Tag Archives: SEND

A broken system: not just mismanagement

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When searching the DfE website this morning for the latest numbers about schools and pupils to allow me to compare the number of teachers per school for different subjects, I was distracted into looking at the number of ‘open notices’ from the DfE to Councils across England. Currently they total around 30 such notices and there are others that have been closed in recent times. These notices refer to the provision of either special needs (SEND) or children’s social services.

There really must be something wrong with a system where nearly 20%, or one in five, of all upper tier local authorities have such notices that are issued to councils for ‘poor’ or ‘inadequate’ performance. I had expected the majority of such notices to be for SEND services, but in fact half are for Children’s Social Services. This raises the question of whether in some authorities, and especially smaller unitary authorities, there is the funding to cope with both SEND and Children’s Social Services?

Of the local authorities with ‘open’ improvement notices for children’s social services, most are small metropolitan districts of unitary authorities.: Liverpool, Nottingham City and the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire are the exceptions. The pattern for SEND notices is different, with six counties, four metropolitan districts, four unitary councils and one London borough with ‘open notices.

What is striking about both lists is the geographical split. The relative absence from the list of well-funded London boroughs – only three appear, and only one in the SEND list, compared with eight metropolitan districts really is worthy of note and discussion. Comparing the distribution with my recent report on pupil teacher ratios does suggest that funding, or the lack of it, may play a part.  

If the 16 other authorities with closed notices since 2020 are added to those with ‘open’ notices, then almost a third of all local authorities have been on the ‘naughty step’ with the DfE and Care Quality commission so far in this decade.

If that percentage and the split between types of authorities doesn’t raise questions about why and why some authorities are more likely to be faced with improvement notices than others, then I think we have a serious lack of inquiry.

The relationship between the size of an authority and competence to deliver high quality services is important, both because of the Reform Party’s pledge to cut out waste, and the Labour government’s intention to reform local government. Both need to be seen in light of this list. Is bigger better, or is local government outside London just not well-enough funded

Of course, I must declare a personal interest, since I look over as Cabinet Member for Children’s Service (excluding SEND) after Oxfordshire received a ‘notice’ in the autumn of 2023 about the quality of its SEND provision.

To some extent with SEND, authorities are at the mercy of the NHS, over which they have little power, and that relationship with SEND needs to be investigated thoroughly. Penalizing democratically elected local government for the failing of a nationally run NHS is neither fair not equitable. That the government’s funding of the High Needs Block may add to local government’s problems also needs to be taken into account. Oxfordshire is in the bottom 30% for SEND funding.

What do you know of EOTAS?

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Even though it pains me to say so, the following FOI question and answer from a well-respected county council raises some interesting questions about audit and governance, and the monitoring of expenditure on SEND pupils.

Question: How many young people had EOTAS packages of over £100,000 granted by xxx County Council during the 2024/25 financial year, and of these packages, what was the largest amount of any package in operation during the financial year?

Answer: The information is not held in a centralised format. Therefore, to be able to obtain it, a manual audit would need to happen to cross-reference systems for 153 individual electronic records and associated financial systems to determine the total cost of each child or young person’s combined EOTAS package, each taking 20 minutes to locate, retrieve and collate, totalling 51 hours.

So, it appears that the county council in question does not know how much it is spending on each child with an EOTAS (Education Other than at School) package. It seemingly knows how much is being spent on each element of the package, but doesn’t have a spreadsheet that allows all elements to be brought together in a total per child.

Now it is not for me to question the lack of curiosity of the Director of Children’s Services or the Lead Member in the authority, let alone the Director of Finance, but it was an element of spending that I was concerned enough about to monitor when I was a cabinet member.

I have the same question out to a number of other local authorities, so it will be interesting to see whether I receive the same sort of answer. What is probably the case is that these packages are contributing to the High Needs block deficits in many local authorities.

A second shire county told me it couldn’t answer the question because the number was less than five, and might thus reveal details about an individual: fair enough, but I assume it means that there are somewhere between one and five such packages of more than £100,000 per child. It would be interesting to know what such education packages might contain, and why they are so expensive.

