Government announcement.

[chris54]

The government has announced that to many children are classed as having SENs. That it want to reduce this number. They say it is not to do with cutting cost but to deliver the right support to the right children.

 

Also they talk about children with the severest disabilities having an individual educational budget under the control of parents to be spent on what services they decide.

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18061348

Edited May 15, 2012 by chris54

[Sally44]

That was what the letter I received from our LA suggested was how they may deliver SEN.

 

This is VERY worrying. I presume that having a Statement means its contents are still legally binding on the LA. But that could change at the next AR?? What about those children who do not have Statements? What about those children that do have Statements but they are not worded in such a way that the provision is legally binding. And what happens if the SEN budget allocated to each child is less than the cost of the placement/provision the child is currently receiving?

Edited May 15, 2012 by Sally44

[robert7111a]

This smacks of cust-cutting and the Government washing its hands of responsibility. It's all very well giving control to the parents but how many parents really know/understand what services are out there? How will parents know when and how to spend "their budget" and whether they are spending it wisely? What happens when the "budget" runs out?

 

Personally I feel that the numbers of special needs children will only rise further in the future and the Government wants rid. Absolutely scandalous IMO.

[LancsLad]

Chris I saw the piece on the BBC website this morning. My imediate reaction was this was a very political move which has some appealing headlines leading the spin on it, but has a very darker side to it.

 

Based on my own experience of the forum in recent months I can see the appeal this will have for certain parents. My worries are what will be the knock on effects. Some parents might well welcome the idea of having control over their childs finances related for example to an existing statement, my initial reaction will be how good will they be at commisioning services and what effect will this have on existing cost centres. My partner for example as a SENCO works within a local authority where the finace comes directly into the school in effect from that source. Will her school now have to price up her services and in effect charge parents for her services on an hourly basis. I can possibly see that through such a process that though a child might be entitled to 10 hours of contact and recive an appropriate level of finance to currently meet these needs due to increased costs at the centre this might only equate to around 8 hours of contact in a new system. Many right wing advocates might argue that there is an idealogical concept behind this and that is all about introducing free markets into the system. There are of course some arguments to support this but personally I do not think a child with special needs is the ideal client to engage in free market forces.

 

Whilst there may be some security for children currently statemented what will be the effect on the next generation. If funding arrangements change drastically then services might be severly put at risk. Having a dozen or so kids needing support in each year group is very different to having 12 in years 5 and 6 and only 2 in the other year groups at such points provision may not be possible to put in place. Will for example my partner as possibly the most qualified and one of the most experienced members of staff in her school have to go part time, because this will not be possible we have a house to pay for so does she leave special needs and simply return to being a class teacher if she can pick up a job?

 

The partially hidden agenda is obviously how far back are they going to cut into diagnostic criteria in respect to qualification for additional support. It is easy to spin the fact that a wheelchair bound individual with severe learning difficulties and heavily statemented will be ok but how about a child with Asperger's for example. For many people not in the know it is so easy to buy that this is not after all a disability but rather a condition and as a result no funding support will be available. Any adults in the system who have been through incapacity benefit assesments will tell you what the movement in respect to criteria has been in recent years. Yesterday there was the release that a 30% target has been set in respect to a reduction of Disability Living Allowance. That one will be spun in the media as hitting people on the scrounge with a bad back who are capable of work, when the reality much of the cuts will hit people with mental health issues as they are a soft target and can be passed over through target laden subjective assesments.

 

My own conclusion is that we are seeing the dismantaling of the concept of supporting the weakest members of society, to be replace by the concept of support for the very, very weakest members of society. If resources are really scarce and things are handled fairly I can kind of take that as an ideology. What I find hard to live with is the nagging thought that in a few years we will see a vocher system in place in the special needs sector which if that is all you have got gets you very little in your local primary or secondary school. In trying to realise that vouchers potential the wealthy simply take it into the private sector as a discount voucher for their childs private education. Whilst this might be a return to social values of a few decades ago which have hardly died I think there is a very worrying middle road position which may emerge. This position is one of parents who feel they have no choice but to send their child into a private / semi-private sector in meeting their needs rightly or wrongly and as a result mortgage their lives away in paying for this service. When things go wrong like the loss of a job then the child is completly destabilised which could be a real disater in that individuals life.

