funding for these schools will be managed from 2020 to 2021.

The guide explains how these schools will be included in the place change notification process and high needs national funding formula, and what local authorities should consider for 2020 to 2021.

Place change notification process

View the high needs place change request outcomes: 2020 to 2021 to find information on all institutions for which local authorities submitted a return to change high needs place numbers.

Read the technical note to find out how the outcomes have been determined.

Review the published outcomes as soon as possible, to ensure the numbers reflect those expected.

If an institution is not listed in the workbook then this means that no local authority change request was submitted for that institution and the published 2019 to 2020 place numbers will be used as the basis of the 2020 to 2021 allocation.

How to query your place numbers

Read the technical note to find out how to query the place numbers during the enquiry window, which closes on 7 February 2020.

Requests to change place numbers received after this date are unlikely to be considered.

Hospital education funding: guidance

Read the hospital education funding guidance to find out how local authorities can apply for changes to their hospital education funding for 2020 to 2021.

High needs student and pupil numbers recorded in the ILR and school census: 2018 to 2019

Use the high needs student and pupil numbers recorded in the ILR and school census: 2018 to 2019 to inform local discussion about commissioning arrangements for 2020 to 2021.

The high needs student and pupil numbers recorded in the ILR and school census: 2018 to 2019 file shows the:

actual number of high needs students at institutions recorded in the academic year 2018 to 2019 ILR R14 data return

actual number of pupils in special academies and special free schools recorded in the spring 2019 school census

allocated number of high needs places for academic years 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020

actual data for special post-16 institutions (this data is provided for information purposes only and is included because SPIs return 2018 to 2019 R14 data to ESFA)

Further information

Read the schools operational guide: 2020 to 2021 to help plan the local implementation of the funding system for the 2020 to 2021 financial year.

Read the high needs funding 2019 to 2020: operational guide for information about the 2019 to 2020 financial year funding arrangements.

You can read the national funding formula for schools and high needs for further details of the NFF funding system for 2020 to 2021.

View the provisional national funding formula allocation tables for schools, high needs and central schools services blocks for 2020 to 2021.

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High needs funding arrangements: 2020 to 2021

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Read the operational guide to find out how the high needs funding streams work for all types of provision. Use the operational guide to help plan your 2020 to 2021 financial year high needs funding. Use the special free schools guide to find out how place funding for these schools will be managed from 2020 to 2021.

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Guidelines for teaching students with support needs ( including high needs) - For approval

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Support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities in England - written submission form

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Support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities in England - written submission form

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Your document should:

1. be in Word (doc, docx, rtf, txt ooxml or odt) format, not PDF

2. be maximum 25MB in size

3. be a single document - if there are any annexes or appendices, these should be included in the same document.

4. contain as few logos or pictures as possible

5. contain no macros

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support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities in england

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Support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities in England - written submission form

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Your document should: be in Word (doc, docx, rtf, txt ooxml or odt) format, not PDF be maximum 25MB in size be a single document - if there are any annexes or appendices, these should be included in the same document.

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Funding for SEND and those who need AP: Call for evidence

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Funding for SEND and those who need AP: Call for evidence

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Overview

A call for evidence on the funding arrangements for young people with SEND and those who need alternative provision.

Why We Are Consulting

We are aware of concerns about the funding allocated for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in England, and are looking carefully at how much overall funding will be needed in future years. This call for evidence is an invitation to consider other aspects of the funding arrangements that:

could be changed to help local authorities, schools, colleges and other providers in their support for young people with SEND, those requiring alternative provision (AP) and those at risk of exclusion from school, and

may not be helping us get the most value from the resources available.

We have also asked the Council for Disabled Children to organise a small number of workshops across the country, so that we can discuss the themes in this call for evidence in greater detail. If you would like to attend one of these events, please register your interest at senfinancialevents@ncb.org.uk, giving your name, role, organisation and email address. They will send you information about the events as soon as it is available.
Please read the document "Call for evidence on SEND & AP funding" before completing the online questionnaire.

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Funding for SEND and those who need AP: Call for evidence

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A call for evidence on the funding arrangements for young people with SEND and those who need alternative provision. We are aware of concerns about the funding allocated for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in England, and are looking carefully at how much overall funding will be needed in future years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Operational guide

Read the operational guide to find out how the high needs funding streams work for all types of provision.

Use the operational guide to help plan your 2020 to 2021 financial year high needs funding.

Special free schools adjustments: a guide for local authorities

Use the special free schools guide to find out how place funding for these schools will be managed from 2020 to 2021.

The guide explains how these schools will be included in the place change notification process and high needs national funding formula, and what local authorities should consider for 2020 to 2021.

Place change notification process

View the high needs place change request outcomes: 2020 to 2021 to find information on all institutions for which local authorities submitted a return to change high needs place numbers.

Read the technical note to find out how the outcomes have been determined.

Review the published outcomes as soon as possible, to ensure the numbers reflect those expected.

If an institution is not listed in the workbook then this means that no local authority change request was submitted for that institution and the published 2019 to 2020 place numbers will be used as the basis of the 2020 to 2021 allocation.

How to query your place numbers

Read the technical note to find out how to query the place numbers during the enquiry window, which closes on 7 February 2020.

Requests to change place numbers received after this date are unlikely to be considered.

Hospital education funding: guidance

Read the hospital education funding guidance to find out how local authorities can apply for changes to their hospital education funding for 2020 to 2021.

High needs student and pupil numbers recorded in the ILR and school census: 2018 to 2019

Use the high needs student and pupil numbers recorded in the ILR and school census: 2018 to 2019 to inform local discussion about commissioning arrangements for 2020 to 2021.

The high needs student and pupil numbers recorded in the ILR and school census: 2018 to 2019 file shows the:

actual number of high needs students at institutions recorded in the academic year 2018 to 2019 ILR R14 data return

actual number of pupils in special academies and special free schools recorded in the spring 2019 school census

allocated number of high needs places for academic years 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020

actual data for special post-16 institutions (this data is provided for information purposes only and is included because SPIs return 2018 to 2019 R14 data to ESFA)

Further information

Read the schools operational guide: 2020 to 2021 to help plan the local implementation of the funding system for the 2020 to 2021 financial year.

Read the high needs funding 2019 to 2020: operational guide for information about the 2019 to 2020 financial year funding arrangements.

You can read the national funding formula for schools and high needs for further details of the NFF funding system for 2020 to 2021.

View the provisional national funding formula allocation tables for schools, high needs and central schools services blocks for 2020 to 2021.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
High needs funding arrangements: 2020 to 2021

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read the operational guide to find out how the high needs funding streams work for all types of provision. Use the operational guide to help plan your 2020 to 2021 financial year high needs funding. Use the special free schools guide to find out how place funding for these schools will be managed from 2020 to 2021.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Note: This report is from 2018, there is a more recent vulnerability report from 2019.

The 2018 vulnerability report told us about the numbers of children who are growing up in England with vulnerability and risks that could affect their lives, wellbeing and life chances.

We found that there are over 2 million children in England living in families with substantial complex needs, and that of these 1.6 million children have no established, recognised form of additional support. In addition there are multiple other forms of vulnerability, risk and need. We show the latest data on 70 aggregate groups that we will use to monitor trends, consider aggregate levels of need and frame our work to hear the views of children and young people.

The overview report provides a summary of the underlying data and analysis, which is set out in more detail in four technical reports. A set of slides summarises conversations with young people about the framework. You can also see below some of the reports from last year with more discussion of some of the issues in measuring and defining vulnerability.

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Childhood vulnerability in England 2018 | Children's Commissioner for England

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Note: This report is from 2018, there is a more recent vulnerability report from 2019. The 2018 vulnerability report told us about the numbers of children who are growing up in England with vulnerability and risks that could affect their lives, wellbeing and life chances.

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Special educational needs in England: January 2018

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Information from the school census on pupils with special educational needs (SEN), and SEN provision in schools.

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A guide on the support system for children and young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND).

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A guide on the support system for children and young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND).

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A generation of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are not getting the support they need because of "a nightmare of bureaucracy, buck-passing and confusion", a damning new report has warned.

The Commons Education Select Committee says that the poor implementation of SEND reforms to support children and young people have thrown families into crisis, put local councils under pressure and left schools struggling to cope.

The MPs' long-awaited report calls for radical changes to the support available for families and to the way the government holds service providers to account to ensure its reforms are being delivered.

Inspection: Call for schools to face new SEND inspection checks

Analysis: SEND crisis is about more than a lack of money

Background: 'Unprecedented crisis' sees councils blocking support for children

It warns that a significant funding shortfall is a serious contributing factor to the failure on the part of all involved to deliver on SEND reforms and meet children's needs.

However, the committee also warns that "unless we see a culture change, within schools and local authorities and the government, any additional money will be wasted and make little difference to their lives".

The committee's chair Robert Halfon said: "We need to end this major social injustice, one which affects children and their families, particularly those who are not as well equipped to navigate this bureaucratic maze.

"Of course, extra funding for SEND announced in the spending round is welcome but the truth is that more cash will fail to make a difference to children with special education needs unless there is a radical change of approach throughout the system.

"The DfE [Department for Education] cannot continue with a piecemeal and reactive approach to supporting children with SEND. Rather than making do with sticking plasters, what is needed is a transformation, a more strategic oversight and fundamental change to ensure a generation of children is no longer let down."

The crisis in the services and support available for people with SEND has been well documented.

Last month, Tes revealed that more than half of the first 100 SEND area inspections to be carried out had found significant weaknesses in the services for children and young people.

And earlier this month, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman warned that children with SEND were being let down by a system that is meant to support them.

The MPs report, published today, says that the reforms to the support for children and young people contained in the Children and Families Act 2014 were the right ones but criticises government, councils, health bodies and schools for failing to ensure they have been delivered.

The reforms saw the introduction of a co-ordinated assessment process to assess a child's educational, health and care needs and the delivery of EHCPs to ensure these needs were met.

'System breeds conflict and despair'

Mr Halfon added: "Despite the good intentions of the reforms, many children with special educational needs and disabilities are being let down day after day. Many parents face a titanic struggle just to try and ensure their child gets access to the right support.

"Families are often forced to wade through a treacle of bureaucracy, in a system which breeds conflict and despair as parents try to navigate a postcode lottery of provision.

"A lack of accountability plagues the system as local authorities, social care and health providers too frequently seek to pass the buck rather than take responsibility for providing support.

"Children and parents should not have to struggle in this way - they should be supported.

"There needs to be a radical change to inspection, support for parents and clear consequences for failure to ensure the 2014 Act delivers as the government intended."

The committee calls for:

· A more rigorous inspection framework for local authorities, with clear consequences for failure and a greater focus on SEND in school inspections.

· A direct line for parents and schools to appeal directly to the Department for Education where local authorities appear not to be complying with the law.

· Powers for the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to investigate complaints about schools.

· The development of more employment and training opportunities for post-16 young people.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: "No child should be held back from reaching their potential, including those with special educational needs.

"That's why we recently announced a £780 million increase to local authorities' high-needs funding, boosting the budget by 12 per cent and bringing the total spent on supporting those with the most complex needs to over £7 billion for 2020-21.

"This report recognises the improvements made to the system over five years ago were the right ones, and put families and children at the heart of the process. But through our review of these reforms, we are focused on making sure they work for every child, in every part of the country."

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Lack of SEND support 'failing a generation of pupils'

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A generation of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are not getting the support they need because of "a nightmare of bureaucracy, buck-passing and confusion", a damning new report has warned.

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Education, health and care plans: parents and young people survey

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Education, health and care plans: parents and young people survey

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Tell us whether you accept cookies

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The views and experiences of people who received an education, health and care (EHC) plan in 2015.

Documents

Details

Report providing statistics on parents' and young people's views of the EHC assessment and planning process and the EHC plan they received as a result.

A separate technical report provides more detail about the survey.

Two research reports providing further analysis of factors that affect user experience.

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Education, health and care plans: parents and young people survey

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Tell us whether you accept cookies We use cookies to collect information about how you use GOV.UK. We use this information to make the website work as well as possible and improve government services. The views and experiences of people who received an education, health and care (EHC) plan in 2015.

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Special needs overspend in eight out of 10 councils

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Special needs overspend in eight out of 10 councils

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English councils have overspent by at least £324m on their budgets for young adults and children with special needs this financial year, the BBC has found.

Of the 136 local authorities that provided information to the BBC under Freedom of Information laws, 123 have overspent on their high needs budget.

The government says it is providing an extra £250m to ease pressures, and £100m on new school places.

Funding has not kept pace with the growth in extra support, say councils.

Some of these extra pressures have resulted from a legal change in 2014 which handed councils responsibility for young adults' special educational needs between the ages of 18 and 25.

They were already responsible for under-18s.

'Breaking point'

This change led to a growth in the number of college and university students and apprentices being supported.

In Dorset, since 2014, the number of under-25s on education, health and care plans - which give a legal right to specialist support - has grown by more than two-thirds.

This led to the high needs budget being overspent every year, and now a £13m deficit is predicted for the coming financial year.

Dorset county councillor Andrew Parry, who is responsible for education, said the council had run out of options.

"It is a multi-million pound problem. Up to now it's been a case of drawing on reserves, reorganising budgets.

"But there is a breaking point.

"Dorset is not alone in recognising that day of reckoning will be coming very soon," he said.

According to the information obtained from England's councils, 76 local authorities have shifted money from other education budgets to meet their obligations to high needs children.

This comes as spending per pupil in schools has fallen by 8% in real terms in England since 2010.

Legal action

Councils say they feel caught between legal duties and the need to balance budgets.

And they are also facing growing pressure from unhappy parents, including legal challenges in the High Court.

Bristol City Council had to reverse planned changes to its special needs spending, after being defeated in court last summer, over its failure to consult on the proposals.

Surrey and Hackney councils are awaiting judgements in cases where parents also challenged the failure to consult and consider the needs of families who rely on special needs support.

The government said it was aware of the pressures on the £6bn high needs budget in England.

An extra £250m was promised in December to be invested over the next two years, after intensive lobbying from councils.

And more special school places to cater for those with the highest needs are being planned through the free school programme.

Special units

Dorset is trying to find longer-term solutions to help it manage costs, such as reducing the need for children to travel out of its area for support.

It is setting up five special needs units attached to schools across the county to ease the pressure on special schools and reduce the cost of out-of-area placements.

One of these is up and running at Parley First School, in Ferndown, where a group of specially-designed classrooms run by specialist teaching staff have been built on to the existing mainstream school.

They cater for 10 pupils who need extra support with complex communication needs.

Most of the pupils have autism spectrum disorder among their extra needs, so the classroom is designed to be calming.

A special sensory room allows the boys to gradually increase the time they can join in classes in the rest of the school.

Specialist teacher Sarah Rose said the work in the unit was about helping the pupils progress as a whole person.

"It might be something as simple as learning to say hello, maintain eye contact and show interest in the other person.

"It will help them with that social connection, now and in later life."

But six-year-old Malachi, who has multiple special needs, has been out of school since September, because of the difficulty in finding him a suitable place.

This has forced his father, Alexander Lyes, to take six months of unpaid leave from work to help his wife Emma manage.

'Feeling rejected'

Emma said: "Malachi struggles every day of his life, because he's not getting the support and provisions he needs.

"I think he feels rejected because he can't go to school like every other child."

The government said it recognised the pressures on the £6bn high needs budget, and the additional £250m was intended to help over the next two years.

Children and families minister Nadhim Zahawi said: "Every parent rightly wants their child to get the support and education they deserve. My ambition for children with special educational needs is the same as theirs - that they succeed in education, find employment and lead a happy life."

The pressures on the high needs budget will be considered as part of the next government spending review.

The situation will be watched with interest from Wales, which is introducing similar reforms with a transition to plans identifying additional learning needs up to the age of 25.

In Scotland, where there has also been a trend of increasing demand, there is a presumption in law to educate most pupils with extra learning needs in mainstream schools. This has faced criticism.

In Northern Ireland there has also been a rise in the number of pupils diagnosed with a special need. In addition, the Department of Education has a policy of inclusion, which has means many more pupils are educated in mainstream schools.

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English councils have overspent by at least £324m on their budgets for young adults and children with special needs this financial year, the BBC has found. Of the 136 local authorities that provided information to the BBC under Freedom of Information laws, 123 have overspent on their high needs budget.

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Statements of SEN and EHC plans: England, 2018

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Statements of SEN and EHC plans: England, 2018

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Tell us whether you accept cookies

We use cookies to collect information about how you use GOV.UK. We use this information to make the website work as well as possible and improve government services.

Statistics and analysis on statements of special educational needs (SEN) and education, health and care (EHC) plans in England.

Documents

Details

This publication includes information on:

the number of statements of SEN and EHC plans in place in January 2018

the number of EHC plans made for the first time during the 2017 calendar year

the number and percentage of EHC plans that were issued within 20 weeks

progress transferring statements of SEN to EHC plans

It is based on the statutory SEN2 data collection.

Information on the number of transfers of statements of SEN that are yet to be completed is available in the ad hoc publication: Statements of SEN transferring to EHC plans: 31 March 2018

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Statements of SEN and EHC plans: England, 2018

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Tell us whether you accept cookies We use cookies to collect information about how you use GOV.UK. We use this information to make the website work as well as possible and improve government services. Statistics and analysis on statements of special educational needs (SEN) and education, health and care (EHC) plans in England.