At a Scrutiny Committee meeting in November 2024, Oxfordshire County Council officers told the committee in a Report about EOTAS in 2024 “The annual spend as of November 2024 is £2.1 million for 52 children and young people.” (para 18 Report to Scrutiny Committee) That is an average of £40,000 per child with an EOTAS package.

EOTAs packages are as a result of s61 of the Children and Families Act 2014.

61Special educational provision otherwise than in schools, post-16 institutions etc

(1) A local authority in England may arrange for any special educational provision that it has decided is necessary for a child or young person for whom it is responsible to be made otherwise than in a school or post-16 institution or a place at which relevant early years education is provided.

(2) An authority may do so only if satisfied that it would be inappropriate for the provision to be made in a school or post-16 institution or at such a place.

(3) Before doing so, the authority must consult the child’s parent or the young person.

Might it be time for the National Audit Office to have a deep dive into this part of SEND spending to see whether the expenditure is producing the desired results for these young people?

More thoughts on funding schools, ahead of the spending Review

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Yesterday, I published a post about my initial thoughts on the forthcoming spending review, due next week, and how saving might be made in the education sector.  For a more detailed analysis at the macro level there is also the Institute for Fiscal Studies review Schools and colleges in the 2025 Spending Review | Institute for Fiscal Studies that lays out the options for the government against the background of falling rolls and the challenging economic situation, and now The Defence Review, and all that entails for government spending priorities.

My guess is that the government will direct any extra funding in education to skills and the college sector, especially where it is related to spending on training for employment, and let the schools sector sort out its own future. One exception to this general thesis is SEND, where the government will have to take some action. Sadly, without yet a Report from the Select Committee that has been looking at SEND for the past sixth months.

The nuclear option on spending open to the government, and one that local authorities might have used in the past when they controlled the financing of the schools’ sector, would be to top slice the Schools Block and transfer that funding to the High Needs Block, used to fund special needs, and leave the schools sector to sort out the consequences.

Afterall, education is low down in the polling pecking order for national elections. This also makes sense with the supposed reorganisation of local authorities making the issue of the SEND balances and off-balance sheet deficits being carried by local authorities more of a challenge to fund in the future. However, my bet is that local government reorganisation will be off the agenda while Reform is riding high in the opinion polls. As a result, a top slice this year could be an option.

The Secretary of State has also solved the issue of how to deal with the underachievement of poor White families, by setting up an inquiry. In my view that approach is just kicking the can down the road to avoid taking difficult decisions in the Spending Review. Everyone in education knows the issues, and probably the answers as well: bring back Sure Start or something like it for the under-5s, and focus on making the secondary school curriculum more meaningful for those pupils not heading for higher education at eighteen, and who will probably leave school for college at sixteen.

The Spending Review also needs to come clean on what the pledge around the 6,500 extra teachers means, and how they will be paid for? The IFS makes the point that the college sector needs more than 6,500 extra lecturers to cope with the fact that rolls there won’t be falling over the next few years, and any added working in adult learning will put up the demand for lecturers even more. Switching funds to the college sector solves the issue of how to pay for these extra staff, but will leave the secondary sector with a pupil-teacher ratio in many areas little different to what it was 50 years ago. Hard times for schools ahead?

What should we do about children not in school?

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Is it time to start looking for a new solution to the issues surrounding children not in school? Currently too many young people are missing school for a variety of different reasons.

How about a ‘virtual school’ for all children not on a ‘normal’ school roll? The Local Authority where they live would assume responsibility on day one for any child without a school place, whether the child has moved into an area, and there is no mid-year SEND place available, (or other school places) or the young person has been excluded by a school, and has not yet been assigned another school.

Then there are those for who the normal school environment is not longer suitable. They should have a clearly defined place within the education system, managed by the local authority. Only in exceptional cases should responsibility for education be ceded to those parents that ask the state to educate their children.

Many young people might remain on the roll of the virtual school for a short-period of time. However, it would ensure no child for whom the state had assumed responsibility went missing from schooling.