 

These are just some of my initial thoughts, what worries me is that over the years my gut instinct have generally proven to be true.

[Sally44]

Firstly I wonder WHO these people are that will set the budget. Are they educational or health employees? Or are they independent, and what will be their remit,scope,limits etc.

 

And how will those professionals determine what the budget is for each type of need.

 

Will there be exclusions to some needs or some types of provision?

 

For example, the NHS does not fund Sensory Integration Therapy, so they never recommend it because they don't deliver it. That is how a number of children secure independent placements, by proving their child needs this therapy and demonstrating that the NHS/LA cannot provide it where the independent school can. So will those types of therapy provision still be included?

 

Will the definition of "education" remain as the broad definition it currently is ie. for a child to be educated so that they can be as independent and productive as possible as an adult. Or will it reduce it and screen out all those other skills, such as life skills, social communication skills etc that are costly to fund.

[bed32]

I think the stated objectives are good - there is no doubt that SEN provision at and beyond statement level is appalling and not fit for purpose. Surely every parent here has had to fight the LA time and time again to get the provision our children need.

 

Even the idea of parents having contol over budgets is potentially good - especially if it gives us greater flexibility in the services we "purchase" - but there are huge potential pitfalls.

 

How are these budgets going to be set and reviewed - are we going to end up going through SENDDIST every few months as the cost of provision goes up?

 

Does this mean that we as parents are going to have to be continually commissioning and reviewing the care?

[LancsLad]

In asking questions as to how budgets will be set the answer is there for all to see. The chancellor will set departmental budgets and a compliant cabinet will agree to them as part of the austerity package. depatemntal ministers will simply have no choice but to balance the books within those parameters.

 

I think some things will happen pretty quickly as has been seen in other departments. Firstly there will be no new commisioning. Whilst this might simply mean no extensions to existing services I think there will be real pressure to put the financial brakes on and as such will we get in a position of no new statments for children. In effect because of the turn over factor this equates to steady starvation of professional services in the sector over say a five year period. This is a politically astute move in many ways as it is not about cuts on the surface but about trimming the sector back through a natural process and in effect puts pressure on local authorities to come up with short term solutions. We have seen this happen before following 'baby boom' cycles where we have seen messy school closure programmes. In reality it may be the case that the 'baby boom' has ended in respect to special needs.

 

I think there might be some important parallels to be drawn over a comparison with school closures in recent years. Firstly there are a few individuals who do well in the process. Because local authorities were legally bound to provide education to pupils in such areas they had to support individual institutions to a point where these schools were more than half empty and kids were getting at times good pupil staff contact ratios as things wound down. The issue for local authorities was that such instuitutions bled them dry in respect to wage bills and maintenance costs. it was also a massive political opportunity when it came to decisions over individual institutions as it allowed levels of social manipulation. The result was often kids from deprived backgrounds finding their local school was the one to go and having to face large journeys across towns to find a place often bypassing institutions where selection criteria based on postcodes mean't they had no opportunity to gain a place anywhere near home. I can for no reason seeing why this scenario would not play out on a smaller scale in respect to special provision in mainstream schools. In areas where there is not a sustainable level of full statements in school units will not be viable and kids will be shipped around out of their communities or the choice is to drop the need for support and accept the skills provided by the local classroom teacher. A lot of parents for practical reasons will take this second option.

 

In the interim period I can see some parents who will be well placed because of legaly binding requirements which will not be challenged who can get a fair bit out of the system. The reality is that being a parent in some ways is a mid term prospect and once you have got your kid through their school period how many parents will be really concerned about what are the consequences going to be for subsequent children who they have no attatchment for. I can not blame parents if this is how they feel, but we might have a period where the needs of a few backed by parental pressure simply bleeds the system dry. To take a current analogy is the current water shortage in many areas of the country the result of low rainfall this winter or is it about over consumption over many years, the reality is the vast majority of individuals are unable to see water as a precious resource when the product is on tap. In political terms the easiest target is the professionals saying you have released too much water into the system, the reality as with water they do not have this mechanism in place. It is a case of too little rainfall, a lack of government funding, or too much demand from the consumer, expectations being beyond levels of sustainability.