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Guidance regarding access arrangements when a candidate changes centre

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Guidance regarding access arrangements when a candidate changes centre

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Missing special needs support 'a national scandal'

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Missing special needs support 'a national scandal'

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Thousands of children missing out on support for diagnosed special educational needs in England is a "national scandal", Ofsted has said.

There are 2,060 children in 2018 who have education, health and care plans (EHCs) setting out their needs, but who receive no support at all.

Some parents said a child is only assessed when they are excluded.

Ofsted chief, Amanda Spielman, also raised the issue of children disappearing from education.

'Disturbing'

Ms Spielman says: "Too often, children who have been assessed still do not receive the services they need."

She uses her annual report to expose what she describes as a "bleak picture" of too many children "failed by the education system".

The report raises concerns about support for the 1.3 million pupils with special needs.

She says between 2010 and 2017, the number of children with a plan designating their needs, but who received no provision, had increased fivefold.

It had been above 4,000 in 2017, but has now been reduced to 2,060.

The Department for Education says some of these young people will be in the process of moving between schools or colleges.

"One child with Send [special educational needs and disability] not receiving the help they need is disturbing enough, but thousands is a national scandal," says Ms Spielman, England's chief inspector of schools.

The report also says: "Most disconcerting is that the whereabouts of some of our most vulnerable children is unknown."

It revisits serious concerns that some pupils are being moved off the school roll illegally, because they may be seen as difficult to teach.

The report suggests 10,000 pupils cannot be accounted for and may have been "off-rolled" by schools in Years 10 and 11, because they did not appear on the pupil list of another state school.

It acknowledges many of these may have switched to independent schools, moved elsewhere or have been taken out for home schooling.

But, it says, it is unlikely that all of this number would fit into these categories.

Battle for support

The report says that compounding the difficulties faced by children with Send and their parents is that demand for EHC needs assessments from local authorities has risen by a half since 2015.

In 2017, 45,200 children and young people were assessed, while 14,600 were refused an assessment.

EHC assessments and plans were introduced in 2014 amid a shake-up designed to streamline and reduce the burden on the special needs education system.

They replaced statements of special educational needs which were carried out by local authorities.

Many parents complained of the long and difficult battles they had to get their child's needs "statemented".

But campaigners say the same issues are being faced with EHCs.

At the same time, the costs of supporting more children with lower levels of special needs were handed back to schools, which have been facing budget pressures of their own.

There was also a stated intention to reduce the number of children diagnosed with lower levels of special needs.

'Truly wrong'

Some believe these are part of the reasons why the EHC assessment and plan system has come under pressure.

Both local councils and head teachers have been grappling with huge rises in demand for high needs support - those children with the highest level of need.

The report says: "Too often, the identification of Send is inaccurate or comes too late. This only exacerbates children's needs and puts even greater strain on the need for services.

"Often the worst hand is dealt to those who do not quite meet the threshold for an EHC plan.

"Understandably, parents feel that to do the best for their children they must go to extreme lengths to secure an EHC plan, which not every child will need.

"Something is truly wrong when parents repeatedly tell inspectors that they have to fight to get the help and support that their child needs. That is completely contrary to the ethos of the Send reforms."

Last month, representatives of local authorities told MPs of the funding problems they face in their high needs budgets.

Surrey County Council revealed it faced £30m in pressures on its high needs budget for this year, adding this was enough to trigger formal restrictions on any further spending at the council.

The Ofsted report is published as the school watchdog in Wales, Estyn, publishes its annual report.

Inspectors say secondary schools in Wales could do better, with only half judged good or excellent.

A Department for Education spokesman said the report "shows we have a robust education system - one where parents can feel assured that the vast majority of schools, early years providers, children's homes and local authorities provide a high level of education and care for young people, regardless of their circumstances".

"One of the key functions of a good regulator is that it highlights areas of concern and we will work with Ofsted, schools, local authorities and others to address the issues this report picks out."

Head teachers union, the Association of School and College Leaders, said funding pressures were making it more difficult to give children the individual support to help them to overcome challenges they face.

And that means schools are less able offer the early intervention which prevents challenging behaviour escalating to the point of an exclusion.

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Missing special needs support 'a national scandal'

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Thousands of children missing out on support for diagnosed special educational needs in England is a "national scandal", Ofsted has said. There are 2,060 children in 2018 who have education, health and care plans (EHCs) setting out their needs, but who receive no support at all.

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Stay at home

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If you go out, stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people at all times

Wash your hands as soon as you get home

Do not meet others, even friends or family.

You can spread the virus even if you don't have symptoms.

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Special educational needs in England: January 2017

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Only go outside for food, health reasons or work (but only if you cannot work from home) If you go out, stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people at all times Wash your hands as soon as you get home Do not meet others, even friends or family.

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Special educational needs and disabilities inquiry launched

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Special educational needs and disabilities inquiry launched

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The inquiry

In 2014, the Government introduced wide-reaching changes to the SEND system, with the intention of offering simpler, improved and consistent help for children and young people with SEND. The Government claimed these changes would give families greater choice in decisions. The Committee's new inquiry is intended to review the success of these reforms, how they have been implemented, and what impact they are having in meeting the challenges faced by children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

Address social injustice in education

Launching the inquiry, Rt Hon Robert Halfon MP, Chair of the Committee, said:

"One of the primary objectives of the Education Committee is to address social injustice in education. Understanding and addressing the challenges faced by children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities is an important part of this work.

It has been four years since major SEND reforms were introduced and it's important we examine whether the Government's stated ambitions for simpler, improved and consistent help for children and young people with SEND have been met. There are rising concerns about the quality and access to SEN provision which the Committee we will want to explore in this inquiry. The Committee's current inquiry into alternative provision has heard considerable evidence that children with special educational needs are disproportionately excluded from school and over-represented in alternative provision. During the course of our quality of apprenticeships and skills training inquiry we've also heard that with young people with SEN have faced significant barriers in accessing apprenticeships.

All children deserve to access good quality education that meets their needs and supports them to learn to ensure that they are able to thrive and climb the ladder of opportunity. The 2014 Act extended provision to young people up to the age of 25 and the Committee is particularly keen to hear evidence about whether there is the right support available to enable young people to access appropriate post-18 opportunities such as studying at FE colleges and undertaking apprenticeships."

The Children and Families Act 2014 introduced wide reaching reforms to support for children with special education needs and disabilities, extending provision from birth to 25 years of age, and replacing statements and Learning Disability Assessments with Education Health and Care Plans.

Pre-legislative scrutiny of Children and Families Bill

The Education Committee undertook pre-legislative scrutiny of the Children and Families Bill and published its report in 2012. The Committee is now considering the impact and implementation of part three of the Children and Families Act 2014.

Terms of Reference - Call for written evidence

The Committee is inviting written evidence on the following by 14 June 2018:

Assessment of and support for children and young people with SEND

The transition from statements of special educational needs and Learning Disability Assessments to Education, Health and Care Plans

The level and distribution of funding for SEND provision

The roles of and co-operation between education, health and social care sectors

Provision for 19-25-year olds including support for independent living; transition to adult services; and access to education, apprenticeships and work

In line with the general practice of select committees, the Education Committee resolved on 12 September 2017 to not investigate individual cases. The Committee understands that personal experiences will form an important part of many submissions, but requests that any written evidence directly addresses the terms of reference set out above.

Written evidence may be submitted confidentially or on the basis of anonymity; please make it clear at the beginning of your submission if you want this to be the case. Evidence may be edited prior to publication to remove personal information.

Further information

Image: iStockphoto

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Special educational needs and disabilities inquiry launched - News from Parliament

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In 2014, the Government introduced wide-reaching changes to the SEND system, with the intention of offering simpler, improved and consistent help for children and young people with SEND. The Government claimed these changes would give families greater choice in decisions.

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A crisis in funding for children with special educational needs is plunging councils across the country deeper into the red and forcing parents into lengthy legal battles to secure support, according to an Observer investigation that reveals a system at breaking point.

Council overspending on children's special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) has trebled in just three years and is continuing to increase, with councils having to raid hundreds of millions from their overall schools budget to cope. The Observer has identified 40 councils that have either cut special needs funding this year, are considering making cuts or are raiding other education budgets to cope next year.

Data from freedom of information requests and council reports shows that the combined overspend on "high needs" education budgets among councils in England soared from £61m in 2015-16 to £195m in 2017-18. It is already expected to hit £200m this year. The figures cover 117 of England's 152 councils, meaning the true figures will be higher.

It comes with legal action being threatened across England against councils considering cuts to SEND funding, which supports children with conditions such as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and physical disabilities. Cases have already been launched in London and Surrey after a successful challenge to proposed cuts in Bristol. Campaigns are also being planned in Portsmouth and Yorkshire, while a case is being drawn up against central government for failing to properly fund the system.

Despite the prime minister's promises, it is clear that austerity is not over for our most vulnerable children

Angela Rayner, shadow education secretary

By the end of this financial year, councils will have raided nearly £315m from mainstream and early years schools' budgets since 2015 in order to plug gaps in special needs funding. However, recent rule changes have cut their flexibility to do so.

Ministers have hinted that a cash injection may be needed as the system struggles. Nadhim Zahawi, the children's minister, said the government recognised "that local authorities are facing cost pressures on high needs" and that overall funding was being kept under review.

Attempts by struggling councils to turn down requests for support are regularly being overturned. Almost nine in 10 cases taken to a tribunal find in favour of parents.

The emerging crisis will be debated at a conference of education and council figures this week. Anntoinette Bramble, chair of the Local Government Association's children and young people board, said the new figures "emphasise the significant financial challenges councils are facing".

"We urge the government to address this in the local government finance settlement next month," she said. "Unless councils are given the funding they need, they may not be able to meet their statutory duties, and children with high needs or disabilities could miss out.

"We are also concerned about the extent to which schools use informal exclusions to remove vulnerable pupils, particularly those with SEND, from mainstream education."

Robert Halfon, Tory chair of the Commons education committee, said: "Parents have told our inquiry that they are simply not getting the support that their children need ... Local authorities have a duty to provide support - and they need to be financially supported to be able to meet this duty. We do have concerns about how SEND money is spent but it is clear there are significant financial pressures on the system."

Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, said there were now "devastating cuts" being imposed on both schools and local authorities. "It has brought services for children with special educational needs and disabilities to a dangerous tipping point," she said. "Despite the prime minister's promises, it is clear that austerity is not over for our most vulnerable children."

The crisis stems from rising demand for special needs places that has not been matched by the necessary funding. Many councils blame a 2014 reform that extended their responsibilities for special needs children without providing sufficient resources.

Analysis by the Observer found that four of the five councils with the largest forecast overspends this year are counties, with Hampshire top of the list. It is considering reducing top-up funding for special needs students and raiding £3.7m from mainstream schools funding - with the schools' agreement - in order to tackle its expected £10.5m overspend.

A council spokesperson attributed the overspend to a rise in the number of pupils with special needs: "The high needs block funding has increased year on year, but not sufficiently to meet rising demand for support."

Other councils have seen their finances dramatically worsen. Southwark's high needs overspend has more than quadrupled since 2015, while Lancashire has gone from a £5.6m underspend in 2015-16 to an £8.5m overspend this year. Southwark councillor Jasmine Ali said the council would "not turn our backs on those who need our support but unfortunately the funding we receive from central government doesn't come close to paying for the support that is needed".

Zahawi said: "In 2018-19 councils will receive £6bn of funding specifically for children with complex special educational needs and disabilities, up from £5bn in 2013."
Topics

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'Devastating' cuts hit special educational needs

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A crisis in funding for children with special educational needs is plunging councils across the country deeper into the red and forcing parents into lengthy legal battles to secure support, according to an Observer investigation that reveals a system at breaking point.

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High needs funding arrangements: 2019 to 2020

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High needs funding arrangements: 2019 to 2020

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Operational guide

This guide describes how the 2019 to 2020 high needs funding system will work for all types of provision. It provides key dates and activity for the delivery of 2019 to 2020 high needs funding and sets out changes from the 2018 to 2019 funding arrangements.

The guide also includes information on funding arrangements for alternative provision, which was previously covered in separate guidance, and expands on the arrangements for top-up funding.

The national funding formula tables for 2019 to 2020 were published in July, including provisional high needs allocations for local authorities for 2019 to 2020.

New funding to support children with special educational needs

On 16 December, Education Secretary Damian Hinds announced an additional £250 million of funding for high needs, across the two financial years 2018 to 2019, and 2019 to 2020.

We've increased the high needs block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG) by:

£125 million for 2018 to 2019

£125 million for 2019 to 2020

We've allocated the additional funding on the basis of Office for National Statistics projections for the 2 to 18 year old population in each local authority.

The high needs additional funding data gives details of the additional £250m of high needs funding allocated to local authorities over two years.

High needs place change notification process

Local authorities were invited to submit changes to 2019 to 2020 high needs place numbers in ESFA funded institutions by 16 November 2018. The outcomes from this process are now available in the high needs place change request outcomes 2019 to 2020 workbook.

Access the high needs place change request outcomes 2019 to 2020 workbook to find information on all institutions for which local authorities submitted a return to change high needs place numbers. The individual outcomes have been determined in line with the principles set out in high needs place change notification process: technical note 2019 to 2020.

Place change outcomes will inform the funded place numbers for the 2019 to 2020 academic year in academies, free schools, further education ( FE) colleges and independent learning providers.

If an institution is not listed in the workbook, this means that no local authority change request was submitted for that institution and the published 2018 to 2019 place numbers will be used as the basis of the 2019 to 2020 allocation.

Local authorities, academies, free schools and FE institutions were able to query the place numbers within the enquiry window, which closed on 8 February 2019.

Special free schools place funding: 2019 to 2020

The guidance on special free schools explains how place funding for these schools will be managed from 2019 to 2020. It explains how these schools will be included in the place change notification process and high needs national funding formula, and what local authorities should consider for 2019 to 2020.

2017 to 2018 high needs student numbers recorded in the ILR and school census

The data file, 2017 to 2018 high needs student numbers recorded in the ILR and school census, is provided to inform local discussion about commissioning arrangements for 2019 to 2020.

It presents the actual number of high needs students at institutions recorded in the academic year 2017 to 2018 ILR R14 data return (updated from 2017/18 R10) and the actual number of pupils in special academies and special free schools recorded in the spring 2018 school census.

The workbook also provides the allocated number of high needs places for the 2017 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019 academic years.

The updated workbook also includes an additional tab containing actual data for special post-16 institutions ( SPIs). This data is provided for information purposes only and is included because SPIs return R14 data to ESFA.

Hospital education funding requests

The deadline for hospital education funding requests has now passed.

Hospital education funding: guidance on local authority applications for changes in 2019 to 2020 sets out the process for local authorities wishing to apply for changes to their hospital education funding for 2019 to 2020. This may be a change in funding due to a change in the health care or medical provision in the local authority area.

Further information

You may want to read the schools revenue funding 2019 to 2020: operational guide. You may also want to read the high needs funding 2018 to 2019: operational guide.

We've published videos about high needs funding which you might find useful.

We've produced the following video for special post-16 institutions who receive high needs funding from ESFA. It's about your funding arrangements and returning individualised learner record data. It will support you to return your data accurately and on time.
Funding and data returns 2018 to 2019: special post 16 institutions

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High needs funding arrangements: 2019 to 2020

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This guide describes how the 2019 to 2020 high needs funding system will work for all types of provision. It provides key dates and activity for the delivery of 2019 to 2020 high needs funding and sets out changes from the 2018 to 2019 funding arrangements.

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0-25 SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS AND DISABILITIES, ALTERNATIVE PROVISION AND ATTENDANCE UNIT

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0-25 SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS AND DISABILITIES, ALTERNATIVE PROVISION AND ATTENDANCE UNIT

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Autistic boy turned away from Norwich college days after starting course

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Autistic boy turned away from Norwich college days after starting course

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A teenager with autism was left in tears after he began a course at a further education college only to be told days later that he was not allowed back.

James Parker, 16, who is described as having high support needs, enrolled at City College Norwich (CCN) on Monday last week for a one-year pathways course and enjoyed "the best week of his life", his mother said.

Then on Friday his mother, Emma, received a letter from the college telling her he had been enrolled in error and asking her not to send him back to college.

Emma Parker posted the letter on Facebook on Friday saying she was heartbroken. "This has been the story through all his educational years. I'm taking this further. How dare they do this." Her post has been shared more than 14,500 times.

It reads: "My son is autistic and was told [at the] beginning of [the] year he had to find a college for September as he couldn't stay on at his autistic school. So we applied and went for [an] interview at the city college. He was over the moon to hear the lady say: 'Yes, 100% James is on the course.' So he started and enrolled Monday - had the best week of his life. He even said: 'Mum, I could cry happy tears.'

"To then get this letter today, as you can imagine he is absolutely devastated. I'm heartbroken."

A tearful James, interviewed on BBC Look East on Monday, said: "I just wanted to stay there. It's like they've just chucked me away in a bin."

The college said it would review its application processes but said James's needs had been assessed earlier in the year as part of his education, health and care plan (EHCP) and it was decided he needed a higher level of support and a different learning environment from that which it could provide.

That decision, which James's family had a right to appeal against, was conveyed to Norfolk county council in March so that a place could be found for him elsewhere. The council said it had made repeated attempts over several months to contact the family,. Emma Parker told the Eastern Daily Press she had not heard from them.

In July she made a direct application to the college. A CCN spokesman said: "On the basis of the information that was available to our staff at the time, this led to a place being offered to James which was conditional on the right support and funding being available.