Using the expertise gathered from the established model of virtual schools for children in care together with the work of hospital schools and services should ensure that a body of expertise would quickly develop to ensure all young people, whatever their challenges, had a programme of schooling mapped out for them, even if it didn’t look like the established regime of the traditional school day. However, there would be an expectation of regular contact between the virtual school and the pupil, with individual timetables of learning controlled through the school.

With a pupil being on a school roll at all times, parents would know that their children were part of a framework that includes inspection and has the child at its centre, and also removes the sense of isolation many children not in school can experience. The provision of a virtual school should also reduce the need for the use of section 61 of The Children and Families Act 2014.

The ‘virtual school’ would be able to commission ‘alternative provision’ from registered providers and in some cases be able to transfer the pupil to the roll of the alternative provider, where that was appropriate.

Many pupils in the care of the new virtual school would have special educational needs, as do many children that are the responsibility of the current virtual schools for young people in care. I believe that the notion of a ‘school’ is the best way to educate such children. The virtual school would work with both the SEND sector and the NHS, but be clear what is education and what is therapy, and the responsibility of the NHS.

The present funding model for SEND doesn’t work, and leaves many local authorities underfunded, and a small number of pupils costing significant amounts, while not being on the roll of any school. A virtual school should bring in-house many of the costs currently charged by the private sector for tutoring and other learning and allow some economies of scale to be developed. But, better education for every pupil must be the main aim: no child should be left out of schooling for a single day.

Taking up the reigns again

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Nineteen months ago, I paused this blog when I was appointed as the cabinet member for children, education and families on Oxfordshire County Council. Tomorrow, I officially relinquish that role after failing to win one of the newly created seats in the county council election: one of the few Liberal Democrats to be in such a position.

As a result of no longer being a councillor, and cabinet member, it does mean that I am able to start this blog again. However, even when I was a cabinet member, I have continued to post my views about recruitment into teacher training on LinkedIn. I am grateful to those that have commented on those monthly updates.

Much has changed in the education scene during the time that my blog has been paused. We now have a Labour government, but two-party politics has disappeared from the scene.

What is it, I wonder, about the third decade of each century that results in massive changes in the political landscape. A century ago, the Labour Party displaced the Liberal Party of Asquith and Lloyd George as the opposition to the Conservative Party in a two-party system. Two centuries ago, the start of the urbanisation resulted in a rapid growth in the electorate; a change that in 1832 was to lead to the Reform Act and the start of a road to universal suffrage.

In this context of political change, it is interesting that the DfE’s Interim Curriculum Review had little to say about citizenship as a subject. Perhaps the results of last Thursday might persuade the government to reconsider the importance of protecting democracy by reintroducing the subject into the curriculum.

However, to do so might mean changes in funding, not least for ITT subject targets. I am pessimistic about future funding for education. More funding for defence and the NHS will put pressure on government funding for department such as Education.

Nevertheless, I do believe that rationalisation within the academy sector could reduce spending on back-office salaries. I am also firmly of the belief that with a National Funding Formula being pupil driven, the practice of pooling schools’ balances within a MAT is unhelpful.

When such pooling involves cash balances being pooled across different local authority areas, then I am totally opposed to such a practice. But, then, I believe schooling has a very strong ‘place’ component. I also believe that the local community should have a democratic involvement.  I do not want a schooling system with the same level of local accountability as the NHS.

The nightmare that is SEND was simmering in the background 18 months ago, and it was a poor ofsted judgement that parachuted me into Oxfordshire’s Cabinet, after the Labour Party walked away from the administration. With the National Audit Office, The Education Select Committee and others revealing the scale of the task ahead, there remains much work to be done to support the education of our most physically and mentally challenged young people. As with adult social care, where the Select Committee has reported today, relationships between education and the health service are an important part of the resourcing debate about the best use of funds for the SEND sector.

I take my hat off to the officers managing the remaining local government functions within schooling, many of which, as with home to school transport, often bring parents and officers into disagreement. Although no fan of the undemocratic MATs, I also acknowledge the great work many of their leaders are doing for the education of the nation’s children. I just wish they had more local democratic oversight and support.

