Teach-Primary-Issue-19.8

www.teachwire.net | 15 Melissa Benn Funding vital SEND support is a tricky business – but that doesn’t mean we should consign education, health and care plans to history... Why getting rid of EHCPs isn’t the answer VO I C E S A fresh twist on the growing SEND crisis in our schools looks set to develop this autumn – except this time, it threatens to engulf all of Westminster. Many policymakers, officials and members of the public broadly agree that the current system – based on the provision of individual educational, health and care plans (EHCPs) – is on its knees. First introduced in 2014, EHCPs are programmes that identify, and then seek to meet the specific health, communication and/or emotional needs of children up to the age of 25. Since then, EHCP applications, which are agreed and funded through local authorities, have skyrocketed. With LAs buckling under myriad financial pressures, however, these costs are fast becoming unsustainable. As of January this year, nearly 650,000 children are on an EHCP, with thousands more still to be processed. Many EHCP applicants are refused. In 2024, there were 154,500 requests for an EHCP assessment, 11.8 per cent higher than 2023 ( tinyurl.com/ tp-EHCP25 ). LAs proceeded to an assessment in only 65.4 per cent of those requests. Better resourced and more articulate parents have increasingly resorted to tribunals ( tinyurl.com/tp-EHCPtribunal ) when their EHCP application is rejected by their local authority. According to the most recent figures, 93 per cent of such appeals have been successful. Even then, those who do receive an EHCP will often encounter a lack of specialist support, and general teacher shortages, among other issues. There are some clear parallels here with the welfare system, in that it’s a mechanism intended to support some of the most vulnerable in society, but one beset with spiralling costs and opaque, over-complex application processes. The Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, now finds herself caught between a stern Treasury, a Prime Minister determined not to be bounced into further expenditure by restive backbenchers, and an increasingly well-organised SEND lobby – including some impressively articulate young people able to sharply critique the current system’s limitations. Additionally, the Education Select Committee has been holding a series of hearings on the SEND system since the start of this year. Whilst the government isn’t obliged to implement the Committee’s recommendations, the proposals will pile on further pressure once they’re published. In contrast to the welfare issue, however – where Labour’s reforms were rushed through – Phillipson and her ministers are treading more carefully. They have talked about the importance of widespread early language intervention, mooting plans that guarantee SEND support to every child who needs it via more extensive in-school provision. However, the DfE has thus far not confirmed whether it will preserve what it sees as the costly and unwieldy EHCP model. This evasion hasn’t gone unnoticed by families and campaigners, who are already mounting a fightback. In July, over a hundred figures – including academics, heads of charities and celebrity SEND parents – signed a letter urging the government to retain the legal protection that EHCPs represent ( tinyurl. com/tp-BBCEHCP ). There’s a pressing national context to the current debate. After their embarrassing U-turns on winter fuel allowance and disability benefits, the Treasury and Prime Minister’s office have made it clear that one consequence of the late spring rebellions will be less money for SEND reform. Can the government win this battle? The stubborn beauty of the British Parliamentary system is that MPs aren’t just directly accountable to their constituents – an accountability sharpened by the fragile majorities secured by many of the 2024 intake – but that they’re also sensitive to the mounting pressures on those they represent. To be frank, I don’t envy Bridget Phillipson and her department. They’re having to resolve one of the most complex problems in English education, at a time of acute fragility for the Labour government that seems to afford little room for manoeuvre. Nevertheless, I predict that EHCPs will indeed be scrapped. Whereupon all hell – or at least something close to it – will inevitably break loose. TP Melissa Benn is the author of Life Lessons: The Case for a National Education Service (£8.99, Verso), and is a visiting professor at York St John university.