"As had been determined in March, the college had already assessed that we were unable to provide the level of right support and environment needed, but this only came to light when we cross-referenced enrolment and additional needs funding records."

The college apologised, adding: "We are clear that this very unfortunate and isolated incident should not have happened. We are now reviewing our application processes to make sure that something like this cannot happen again. We are also working with Norfolk county council to help find the right provision for James."

The council said: "We remain very keen to work with James and his family to secure the best possible outcome for his education and urge them to respond to our offers of a meeting as soon as possible to talk through the options."

Sarah Lambert, head of policy at the National Autistic Society, said young people with autism often faced difficulty trying to find appropriate places to study once they left school.

"We know from talking to autistic young people and their parents that finding appropriate post-16 provision is really important but can be a huge challenge. Research indicates that fewer than one in four young people on the autism spectrum continue their education beyond school," she said.

"It's clear that the system to ensure James got on to a course that meets his needs has broken down in this instance and it's vital that the local authority works with him and his family now to find the right provision."
Topics

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Autistic boy turned away from Norwich college days after starting course

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A teenager with autism was left in tears after he began a course at a further education college only to be told days later that he was not allowed back. James Parker, 16, who is described as having high support needs, enrolled at City College Norwich (CCN) on Monday last week for a one-year pathways course and enjoyed "the best week of his life", his mother said.

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A list of allocated high needs place numbers to help collaboration between local authorities and institutions.

Documents

Details

These publications present the allocated high needs place numbers by institution for the academic years:

A notes page is included within each of the documents.

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Tell us whether you accept cookies We use cookies to collect information about how you use GOV.UK. We use this information to make the website work as well as possible and improve government services. A list of allocated high needs place numbers to help collaboration between local authorities and institutions.

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Guidance on the special educational needs and disability (SEND) system for children and young people aged 0 to 25, from 1 September 2014.

Applies to England

Documents

Details

This statutory code contains:

details of legal requirements that you must follow without exception

statutory guidance that you must follow by law unless there's a good reason not to

It explains the duties of local authorities, health bodies, schools and colleges to provide for those with special educational needs under part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014.

The code, which applies to England, is for:

headteachers and principals

governing bodies

school and college staff

special educational needs (SEN) co-ordinators

early years providers

other education settings

local authorities

health and social services staff

Other SEND guides are also available.

Thank you for your feedback

Report a problem with this page

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Guidance on the special educational needs and disability (SEND) system for children and young people aged 0 to 25, from 1 September 2014.

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The government has given its approval for nearly three-quarters more councils to shift millions of pounds of school funding into their high-needs pot.

Twenty-two local authorities have been allowed by the Department for Education to move more than 0.5 per cent from the schools block to the high-needs block this September, according to a written answer from Nick Gibb, the schools minister, this month.

That's 70 per cent more than the 13 local authorities that got permission to shift funding this year (2018-19).

A total of 38 had applied to move money from next year (2019-20).

South Gloucestershire got government approval to move 2.5 per cent, but in the end opted to move 1.9 per cent, or £2.9 million.

Fifteen of the 22 councils provided us with full figures for how much they were transferring, which totalled over £35 million.

Julia Harnden, a funding specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, warned that this left mainstream schools with less money to support pupils with lower levels of additional needs that didn't qualify for top-up funding.

"The money is being moved to pupils with the most severe needs, and others are missing out."

The government decided last year that councils could only move up to 0.5 per cent from general schools funding to the high-needs block, which funds vulnerable pupils in specialist and mainstream settings, with the agreement of the local heads' forum.

If councils wish to move more than 0.5 per cent, or want to move 0.5 per cent or less without agreement from their schools forum, they must get approval from the DfE.

But the moving of money has left some school leaders feeling short-changed. Jim McAtear, the chair of Norfolk Academies, was expecting £320,000 for the trust's four schools next year, before the council got approval to move £4.6 million out of the schools block. The trust will now struggle to improve one school graded "inadequate" in a deprived area, he said.

"We needed all the money we could get. Some of the very schools that need the money most to help poorer pupils are losing out."

However, a spokesperson for Norfolk county council said more pupils moving out of mainstream schools into specialist provision called for more cash to be transferred to the high-needs block.

Other councils spoke of their regret at having to move the cash. A spokesperson for North Yorkshire council said it received £6 million less in central funding than it needed for high needs and warned that the system was "buckling".

Kent, which is moving £9 million, said the move was "something we would rather not do" but had been forced to do so owing to "the absence of adequate funding from the DfE".

Halton in Cheshire echoed that the government had failed to "fully fund" SEND provision, while Richmond-upon-Thames warned of "significant underfunding". Middlesbrough said it had "no option" but to request the transfer, and Stockton said the lack of funding had "sadly" left it with a "difficult decision" to make.

Five of the 22 councils got the go-ahead to move the cash in opposition to the wishes of their schools forum, Schools Week can also reveal.

The government is trying to slice up the cake, but the cake is simply not big enough

The DfE refused to name them, but council responses reveal four were Dorset, Derby, North Yorkshire and Richmond-upon-Thames.

Nine councils also got separate approval to move up to 0.5 per cent without schools forum agreement. These were Dudley, Essex, Hackney, Hull, Oxfordshire, Sefton, Somerset, Staffordshire and Surrey.

Stephen Tierney, the chair of Headteachers' Roundtable, said schools were being put in an "awful" position by "voting for less core funding so vulnerable pupils weren't too badly hit".

"The government is trying to slice up the cake, but the cake is simply not big enough. The only solution is for the government to put more money in the pot."

A DfE spokesperson said all schools block-movement requests were reviewed against clear criteria, which included the council's "reasons for the request", its strategic financial plan, and accompanying evidence from the local schools forum.

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22 councils to move money from schools to high needs block

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The government has given its approval for nearly three-quarters more councils to shift millions of pounds of school funding into their high-needs pot. Twenty-two local authorities have been allowed by the Department for Education to move more than 0.5 per cent from the schools block to the high-needs block this September, according to a written answer from Nick Gibb, the schools minister, this month.

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High needs funding in mainstream schools with SEN units or resourced provision

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How much special provision funding local authorities will receive from 2018 to 2021, and guidance on requirements to access the fund.

Documents

Details

Special provision funding is for local authorities to create places for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and to improve facilities for them in mainstream and special schools, nurseries, colleges and other education providers. In March 2017, we announced allocations of £215m of funding for 2018 to 2021. In May 2018 we announced a further £50m and in December 2018, a further £100m. The additional funding will be paid in 2019 to 2020.

The explanatory note shows how we calculated the funding for each local authority.

The guidance document explains what you can spend the funding on and the planning you should do.

To access the funding, local authorities must update and republish their plan, describing how they intend to use their allocation and the consultation they have done, or are planning. To do this, please use the special provision plan template. An example template has also been provided.

For more information about local authorities' strategic planning read the high needs strategic planning fund guidance.

We provide funding to local authorities for mainstream pupils through the basic need allocations.

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SEND provision capital funding for pupils with EHC plans

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Tell us whether you accept cookies We use cookies to collect information about how you use GOV.UK. We use this information to make the website work as well as possible and improve government services. How much special provision funding local authorities will receive from 2018 to 2021, and guidance on requirements to access the fund.

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Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years 

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Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years 

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Guidance on the special educational needs and disability (SEND) system for children and young people aged 0 to 25, from 1 September 2014.

Applies to England

Documents

Details

This statutory code contains:

details of legal requirements that you must follow without exception

statutory guidance that you must follow by law unless there's a good reason not to

It explains the duties of local authorities, health bodies, schools and colleges to provide for those with special educational needs under part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014.

The code, which applies to England, is for:

headteachers and principals

governing bodies

school and college staff

special educational needs (SEN) co-ordinators

early years providers

other education settings

local authorities

health and social services staff

Other SEND guides are also available.

Thank you for your feedback

Report a problem with this page

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Guidance on the special educational needs and disability (SEND) system for children and young people aged 0 to 25, from 1 September 2014.

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No school for 4,000 special needs pupils

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A shortage of special needs funding means growing numbers of children are being left without suitable school places, a teachers' leader has warned. National Education Union leader Kevin Courtney said official statistics showed 4,050 special needs pupils were without a place in 2017 in England.

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While being in paid work is neither necessary nor desirable for everyone in society, many people with learning disabilities would like to work. Increasing employment among people with learning disabilities, as part of a wider range of social changes to enable them to live more independent, fulfilling and secure lives, brings considerable benefits to the individual, to employers and to society as a whole.

Yet employment rates for those with learning disabilities are persistently and extremely low.

This paper explores the barriers to employment for people with learning disabilities, principally in relation to support for children and young people with special educational needs (SEN), and sets out recommendations for change.

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Plans that work: Employment outcomes for people with learning disabilities

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While being in paid work is neither necessary nor desirable for everyone in society, many people with learning disabilities would like to work. Increasing employment among people with learning disabilities, as part of a wider range of social changes to enable them to live more independent, fulfilling and secure lives, brings considerable benefits to the individual, to employers and to society as a whole.

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High needs funding: due diligence process for special post-16 providers

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High needs funding: due diligence process for special post-16 providers

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Information setting out the process that may lead to a grant funding arrangement with the Education and Skills Funding Agency for the delivery of education provision for high needs students.

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Information setting out the process that may lead to a grant funding arrangement with the Education and Skills Funding Agency for the delivery of education provision for high needs students.

Documents

Details

This guidance explains the process that may lead to a grant funding arrangement with the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) to deliver provision for high needs students.

In order to be eligible to receive ESFA funding, special post-16 institutions (SPI) are required to be referenced within their provider LA high needs place change request workbook (required by 15 November 2019) and must be named on at least 10 Education Health and Care plans.

Once they have met the above requirement, ESFA will undertake due diligence to ensure themselves that the SPI is eligible to receive ESFA funding.

The guidance and accompanying documents explain the due diligence process.

Change to minimum financial information requirements

Last year we indicated that the financial information required as part of the due diligence process would be strengthened this year. Financial forecasts are no longer acceptable to meet the requirements for our financial health assessment. For an institution that has actively traded but not produced its first set of financial statements, it must supply its management accounts detailing actual trade to date, these must equate to a minimum of 12 months actively trading duration.

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High needs funding: due diligence process for special post-16 providers

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Tell us whether you accept cookies We use cookies to collect information about how you use GOV.UK. We use this information to make the website work as well as possible and improve government services. Information setting out the process that may lead to a grant funding arrangement with the Education and Skills Funding Agency for the delivery of education provision for high needs students.

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High needs funding: operational guide 2017 to 2018

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High needs funding: operational guide 2017 to 2018

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This guide describes how the 2017 to 2018 high needs funding system will work for all types of provision. It is primarily for local authorities and institutions, and will also be useful to anyone with an interest in high needs funding.

1.1 Introduction

The high needs funding system supports provision for pupils and students with special educational needs and disabilities ( SEND) from their early years to 25. The Children and Families Act 2014 extends local authorities' statutory duties relating to SEND across the 0 to 25 age range. A range of providers have a duty to cooperate with the local authority on arrangements for children and young people with SEND (with a reciprocal duty on the local authority). These providers include maintained nursery schools, maintained schools, academies (including free schools), non-maintained special schools, further education ( FE) and sixth-form colleges, as well as those independent special schools and specialist post-16 institutions ( SPIs) on the section 41 approved list. There is a duty to admit a child or young person if the institution is named in a statutory education, health and care ( EHC) plan.

Local authorities should use their high needs budget to provide the most appropriate support package for an individual with SEND in a range of settings, taking account of parental and student choice, whilst avoiding perverse incentives to over-identify high needs pupils and students. High needs funding is also intended to support good quality alternative provision for pupils who cannot receive their education in schools.

Local authorities and institutions should collaborate on all aspects of high needs funding to develop more efficient ways of working and provide better outcomes for children and young people.

2. Changes in 2017 to 2018

The high needs funding system remains largely unchanged from 2016 to 2017.

For 2017 to 2018, the government has confirmed that no local authority will see a reduction from their 2016 to 2017 high needs block of the dedicated schools grant ( DSG), adjusted to reflect local authorities' most recent spending patterns.

An uplift in the amount of high needs funding allocated as part of the DSG was announced in December 2016. £130 million will be distributed to all local authorities on the basis of population as in previous years, and on the basis of the increase in population in each local authority area. The 2017 to 2018 dedicated schools grant includes further information on the DSG allocations and technical note.

£125 million has been transferred from the department's post-16 budget to the high needs block baseline. This is a transfer of place funding for high needs places in FE colleges and post-16 charitable and commercial providers ( CCPs). These institutions currently receive £6,000 per place from EFA as part of their post-16 allocation. From 2017 to 2018 all of these places will be funded from the initial high needs block allocations to local authorities. Deductions will then be made to fund institutions directly, as a result of information collected from local authorities, before the high needs block allocations are finalised in March 2017. EFA will continue to pay this place funding direct to institutions. A technical note on DSG baselines provides further information on this transfer and how it has been determined.

Guidance on preparing for 2018 to 2019 is available at Annex 1 of this guide. This includes information on the high needs funding formula consultation and additional financial support including the high needs strategic planning fund and capital investment.

2.1 Changes to 2017 to 2018 high needs place numbers

Under The School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2017 local authorities have the flexibility to determine the place funding on the basis of the number of pre-16 places in maintained schools and pupil referral units ( PRUs) agreed locally, without reference to EFA. For 2017 to 2018, this same flexibility to determine place funding locally, without reference to EFA, is extended to post-16 high needs places in maintained mainstream schools, maintained special schools and PRUs with mainstream sixth forms. As in previous years, the funding for these places will be deducted from the high needs block and will be allocated back to local authorities via the 16 to 19 grant funding agreements. The high needs funding allocation will be made at local authority level, rather than at individual school level, with funding determined by aggregating the total of places in mainstream and special schools in each local authority as at 1 March 2017. Local authorities will be able to agree post-16 place numbers in maintained mainstream schools, maintained special schools and PRUs without reference to EFA.

The high needs place change notification process: technical note 2017 to 2018 set out the process for submitting changes to the number of places at institutions funded directly by EFA in 2017 to 2018, including academies and FE colleges. This process has now closed and the place change request outcomes were published on 31 January 2016. Local authorities and institutions were advised to submit any enquiries relating to these outcomes to EFA by 14 February 2017. Queries received after this date are not being considered.

Local authorities and maintained schools may have agreed changes to the published high needs place numbers. However, EFA will not hold this information for schools that convert to academies and the published high needs place numbers will be used as the default basis for an academy's funding. To ensure the academy is funded on the correct basis, therefore, any changes must be notified to the project lead during the conversion process and a form completed by the local authority notifying EFA of changes to the academy's high needs places before the academy order is granted.

3. What you need to do for 2017 to 2018

3.1 Local authorities

Maintained schools and PRUs due to convert to an academy need to notify their DfE project lead of changes to published high needs place numbers before the academy order is granted; subject to any changes notified, the published numbers are used as the default basis for an academy's funding

3.2 Maintained schools, academies and free schools

Complete school census, including identifying those pupils for whom the institution receives top-up funding and making sure the census guidance is followed on all items that are used, or will be used, for funding purposes. It is critical that schools check the latest guidance to make sure that they understand what is required

Check that your 2017 to 2018 place funding allocation from EFA or local authority has been received and is correct by March 2017

Maintained schools and PRUs due to convert to an academy need to notify their DfE project lead of changes to published high needs place numbers before the academy order is granted; subject to any changes notified, the published numbers are used as the basis for an academy's funding

3.3 Non-maintained special schools

Complete school census, including identifying those pupils for whom the school receives top-up funding and making sure the census guidance is followed on all items that are used, or will be used, for funding purposes. It is critical that schools check the latest guidance to make sure that they understand what is required

Check that your 2017 to 2018 allocation has been received and is correct by March 2017

3.4 Post-16 institutions

Complete the individualised learner record (ILR) data returns at RO4, RO6, R10 and R14 as required by the ILR specification validation rules 2016 to 2017, including identifying those students for whom the institution receives top-up funding. It is critical that institutions check the latest guidance to make sure that they understand what is required

Check that your 2017 to 2018 allocation has been received and is correct by March 2017

The timeline for implementation of the 2017 to 2018 high needs funding arrangements is shown below.

July 2016

High level overview of 2017 to 2018 high needs funding arrangements were issued with minimum local authority high needs allocations. Details have been published on 2017 to 2018 school funding.

September 2016

High needs funding operational guide for 2017 to 2018 issued to local authorities and institutions (this document).

Local authorities and institutions to begin discussions and seek agreement on 2017 to 2018 high needs place numbers in preparation for return to EFA, due by 25 November 2016.

Early October 2016

2017 to 2018 high needs place change notification technical note and workbook issued to local authorities.

Early October 2016

January 2016 Census and 2015 to 2016 R10 ILR data published. 2016 to 2017 high needs place allocations to institutions updated (as of September 2016).

Early November 2016

Notify special free schools and AP free schools of process to submit changes to 2017 to 2018 place changes.

25 November 2016

Deadline for local authority submission of 2017 to 2018 high needs place number changes to EFA.

Early December 2016

Deadline for special and AP free school submission of 2017 to 2018 high needs place number changes to EFA.

Mid December 2016

Publication of DSG school block and high needs block allocations for 2017 to 2018. Publication of provisional early years block allocations.

January 2017

Outcomes of 2017 to 2018 high needs place change notification process published on GOV.UK.