One law for parents …

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‘School sends children home because of a lack of staff’. The BBC have been running a story about a special school, part of a multi-academy trust that has been sending children home on certain days because of a lack of staff. Oxford pupils miss school amid special needs staff shortage – BBC News

The shortage of staff in the special school sector is nothing new. Indeed, I commented upon the use of unqualified teachers in that sector in a previous post. However, should any school be allowed to send pupils home because of staff shortages?

In 2017, (how time flies) the Supreme Court discussed the responsibilities of parents that contract with the State to provide schooling for their children for free. The case was Isle of Wight Council v Platt and the judgement can be read at Isle of Wight Council (Appellant) v Platt (Respondent) (supremecourt.uk)

The highest court in the land imposed a heavy burden on parents with regard to school attendance – paragraphs 31 onwards set out their reasons for doing so. In reaching their judgement, the court went further than the previous decision made in the 1930s, and placed even more restrictive reasons for parents being allowed not to send a child to school.

The court did not consider the opposite scenario of the responsibility of the State to parents that trust their child to the State to educate.  Lord Denning did discuss this in Meade v Haringey in 1979 at the end of the Winter of Discontent, but that case never came to trial as the strike ended and schools re-opened.  

Lord Denning’s comments in the case can be read at Meade v Haringey London Borough Council – Case Law – VLEX 793965949 The paragraph relevant to the present situation is in paragraph 3.

As I read the statute, it was and is the duty of the Borough Council – not only to provide the school buildings – but also to provide the teachers and other staff to run the schools – and furthermore to keep the schools open at all proper times for the education of the children. If the Borough Council were to order the schools to close for a term – or for a half-term – or even for one week, without just cause or excuse, it would be a breach of their statutory duty. If any of the teachers should refuse to do their work, the Borough Council ought to get others to replace them – and not pay the defaulters. Likewise if the caretakers refuse to open the schools – and keep the keys – the Borough Council ought to demand the return of the keys and open up the schools themselves if need be. For this simple reason: It is the statutory duty of the Borough Council to keep the schools open. If they should fail to do so, without just cause or excuse, it is a breach of their statutory duty.

These days, one must assume that either mutli-academy trust trustees have assumed the responsibilities formerly with local authorities in 1979 or that Regional School Commissioners acting on behalf of the DfE have responsibility for academies under their remit. Whoever is responsible, unless either a court rules otherwise or the law has been changed since 1979, it would seem that there is a statutory duty to open schools, and by implication to staff them during a school term. Of course, fire, plague or pestilence might cause temporary closure, but, as during the covid pandemic, schools were required to stay open for certain children.  

I guess that a parent will need to bring either a judicial review or a case against a school that sent children home. Judicial Review is an expensive process, so perhaps a Council, acting as a corporate parent, could bring the case on behalf of all parents.

It would be interesting to see how the Supreme Court balanced the rights and responsibilities of parents with the duties of the State in providing education. I am reminded that in the late 1940s the then Minister of Education summoned a Council because a school lacking a hall after bomb damage was not offering a daily act of corporate worship. What might that Labour Minister have made of schools sending children home due to staff shortages?

SEND in the spotlight

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The identification of pupils with Autism or on the Autistic Spectrum at a level where an EHCP (Education and HealthCare plan) is necessary would appear to account for a significant proportion of the unplanned and unfunded growth in spending on SEND, according to the latest DfE data on Special Needs. Special educational needs in England: January 2022 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The number of EHCPs for young people on the Autistic Spectrum increased from 92,567 in January 2021 to 103,429 in the January 2022 census of pupils. To put this into some context, there are only around 10,000 EHCPs for young people with either a visual or hearing need leading to a requirement for an EHCP. Even, in the category of Social, Emotional and Mental Health, the number of EHCPs in place only increased from 45,191 to 49,525 between 2021 and 2022. However, I suspect this might increase over the coming year if predictions about the mental health of young people following the pandemic come to pass.

Source DfE SEND January 2022 Primary type of need table reordered with additional columns

The growth in EHCPs was even larger for young people with speech, language and communications needs than for those diagnosed as with an autistic spectrum disorder, although this group still only account for half as many EHCPs are for young people on the autistic spectrum disorder group.

