SEND reforms offer only cuts and dismantling of rights, disabled people’s organisation tells ministers

The government’s reforms to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system will violate disabled people’s rights and worsen inequality, according to a leading disabled people’s organisation.

In its response to the government’s SEND reform consultation, Disability Rights UK (DR UK) warns ministers that it “vehemently” opposes the reforms and is “deeply concerned” by the impact they would have on disabled children and young people.

It says the reforms – which only affect England – offer “nothing more than cuts to support and the dismantling of our rights” and will have “a devastating impact on all Disabled children and young people, deepening inequalities that will continue to perpetuate harm long after school”.

It also accuses the government of using disabled people’s “language of inclusion to justify cuts, violate our rights, and exacerbate inequality across the country”.

DR UK, which is funded by the Department for Education to support young disabled people on their post-16 options and rights, says the new system would raise the threshold for disabled children and young people to qualify for support, limit the support available, and weaken accountability.

It also warns that the government is providing “insufficient funding” alongside its reforms to achieve “the transformative change needed to make schools inclusive” and that the reforms would “further entrench ableist attitudes into education policy”.

DR UK’s response to the consultation – which closed this week – offers little support for any of the measures laid out in February’s Every Child Achieving and Thriving white paper, which is set to provide the basis for government legislation.

The reforms will see fewer disabled children qualifying for an education, health and care plan (EHCP), with those with lower support needs instead receiving “targeted” and “targeted plus” support in mainstream settings, a system which appears to mirror the pre-2014 system of statements, “school action” and “school action plus”.

All children with SEND will have a legal right to a new individual support plan (ISP) – reviewed at least annually – which will set out barriers to learning, day-to-day provision, any reasonable adjustments they need to be made, and intended outcomes.

And every secondary school will be expected to have an inclusion base, with an equivalent number of places in local primary schools.

But DR UK said the government “claims to want to improve inclusion in the mainstream, but true inclusion means enabling and supporting settings to teach children together – not to segregate them.

“These proposals rely on segregated Inclusion Bases in mainstream settings, rather than prioritising inclusion in the classroom.”

Disability News Service reported in February that the government’s reforms would increase the proportion of children in “specialist” placements over the next nine years, despite ministers claiming they were moving towards more “mainstream inclusion”.

There are currently 1.7 million disabled pupils identified with SEND in England, and more than 480,000 of them have their own bespoke EHCP, says DR UK.

The government’s reforms will see EHCPs now being “underpinned” by “evidence-based” and “nationally defined” specialist provision packages that “set out the kind of support children and young people will receive”.

DR UK says it is “deeply concerned” by what it sees as a shift from individual provision to “pre-determined Packages and Tiers”.

It also says that the “lack of clarity” on how schools would be expected to implement their duties under the Equality Act through the new system was “deeply concerning”.

It tells ministers in its consultation response: “We fear that the real aim here is not to improve inclusion, but to limit the number of children who qualify for individual plans.”

And it says the reforms suggest the government “either deeply misunderstands inclusion or – more concerningly – is using the language of inclusion to erode our equal access to education”.

It also highlights the omission of large groups of children from the white paper, including those who are EOTAS (educated otherwise than at school), in supported internships and apprenticeships, and in custody.

It concludes: “The proposals set out in the Schools White Paper and SEND consultation are not transformative.

“They re-invent a broken system into one that’s more broken.

“The only new things on offer are the restriction of support and the attack on our rights.”

Because the education for all bill was included in this month’s king’s speech, it is likely to start its progress through parliament within the next few months.

Bethany Bale, DR UK’s policy and young people’s participation manager, said: “The reality of the white paper proposals is no more than austerity and discrimination, wrapped up in the co-option of inclusion and false claims of expanding rights.

“The current legal framework is not what breaks the system; a failure to enforce our rights and hold unlawful practice accountable is.

“Ministers state that these changes are needed because ‘we have a moral mission to do our very best by each and every child in our country’.

“If that is the case, then we hope the government will consider how these reforms will dramatically fail in that mission and urge them not to go ahead with these reforms.”

Picture: the Department for Education’s offices in Westminster, by Google