20 January 2017

Deadline for submission of final 2017 to 2018 APT to EFA.

31 March 2017

2017 to 2018 budgets issued to mainstream maintained schools, special schools and PRUs by 31 March

March 2017

2017 to 2018 allocations to FE colleges, free schools, academies, NMSS, SPIs and CCPs issued.

March 2017

2017 to 2018 DSG update, to reflect outcome of 2017 to 2018 place change notification process and updated academies recoupment and high needs place deductions ( DSG allocations updated termly for in-year academy conversions).

March 2017

Publication of 2017 to 2018 high needs place numbers at institution level.

Table 1: Timeline of activity to deliver 2017 to 2018 high needs funding

5. How high needs funding works

5.1 Definition of a high needs pupil or student

Pupils and students who receive support from local authorities' high needs budgets include:

children aged 0 to 5 with SEND whom the local authority decides to support from its high needs budget; some of these children may have EHC plans, but this is not a requirement

pupils aged 5 to 18 (inclusive of students who turn 19 on or after 31 August in the academic year in which they study) with high levels of SEND in maintained schools, academies, FE institutions, SPIs or other settings which receive top-up funding from the high needs budget; most, but not all, of these pupils will have either statements of SEN or EHC plans

those aged 19 to 25 in FE institutions and SPIs who have an EHC plan and require additional support costing over £6,000; if aged 19 to 25 without an EHC assessment or plan, local authorities must not use their high needs budgets to fund these students; see section 8.5 for further information

compulsory school-age pupils placed in AP by local authorities or schools

5.2 High needs funding: local authorities

Local authorities decide how much to set aside in their high needs budget for the place and top-up funding to institutions. Some of the place funding is included in local authorities' initial DSG allocation and then deducted by EFA so that it can pay the funding direct, for example to academies.

Local authorities also use their high needs budget to pay for central services relating to SEND and AP, as permitted by The School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2017.

There may be instances where aspects of high needs provision are not allocated through place funding. For instance, specialist teachers directly employed by a local authority to provide support for pupils with sensory impairments, or tuition for pupils not able to attend school for medical or other reasons. Local authorities may fund this provision from their high needs budget as a separate arrangement. Where such services are delivered by, or commissioned from, schools or other institutions, the authority may devolve funding from its high needs budget to that institution through a service level agreement.

5.3 How the high needs funding system works

The high needs funding system has two main components, which are:

Core funding

This is allocated to institutions in a number of ways, including:

mainstream school and academy budgets, derived from the DSG schools block and the local funding formulae

funding allocated to post-16 providers, including mainstream schools and FE colleges, through the 16 to 19 national funding formula (sometimes called element 1), plus an amount per high needs place of £6,000 (sometimes called element 2)

place funding of £10,000 per place for special schools and academies, and special units within mainstream schools and academies, which is drawn from the high needs block The core funding is paid either by local authorities (for maintained schools and PRUs) or by EFA.

Top-up funding

This is allocated by local authorities to institutions from their high needs budgets and is sometimes known as element 3. Top-up funding is paid from the high needs budget of the local authority in which the pupil or student is resident or to which they belong. If the cost of providing for a pupil with high needs is more than allocated through the core or place funding, the local authority will allocate the institution this additional top-up funding to enable a pupil or student with high needs to participate in education and learning.

6. High needs place funding

Place funding is allocated to an institution and includes the funding pupils and students attract for their core education and basic programmes and to provide a contribution to the additional costs associated with a support package. High needs places are typically funded at £10,000 per year in pre-16 settings, although this amount varies dependent on institution type. Local authorities may, with the agreement of the relevant members of their schools forum, retain part of the place funding of maintained special schools and pupil referral units to fund central services previously within the general duties element of the education services grant.

The following table sets out how high needs provision is funded in different types of provider for both pre and post-16 students for the 2017 to 2018 academic year.

Table 2: High needs funding responsibility

6.1 Arrangements for top-up funding

The guidance in the following paragraphs focuses on top up funding for pupils and students with SEND. There are some differences in top-up arrangements for alternative provision, and further information can be found in the alternative provision additional guidance 2016 to 2017. Guidance for 2017 to 2018 will be available later.

Top-up funding is the funding required over and above the core or place funding an institution receives, to enable a pupil or student with high needs to participate in education and learning. This is paid by the local authority which places the pupil or student and should mainly reflect the additional support costs an institution incurs relating to the individual pupil or student's needs. Top-up funding can also reflect costs that relate to the facilities required to support a pupil's or student's education and training needs (either for individuals or on offer to all), and can take into account expected place occupancy levels and other factors. See section 6.3 'How place funding and top up funding work together' for more information.

Where a local authority wants to commission further places at an institution which has filled all the places it has been funded for (irrespective of which local authority has filled them), agreement needs to be reached with the institution on the level of top-up funding required. Local authorities should not automatically be charged an extra £6,000 or £10,000 per head if it is agreed that the institution can provide the support package for additional pupils and students at marginal additional cost. We appreciate this is less likely in the case of pupils and students with very high needs, whose support is often individualised and expensive because of the nature of their needs. However, local authorities and institutions will need to agree an acceptable approach that represents best value and the local authority will need to fund this from its high needs budget.

In all instances, a high needs pupil or student placement must be commissioned by the local authority and an agreement must be in place between the two parties that includes the amount of top-up funding to be paid. Further information is provided in section 6.2.

If the local authority does not agree a placement and top-up funding is not agreed, these pupils and students should not be counted as having high needs for funding purposes and should not be recorded on the census or ILR as a high needs student. This would apply even where an establishment may have assessed a pupil or student as requiring additional support, or where a pupil or student has been offered a place by that establishment.

Although many of the pupils and students receiving high needs funding will have either statements of SEN or EHC plans, local authorities have the flexibility to provide high needs funding outside the statutory assessment process for all children and young people with high needs up to the age of 19. Local authorities should work with providers in their area (particularly mainstream schools and academies, early years settings and further education institutions) to ensure there are clear processes for allocating top-up funding, so that the statutory assessment process is not the sole means of securing additional support for children and young people with SEND. Information about these processes should be published, for example in the local offer of SEND services and provision. This does not replace the statutory right for institutions, parents or young people to request an EHC assessment, but should provide local authorities with greater flexibility in meeting the costs of additional support for those with high needs incurred by institutions.

6.2 Administration of top-up funding

Where the local authority makes a high needs placement, it must issue the institution with an agreement confirming the financial support to be provided, funding rates and payment schedules. This should be done before the pupil or student takes up their place, or as soon as reasonably practicable thereafter.

We urge local authorities to reduce administrative costs, particularly for institutions with students from multiple local authority areas, by adopting common commissioning approaches with neighbouring authorities and using the same agreements for high needs pupils and students across all institutions.

Where a pupil or student is moving from one institution to another, the Children and Families Act 2014 sets mandatory timescales for the completion (or review and amendment) of EHC plans:

for pupils moving into or between schools, the review and any amendments to an EHC plan must be completed by 15 February in the calendar year of the transfer

for students moving from secondary school to a post-16 institution or apprenticeship, the review and any amendments to the EHC plan - including specifying the post-16 provision and naming the institution - must be completed by the 31 March in the calendar year of the transfer

for students moving between post-16 institutions the review process should normally be completed by 31 March, where a young person is expected to transfer to a new institution in the new academic year. Where transfers between post-16 institutions take place at different times of the year (such as where a student is to transfer between one post-16 institution and another within the following 12 months) the local authority must review and amend, where necessary, the young person's EHC plan at least five months before the transfer takes place

6.3 How place funding and top-up funding work together

An institution will be allocated funding based on the total number of high needs places. For many high needs pupils or students the institution is named in the statement of SEN or EHC plan. However, for funding purposes, once this place funding is allocated to an institution it is not associated with or reserved for a specific local authority or individual pupil or student. It is for the institution to decide how best to apportion their total allocated place funding across the actual number of local authority commissioned places, taking into account the provision and support that may be specified in the statements of SEN or EHC plans. Once a pupil or student is placed in an institution, the commissioning local authority then agrees an amount of top-up funding for the individual pupil or student over and above the place funding to make up the full cost. The rate of top-up funding may reflect a degree of under or over occupancy of place numbers. For example an institution may have 30 high needs places for which it receives a total budget of £300k (30 x £10k):

in the event that the institution fills 25 places it may agree with the commissioning local authorities to charge a lower rate of top-up funding, to reflect the five unfilled places. The nature of AP and SEND provision in some institutions means that there may be empty places at some points in the year, such as where diagnosis after the beginning of the academic year leads to later identification and placement

in the event that 35 pupils are placed at the institution, it could agree with the commissioning local authorities a higher top-up funding rate, to reflect the five unfunded places; on the other hand the additional cost of the 5 extra pupils could be marginal and a significantly higher rate might not be appropriate

Other factors that could impact on the way local authorities determine the top-up funding for individual pupils and students are:

the way institutions set their budgets and break down their costs and overheads

the extent to which local authorities and institutions agree on standardised rates, local banding arrangements and streamlined administration to reduce the need for detailed negotiation of different top-up funding amounts for each pupil or student Place funding is not withdrawn if an individual does not occupy the place. It provides institutions with a guaranteed budget for the year that gives them a degree of financial stability. A local authority may expect an institution to explain why a specific level of top-up is appropriate for a particular pupil or student before entering an agreement, but cannot seek to recover funding for places which it perceives as being unused from the previous or current academic year. Places should not be earmarked or reserved for a particular local authority.

7. High needs funding arrangements: pre-16

7.1 Early years providers

Local authorities' high needs budgets can be used across the full age range, including for children with SEND in their early years. As in previous years, for those institutions that cater solely for children aged under 5, such as nursery schools, it is not a requirement that places are funded at £10,000, supplemented by top-up funding for individual children. Local authorities can choose to meet the costs of under 5s with high needs in different ways, including SEN support provided directly as a central service for young children with high needs and early years providers. The early years national funding formula operational guidance includes more details on how local authorities are able to fund SEND in the early years.

7.2 Mainstream schools

This section sets out pre-16 high needs funding arrangements in:

mainstream schools, academies and free schools without specialist provision

special units and resourced provision in mainstream schools, academies and free schools

Mainstream schools, academies and free schools without specialist provision

For 2017 to 2018 local authorities must ensure schools and academies have sufficient funding in their delegated budget to enable them to support pupils' SEND where required up to the mandatory cost threshold of £6,000 per pupil. Local authorities identify a notional SEN budget for this purpose. Schools and academies, however, should regard this neither as a substitute for their own budget planning and decisions about how much they need to spend on SEND support, nor as a fixed budget sum for spending. Further information on authorities' notional SEN budgets can be found in the schools block funding formulae 2016 to 2017 data.

Where individual pupils require additional support that costs more than £6,000, the excess should be met by top-up funding associated with the individual pupil. Top-up funding rates are for local authorities to agree with schools and academies, and should reflect both the needs of the individual and the cost of meeting those needs.

Local authorities should continue to provide additional funding outside the main funding formula for mainstream schools and academies on a consistent and fair basis where the number of their high needs pupils cannot be reflected adequately in their formula funding. They should define the circumstances in which additional funding will be provided from their high needs budget.

Similarly, additional funding can also be provided where there are a disproportionate number of pupils with a particular type of SEND. For example, a primary school may have developed a reputation for meeting the needs of high achieving pupils with autistic spectrum disorder, or pupils with physical disabilities, and it is not possible to target additional funding to the school through the prior attainment or other factors in the local formula.

Local authorities should have a formula or other method, based on their experience of distributing additional funding to their schools and academies. This should be agreed with schools and described on the APT. In all cases the distribution methodology should be simple and transparent, and devised so that additional funds are targeted only to a minority of schools which have particular difficulties because of their disproportionate number of high needs or SEND pupils or their characteristics. Examples of methodologies that some local authorities set out in their APT have been published and we aim to publish further examples in due course.

Special units and resourced provision in mainstream schools, academies and free schools

Special units and resourced provision are funded according to the number of places agreed by the local authority designating the provision, taking into account the places likely to be used by other authorities. It is also possible, however, depending on the range and type of services on offer, for such provision to be a centrally funded service commissioned by the local authority, normally under a service level agreement with the school or academy. Either way, this specialist provision is not funded through the main school funding formula; the place or central service funding comes from the local authority's high needs budget.

Therefore, for 2017-18 the number of pupils aged under 16, on which the pre-16 formula funding for the mainstream school is based, should exclude those pupils in the provision. This should be calculated using the number of places in the provision which are used by pupils in the school (as opposed to pupils on the rolls of other schools) excluding places occupied by under 5s and pupils aged 16 to 19, although authorities can use a different basis if this is agreed by EFA. Information on post-16 students at mainstream schools, academies and free schools is available at section 8.8.

The outcome of the consultation on adjustments to local authority funding related to free schools was announced on 15 December 2016. From 2017 to 2018 mainstream free schools will be funded on the same basis as a mainstream academy. DSG deductions for high needs places in mainstream free schools will therefore be made from the local authority in which the free school is located from the first year of opening, rather than from the second year as in 2016 to 2017. This includes UTCs and studio schools.

7.3 Special schools

This section sets out pre-16 high needs funding arrangements in:

maintained special schools and academies

special free schools

non-maintained special schools

independent special schools

Maintained special schools and special academies

High needs places, pre-16 and post-16, are funded at £10,000 per year at maintained special schools and special academies.

A special schools protection will continue, as in 2016 to 2017, and the maximum that a school can lose under this arrangement will continue to be calculated at minus 1.5% of the school's overall high needs funding, assuming that the number and type of places remains the same between 2016 to 2017 and 2017 to 2018. It also assumes that all pupils in the school are placed by the home authority and that all top-up rates received by the school are those set by the home authority. Further information on this protection, including a worked example and how to apply for an exemption, are available at Annex 2.

Special free schools

High needs places, pre-16 and post-16, are funded at £10,000 per year. Special free schools are funded direct by EFA for the number of high needs places. Place funding at special free schools is not included in the 2017 to 2018 DSG allocations and no deductions will be made from local authorities' DSG for places in these schools. Local authorities requiring more special school places may want to consider whether a free school could be the best way to meet that need, and if so, discuss with regional school commissioners ( RSCs).

Non-maintained special schools

The value of the funding per place for students of all ages (pre and post 16) for NMSS will remain at £10,000 per place per annum. This will be allocated based on the October 2016 census pupil headcount uplifted by any increase in total pupil numbers between October 2015 and January 2016 census with a floor of 0 so that no NMSS will get funded for less than their October 2016 census numbers.

Independent special schools

Independent special schools continue to sit outside the high needs place funding system in 2017 to 2018. Where a local authority has commissioned a place in an independent school, the local authority remains responsible for all the funding for that child or young person with SEND. More information about how local authorities should discharge their responsibilities for children and young people with SEND in independent schools is set out in the SEND code of practice, in particular paragraphs 9.131 to 9.136.

7.4 Alternative provision

This section sets out pre-16 high needs funding arrangements for:

Local authorities will continue to have flexibility to fund AP in a variety of ways, depending on how it is organised locally. PRUs, AP academies and AP free schools plan their budgets taking into account all their income. This may also include services commissioned and paid for by authorities and schools. It is important that local authorities provide information locally and consult with the schools forum about the AP commissioning and funding arrangements. These arrangements should be clear to all institutions involved, including those schools that commission AP directly for their pupils.

Alternative provision: additional guidance provides further information on AP funding in 2016 to 2017. Guidance for 2017 to 2018 will be available later.

AP free schools

AP places in free schools are funded at £10,000 per AP place. Places in AP free schools opened during the 2016 to 2017 or 2017 to 2018 academic years will be funded directly by EFA, with no deduction from DSG. However, a deduction will be made from DSG for places in AP free schools opened before or during the 2015 to 2016 academic year. Deductions will be made from the pupil's home local authority's DSG, based on school census data. These deductions will be notified to local authorities in March 2017.

7.5 Further education institutions with 14 to 16 year olds

14 to 16 year old high needs pupils in FE colleges should be considered by the institution as post-16 students for funding purposes. They should be recorded in the ILR accordingly and will be funded on the basis of elements 1 and 2. Enrolment of 14 to 16 year olds in FE provides further details for FE institutions.

7.6 Hospital education

Hospital education is defined as "education provided at a community special school or foundation special school established in a hospital, or under any arrangements made by the local authority under section 19 of the 1996 Act [the Education Act 1996] (exceptional provision of education), where the child is being provided with such education by reason of a decision made by a medical practitioner". This definition will continue to apply in 2017 to 2018. Although we allocate funding to local authorities for hospital education without reference to the age of the young people receiving the education, local authorities' duties differ for young people aged 16 and over. This may affect their decisions on funding education for young people in this age group, such as those in independent hospital schools; see section 8.9 for further information.

As in previous years, hospital education can be funded either on the basis of an amount per place, or as a centrally funded local authority service. An example of the latter is where the authority employs teachers directly to work in a hospital or offer home tuition to pupils who are confined to their home because a medical practitioner has decided that is where they should be. Some local authorities commission such services through hospital schools or PRUs. In all cases local authorities should clarify from the outset how hospital education is provided and funded locally and, for such provision in maintained institutions or central services, should report their planned and actual expenditure in the relevant tables of the section 251 budget and outturn statements.