Growth in support at this level must mean a radical rethink about how the SEND sector operate. There is no way that this number of young people can be educated in the present Special School sector. Indeed, the staffing of that sector is an issue where a spotlight needs to be shone fairly quickly. There are too many unqualified staff ‘teaching’ these young people, and no visible tracking data for the adequacy of the professional qualifications on top of the basic QTS that such teachers hold. Staying in a mainstream school with an EHCP might be something many parents would need to balance against the journey time to a special school and the more generous staffing of such schools against the qualifications of the staff.

A nine per cent overall increase each year in EHCPs also places a financial burden on more rural local authorities where transport and often that means a driver of a taxi plus another person for each additional EHCP. With fuel costs rising almost by the day, the forward pricing of these contract for next year must already be causing headaches for local authority budget makers.

I don’t have the answers to this issue, but it must be of serious concern that there is sufficient finance for our most vulnerable children to receive as good an education as possible so that they can lead fulfilling lives as adults.  

What is the role of a school in its community?

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For everyone interested in either the role of a middle tier in our school system in England or in how pupil place planning and support for vulnerable children is handled in the current shambles around the arrangements for schools in England, this is an important report to read. Local authority provision for school places and support for vulnerable children – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The recent White Paper on Education was the second one to pledge to change in-year Admissions and this Report indicates why Ministers should act swiftly to make the necessary changes to the current system.

At the heart of the debate about the middle tier is the role of local authorities and the role of academies and the Trusts that run them. The following two quotes from the report sum up current situation nicely in relation to these important issues for the management of our schooling system:

‘Nevertheless, our research also suggested that there are two ways in which academisation can affect local education systems. First, because there are different processes for making decisions and resolving disputes about place-planning and placements of vulnerable pupils for academies and maintained schools, where an “isolationist” school is an academy, it can be more difficult, complex, and time-consuming to resolve issues. Second, while not generalising, school, trust and LA leaders and parents/carers reported that, among the minority of schools that took an “isolationist” approach, these were more likely to be schools that were part of larger regional or national academy trusts.’

‘Furthermore, there was broad agreement among school, trust and LA leaders and parents/carers that LAs were uniquely placed to play this role [place planning]. (In relation to place-planning, a minority of trust leaders and national stakeholders argued that the RSC should be wholly or partially responsible for delivering place-planning.) Whichever way roles and responsibilities are configured, there was consensus about the need for clarity, alignment of responsibilities and decision-making authority, for reciprocal expectations of schools, trusts and LAs around participating in local partnership-based approaches to place-planning and support for vulnerable pupils, and a renewed, more collaborative relationship between local and central government.’

The situation is summed up by a quote from a local authority officer:

‘Nobody wants to roll back the clock. But if we have MATs not working for the best interests of young people in the community, we don’t have any direct levers. We would have to go through the RSC, and not sure they have many levers. A lot of accountability sits with the LA, but the responsibility of delivery sits with schools. Doesn’t feel appropriate. We need some accountabilities placed on academy trusts and schools to deliver expectations [for vulnerable children].’ (LA officer page 106)

We need a system that works for the children seeking an education, and not primarily for those that provide that schooling. This is especially true for our most vulnerable young people and I hope that Ministers will spend time over easter reading this report and then acting upon its findings. State schooling is a public service and must be managed as such.

Special Needs Consultation

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What a mess. Underlying the government’s Green Paper SEND Review – right support, right place, right time (publishing.service.gov.uk) published yesterday is a feeling that without a strong middle tier there can be no overall management of a SEND system to help our most vulnerable young people.

The DfE has recognised the need for a regional tier – that’s not up for consultation – but the Green Paper is weak on exactly what the structure below that would look like. With no coherent local government system in place across England, it will be a challenge to create a system that works effectively at the sub regional level, especially where rural ‘donuts’ surround urban unitary authorities. Schools Forum don’t seem to even receive a mention in the Green Paper, despite holding the purse strings for schools in general through the DSG. Will a hard Funding Formula make them little more than a talking shop?