 

There are some good points here made about what will it be like in respect to parents commisioning care. Not for one minute do I believe that under the proposals in the NHS regarding the commisioning of care by GP's will my own doctor be doing this. The reality is they will bring someone across from the local trust and give them an office job, potentially resulting in increased costs and a fire fight to try and get the best staff, some practices inevitably being seriously disadvantaged. Will we see a similar response but in this case by the private sector. So which GP practices will be able to afford a commisioning manager the answer is the ones with the healthiest population because they will have resources spare. The practice with a population of patients with massive needs because of social background elements will not have this level of flexibility. The point here is will commisioning be about needs or more a reflection about background?

 

I can imagine what may happen here. Having been in foster care I have seen a two tiered system. On one hand you have local authority provision, and running parallel the private sector who are there to take up the inevitable slack as local authorities simply do not have the resources to support every child and have to be open to competitive tendering in respect to services. In this sector private companies are interested in two areas, firstly which kids carry the most funding and secondly which ones can the place together and then develop models based on minimum levels of provision to enable a profit margin to be engineered. Once this two tired system is established there is very little that local authorities can do to reverse the process. When it comes to individuals in care the only real safeguard for them is 'what are mimimal standards' and a hope that someone will come along and inspect private establishments and enforce standards. If we look into other sectors this has been a real issue and has led to some pretty awfull cases in our courts. It might be the case that for some parents a very attractive private sector emerges and the use of free school concepts might support this. The basis for this part of the sector will be funding levels and I suspect the ability of parents to top up with volountary donations. Government will be able to use such scenarios as flagship statements to show policy is working. The reality is it will but just for a few.

 

A few thoughts in an interesting post, these things were always going to come around 88% of the projected cuts have not been implemented yet, so why was this area ever going to escape the sword?

[chris54]

There was a head teacher on the radio talking about this. As far as parent having control over individual budgets, her comment were, for parents who are proactive in their children's education fine, but what worried her were there many parents, even of SEN's children who have no interest, who never turn up for meeting. what will happen to these children. A point she also raised was the possible increased use of "Free School Meals uptake" as a way of fixing schools SEN's budget. She said "My school is well funded", but she had concerns about smaller school in the "Leafy suburb"

As I get working tax credit, we are not entitled to free school meals. That does not take away my sons SEN.

 

I just wish the government would come clean and say what it is they are doing.

You have two choices, keep spending as it is and put up tax, this will hid the better of most. Or reduce spending, which will hit the poorest most. Or something in the middle, (Three choices)(Had a bit of a Monty Phthon moment then)

[bed32]

I don't think this actually started out as a cost cutting measure - and it may be even now at the central government level they don't see it as that.

 

However our experience is that on the ground the LA/NHS will try as hard as the can to avoid paying for anything and however well-intentioned the original idea by the time it has been filtered by the various jobsworths along the way they are bound to use it as an excuse for trying to wriggle out of something.

[Special_talent123]

this is ridiculous. A child cant help have disabilities, none of us asked to even have a disability but they got to live in our situation and see how it affects us in our day to day lives. without aso u dont want many children to have a disability but u cant help but have it because you were born that way or so . if u reduce the cuts then how are the children going to get the support they need i think they should actually make cuts in other areas but not this area thios is not good. you rather someone with a disability without support have no goals and without the support where are they going to lead in live than some NT that has a job and has there goals and ambitions and achieve things in life but us ones not have any of that? its governemt fault they got into debt in the first place and its camerons fault that he doesnt support disabilities, i support lib dem all the way never conservative- its camerons bliming fault they have gone into coalition with lib dem when there manefesto was much better than bliming camerons. lib dem support disabilities and cameron no way near does any of that. If they really want to cut back- why don't they just look at where they are going wrong, yes too ,many on benefits but have they looked at the false claimed ones but instead looking at the genuine needs ones. also why cant the rich pay for tax if there so many on low income because of there disabilities leaves them to be unable to work this is so wrong.