Funded hospital education places can be found in maintained special schools (usually a particular type of special school known as a hospital school), maintained PRUs (sometimes known as medical PRUs), special and AP academies and free schools. Often these institutions will have a combination of hospital education places and other high needs ( AP and SEND) places. The School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2017 require that hospital education places in maintained schools and PRUs are funded in 2017 to 2018 at least at the same level per place as in 2016 to 2017. This requirement will also be reflected in the funding arrangements for hospital education places in academies. Local authorities should make sure that they consider the extent to which hospital schools and hospital education services should receive the benefit of the uplift in high needs funding they receive in 2017 to 2018.

Local authorities' duties may require them to commission hospital education from other independent providers, not in receipt of funding directly from EFA. In these circumstances local authorities would be expected to pay the costs of this education from a central hospital education services budget within their high needs budgets. The law may not require local authorities to commission a particular education provider in order to discharge their duties, though decisions about education provision should not unnecessarily disrupt a child or young person's education or treatment. An independent hospital education provider should confirm with the child or young person's home local authority that they are content to commission and fund the education provision. They should receive such confirmation from the local authority, if possible in writing, before providing education to the child or young person, and certainly before requesting any funding.

8. High needs funding arrangements: post-16

8.1 Post-16 place funding - element 1

Element 1 represents the funding that all students at the institution attract for their study programmes. It does not take into account the additional support costs of high needs students. For maintained secondary schools, this funding is paid via local authorities as the sixth-form grant. For other institutions it is paid directly by EFA.

We fund the majority of institutions with post-16 provision on a lagged student number basis, using the national post-16 funding formula. For example, the total allocation of element 1 for the 2017 to 2018 academic year will be based on the number of students recruited in 2016 to 2017. This applies to FE institutions, commercial and charitable providers ( CCPs), maintained schools and academies, AP institutions with mainstream sixth form provision and SPIs. These organisation types should therefore not seek funds from local authorities for any shortfall in element 1 in 2017 to 2018. Any shortfall is rectified in the lagged allocation for 2018 to 2019.

For 2017 to 2018 local authorities should continue to use a national average figure of £5,000 as the assumed element 1 value for all post-16 high needs students, except for those students in special schools and special academies.

8.2 Post-16 place funding - element 2

Element 2 provides £6,000 towards the additional support costs for high needs students in mainstream post-16 settings as described in the previous section. This element of place funding is not intended to meet the needs of students with support costs lower than £6,000. Funding for these students is provided within the institution's disadvantage funding, calculated within their mainstream 16 to 19 funding allocation. Although funding is provided on this basis, institutions are free to devise their internal budgets using all the funds at their disposal.

We confirm allocations of place funding well ahead of the beginning of the academic year to allow institutions enough time to plan, manage resources and provision. Place funding allocations do not always reflect subsequent commissioning and placement decisions by local authorities. Institutions should decide how best to apportion their total allocated place funding across the actual number of commissioned places. See section 6.3 on how place funding and top up funding work together.

8.3 Post-16 study programmes

Local authorities and institutions should work together to agree a suitable study programme for a young person, which must be tailored to their individual aspirations and support needs.

A full-time study programme has a minimum duration of 540 hours and there is no set maximum. Local authorities or colleges should not set an arbitrary maximum number of hours for a study programme, but instead should provide the number of hours required by the student to complete the programme. A funding requirement for all programmes is that they meet the condition of funding for maths and English.

A supported internship is one type of study programme specifically aimed at young people aged 16 to 25 who have an EHC plan, who want to move into employment and need extra support to do so.

8.4 Part-time or part year students - post-16

Post-16 students who are studying part-time or for part of the year and whose additional support funding would total more than £6,000 if they were studying a full time programme over the course of a full academic year, are also classed as high needs students. See funding rates and formula guidance for more information.

Where an institution has, or is considering, enrolling a student that meets this criterion, they should hold discussions with the local authority as they are the commissioners of high needs places. The normal funding approach should then apply. If a part-time place is agreed by the local authority, the institution should use its allocation of element 2 place funding in line with the principles outlined in this guide. In all cases the institution will need to agree with the local authority an appropriate amount of top-up funding which the local authority will fund from its high needs budget.

8.5 Students aged 19 to 25 with an EHC plan

Students aged 19 to 25 with EHC plans who are continuing in education may have a range of options, including attending FE colleges and CCPs. The local authority's schools budget cannot be used to fund places, or incur other expenditure (such as top-up funding), for 19- to 25-year-olds in schools (maintained mainstream schools, maintained special schools, mainstream and special academies, NMSS and independent schools). For more information, see regulation 14 of, and paragraph 28 of schedule 2 of The School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2017.

There is an exception for those 19-year-olds who are completing a secondary education course started before they were 18-years-old. This will reflect the current position, whereby students cannot remain at special schools beyond the age of 19 (subject to the same exception for those completing secondary education courses).

Schools wishing to offer provision to students aged 19 to 25 may wish to consider setting up a legally and financially separate entity. Once established, to be eligible for consideration to receive EFA funding the new entity should have been included within their home local authority high needs place change notification workbook, for at least ten student places. It would then be subject to the due diligence process for 2017 to 2018, the details of which are published on GOV.UK. Please note that this process has now closed for the 2017 to 2018 academic year.

8.6 Students aged over 25

For students with SEND over the age of 25, the SFA assumes the responsibility for commissioning provision, even when the support costs exceed £6,000.

A local authority must keep the on-going need for an EHC plan under review. For those students that are in receipt of an EHC plan, this normally ceases when a student turns 25, although local authorities have a power to extend an EHC plan until the end of the academic year in which the student turns 25. If a local authority decides to extend the EHC plan until the end of the academic year, they remain an EFA funded student and the local authority must continue to provide top-up funding to the institution until that time.

8.7 Special post-16 institutions

SPIs will continue to be funded on the basis of elements 1 and 2 in 2017 to 2018, with place funding allocated based on ILR data

Student numbers (element 1) and high needs places (element 2) will be based upon the numbers recorded in the 2016 to 2017 academic year ILR RO4 data return, updated using the 2015 to 2016 academic year ILR R04 to R14 ratio for student numbers and a separate RO4 to R14 ratio for high needs student numbers.

New institutions will be allocated student and high needs place numbers on the higher of their 2016 to 2017 allocated numbers or their 2016 to 2017 R04 ILR data

8.8 Sixth-forms

Post-16 places in maintained special schools, special academies, special free schools and NMSS are funded at £10,000 per place, the same as pre-16 high needs places.

High needs places for post-16 students in mainstream maintained schools, academies and free schools, including those in SEN units or resourced provision, will be funded on the basis of elements 1 and 2.

Post-16 students in PRUs, AP academies and AP free schools are not funded in the same way as pre-16 students. An institution will not receive AP place and top-up funding for post-16 students because this type of institution is by definition a school set up to discharge a local authority's duties under section 19(1) of the Education Act 1996 in relation to children of compulsory school age. In the event that an AP institution does have post-16 high needs students with special educational needs, usually with an EHC plan, these places would be funded on a similar basis to post-16 students in mainstream schools.

8.9 Hospital education

Although we allocate funding to local authorities for hospital education without reference to the age of the young people receiving the education, local authorities' duties differ for young people aged 16 and over. This may affect their decisions on funding education for individual young people in this age group, Hospital education places for post-16 students in maintained special schools, PRUs or academies are funded by local authorities or (in the case of academies) EFA in the same way as pre-16 places see section 6.2.

Medium secure adolescent psychiatric forensic units, which cater mainly for young people aged 16 and over, will be funded in 2017 to 2018 using the same hospital education funding methodology of an amount per place no less than their funding per place in 2016 to 2017. Such education provision exists in a very small number of units, some of which are in maintained schools and academies, where the funding will come from the local authority and EFA respectively, and others are operated by charitable organisations and mental health trusts funded directly by EFA.

Other charitable and independent hospital education providers should confirm with the young person's home local authority that they are content to commission and fund the education provision. They should receive such confirmation from the local authority, if possible in writing, before providing education to the young person, and certainly before requesting any funding.

8.10 New post-16 institutions

To be eligible to receive high needs place funding from EFA in the academic year 2017 to 2018, new institutions must have successfully completed EFA's due diligence process. Information on the due diligence process for 2017 to 2018 is published. Potential new institutions must have been notified to EFA by the local authority of the area in which they are located with the high needs place change notification workbooks submitted by local authorities in November 2016. Please note that this process has now closed for the 2017 to 2018 academic year.

9. Annex 1: Preparing for 2018 to 2019

9.1 Consultation on high needs national funding formula

Earlier this year the department published the first stage consultation on high needs funding reform. The department has published the outcomes from the first consultation and launched the next stage of consultation on proposals for a high needs national funding formula. This consultation closes on 22 March 2017. The current plan is that the new funding system will apply from 2018 to 2019.

The proposed formula, with increases for the under-funded local authorities and the protection of the funding floor, will direct high needs funding towards the areas where it is most needed, while providing necessary stability. However, we recognise that local authorities will need to keep their high needs spending under review, to ensure they continue to support children and young people within the budgets available, and identify more efficient ways of promoting excellence. This chapter considers the legal framework under which local authorities, schools and other education providers operate, and sets out information about the importance of strategic reviews of special and alternative provision, and planning ahead. This information is intended to support local authorities, working in partnership with others, to manage cost pressures and spend their high needs allocation more efficiently. And we refer to the financial help that we are providing to support this activity.

9.2 Meeting the needs of all children and young people

The Children and Families Act 2014 is clear that children and young people with special educational needs ( SEN) should be educated in mainstream schools and other mainstream provision unless their SEN require more specialist provision. 14.4% of school pupils in England are identified as having SEN; 2.8% have more complex needs, requiring a statement of SEN or an education, health and care ( EHC) plan. This means that 11.6% - some 992,000 pupils - receive SEN support through their mainstream school.

Primary and secondary schools - together with mainstream early years settings and general further education ( FE) colleges - therefore have a central role to play in meeting the needs of their pupils with SEN and those who are disabled. They need to work together with their local authority in making suitable provision, and to integrate pupils so far as is possible, giving them the same opportunities to achieve good outcomes as all other pupils.

9.3 Local strategic review and planning for SEN and disability provision and alternative provision

Local authorities, as well as schools and other education providers, have important responsibilities for children and young people with SEN and disabilities, set by the Children and Families Act 2014, and for those who need alternative provision. We believe that these responsibilities are discharged most effectively when there is a strong partnership between the local authority and education providers, and a shared understanding of where different types of need are best met. This must be reflected in the published local offer of SEN provision and services.

Sometimes such partnership arrangements work well in a single local authority area, and elsewhere they can work better where smaller clusters of schools work together, with responsibilities and funding devolved by the local authority. Partnerships can also be productive where education providers and local authorities work across authority boundaries and across phases - for example, schools working with early years or further education providers on packages of support that help with the crucial transition points that children and young people, and their families, often find difficult to manage.

In addition, engagement with parents and young people is crucial, to ensure that the range and quality of provision reflects the needs and aspirations of children and young people in the area.

9.4 Keeping special educational provision under review

The Children and Families Act 2014 requires local authorities to keep the provision for children and young people with SEN and disabilities under review (including its sufficiency), working with parents, young people, and providers. The Act is clear that, when considering any reorganisation of provision, decision makers must be clear how they are satisfied that the proposed alternative arrangements will lead to improvements in the standard, quality and/or range of educational provision for children with SEN.

Local authorities must involve children and young people with SEN and disabilities, and their parents, in reviewing the special educational provision in their area. Local authorities should do this in a way which ensures that children, young people and parents feel they have participated fully in the process and have a sense of co-ownership or 'co-production'. Local authorities should ensure that their arrangements for involving children, young people and parents include a broadly representative group of the children and young people with SEN and who are disabled in their area. Effective parent participation can lead to better outcomes for children and young people and other benefits: a better fit between families' needs and the services provided; higher satisfaction with services; reduced costs (as long-term benefits emerge); better value for money, and better relationships between those providing services and those using them.

When reviewing the services and provision in this way, local authorities must work with key partners, including a range of education providers. The partners who are required to co-operate with the local authority include:

the governing bodies of maintained schools and proprietors of academies and free schools in the local authority's area

the proprietors of non-maintained special schools, and of independent special schools and special post-16 institutions which have been included on the section 41 list of institutions approved by the Secretary of State, and which are in the local authority's area or provide education or training for children and young people in the area

the governing bodies of further education colleges and sixth form colleges that are in the local authority's area or are attended or likely to be attended by young people from their area

any other person (other than a school or college) that makes special educational provision for children or young people for whom the local authority is responsible, including providers of relevant early education As indicated above, the review of special educational provision must include provision outside the local area that the local authority expects is likely to be used by children and young people with SEN for whom they are responsible. Such provision must be included in the published local offer. For example, this could be provision in a further education college in a neighbouring area or support services for children and young people with particular types of SEN that are provided jointly by local authorities. It should include relevant regional and national specialist provision, such as provision for children and young people with low-incidence and more complex SEN.

Such review activity is particularly important when local authorities anticipate receiving different levels of high needs funding in future or where they anticipate that needs in their area are changing. Accordingly, the forthcoming changes to high needs funding mean such a review should be given priority in all areas.

Local authorities may wish to consider:

data on the range of SEN in the area, recent trends and likely changes in the future (for example arising from demographic growth)

evidence for how effectively the current pattern of special educational provision meets needs in the area. It may be helpful to consider feedback from parents and young people on the local offer (including the quality of existing provision and any gaps)

evidence for how effectively the current pattern of special educational provision prepares children and young people for adult life (particularly employment and/or higher education; independent living; participation in society; and being as healthy as possible)

the range of special educational needs which would generally be met by mainstream providers, including early years settings, mainstream schools and academies, and post-16 institutions (further education and sixth form colleges), and the way in which these institutions access the specialist training and workforce development they need

the range of SEN and disabilities which would generally be met by specialist providers, including special units or resourced provision in mainstream schools, special schools and academies, non-maintained and independent special schools and special post-16 institutions

the range of SEN and disabilities which would generally be met by highly specialised providers, including those operating at a regional or national level such as residential special schools, non-maintained and independent special schools and special post-16 institutions

how best to address any gaps in provision identified by the review

how best to allocate resources to deliver this provision

We envisage three key outcomes emerging from these reviews:

1. more effective collaboration between local authorities (see section 4.5) to secure efficient delivery of:

SEN assessment and support services

specialist provision for more complex needs

more standardised approaches to high needs top-up funding that facilitate better cost control and reductions in bureaucracy

2. a strategic plan for high needs provision that makes sure there is an attractive offer for parents and young people which will meet the needs of future cohorts, at a cost that is sustainable. See section 9.6 below

3. Better value for money in special schools and other specialist institutions. For example, where an institution is operating with empty places, the review may secure better value through a change to commissioning; or where a school is not as efficient as it could be, the review may support better procurement of utilities, benchmarking of costs and other measures that release more resources that can be focused on improving the quality of provision and outcomes

9.5 Collaboration between local authorities and with health and social care partners

We would encourage local authorities to work together when reviewing their special educational provision, using the extra resources that we are making available. The Children and Families Act is clear that the local offer must include provision outside the local area that is likely to be used by children and young people with SEN and disabilities. Many local authorities are already developing such collaborative approaches.

Local authorities may wish to consider combining specialist SEN and disability services, for example for expert professionals such as educational psychologists and specialist teachers, so that sustainable centres of expertise are created, providing schools and other institutions with the extent and quality of specialist support they need.

Children and young people with SEN and disabilities from one local authority area frequently receive provision in another, for example at a special school or further education college. Neighbouring local authorities should work together when considering the quality and sufficiency of such provision. It may be more efficient for a group of local authorities to develop and share a single centre of excellence.

We would particularly encourage local authorities to work together when considering provision to meet low incidence but high complexity SEN. Such provision is frequently offered by providers which operate at a regional or national level, often through independent or non-maintained special schools and specialist post-16 institutions. It may be much more efficient for a group of local authorities to take a combined approach when engaging with such highly specialist providers. Sharing intelligence across a region would allow a group of local authorities to develop a strategic plan for meeting low incidence but high complexity needs, reviewing the quality and sufficiency of existing provision and working with providers to ensure the provision available meets both current and anticipated needs. This would offer a number of benefits, including reducing costs by removing duplication in the commissioning and quality assurance process. It would also allow highly specialised providers to plan ahead, ensuring the provision they offer reflects the likely demand from commissioning local authorities.

Local authorities should link reviews of education, health and social care provision to the development and review of their local offer. This will help to identify gaps in provision and ensure that the local offer is responsive to the needs of local children and young people and their families.

9.6 Strategic planning

If they have not already done so, having reviewed their provision for children and young people with SEN and disabilities, local authorities should develop and publish strategic plans that set out how such provision should be made, using the high needs funding they expect to receive in future, in a way that works for parents and young people. They need to make sure the pattern of provision is suitable to meet changing needs, that parents and young people find it attractive, and that it will be affordable within future allocations.

These plans should cover the special educational provision offered by early years providers, mainstream and special schools (including academies, and non-maintained and independent special schools), and the range of post-16 institutions (including further education and sixth form colleges, and special post-16 institutions) and the way in which those mainstream and special schools and other institutions access the training and workforce development relating to SEN and disabilities they need. They should be developed in consultation with neighbouring authorities, particularly where children with SEN and disabilities from one local authority area receive their special provision in another.