The aspirations to make the NHS play the part designated for it in 2014 with the creation of EHCP is to be welcomed, although it will be interesting to see how general practice and the hospital sector step up to their responsibilities. Still, new data sharing arrangements are long overdue between health and education.

There is little said in the Green Paper about reform of the SEN Tribunals that almost unanimously find, at least in part, in favour of parents. What may be needed is an approach similar to civil court personal injury compensation, where judgements are set down, if necessary, by the high court, and only new conditions or cases need to go to a Tribunal. Saying ‘no’ all the way to the door of the Tribunal, possibly to save a local authority money should be a thing of the past. Such a system won’t be easy to create, but the present system places intolerable burdens on families in terms of both financial and emotional demands.

The Green Paper accepts that alternative provision is a mess, but doesn’t really identify the causes of the mess and which parts work well. If anything, this is an area where my suggestion of multi-purpose practices of teachers might work well and bring fringe activities within a regulatory framework. All pupils should be on a school roll until 18. Off-rolling should be a positive decision that for teenagers needs to be carefully scrutinised as to why ‘now’ and not earlier in a child’s educational journey. The child’s voice must be part of the decision, however uncomfortable that might be for some parties to that child’s education.

Hovering over all the good intentions is the spectre of funding. Perhaps this is why it is a Green and not a White Paper. Unless the Treasury finds the cash for a better system ‘fine words will butter no parsnips’ as the old saying goes.

More young people are been identified as requiring different approaches to learning than the average child and it is interesting that ‘gifted’ children no longer form part of the SEND agenda. However, an education system based upon the needs of every child is expensive and needs good coordination. The aim is there, but it will be well into the autumn before we see the result of this consultation and thus 2025 before any significant outcomes that don’t need legislative change. For changes requiring legislation it seems unlikely anything will happen this side of the next general election.

Phoenix rising

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The DfE has today published a Policy Paper putting more bones on the body of the idea of a career development framework for teachers Delivering world class teacher development policy paper (publishing.service.gov.uk) To those of us with long memories it reads a bit like the early 1990s justification for the creation of the Teacher Training Agency. At that time QUANGOs were fashionable, nowadays government departments like to keep a tighter hold on policy, and don’t let the overall control of this sort of structure outside of the Department’s oversight.

Today’s document is a bit of a curate’s egg. The clickthrough for the Institute of Education on page 8 goes to the document New Institute of Teaching set to be established – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) not updated since January 2021, and containing quotes from (Sir) Gavin Williamson, the then Secretary of State and Nick Gibb, the former Minister.

Strangely, for a Policy Paper, readers are told to contact their local Teaching Hub to find out more than is in this relatively slight document. I hope that there is a coordinated response for those that do take the trouble to make contact.

The different strands linking together career development paths are ambitious, but necessary. However, it all looks a bit artificial and lacking in both sticks and carrots. Should teachers be required to recertify every few years or would such a move reveal the inability of the system to properly train those asked to teach our young people.

The lack of any mention of special needs, the sector with the highest percentage of unqualified teachers is disappointing, and the numeracy lobby will wonder why literacy is singled out for a specialist NPQ, but they do rate a mention?

In the end, the success of the project will come down to the cash on offer, and how career development will be paid for. The offering in today’s document is still a long way from Mrs Thatcher’s sabbatical term idea based upon the James Committee Report that was scuppered by the 1970s oil crisis. Indeed, it might be worth having a look in the library for a copy of that White Paper; Education – a Framework for Expansion that appear half a century ago.

Teaching Hubs and Regional School Commissioners are no real substitute for a coherent middle tier that can manage the local career development offering for teachers across a local area.

I would like to think that a career framework for all teachers wanting to make the profession their career for the whole of their working life will counter the notion of everyone having several different careers in a lifetime, but it is difficult on the basis of past outcomes to be anything other than sceptical about the needs of individuals rather than the wishes for a system. Will Phoenix make it out of the ashes of past attempts at career development for teachers? I am not sure based upon this Policy Document.