[chris54]

There are two (?) ways of looking at ways of setting a budget. You can work out how much you want to spent then divide it up as best you can, often having to leave some things out, or you work out how much you need to spend and set you budget to that.(worrying on how to fund it later (TAX)) It seems to me that as far as education spending is concerned the first method seems very much to chosen method. And one of the things being left out is adequate SENs funding. We then spend money monkeying around trying to make cuts look like improvements to the system.

[bed32]

Special_talent

 

I hate to get in the way of a good rant - but in all fairness I should point out that this is a Labour policy that was well underway before the coalition took office.

 

As an aside I notice that education provision within schools appears to be explicitly excluded from the IB proposals.

 

In fact it seems more aimed at disabled children who have multiple needs - not just educational - and actually looks weak in its support for ASD and SpLD

[Special_talent123]

bed- im autistic, learning disabled and dyspraxic. If i wasnt in a special school then i would not have made an improvement i wouldnt even be using a coomputer or anything because i had difficulties and being in a mainstream environment proofed that being in mainstream provision didnt make a difference and infact i had a lot of problems there than and being in a special needs school. in fact if i had no support a tall i wouldnt be able to talkm i wouldnt be in supported housing for LD, i wouldnt be going to youth clubs/volunteering. when i vote i always read manefestos and i literally read the manifesto, an mp in my area but not my constituency she is lib dem and she goes out of her way to even help make improve things for us and our national campaign as im young ambassador wouldnt of been launched in parliament if we didnt have mps to support our campaign. when i get concerned i raise it up with her the mp and she goes out ther way to make sure what i say is included and still me as a young ambassador we are trying to make improvements in things like this

[Sally44]

This is what I don't like when there is talk about a budget. That means a cap, a limit. The Statementing process does not have any monetary limit to it. It is about identifying needs and detailing provision to meet them. So there is no budgetary limit on a Statement under the current SEN process.

 

The Education Act even talks about "likely future needs".

 

And guidance [such as SALT guidance from their own college] states that they should make recommendations to meet the child's needs regardless of the resources available. Under new legislation will that change?

 

This is starting from a totally different stand point.

 

And, as Lancslad has said, how will this new provision be delivered. Will schools just take a complete step back and parents have to organise their own professional input? If anything you need a consistent professional team employed and based on site in the school, not lots of different people "popping into school" to deliver therapy to different kids.

Edited May 15, 2012 by Sally44

[bed32]

The key thing is whether we continue to have a statutory right to "adequate" provision (although I gather that was quietly reduced from "appropriate" some time ago). If we do then the budget is not our problem; if not then it will be a disaster

 

I think there is scope for some positives from this - if they tidy up and extend the role of the tribunal to cover all aspects then the current issues with the enforcability (or lack of) of Part 6 should be resolved.

 

Note at one point at least this individual budget explicitly excluded provision in school, also as far as I can tell there is no compulsion and parents will continue to have the option to ask LA to provide the services directly.

[Special_talent123]

i just had a watch at five news and i understand now. They think that 450,000 people are wrioongly identified but find they have behavioural and social problems wrather than LDS and ASD's

[LancsLad]

Bed32 you are very right to point out the importance of the word 'adequate' here. In trying to find a definition you only need to take a cursory glance at what is deemed adequate provision for teenagers excluded from school due to behavioural and emotional difficulties. A lot of these kids are out on the street for most of the time with minimal input from a home tutoring service in some cases and are simply bounced around the system untill they reach the age of 16.

 

Is it not possible to extend the same argument on a child with AS for example who does not carry a statement because they are not 'disabled', have great difficultly in sticking in a mainstream environment, do not have access to SEN provision because they are not entitled to funding and as such have a few hours of home tutoring put in place up untill they reach a statutory leaving age. I know I am painting a bleak picture here but as with many of these government proposals there is absoloutly nothing there to say this will not happen.