Such strategic plans might include, for example:

measures to support mainstream schools in meeting the SEN of a wider range of pupils, for example through workforce training or clear routes to access specialist expertise

changes to the focus of existing specialist places, to cater for different or more complex needs

the creation or expansion of specialist provision attached to mainstream schools (special units or resourced provision)

identification of the need to the create or expand special schools

strategic engagement with specialist providers in the non-maintained and independent sector, to make sure that the places they are offering reflect the changing needs of children and young people

Many local authorities have carried out such reviews and planning recently or are currently consulting with providers, parents and young people, to explore the extent to which special provision needs to be adjusted. In sections 9.7 and 9.8 below we set out the financial support that is available so that all local authorities can take forward their reviews and preparation of strategic plans.

9.7 High needs strategic planning fund

We have allocated £23 million of additional funding in 2016-17, to increase local authorities' capacity to undertake this strategic review and planning activity. We intend that this high needs strategic planning fund will be used both to fund high-quality collaborative review and planning of special provision (where appropriate, jointly with neighbouring authorities) and, particularly where such review and planning work has already been undertaken along the lines envisaged, to help implement the outcomes of the reviews.

The funding has already been distributed to local authorities, as it is anticipated that most authorities will wish to start or develop their review and planning as soon as possible, if they have not already done so. As the funding will not be ring-fenced they will be able to carry forward the funding for spending in 2017 to 18. We will not only expect a review to be carried out (if one has not already been done) but also, to encourage transparency and engagement with local communities on these issues, for the outcome to be published. And we will of course expect the review to lead to changes that are deliverable in practice and implemented effectively, with support from the local community of parents, schools and other institutions.

We have published details of the level of allocations of this strategic planning fund. Also on that webpage we have published a benchmarking tool so that local authorities can compare their high needs spending with that of other local authorities, and seek out good practice in organising special provision elsewhere. We will develop this benchmarking tool and other guidance material in response to feedback and demand from local authorities.

9.8 Capital investment

Local authorities may identify a need for capital investment for new places in special and mainstream schools and academies, or improvements to special and mainstream schools and academies that make them more suitable for pupils with SEN and disabilities. The new places could be in new or existing schools.

Capital funding of over £200 million (over and above basic need funding will be allocated to help build new places at mainstream and special schools, and to improve existing places to benefit current and future pupils. Local authorities, through consultation with local stakeholders, should decide how best to spend their allocation to meet local needs. Details of the capital funding allocations are available. The use of this capital funding should be consistent with the overall strategic plans that authorities have drawn up or will be developing.

Local authorities are also able to commission new schools (both special and mainstream) via the free school presumption route, drawing on the basic need and special provision capital funding sources. We also approve and fund new mainstream and special schools via the central free schools route, drawing on other departmental capital funding. In the case of special free schools we only approve these where the local authority supports the application.

We recently created an additional process giving local authorities a more proactive role in commissioning new special free schools that would be funded centrally. We invited local authorities to identify whether they believe a new special school would be a beneficial way of providing some of their new places, and we are currently reviewing the expressions of interest received, in order to decide which are the most compelling cases. These will then be advertised for free school proposers to apply for, and where proposals come forward that meet both the local authority's and the department's requirements they will be funded in the same way as other free schools.

10. Annex 2: special schools minimum funding guarantee

The minimum funding guarantee ( MFG) for special schools will continue to be set at minus 1.5% of overall funding, assuming that the number and type of places remains the same between 2016 to 2017 and 2017 to 2018. It also assumes that all pupils in the school are placed by the home authority and that all top-up rates received by the school are those set by the home authority.

Once the MFG assessment confirms 2017 to 2018 top-up rates received by the school are in line with the guarantee, they can then be applied to reflect the actual number and type of places at the school.

When calculating protection, local authorities should make sure that they are comparing like with like. Adjustments can be made for changes in the nature of the provision, for example, if previous top-up rates included an element for a service which is no longer provided by the school, the value of that element can be discounted when calculating the MFG protected level.

Where a local reorganisation takes place and there are changes to bandings, the 2016 to 2017 pupil numbers and types for each school should be attributed as far as possible to the new bandings in order to assess whether any special school or academy loses more than 1.5% in 2017 to 2018. If the MFG is breached, authorities may wish to consider applying for an exemption to the MFG using the disapplication request form. Any such request will be expected to have the agreement of schools forum and the schools concerned.

Disapplications may also be sought where it is impracticable to compare the top-up funding rates between the two years, for example, where a group of local authorities is negotiating a set of common top-up funding tariffs.

Local authorities which are not the home authority do not need to consider the MFG for schools which are not maintained by them (or academies which were not formerly maintained by them). We are aware, though, that local authorities in a region often agree to use the maintaining authority's rates for cross border placements, which is helpful as it gives added protection to special schools and academies.

The worked examples provide two scenarios of how the MFG is calculated for a 100 place special school, which in 2016 to 2017 was occupied by a total of 90 pupils, 30 in each of 3 different bands.

Annex 2 - table 1: minimum funding guarantee worked example in a special school

In the first scenario, two of the three top-up rates have reduced by more than 1.5%. Overall, though, the funding for the school would remain above the -1.5% MFG level if the number and types of places remained the same. Therefore 2017 to 2018 top-up rates are in line with the guarantee and funding to the special school should reflect these rates (for students placed by the home authority); number of students in each band; and the actual numbers of places.

In the second scenario, two of the three top-up rates have reduced by more than 1.5%. However, in this case the difference exceeds the -1.5% MFG level and so the top-up rates will need further adjustment.

11. Annex 3: other information

This section provides information that has previously been available in high needs publications, but is neither specific to high needs nor within the scope of EFA funding.

11.1 Free meals for FE institutions

Further information on free meals for FE institutions can be found in 16 to 19 education: financial support for students guidance. This includes information for institutions where the cost of meals is sometimes included as part of the package of support that is agreed with local authorities.

11.2 Apprenticeships

High needs funding for apprentices is met by EFA through the Skills Funding Agency ( SFA) apprenticeship funding methodology. In summary this means:

any apprentice that requires additional support qualifies for a payment of £150 per month

if identified needs cost more than the monthly rate, the provider can claim additional funding (up to £19,000) from the SFA on the earnings adjustment statement - this means the costs are fully funded at no cost to the provider and are met by EFA

should costs exceed £19,000 then the provider applies to the SFA for exceptional learning support, if agreed the SFA meets these costs and charges them to EFA

the provider should always work with the Department for Work and Pensions or Job Centre Plus to access any support for people entering work before claiming EFA or SFA funding

If the apprentice does not have an EHC plan then they are funded as a 19+ apprentice under the full SFA system. This expects co-funding from the employer. More information on apprenticeships is available, and further information regarding the funding of 19-25 year olds students will be published in an update to this document later this year.

11.3 Welsh students studying in English FE colleges

The Welsh government may consider paying top-up funding for high needs students from Wales studying in English FE colleges. The institution should assess the needs of the student and then contact the Welsh government to discuss payment of top-up funding. Place funding (elements 1 and 2) will be funded in the usual way direct by EFA to colleges.

Institutions are not expected to recruit students from outside their normal recruitment area and should note that the Welsh government may decide not to make top-up payments for students at an English institution where suitable alternative provision is available nearer to their home.

11.4 Welsh pupils with high needs studying in English schools

English and Welsh local authorities continue to have a statutory basis for the recoupment of the costs of certain pupils with high needs who are attending schools across the border from where they live. The Inter-authority Recoupment (England) Regulations 2013 enable local authorities to recover the costs of pupils with statements of SEN or EHC plans, pupils in special schools, and pupils in hospital education.

There are no equivalent statutory arrangements for pupils or students from other countries in the UK or elsewhere, and local authorities and institutions are able to negotiate the recovery of costs as they consider appropriate, taking account of other relevant legislation (such as the Equalities Act).

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High needs funding: operational guide 2017 to 2018

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This guide describes how the 2017 to 2018 high needs funding system will work for all types of provision. It is primarily for local authorities and institutions, and will also be useful to anyone with an interest in high needs funding.

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EPI - High Needs Funding: An overview of the key issues

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EPI - High Needs Funding: An overview of the key issues

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EPI Executive Director Natalie Perera examines the latest challenges in high needs funding, which covers pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and those in Alternative Provision settings.
School funding continues to be a major issue in the education debate. Over the last few years, there has been a war of words between the schools sector and both ministers and officials in the Department for Education. The former often claim that schools are at "breaking point", while the latter maintains that, though funding is tight and schools will need to continue to make "efficiency savings", they are nevertheless better funded than ever before.

EPI's work to date has sought to shed light on the trends in funding for mainstream schools, including on the impact of the newly-introduced National Funding Formula. But, with the exception of looking at trends in the balances of special schools (alongside those of mainstream), our research has not yet delved into the complex issue of funding for pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) or those in Alternative Provision.

The SEND Code of Practice states that "a child or young person has SEN if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her". In 2014, the government introduced significant reforms to the way in which children and young people with SEND are identified and supported - requiring local authorities to have greater regard to the needs of children with SEND and their parents.

The adequacy of and system for funding for this group of vulnerable pupils is, however, becoming more prominent in the mainstream media and the provision of SEND services is also the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry. Recent reports have focused on the difficulties faced by some families and schools in securing enough support and appropriate placements for these pupils, with some families turning to home-schooling.

The system of providing support for pupils with additional and SEND needs is complex. This blog is intended to provide an overview of the key pressures faced by the sector.
So where is the funding system going wrong and what do we know about the wider impact it is having on education for pupils with High Needs?
1. The prevalence of pupils with SEND is increasing...

A significant issue is the ongoing rise in children and young people with SEND and Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). An EHCP is for children and young people aged up to 25 who need more support than is available through special educational needs support provided by the school. EHC plans identify educational, health and social needs and set out the additional support required in order to meet those needs.

According to figures published by the DfE, in 2018, there were 285,722 children and young people with statutory EHCPs and 34,097 children and young people with statements of special educational need.

There are a combination of factors which are contributing to these rising numbers. These include population growth, advances in medicine which mean that children born prematurely or with disabilities survive and live longer than before (this also means that the types of additional needs are more complex than ever before), increased diagnosis of some conditions (e.g. autism), increased parental expectations about the support their child should receive, increasing levels of poverty and the extension of services for children and young people with SEND up until the age of 25.

The extension to services covering young people up to age 25 took effect from 2014. This means that each year since then, there has been an additional cohort of young people who remain within the responsibility of education services (whereas previously they would have moved into adult services). For example, in 2017, 3,256 new EHCPs were created for young people post-16 compared with 262 new plans for the same age group in 2014.

These figures give a snapshot of pupils who currently have SEND but they do not capture the dynamic nature in which SEND is assessed and reviewed, causing some children to cease being recorded with SEND, while others are newly identified. Analysis carried out by EPI in November 2017 showed that there is a striking difference between the percentage of children who have SEND in a given year group (at one point in time) and the percentage of children who have ever had SEND in that year group or previously. While a maximum of 23 percent of children in the 2016 cohort had SEND at any one time (the peak was in Year 5 when they were aged ten), a full 39 percent were recorded with SEND at some point between Reception (age five) and Year 11 (age sixteen). This makes SEND directly relevant to four in ten children, or twelve per class of thirty on average.

In addition, the high needs block also funds pupils in Alternative Provision which includes many pupils who have been permanently excluded from school. Permanent exclusions are also increasing and rose by 43 per cent in the two years to 2017 (an additional 2,800 pupils over that period). This means that the high needs block not only needs to fund more pupils with SEND, but also an increasing number of those who have been permanently excluded from mainstream schools.
So, we have more pupils with SEND in schools and colleges than before, some with more complex needs, more pupils being permanently excluded and potentially placed in alternative provision and new responsibilities for young people aged 16-25.
2. The way that funding is allocated to local authorities has changed...

It's then important to understand the way in which funding for pupils with SEND and high needs is allocated from central government to local authorities, who then pass it to schools and other providers for individual children, as well as using it to provide specialist support services.

Prior to 2014/15, funding for all pupils was allocated to local authorities through the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). It was a single amount and local authorities had the flexibility to determine how much to allocate to mainstream schools, special schools, early years and central local authority support functions (for example, for administering admissions arrangements). The DSG was, and still is, ringfenced, meaning that authorities cannot allocate funding for purposes other than education.

The DSG still exists but, since 2013/14, it has been divided into 3 "blocks": the schools block; high needs block; and the early years block. The reason behind these changes was, primarily, to enable the DfE to apply a national funding formula separately for each of schools, high needs and early years.

The DfE has also introduced new rules which mean that local authorities cannot move money out of the schools block (i.e. to high needs or early years) without the agreement of the Schools Forum. If that amount exceeds 0.5 per cent of the schools block, then permission will need to be sought from the Secretary of State.

In April 2018, the Department used a new formula for allocating the high needs block to local authorities. The rationale for this was that the existing system was unfair, inadequate and not responsive to needs across the country. The new high needs formula now consists of five factors:

i) A basic per-pupil entitlement of those in a special school or post-16 institution

ii) A sum based on the size of the entire local population aged 2-18

iii) Deprivation (measured by eligibility for Free School Meals and number of children living in poor areas)

iv) Low prior attainment (measured by attainment at Key Stages 2 and 4)

v) Health and Disability (measured by the number of children declared as being in bad or very bad health on the 2011 census and the number of children aged 0-15 in receipt of the Disability Living Allowance)

In addition to these five factors and in order to prevent local authorities from experiencing unmanageable changes to their budgets, 50 per cent of the high needs block is based on each LA's planned spending on high needs in 2017-18. Essentially, this means that half of the high needs block is allocated according to historic spending patterns.
So, in thinking about how central government passes funding onto local authorities for pupils with high needs, we can see the following issues emerge:
i) A large proportion of funding allocated through the High Needs Funding Formula is based on historical spending patterns, meaning that if needs go up or down from year to year, this isn't fully reflected in local budgets;

ii) This also means that a pupil in one local authority could attract significantly more or less funding than a pupil in another authority, despite having similar needs; and

iii) In cases where local authorities need to deal with rising numbers, they have limited flexibility to transfer money from the schools to the high needs block.

This rigidity of the high needs block is particularly difficult in a context where, as demonstrated above, there are rising needs and pressures on the budget.

3. Funding from local authorities to schools is complex and resource intensive

New funding arrangements mean that, in order to provide for pupils with SEND, mainstream schools usually need to fund the first £10k from their core budgets (taken from the schools block element of the DSG), before being able to call on additional funding from the high needs block. This should, in theory, be made up of the £4k basic per-pupil allocation that schools receive for all pupils, plus up to £6k of the additional funding that schools receive for pupils with additional needs (including socio-economic disadvantage and low attainment).

In practice, however, this seems to be causing significant problems because it comes at a time when schools are facing real-term cost pressures, a shortage of teachers and the knock-on effect of cuts to wider children's services (estimated to be a 20 per cent cut in real terms, per child by 2020).

If the cost of a child's needs exceeds £10k (this is normally linked to what is stated in the EHCP, but pupils do not always need an EHCP in order to access additional support), then schools need to agree additional "top-up" funding with their local authority. Top-up funding is taken from the high needs block. DfE guidance is clear that local authorities should have a clear process in place for agreeing the allocation of top-up funding with schools and other education providers.

There are two obvious issues with this approach. The first is that the requirement to meet the first £10k of costs can deter schools from taking on pupils with additional needs. The second is that both schools and local authorities already have diminishing capacity to support SEND and negotiate top-up funding.

As well as providing top-up funding for support in mainstream schools, the majority of the high needs block is also intended to fund places in special schools including non-maintained special schools (these are typically not-for-profit schools run by a charitable body) as well as places in alternative provision. These places are funded at £10k per place, plus additional top up funding depending on the needs of the pupil.

In addition, local authorities can commission places for pupils with SEND in Independent Special Schools (these are generally for-profit schools).

Placements in special schools, and particularly those in the non-maintained and independent sector, are typically significantly more expensive than placements in mainstream schools (this makes sense given that the levels of need are likely to be higher in special schools). Survey data gathered by ISOS Partnership estimates that the average annual cost (per pupil) of a placement in 2017-18 was around:

£6000 in a mainstream school

£23,000 in a maintained special school

£40,000 in an independent and non-maintained special school

Separate analysis conducted by Schools Week in 2017, suggests that the average cost of independent places is much higher, at around £52,000 per year.

Placements of pupils with SEND in special schools are increasing, and this, according to the ISOS Partnership report, is due to a combination of mainstream schools being less willing or able to provide for pupils with SEND (with some citing funding and accountability reforms as reasons), as well as parental preference (which may be driven by genuine choice or constrained by the features of local mainstream schools but which is, nevertheless, given greater weight in new legislation). Not only are costs higher in the non-maintained sector, but they also appear to be increasing. In one large county, costs had increased by 33 per cent in the three years to 2016-17.

The increased use of placements in the non-maintained sector seems particularly acute amongst post-16 provision, where there was an increase of 10 per cent between 2017 and 2018. ISOS data suggests that these types of placements account for, on average, around 14 per cent of the total high needs block.

So, at a local level, what we find is that:

for a range of reasons (including relating to funding and accountability), mainstream schools are struggling to provide adequate support for pupils with SEND;

as a result of that and also because of increased parental preference, more pupils with SEND are being placed in special schools, including those outside of the state sector;

those placements are more expensive and costs are increasing, but authorities have little leverage over pricing in the independent and non-maintained sectors in particular.

4. Funding for Alternative Provision is creating further pressures on high needs budgets

As with special schools, places in Alternative Provision (AP) are funded at £10,000 each and, for LA -maintained AP, this is funded from the high needs block. Places in AP Academies are funded by funded centrally from the Education, Skills and Funding Agency but then the ESFA deducts the corresponding funding from the high needs block of the relevant local authority.

