The new SEND system in England is proving no better at helping parents to get the support their children need – with long delays, legal battles and dissatisfaction being reported by many.
The claims are made by leading SEN charity, the National Autistic Society (NAS) in its annual School Report, published last week.
The report, which focuses on the experience of children with autism and their families, includes survey findings showing that 74 per cent of parents did not find negotiating the new system to be an easy experience.
Furthermore, 69 per cent of around 1,000 parents said they had to wait more than a year to get the support they needed for their child; 16 per cent have waited more than three years.
The far-reaching SEND reforms were introduced by the government two years ago and saw the implementation of a new system of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and a new SEND Code of Practice.
The EHCPs are replacing the system of SEN Statements and School Action and will cover a young person from age 0 to 25.
The aim is to give parents more control and choice over their child’s care and education and to make it simpler for families to get support. It is also intended to better help different agencies to work together more effectively.
The legislation states that children who have SEN Statements should be assessed for transfer to an EHCP by April 2018, but the latest figures show that a third of the way into the transfer period, only 18 per cent have so far been moved across.
Furthermore, the NAS says that the 2016 report shows that parents are “having to fight just as hard” under the new system to get support and that “education, health and care services still aren’t working together as predicted”.
It points to the fact that only six out of 10 EHCPs are issued within the 20-week time limit specified by the Department for Education (DfE), with considerable variation between different authorities.
Once a EHCP is in place, the survey found that 50 per cent of parents are satisfied with the education support their child received, while just 33 per cent are happy with the health care provision and 30 per cent with the social care.
The new system gives parents more control over their choice of school and while a majority said that their child is in their preferred type of school, many faced an “uphill battle” to get to this point, the NAS said, with 17 per cent taking their local authority to an SEND Tribunal, according to the survey findings.
The report states: “The SEND Code of Practice spells out that: ‘It is in a child’s best interests for a positive dialogue between parents, teachers and others to be maintained, to work through points of difference and establish what action is to be taken’.
“Nonetheless, some families continue to believe, based on their experience, that the SEND system is skewed against them, with local authorities engaging lawyers to fight against them.
“For parents of children on the autism spectrum, the right to appeal to the SEND Tribunal against a local authority’s final decision is a crucial last resort. If the ‘dialogue’ described in the Code of Practice fails, the law is there to help their child receive the educational support they are entitled to.
“However, the large number of appeals to the SEND Tribunal suggests that parents have to use this ‘last resort’ too often.”
There are around 120,000 school-aged children on the autism spectrum in England, the vast majority in mainstream schools and in 2014/15 autism-related appeals made up 35 per cent of SEND Tribunal appeals.
However, around three-quarters of appeals were subsequently withdrawn or conceded by local authorities, and of those that proceeded to a decision, 86 per cent found in favour of the parent.
The NAS says this suggests that “too many wrong decisions are being made by local authorities, and parents are right to believe that the system does not always work in their child’s interests”.
Among the report’s recommendations, the NAS wants the DfE to look into how local authorities are using the transitional funding they have been allocated to help with the transfer to EHCPs and use this information to “determine any additional resources needed to implement the reforms within the timeframe”.
It also calls for more good practice examples of implementation and the introduction of a single point of appeal for all aspects of the EHCP – currently parents can only appeal the education section.
Mark Lever, chief executive of the NAS, said: “Parents should not be facing long, stressful and exhausting battles, just to get the right education for their children. This is putting an unnecessary strain on often already vulnerable families.
“Too many parents are having to take legal action to get basic support for their children and education, health and care services still aren’t working together as the government says they should.
“The government must take responsibility for its reforms and review how local councils are using the extra funding and what difference the reforms are making. The government must then act, whether that’s increasing resources to complete the reforms by the 2018 deadline or delaying implementation until local authorities can fulfil their legal responsibilities properly.
"The most important thing is to make sure that the speed of the reforms don’t compromise the support children need.”