 

My own impression of Sarah Tether today (appologies if name spelt wrongly) was here is another young career politician with little experience in life not really understanding what she was talking about simply putting out the coallition line, have to say hats of to the Torries in that she is a Lib Dem MP in the coallition and have got a ready victim lined up good and proper for when the backlash emerges.

 

I also agree that there is potential in the rhetoric for some positive outcomes. I am all in favour for moving power to the lowest level and placing it in the hands of the individuals dealing with the realaties of the issues rather than passing on judgements from up on high.

 

My final thoughts on this and on other changes to the benefit system is this. Over the past few weeks I have spent a fair bit of time watching the Leverson enquiry. What has struck me is beyond the obvious headline acts which have been called to the enquiry there have been an awfull lot of what we would call ordinary folk. When the process comes to its conclusion I am pretty convinced folowing the comments of Justice Leverson as he has gone through the sessions that there will be some very broad and sensible recomendations made which will be I suspect implemented. My gut reaction has been why have governments not set up national enquiries into the state of things such as the education system? The real answer in this is that they would be more or less obliged to go with sensible, practical and affordable recomendations, in effect they would not be able to look after their own political interests and that of their core voters. I am finding it very disheartening to watch 24 hour news and on one hand see ill thought out proposal after proposal emerging from Whitehall, on the other hand an example of due and diligent process conducted in a logical and rational means which will I hope get to the root cause of issues in one aspect of our society, its a pity we can not learn a broader lesson here and that is to trust intelligent and independant thought.

[bed32]

Putting my selfish hat on - and remembering that we are posting on an ASD board - I think the tightening up of the definition of SEN is a good thing. The concept of School Action / School Action Plus is so devalued these days that it tends to undermine the whole concept of SEN for those who have a genuine disability.

 

Once again for those trying to make a political point I would remind people that this is essentially a Labour initiative that has been carried on, apparently without significant change, by the coalition. It appears to have arisen out of a genuine acknowledgement that the SEN process was very poor and failing our children.

[Special_talent123]

ive met sara teather and she is really nice minister, she really does take into account us the young ambassadors with disabilities what we have to say. she even sent us a nice email today when we launched our filmed in december:

 

You and many others told Sarah Teather that disabled young people’s participation is really key to making any new changes to services work better. One of the questions you asked on the day was ‘How do the government plan to give young people more of a say in the services they receive?’

 

This is what the “next steps” paper now says about participation

 

“We want to give greater control to disabled children and young people themselves – to make them the ‘authors of their own life stories’. Currently, across the country, participation for disabled young people or those with SEN is patchy. For some areas it is a real strength and is reflected in the quality of services and the levels of confidence that young people have in them. But that is not the case everywhere.

We will work with existing successful groups to establish a Young People’s Advisory Group to help shape the next stages of our reforms nationally and drive young people’s participation at local level. The Group will make sure we address the issues that matter to children and young people and will be part of a broader National Advisory Group.

Young people’s participation is already supported by clear statutory responsibilities and most local areas are fulfilling these well. Where we have clear evidence that a local authority is not fulfilling these duties for young people, including those with disabilities or who have SEN, we will take action to understand the problem, provide links to additional support and where necessary, we will consider a formal improvement notice.”

So basically

1. They recognise that in some areas disabled young people’s participation is better than others.

2. They recognise that involving disabled young people in decisions about services improve the services

3. They are going to be setting up a Young People’s Advisory Group to help advise them on their proposals for disabled children and young people

4. If local authorities are not involving disabled young people in decision making they will take action to make sure they improve

[chris54]

I seem to remember right back when there ideas were first being talked about, the doing away of statementing, that it was raised at a number of meeting I attended "To go to a special school you need a statement, if no statement are issued what happens then?"

 

The previous government wanted more inclusion. This government said they don't.

Could we end up with more special school places but no funding.

Edited May 15, 2012 by chris54

[bed32]

My fear with the changes is not so much the intentions of the legislation and the governments that pass it but the fact that at the coal face it will still be overseen by the same people who make such a mess of the current process.

 

I don't think the LAs act in good faith, and so the legislation needs to be water-tight.