In the cases of both LA maintained AP and Academy AP, the local authority has the opportunity to adjust the number of places in the area and inform the ESFA (so, if fewer AP Academy places are available, for example, then the ESFA would adjust its deduction from the local authority's funding accordingly).

In the case of AP Free Schools, however, local authorities do not have the power to adjust place numbers. For the first two years that an AP Free School is open, this is not necessarily a problem as the ESFA funds 100 per cent of the places. However, after two years, the ESFA deducts £5,833 per place from the local authority. This means that local authorities are facing reductions to their high needs budgets for places which they have no control over and which they may not necessarily have commissioned.

For now, the number of AP Free Schools is still relatively small (41 as at December 2018) but as all new provision is required to be a Free School, the pressure on the high needs budget could continue to grow.

In addition to place funding, top-up funding can also be paid to AP institutions by the local authority or school that commissions each place.

The system of funding AP also presents undesired incentives for schools, including in relation to exclusions and "off-rolling". In the interest of keeping this analysis fairly succinct and focused on funding, we will publish more on the wider incentives that this system creates in the coming weeks.

5. Funding pressures on health and social care are also having an impact on services

Children with SEND - and their families - are also often reliant on support from other public services, in particular health and social care. Indeed, it was a key aim of the 2014 reforms to drive better joint working between education, health and social care. However, health and social care services for children with SEND have also faced financial pressure. Research from the Disabled Children's Partnership has identified an annual £1.5 billion funding gap .

If children and families are not receiving the support they need from other services, it is harder for them to thrive at school; and schools will find it more difficult to meet their needs. In response to an NAHT survey, 83 per cent of respondents said their school received no funding from health and social care to support pupils with EHCPs, and 30 per cent said they did not receive any services from health and social care for their pupils. Independent and non-maintained special schools are often able to provide an integrated package of education, health and care support to children, and this may be a factor driving parental demand for places there.

Unlike the debate around core schools funding, the issues facing funding for SEND is less contested but also poorly understood.

The consequence of all the issues set out above is that, according to the ISOS survey and analysis, by the end of 2018-19, local authorities could have a total deficit of around £470m on their high needs block.

Media coverage over the past couple of years continues to paint a picture of a service in crisis, with a rising number of appeals from parents who are struggling to get access to the services they need and a reported increase in home-schooling due to the lack of appropriate provision for children with SEND. Our own research published last year found that pupils attending special schools had to travel, on average, three times further than those attending mainstreams schools.

In December 2018, the Secretary of State announced that an additional £350m would be made available for SEND (£250m in revenue and £100m in capital funding) over the next two years. In his accompanying statement, Damian Hinds said: " We recognise that the high needs budget faces significant pressures and this additional investment will help local councils to manage those pressures, whilst being able to invest to provide more support."

It's unclear whether this additional money will help to ease some of the pressures facing local authorities. Given the size of the current deficit, it's unlikely to make a real dent and the government will need to consider the scale of the issue ahead of the forthcoming spending review.

But, as well as the quantum of funding, it is clear that government should be thinking about other ways in which the system can be made simpler. This includes considering:

whether there should be greater flexibility to move money between the schools and high needs blocks (recognising that both are under pressure);

the extent to which funding and accountability pressures on schools are having an impact on their ability to provide support for, and ultimately retain, pupils with SEND in mainstream provision;

whether further support is needed to help local authorities secure greater value for money when commissioning places and services, particularly in the non-maintained sector;

the impact of access - or lack of access - to other services by both families and schools on schools' ability to meet the needs of pupils with SEND.

Our work on education funding will continue over the coming months and we plan to explore these issues, and others, in greater depth.

This post can be downloaded as a PDF here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46400397; https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/oct/22/special-needs-pupils-being-failed-by-system-on-verge-crisis

Prior to 2014, young people aged 16-25 could be issued with Learning Disability Assessments. Since 2014, these have been superseded by EHCPs.

J. Hutchinson, "How many children have SEND?", November 2017

In 2018-19, a fourth block, to deal with local authority central services, was created by top-slicing money from the schools block.

This includes children living in bands A-F of the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI)

ISOS Partnership, "Have we reached a 'tipping point'? Trends in spending for children and young people with SEND in England", December 2018

https://disabledchildrenspartnership.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Case-for-a-Disabled-Childrens-Fund.pdf

https://www.naht.org.uk/news-and-opinion/news/funding-news/empty-promises-the-crisis-in-supporting-children-with-send/

J.Andrews, "Access to Special Schools in England", March 2018

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High Needs Funding: An overview of the key issues - Education Policy Institute

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EPI Executive Director Natalie Perera examines the latest challenges in high needs funding, which covers pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and those in Alternative Provision settings.

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I was struck by a phrase someone used in a discussion back in the summer - 'big-hearted schools who welcome SEND students and see their Ofsted rating drop'.

I'd like to unpack that a bit.

I believe, and Ofsted's inspections of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision in schools are built around this idea, that the experience of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is a bellwether of the school's performance.

Children who have SEN and/or disabilities are part of the big picture that makes up a school; there is no division here. Academic excellence, and effective SEND provision, are all part of the same picture and a school cannot be truly outstanding if it's letting some of its pupils down.

We've been told that some schools are refusing pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities because they are concerned that this will be reflected in their Ofsted rating.

Schools should be truly inclusive. And by that, I mean inclusive in the real sense, including children and their parents:

in decision-making

in setting targets linked to the child's education, health and care (EHC) plan or SEN support plan

as part of collecting information about what is important to the child, now and in the future, and how best to support them.

Inclusion means making the school a strong part of the local area's provision for children and young people who have SEN and/or disabilities. Mainly, it means identifying, assessing and meeting their needs well and making sure they are achieving their potential. At the heart of this is removing the barriers that get in the way of children who have SEN and/or disabilities being fully included in all areas of school life.

Progress and achievement

During inspection, our teams look at how pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities are progressing; not compared with all pupils in the school, but with pupils nationally who have similar starting points to them. Inspectors look at the support individual pupils are given and consider whether it is helping them to achieve better outcomes.

We know that some pupils, for example those who have profound and multiple learning difficulties, are working at significantly lower levels. For them, inspectors consider their starting points and the progress they've made. Inspectors will look at how well the curriculum has been adapted to their needs and the gains they have made in their learning and development. We purposefully take starting points into account and understand that some pupils will make progress in very small steps.

Academic achievements are very important, but schools are about more than just that. For pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities it is vitally important that they are well prepared for the next stage of their lives. It's also about learning to manage relationships with people, learning to make decisions and become independent and finding out what makes you tick. How schools prepare pupils to do this is vital.

Supporting parents, supporting children

Parents often contact us with complaints about how their child who has SEN and/or disabilities has been treated at school. They feel they've been let down, sometimes for a long time. I urge schools to think about the processes that are in place for helping families. Individual knowledge of each child is essential, but any system must be fair and open. Parents must speak to the Special Educational Needs Coordinator and then follow the school's complaints process, but it's important these processes are transparent and easy to follow.

In the coming months, we'll be publishing the consultation into our education inspection framework. One of the strands of this is about children who have SEN and/or disabilities and I urge you to respond to it when it's published. As a profession, we've got a duty to make sure that all children have the support they need to make the most of whatever opportunities life may hold.

You can keep up-to-date with Ofsted news by signing up for email alerts. You can also follow Ofsted on Twitter.

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Nick Whittaker, HMI, Specialist Adviser, SEND

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I was struck by a phrase someone used in a discussion back in the summer - 'big-hearted schools who welcome SEND students and see their Ofsted rating drop'. I'd like to unpack that a bit.

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Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) - working together to improve the lives of people in Greater Manchester

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Top RIDI exists to create disability confident recruiters by raising awareness and removing barriers in order to help reduce the UK disability employment gap. But how can you get involved? We believe it's important to share best practise and learn from each other to help the whole recruitment industry become truly disability confident.

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High needs national funding formula: stage 2

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High needs national funding formula: stage 2

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High needs national funding formula: stage 2

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We are seeking views on the design of the high needs national funding formula and on changes to the way we distribute high needs funding.

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0-25 Special Educational Needs and Disability Reforms

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0-25 Special Educational Needs and Disability Reforms

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Implementing a new 0-25 special needs system

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Implementing a new 0-25 special needs system

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The new system for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities was launched on 1 September 2014.

To support this, the Department for Education has produced some supplementary resources for providers to use:

An information pack containing a briefing on the reforms that colleges can use with students and parents, a short guide to the Education, Health and Care plan process specifically for colleges and a checklist for implementing the reforms.

A set of slides which providers can use as they wish with staff and governors to help prepare them for the reforms.

Edward Timpson MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families also answers your questions on the changes.

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Implementing a new 0-25 special needs system

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The new system for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities was launched on 1 September 2014.

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The Government today announced a package of support worth nearly £45 million to provide additional help for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Minister for Children and Families Robert Goodwill confirmed the additional funding for councils and organisations to continue transforming SEN provision and put families at the heart of the system.

The reforms which began in 2014 introduced Education, Health and Care plans which are tailored to the individual needs of the child or young person.

In addition to the funding to bolster the roll out of these reforms, a new £9.7million fund has been set up to create new supported internships, helping to bridge the gap for some of the most vulnerable young people between education and employment. The announcement has been welcomed by the National Children's Bureau

Minister for Children and Families Robert Goodwill said:

We have taken action to fundamentally reform support for children with special educational needs, making sure that families are at the heart of the process and care plans are tailored to individuals - and our survey of parents tells us that this has made a difference to so many of these families.

Councils are making encouraging progress, but there is still work to be done to fully embed this improved system across education, health and care sectors.

That's why I am pleased to announce this additional investment for councils and other groups who have been instrumental in getting us to this positive stage. Their hard work is raising the aspirations of these young people and giving them access to the same opportunities as their peers, helping them fulfill their full potential as adults.

The package of funding announced today includes:

£29 million to support councils and their local partners to continue pressing ahead with implementation of the reforms to the SEND system;

£9.7 million to establish local supported internship forums, which will create work placements for young people with SEND to provide them with the skills and confidence they need to move into paid work. The funding could also be used to train job coaches, who are vital to the success of supporting those with learning difficulties into paid work; and

£4.6 million for Parent Carer Forums, which bring parents together with local decision makers and help to provide them with a voice in the process.

Annamarie Hassall MBE, Director of Practice and Programmes at the National Children's Bureau, said:

The funding announced today will help more children with disabilities and special educational needs get the support they need to live normal lives in their home communities. In particular, we welcome funding for internships, which will provide young people with valuable work experience as they make the transition to adulthood.

The Minister also confirmed that further funding would be available to build capacity in the system and support the ongoing delivery of the SEND reforms over the next two years. Invitations to bid for these contracts, which will include providing families with access to information, advice and support, continuing support for the SEND workforce, and expert support to local areas, will be published online shortly.

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The Government today announced a package of support worth nearly £45 million to provide additional help for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Minister for Children and Families Robert Goodwill confirmed the additional funding for councils and organisations to continue transforming SEN provision and put families at the heart of the system.

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You can find reports for schools, colleges, childminders, nurseries, children's homes and more in England.

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British Association for Supported Employment

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British Association for Supported Employment

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British Association for Supported Employment |

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High needs funding arrangements: 2017 to 2018

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High needs funding arrangements: 2017 to 2018

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High needs funding arrangements: 2017 to 2018

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Only go outside for food, health reasons or work (but only if you cannot work from home) If you go out, stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people at all times Wash your hands as soon as you get home Do not meet others, even friends or family.

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A list of allocated high needs place numbers to help collaboration between local authorities and institutions.

Documents

Details

These publications present the allocated high needs place numbers by institution for the academic years:

A notes page is included within each of the documents.

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Tell us whether you accept cookies We use cookies to collect information about how you use GOV.UK. We use this information to make the website work as well as possible and improve government services. A list of allocated high needs place numbers to help collaboration between local authorities and institutions.

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AoC SW Principals' and Chairs' meeting - 28 September 2017, Oake Manor Golf Club, Taunton
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There are a number of problems that all bid writing experts have to overcome. This workshop is designed to help delegates overcome...

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For further information, or to register your attendance for this meeting, please email pal.sohi@aoc...

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Event This popular network is the result of an exciting partnership between AOSEC and AoC Sport. Open to AOSEC network subscribers and... Event AoC SW Principals' and Chairs' meeting - 28 September 2017, Oake Manor Golf Club, Taunton You will recall that... Event There are a number of problems that all bid writing experts have to overcome.

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Millions ‘owed’ to colleges for high-needs students

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Millions ‘owed’ to colleges for high-needs students

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General FE colleges have not received millions of pounds in funding for high-needs students already enrolled onto courses, it has emerged. Tes has learned that some colleges even decided to dip into their reserves to take on learners whom local authorities are refusing to fund.

Local authorities, in turn, said that the new system imposed by the government left them with insufficient funding.

High-needs funding applies in case of students whose provision costs £6,000 or more, and those aged 19 to 25 who have a learning difficulty assessment (LDA) or an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan.

Following the implementation of the Children and Families Act 2014, FE and sixth-form colleges and approved specialist post-16 institutions now have to cooperate with local authorities on arrangements for young people with SEND and to admit a young person if, following consultation with the institution, the institution is named in an EHC plan.

Colleges short-changed

But colleges said delays to funding agreements and overall shortfalls often left them short-changed, with some missing out on hundreds of thousands of pounds. Some £696,000 in high-needs funding for the 2016-17 year was owed to East Kent and Canterbury colleges, according to principal Graham Razey.

Local authorities were increasingly assessing individual students' needs to fall just short of £6,000, meaning the authority is not responsible for funding their education, Mr Razey claimed.

"Anyone who has not accessed high-needs support in the past cannot access that now, which feels counter-intuitive," he said. "There are many young people who go through the system without being diagnosed. I will have to be at battle, going forward, to make sure my college gets that funding."

Liz Maudslay, policy manager for students with language and learning difficulties and disabilities at the Association of Colleges, said there had been an increase in reports of colleges receiving insufficient funding for their learners and delays in authorities notifying colleges about funding availability.

AoC chief executive David Hughes said it's "not uncommon" for colleges to fund places themselves. "Colleges try to do the right thing, but they also have to take some risk. We are really concerned about... whether there is enough cash in the system," he added.

Limited resources and rising demand

Richard Watts, chair of the Local Government Association's children and young people board, says councils are working hard to make sure children with SEND get support. "However, councils are involved in implementing a complex set of reforms, which have been established by government at a time of limited resources and rising demand.

"We were clear from the outset that the SEND reforms in the Children and Families Bill were underfunded by the government and that more needed to be done to ensure funding was made available," he adds.

According to a Department for Education spokesperson, local authorities must follow "clear timescales" for making decisions, and a "centrally administered funding system combined with a locally run assessment system would be counterproductive".
This is an edited version of an article in the 29 September edition of Want to keep up with the latest education news and opinion? Follow Tes FE News on Twitter, like us on Facebook and follow us on LinkedIn Tes. Subscribers can read the full article here. To subscribe, click here. This week's Tes magazine is available at all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can and iOS users can click here.

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Millions 'owed' to colleges for high-needs students

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General FE colleges have not received millions of pounds in funding for high-needs students already enrolled onto courses, it has emerged. Tes has learned that some colleges even decided to dip into their reserves to take on learners whom local authorities are refusing to fund.

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Providing supported internships for young people with an EHC plan

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High needs funding operational guide for 2018 to 2019 

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High needs funding operational guide for 2018 to 2019 

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High needs funding 2018 to 2019 operational guide

This guide describes how the 2018 to 2019 high needs funding system will work for all types of provision. It provides key dates and activity for the delivery of 2018 to 2019 high needs funding. It also sets out the principles against which ESFA will consider changes to hospital education funding.

There are significant changes to the way that allocations of funding for 2018 to 2019 to local authorities are determined because of the introduction of national funding formulae for schools, high needs and central school services. The final national funding formulae for 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020 have been confirmed, alongside the analysis of responses to the national funding formulae consultations and government's conclusions.

New funding to support children with special educational needs

On 16 December, Education Secretary Damian Hinds announced an additional £250 million of funding for high needs, across the two financial years 2018 to 2019, and 2019 to 2020.

We've increased the high needs block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG) by:

£125 million for 2018 to 2019

£125 million for 2019 to 2020

We've allocated the additional funding on the basis of Office for National Statistics projections for the 2 to 18 year old population in each local authority.

The high needs additional funding data gives details of the additional £250m of high needs funding allocated to local authorities over two years.

High needs import and export adjustments

Local authorities can now access institution level import and export adjustment data ‎used in the high needs national funding formula. This is available via the Information Exchange in the Document Exchange 'Other Submissions' folder under the 2017 to 2018 academic year.

High needs place change notification process

Local authorities were invited to submit changes to 2018 to 2019 high needs place numbers in ESFA funded institutions by 17 November 2017. The outcomes from this process are now available in the high needs place change request outcomes 2018 to 2019 workbook. This presents information on all institutions for which local authorities submitted a return to change high needs place numbers. The individual outcomes have been determined in line with the principles set out in high needs place change notification process technical note 2018 to 2019.

Place change outcomes will inform the funded place numbers for academic year 2018 to 2019 in FE colleges, commercial and charitable providers and academies. If an institution is not listed in the workbook then this means that no local authority change request was submitted for that institution and the published 2017 to 2018 place numbers will be used as the basis of the 2018 to 2019 allocation.

