Unlocking potential: a manifesto for specialist further education

What’s going wrong?

Some young people with complex needs are not given any opportunity to participate in education beyond school. This can be as a result of misguided decision-making about which young people merit a place in FE or because of a lack of strategic planning to ensure there are enough specialist places to meet needs. Other young people face the uncertainty of funding for their places only be confirmed annually or even termly, leaving them unable to plot a steady progression route to their post-college goals and often in a state of high anxiety.

Some local authorities are reluctant to fund FE places for young people capable of improving their skills for independence but unlikely to achieve employment. Others, seeking to reduce costs, avoid placing young people in specialist settings despite the complexity of their needs. Many of the current government’s Safety Valve Agreements, designed to reduce local authorities’ high needs overspend, actively encourage the exclusion of specialist providers from the local SEND system. Without the opportunity to develop these vital skills for adulthood, with the support of expert staff, these young people face a bleak future.

Too much local authority decision-making about placements is poor. Some of it is unlawful as evidenced by the high number of first tier tribunals which find against the local authority. The current system of accountability, however, does little to discourage non-compliance with Section 3 (SEND) of the Children and Families Act.

Access to timely and sufficient information, advice and guidance about the full range of post-school options for young people with SEND is generally poor.

Too often securing specialist FE feels like a battle for the young person and their family. They are facing a postcode lottery that causes undue anxiety.

What’s the solution?

Any future government should:

1. Ensure better provision planning at local and regional level
   • Set high expectations of local areas in relation to the strategic planning of post-16 provision for young people with SEND at local and regional levels including requirements to:
     • secure an appropriate mix and balance of provision, including both mainstream and specialist providers, to meet differing needs
     • address the shortage of supply and rising demand for specialist placements
     • engage in cross-boundary/sub-regional planning to avoid duplicating highly specialist provision
     • involve specialist colleges in strategic planning of post-16 provision and ensure their representation within relevant partnerships and on decision-making boards
   • Collect as much SEND data on young people in FE as it does on children in schools, and present and analyse it in a way that supports local areas to understand the national, regional and local position, and to plan 16-25 provision accordingly
   • Ensure continuous professional development is available to local authority staff to enable them to understand the needs of young people with SEND and to be able to strategically plan provision and commission the most appropriate FE placements for individual young people. See this in action – Case study 1
2. Strengthen the current system of accountability
   • Introduce penalties for non-compliance with legislation and the SEND Code of Practice including specific consequences for the poorest performing local areas that go beyond simply re-inspection
   • Ensure new local area inclusion dashboards specifically report on performance in relation to 16-25 provision, using metrics such as the percentage of post-school placements confirmed by the statutory deadline
3. Provide better information and support for young people and families about post-16 options
   • Require local authorities to share comprehensive information about the full range of post-16 options with young people and families from Year 9 onwards
   • Enable young people and their families to access independent support from a dedicated transitions adviser to help them understand their options.
4. Facilitate partnership-working between general and specialist FE colleges
   • Reform funding and commissioning systems to make it easier for general and specialist FE colleges to work together to meet the needs of individual young people and hence reduce the need for a binary choice between specialist and mainstream provision. See this in action – Case study 2

What’s going wrong?

Further education for young people with complex needs is under-resourced. There is not enough investment in growing specialist expertise or in developing or maintaining specialist facilities. Some local authorities are placing young people with more complex needs in unregulated provision where there is no independent assessment of quality at all. This cannot be acceptable.

It is the young people who suffer from this insufficient investment in specialist FE. Some are missing out on essential therapies or behaviour support or being denied a broad and challenging curriculum. Others are learning in sub-standard buildings or cramped conditions. Increased demand for specialist FE provision cannot be met when there is no resource to support growth, leaving some young people with no appropriate FE place at all.

What’s the solution?

Any future government should

1. Provide sufficient funding
   • reform the high needs funding system so that it works more effectively for FE providers and provides them with a more proportionate funding allocation that better reflects the balance of learners with SEND across schools and colleges
   • introduce a consistently applied mechanism for funding young people aged 16 to 25 with the most complex needs, who may need regional or national specialist provision that is not efficient to duplicate in every local area
   • introduce a one-off capital improvement fund for publicly-funded specialist FE colleges and thereafter grant them eligibility for future FE capital funding rounds from which they are currently excluded
2. Invest in workforce development
   • invest in specialist hubs to support the continuing professional development of specialist staff, including those working with young people with the most complex needs
   • include the benefits of working with young people with SEND in FE in government-funded FE recruitment programmes
3. Stop the use of unregulated high needs provision
   • require local authorities to inform the Department of Education of all post-16 providers they fund for provision to meet the needs of young people with an EHC Plan
   • require Ofsted to inspect that provision and resource it do so.

What’s going wrong?

The experience of leaving FE for many people with complex needs is of ‘falling off a cliff-edge’. There is little point in government investing public money in the further education of young people with SEND only to deny them the opportunity to put into practice the skills they have developed. There is too little post-FE support for getting and keeping jobs or to help them participate in their communities and enjoy fulfilling social lives. There is a lack of suitable accommodation and too few opportunities to engage in adult learning. As a result, young people with complex needs are at risk of losing the skills and behaviours developed in FE, and government gets a poor return on its investment in their education.

What’s the solution?

Any future government should:

1. Ensure better transition arrangements for FE leavers
   • Require local authorities to
     • signpost FE leavers to services that can provide ongoing support and to work with appropriate partners to develop these where they are currently insufficient
     • coordinate multi-agency post-college planning at least a term ahead of the education leaving date of a young person with ongoing support needs and before any EHC Plan can be ceased
   • Ensure funding arrangements support the increased involvement of social services and reduced educational input during a young person’s last term in FE. See this in action – Case study 3
2. Increase support for employment
   • Provide access to a trained specialist careers adviser for all young people with SEND
   • Reform the benefits system to address disincentives to work for young people with SEND and improve messaging to families
   • Increase the number of disability employment advisers trained in supported employment principles and practices
   • Provide a dedicated funding stream for post-college support for young people transitioning into employment and their employers.
3. Improve supported living arrangements
   • Invest in a range of suitable accommodation options for young people with SEND that support them to live as independently as possible, with other young people and in the area of their choice.
4. Increase lifelong learning opportunities
   • Require a fixed minimum proportion of the adult education budget in every local area to be spent on provision for people with learning disabilities.