In recent months there has been growing speculation that the government’s forthcoming reforms to the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system may involve restricting or even abolishing Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). Proposals are yet to be published but the suggestion is already controversial.
An EHCP is a document owned by an individual child or young person that confers a statutory right to receive whatever provision and support it sets out. The EHCP is issued by a local authority and should be reviewed annually. EHCPs are one of fundamental elements of the 0-25 SEND system that was introduced in 2014, so what would reforming EHCPs mean for college students?
The case against EHCPs
It sounds very beneficial for a young person to possess a document that makes sure they get the support they need. But it has been argued, for example in June by the Isos partnership, that EHCPs have contributed to a vicious circle in the school sector.
According to this argument, providing support for some school pupils on a statutory basis, drains resources and expertise from schools’ ability to meet needs as part of what is ‘ordinarily available’ to all pupils. So statutory support for some has made it harder for mainstream schools to meet the needs of others. This in turn creates further demand for EHCPs, for statutory support within mainstream, and even for places outside mainstream, in special schools. So the number of EHCPs has soared to more than 600 000 and the cost of meeting their requirements has soared too. The cost is called ‘high needs’ funding and is borne by local authorities, who are being pushed to verge of bankruptcy, yet seemingly without meeting the demand for support.
EHCPs in colleges
Colleges value EHCPs for three functions: to inform, plan and fund. Colleges need student information, a method of place planning, and a basis for calculating high needs funding. The trouble is that EHCPs are not very good at performing any of these tasks.
Student information in EHCPs is often vague, out of date, or not focused on preparation for adulthood. Uninformative EHCPs undermine both place planning and individual funding claims. AoC’s research this year about high needs in colleges revealed a shocking picture of funding not covering costs, not being agreed on time and then not being paid, all despite genuine efforts by both colleges and local authorities to build collaborative relationships.
In any case, most students with SEND do not have EHCPs, and there is no dedicated funding at all for post-16 students who have SEND but don’t qualify for high needs payments.
The proportion of mainstream college students with 16-18 funding who have SEND is 29.9%, much higher than the comparable figure in schools which is 19.5%. Of all college students with EHCPs, only 11% learn in specialist colleges, whereas of EHCPs held by school pupils 41% are in special schools.
This all means that SEND provision in colleges has problems, but not the same problems we hear about in schools. The figures show that colleges are very inclusive in who they enrol and support, despite the incentives in the system to do the opposite.
EHCP reform – a worst-case scenario
So what would happen without EHCPs? Instead of issuing documents that list each individual’s needs, a system could anticipate that needs will always be varied, and so allocate extra resource as funding for cohorts not individuals. Cohort funding might work well in schools. Staff would have extra training and better staffing ratios to support pupils with social, emotional and mental health needs, for example, or ADHD or autism. Schools could become more inclusive, with fewer pupils having to resort to special schools.
In colleges, though, the effect could be very different. Mainstream colleges already provide for students with much higher levels of need, including thousands of students with learning disabilities and medical needs who have progressed from special schools. Meeting such a broad range of needs requires significant income, as well as advance planning of numbers and resources. The challenge for funding this provision is similar to the challenge in special schools, not surprisingly as provision is for the same learners. So the same quantity of cohort funding that could work in mainstream schools would fail in mainstream colleges.
AoC’s research showed that high needs payments now account for around 9% of college budgets. It would not take much change in SEND income to tip colleges into financial jeopardy. Many could not then offer the SEND provision they do now. There would be a flight of students out of mainstream – the reverse of the government’s intention – except that it is hard to see how specialist colleges could stay in business either.
In other words, there is a danger that a perception of the brokenness of the system could lead to badly designed reforms that would undermine one of the system’s most positive features – the inclusiveness of colleges.
EHCP reform – a best-case scenario
Alternatively, what if EHCPs were replaced by something better? We could see a system like that in Wales where all students with ‘additional learning needs’ have an ‘individual development plan’, removing the gulf between those with and without EHCPs. Plans from schools could migrate to colleges digitally, perhaps alongside exam results as part of a digital Education Record. There would be implications for staff capacity but also real savings.
The costs of support in college could be met in three ways: enhanced cohort or programme funding for predictable costs, more clearly flagged health costs, and individual funding for exceptional costs. A carefully calibrated balance between these three would fill the existing funding gap for students with SEND but not high needs. Colleges would be incentivised to maintain the inclusiveness they practise now.
One option could be for individual plans to retain a role for funding and place planning in specialist provision. This would apply to all provision where a student with SEND learns alongside classmates who also have SEND, whether in a specialist or a mainstream college. It would be important that any distinct place planning process did not create barriers between different types of providers. Reform should instead build on the way that specialist colleges provide valued expertise to the rest of the sector, while enabling pathways for those students, like some with mental health conditions, who may need to access specialist provision for only a short time.
Meanwhile, separating health costs, like speech and language therapy, into a different funding stream could bring much-needed clarity, and need not undermine the integration of therapies into learning.
Some form of accountability would also be needed so that individual payments would cover but not exceed colleges’ costs. This could be achieved through an audit system – just as already happens with adult learning support.
EHCPs are a means not an end
What colleges want is that their students with SEND should learn in the right place, with accurate information about their needs, and with sufficient income, expertise and advance planning so that those needs can be catered for. EHCPs were supposed to fulfil these functions but they do so badly for students who have an EHCP and not at all for the larger number of students who do not. EHCPs are a means not an end. There may be better ways of ensuring that support matches needs.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how funding reaches colleges. It could be via local authorities or by some other route. What does matter is the detail of how that funding is calculated; it is in the detail that the incentives lurk for colleges to continue being inclusive or to become more selective about who they enrol. This dependence on detail is why there is a real risk of perverse consequences for college students if reforms are designed with only school pupils in mind.
For very many young people, college is the final stage of their preparation for adult life. Thousands upon thousands of children who are in school now, will progress to college in the future. These SEND reforms are an opportunity to design a system that works for them, and that will support them through all the phases of their education.
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