A local authority, academy or FE institution may contact ESFA to query the place numbers within the enquiry window, which closes on 2 February 2018. Details on how to submit a query during this period are set out at paragraphs 48 to 52 of the high needs place change notification 2018 to 2019 technical note.

2016 to 2017 high needs student numbers recorded in the ILR and school census

The data file 2016 to 2017 high needs student numbers recorded in the ILR and school census is provided to inform local discussion about commissioning arrangements for 2018 to 2019. It presents the number of high needs students at institutions recorded in the academic year 2016 to 2017 ILR R14 data return (updated from 2016 to 2017 ILR R10), and the number of pupils in special academies recorded in spring 2017 school census. The file also provides the number of high needs place numbers for academic years 2016 to 2017 and 2017 to 2018.

Local authorities can now access institutional level import and export data ‎used in the high needs national funding formula. This is available via the Information Exchange in the Document Exchange 'Other Submissions' folder under the 2017 to 2018 academic year.

Further information

We've published videos about high needs funding which you might find useful.

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High needs funding arrangements: 2018 to 2019

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This guide describes how the 2018 to 2019 high needs funding system will work for all types of provision. It provides key dates and activity for the delivery of 2018 to 2019 high needs funding. It also sets out the principles against which ESFA will consider changes to hospital education funding.

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The government is committed to reaching 3 million new apprenticeship starts by 2020 and halving the disability employment gap.

Although participation rates for disabled apprentices have improved recently and more disabled people are employed than ever before, there is still work to be done in both areas. Employment rates for people with learning disabilities hover around 6.8% and the lifelong costs of economic activity are considerable.

As a result, in May 2016 a taskforce was commissioned by the Minister for Disabled People, Justin Tomlinson MP, and the Minister for Skills, Nick Boles MP, to explore access to apprenticeships for those with learning disabilities. Improving access to apprenticeships will allow more people with learning disabilities to benefit from the opportunities available through apprenticeships and work.

Paul Maynard MP was asked to chair the taskforce, given his interest and expertise in this area. He invited disability organisations, learning providers, employers, parliamentarians and senior officials from both BIS and DWP to join the taskforce.

The full list of members can be found in Annex A.

The taskforce met 3 times to:

1. reach an understanding of the issues and barriers that affect people with learning disabilities in accessing and completing an apprenticeship

2. identify solutions that could help overcome these barriers and raise participation levels

3. make recommendations to both Ministers on which options to pursue

Prior to the first meeting, stakeholder groups were asked to contribute briefings to allow members to have access to as much evidence as possible. The taskforce also noted the work led by Peter Little OBE in 2012, 'Creating an Inclusive Apprenticeship Offer'.

Recommendations

The taskforce recommends the following as being important steps to improving access to apprenticeships for those with learning difficulties.

1. BIS and DWP formulate, implement and subsequently evaluate a joint communications strategy to promote awareness, particularly of the funding and financial support available, and the positive business benefits of taking on someone with learning difficulties or disabilities ( LDD), using case studies and role models to inform employers and providers. This should include using existing channels such as the current 'Get In Go Far' apprenticeship communications campaign and the future mental health apprenticeship champions network.

In addition, all guidance, including the website andNIACE toolkit, should be reviewed to ensure they are fit for purpose and reflect the needs of LDD apprentices, their employers and training providers.

2. BIS adjusts the minimum standard of English and maths required (to entry level 3) for a defined group of apprentices with learning difficulties and disabilities who are able to meet the occupational standard but will struggle to achieve English and maths qualifications at the level normally required. The taskforce recommends that further work is done to define this group and its potential volume, and quantify the impact any changes will have on people with LDD. This should be implemented in a way that ensures we have a robust system to avoid potential misuse of this adjustment.

3. BIS investigates potential changes to the method of assessments for English and maths for targeted groups as some people with LDD may be able to demonstrate the minimum requirements in the workplace, but be unable to complete a formal assessment.

4. DWP updates the Access to Work eligibility letter to 'sell' the support available better (eg up to £41,400) and emphasise that this support is available in situations which require more than reasonable adjustments. Furthermore, case studies of the transformative effect Access to Work can have for individuals should be included with the letter.

5. DWP uses the Disability Confident campaign - both in terms of pledges and events - to encourage employers to drive demand and increase supply. This could include signposting to good practice (including non-traditional recruitment practices mentioned below) and providing information on 'navigating the system' from a disability perspective.

6. BIS ensure Individualised Learner Records are as robust as possible in data capture by auditing providers, improving data collection particularly on severe and mild/moderate LDD to ensure that the right questions are asked, and also that there are ample responses.

7. BIS and DWP consider 'what good looks like' for relevant hidden impairment groups and age brackets, in order to set appropriate targets for increasing the number of apprentices with LDD. Given that existing analysis indicates that the overall LDD apprenticeship participation is at a similar level to the 16 to 24 year old employed population, the moderate learning difficulty group is likely to be a key group to look at, though there may be others such as those with autistic spectrum conditions. Any targets should take account of any existing departmental or cross-governmental targets in this area (eg the existing priority on recruiting more 19 to 24 year old apprentices with LDD as prescribed in 2013 Regulations).

8. BIS and DWP consider joining up funding streams, for example Additional Learning Support and Access to Work, so that potential hurdles are reduced and that the application is seamless from an apprentice/employer/provider perspective.

9. A defined pilot should be conducted exploring how the funding model introduced with the apprenticeship levy might be flexed to incentivise employers to recruit apprentices with learning disabilities. The pilot should bring together these recommendations and test how they work as the levy is introduced, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of the funding incentives available in the levy funding model, to see if the right support can be provided efficiently to a range of apprentices with learning disabilities.

The pilot should include private, public and voluntary sector employers and look to test out how such an exemption might work within the levy. In turn, this would generate good practice case studies, which could be used to demonstrate how apprenticeships can work for people with a learning disability, showcase the support they need and then be used to inspire other young people.

10. BIS and DWP lead by example with their own apprenticeship programmes, and encourage wider Civil Service and public sector commitment to apprenticeships for those with LDD. Other ways of influencing the wider labour market that departments should consider include using public sector contracts to set expectations with regard to apprenticeships.

11. BIS and DWP investigate and raise awareness of the range of non-traditional recruitment practices including working interviews, job carving roles, electronic portfolios and other digital options to help LDD apprenticeship applicants. This should include investigating good practice from the Movement to Work programme and organisations such as Mencap, as well as the situation with others that have no previous experience of employing and supporting individuals with LDD.

12. BIS revisits recommendations from the Little report (2012) and provide a response to his update with a view to making further progress in delivering against them.

13. In the light of evidence that providers sometimes refuse to take on people with LDD, DWP and BIS to undertake further work to ensure that the system of reasonable adjustments and the availability of support, for example through Access to Work, are understood and consistently applied by providers, particularly in relation to those learners who could meet the normal English and maths criteria with this help.

14. BIS and DWP to consider the use of technology to support user-led strategies for apprentices with LDD, for example the Brain in Hand app.

Annex A - Membership of the taskforce

Chris Heaton-Harris - Member of Parliament

Steve Double - Member of Parliament

Cheryl Gillan - Member of Parliament

Beth Grossman - Head of Policy, Scope

Rob Holland - Public Affairs and Parliamentary lead, Mencap

Kevin Oakhill - Director of Service Development, Ambitious about Autism

Grace Breen - Senior Policy Advisor, Confederation of British Industry

Paul Warner - Director of Policy and Strategy, Association of Employment and Learning Providers

Peter Little OBE - Author of 'Creating an Inclusive Apprenticeship Offer'

Jeremy Crook OBE - Chair of the Apprenticeships Equality and Diversity Advisory Group

Justin Russell - Director, Disability and Employment Support Directorate, DWP

Jenny Oldroyd - Deputy Director for Programme and Strategy, Apprenticeships Directorate, BIS/DfE

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The government is committed to reaching 3 million new apprenticeship starts by 2020 and halving the disability employment gap. Although participation rates for disabled apprentices have improved recently and more disabled people are employed than ever before, there is still work to be done in both areas.

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New research project on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
The Education Policy Institute is pleased to announce a new research project which will investigate how the system for identifying children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) works in England.
The research will use administrative data to build a detailed picture of the groups of children who are most likely to be recorded as having SEND, the numbers of children with SEND expected in each part of the country based on this risk profile, and where and when the number of children identified with SEND by their school is higher or lower than expected. The purpose of this research is to examine how fairly and effectively children have access to support for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities according to their needs. We would like to thank the Nuffield Foundation for supporting this project, and our research partners at the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre and University of Exeter Medical School.

Preliminary analysis of the percentage of children who are identified with SEND

To launch the research project, we are releasing this note with some preliminary statistics on how many children in each age/year group schools have been identified as having SEND. Official statistics are available for the age profile of children with SEND.[1] However, because these statistics take a snapshot of the number of children with SEND at each age, they do not capture the dynamic nature of the system by which schools continue to periodically assess and review SEND status, resulting in some children ceasing to have SEND, while others are newly identified.[2] The official statistics, while valid and important, only show part of the picture, and this affects how we think about policy.

In this note, where we refer to children 'having SEND', we mean those children that schools have identified with SEND. It is the recorded status of children that we have analysed, which may differ from the reality of whether a special educational need exists.

In this note we present statistics for the percentage of children in each year group who have been recorded with SEND that year or in any previous year. In other words, we count how many children have ever had SEND over the course of their compulsory schooling.

Data

We have used administrative data from the National Pupil Database collected via the School Census. These data are recorded by schools to reflect their decisions about when to provide support that is different from or additional to that normally available to other children of the same age. The coverage of the data is all pupils in England who were at the end of Key Stage 4 including those in both mainstream and special schools. SEND status is only recorded for those in state-funded schools.

In this preliminary analysis we include all types of SEND need, and combine all levels of support (children with Education Health and Care Plans or statements of SEND and those with SEND support or support at School Action or School Action Plus). The analysis is conducted on the cohorts of children who reached the end of secondary school (Key Stage 4) in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Reforms to the SEND Code of Practice (which governs the decisions that schools can make about SEND) were underway during this period, therefore we have included both 'old' and 'new' SEND codes.

Results

There is a striking difference between the percentage of children who have SEND in a given year group (at one point in time) and the percentage of children who have ever had SEND in that year group or previously. While a maximum of 23 percent of children in the 2016 cohort had SEND at any one time (the peak was in Year 5 when they were aged ten), a full 39 percent were recorded with SEND at some point between Reception (age five) and Year 11 (age sixteen). This makes SEND directly relevant to four in ten children, or twelve per class of thirty on average.

Between 2014 and 2016 there has been a slight reduction in the percentage of children who have ever had SEND by Year 11, from 40% to 39%. This results from a slightly lower percentage of new SEND identifications during secondary school. There has also been a small increase in the percentage of children ceasing to have SEND during secondary school.

What other questions will the research ask?

The full research project, which is due to complete in December 2018, will consider a longer time-frame so that trends can be assessed, will examine different levels of SEND and different types of need individually, and will link the identification of SEND to a range of risk factors that predict the likelihood of SEND. We will use this framework to ask questions about when and where SEND is most likely to be under-identified (when children who have SEND are not recognised by the system), or over-identified (when children who do not have SEND are mistakenly assessed as having SEND). We will study whether some groups of children (such as disadvantaged children or black children) are more likely to be identified with some types of SEND than other children, or less likely to be identified with other types of SEND. Another strand of the research will compare children's SEND status as recognised by schools with whether or not they have received care from NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services; this strand will be based on a sample of data from South London.

Further information on the project is available here: http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/pupil-special-educational-needs-and-disabilities-identification-access-and-patterns-mental-health-su

This project was funded by the Nuffield Foundation, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Foundation.
This analysis can be downloaded as a PDF file here.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england-january-2016

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25

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How many children have SEND? - The Education Policy Institute

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New research project on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities The Education Policy Institute is pleased to announce a new research project which will investigate how the system for identifying children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) works in England....Read more How many children have SEND? ›

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Quick-fix approach to SEND is poor strategy

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Quick-fix approach to SEND is poor strategy

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There has been a marked increase in refusals to assess young people for education, health and care plans. Fixing this will require a shift in attitude from government, says Pauline Bayliss-Jones

The latest government figures about learners with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) make for sombre reading.

In 2016 the number of requests for education, health and care plans refused by local authorities rose by of 35 per cent from the previous year.

Yet the figures still don't tell the human cost of a system that is struggling and, in the end, letting down some of our most vulnerable young people.

The Children and Families Act, which still remains aspirational in its objectives, became law in 2014. It introduced EHC plans - legal documents that would represent the realistic ambitions, aspirations and needs of young people aged between 0 and 25.

To get that extra help in education - i.e. the funding - you need an EHC plan. But the figures released by the Department for Education revealed that 10 local authorities refused more EHC needs assessments in 2016 than they actually carried out.

In total, local authorities turned down 14,795 requests for an assessment - an increase of more than a third on 2015. Just 56 per cent of assessments were carried out within the required 20-week timeframe.

This leaves many vulnerable young people in limbo

This leaves many vulnerable young people in limbo - young people who may not have the cognitive understanding of the delays and how to manage their anxiety. Many do not find out if they are successful in their funding until August or even September. One National Star student found out that her funding application had been successful a week before college began.

That was after her request had been rejected two by local authority panels, she had been rejected by her local mainstream college and her family had hired a lawyer. The process took six months and that young woman found the uncertainty of her future so stressful that she required prescribed anti-depressants.

Last year National Star supported 11 students who went to tribunal in their battles to get funding. Ten were settled before the hearings were held - often on the day of the hearing when the barristers met in a room to talk.

Since the introduction of the Children and Families Act there has been a marked national increase in the number of tribunals for post-16 students.

And when it comes to post-16 and post-18, the SEND reforms are not sufficiently robust. An Ofsted thematic report last year found that too many young people with SEND are poorly prepared for adult life.

Nicki sustained a brain injury at the age of 17; when she arrived at National Star she could not safely cross a road on her own or go out independently.

Following a period at a specialist college she is living independently, and has just finished two years of mainstream college.

But in order for her to access specialist education, her parents were faced with the decision of refusing to allow her to move back home following the accident. They had to prepare a 107-page document and the process took months.

Enabling young people with SEND to achieve their aspirations is what the Children and Families Act was meant to be all about. This will only happen when the government learns that value for money should mean more than just this year's bottom line.

Until then local authorities will continue to struggle with the increased demand for ECH plans and extra funding, with the real losers being the vulnerable young people we should be protecting.
Pauline Bayliss-Jones is the principal of National Star College

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Quick-fix approach to SEND is poor strategy

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There has been a marked increase in refusals to assess young people for education, health and care plans. Fixing this will require a shift in attitude from government, says Pauline Bayliss-Jones The latest government figures about learners with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) make for sombre reading.

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Manchester City Council Local Offer (Disability & SEN)

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Manchester City Council Local Offer (Disability & SEN)

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Supported Internships are structured study programmes, with the majority of the programme being based with an employer.

They enable young people aged 16 to 24 with an Education, Health and Care Plan to achieve sustainable employment, through learning in the workplace. Supported internships are unpaid, last a minimum of six months, and as well as time in the workplace, the young person follows a personalised programme including, if appropriate, English, maths, and relevant qualifications.

Workshops

If your college is looking at introducing or expanding the number of supported internships, Natspec runs a training workshop as part of our Transform service. Check to see if there's one happening near you soon or get in touch with us to express your interest.

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Supported Internships are structured study programmes, with the majority of the programme being based with an employer. They enable young people aged 16 to 24 with an Education, Health and Care Plan to achieve sustainable employment, through learning in the workplace.

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December 2017

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16 to 19 additional needs funding: participation and attainment

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16 to 19 additional needs funding: participation and attainment

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We use cookies to collect information about how you use GOV.UK. We use this information to make the website work as well as possible and improve government services.

Research and analysis

Report into how governments provide funding to support students with additional needs.

Documents

Details

An international review of funding for young people with additional needs and the effect funding has on their attainment.

Additional needs pupils are defined as:

being economically disadvantaged and in need of financial support to attend education

having low prior attainment and being in need of extra support to succeed in education

having low-level special educational needs and disability

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16 to 19 additional needs funding: participation and attainment

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Tell us whether you accept cookies We use cookies to collect information about how you use GOV.UK. We use this information to make the website work as well as possible and improve government services. Research and analysis Report into how governments provide funding to support students with additional needs.

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AoC Survey on College High Needs Funding, March 2018

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AoC Survey on College High Needs Funding, March 2018

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Online Research with Surveys and Polls | SurveyMonkey

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Conduct and analyze online research projects on your own with a survey or poll from SurveyMonkey. Check out our templates and types and get started for FREE.

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(IPSEA) Independent Provider of Special Education Advice

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An Education, Health and Care (" EHC") needs assessment is an assessment of a child or young person's education, health and care needs. It is the first step to getting an Education, Health and Care plan (" EHC plan"). An EHC plan can result in additional support and funding for a child or young person with special educational needs (" SEN ").

Click on the links below to read more.
Asking for an EHC needs assessment What happens in an EHC needs assessment What to do when you receive your draft EHC plan What to do when you receive your final EHC plan EHC needs assessment FAQs

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An Education, Health and Care (" EHC") needs assessment is an assessment of a child or young person's education, health and care needs. It is the first step to getting an Education, Health and Care plan (" EHC plan").