As Baroness Morris and Lord Addington pointed out in a recent House of Lords debate, children and young people with special education needs and disabilities (SEND) have a habit of growing up. Without a clear pathway from education into employment, there is a huge risk that many young people who have been part of the SEND system will join the ranks of the ‘workless’ with whom the government is currently so concerned.
The government has repeatedly pointed out that despite the high level of spend on SEND, ‘outcomes for children and young people have not improved.’ The young people themselves and their families describe leaving the SEND system as they move on from full-time education as ‘falling off a cliff edge’. The lack of ongoing support, including for employment, and fear and uncertainty about the future can be a key factor in young people and their families wanting to hold onto a college place even where there is little further the college can offer them. It may also be driving some learners down a pathway of moving from one FE setting to another when other next steps would be more appropriate. Not only does this stall young people’s progress, it also results in additional costs to the public purse – Treasury take note – and it can mean for specialist colleges that places are not available to some of the young people moving up from school who could benefit from them.
At the same time, we have a disability employment gap of 27.9% which is at is widest for people with a learning disability where just 4.8% are in employment. There are 2.8 million people out of work through long-term sickness and the Office for Budget Responsibility is forecasting a £30 billion increase in sickness and disability benefits over the next five years.
What if the government thought about SEND reform and reducing the disability employment gap as part of the same puzzle? What if the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions stepped out of their silos to tackle these two issues together?
A key focus could be on lessening the risk of education leavers adding to the numbers of unemployed disabled people. If young disabled people can altogether avoid or minimise any initial period of unemployment, they are much less likely to lose skills and confidence and to settle into a pattern of unemployment. Achieving this would require much more carefully planned routes out of education into employment than are currently on offer. For some time, the government has been over-reliant on supported internships doing all the heavy lifting here. While undoubtedly ‘a good thing’, they are by no means the whole of the solution. Completion rates are high and progression into paid employment (an estimated 50%) is positive, but only 1% of 16 – 25 year olds with an Education, Health and Care Plan are on internships, and a freedom of information request by FE Week in 2022 revealed that only a quarter of them were still in paid employment a year after their internship ended.
So, what might a bridge out of education and the SEND system into employment look like, and what steps would we need to take to build it? We might start with three key objectives.
- Increase the number of young people with SEND who progress directly into employment from college.
- Help young people with SEND who progress straight from college into jobs to stay employed.
- Support young people leaving education to maintain their skills, attitudes and behaviours while they seek and apply for work.
1. Increase the number of young people with SEND who progress directly into employment from college
This will require supply and demand sides actions. On the labour supply side, preparation for employment provision in FE needs to be much more explicitly designed to enable young people with SEND to enter the local jobs market. It needs to reflect local skills needs, be based on relationships with local employers and be a key part of every local skills improvement plan (LSIP). Enhanced inspections by Ofsted should explicitly include how well learners with SEND are being prepared to meet local skills needs and enter the labour market. Young people also need access to tailored careers information advice and guidance from Year 9 onwards, underpinned by vocational profiling, as recommended in the recent Public Services Committee report, Think Work First. Equally, on the demand side, we need more incentives, levers and awareness-raising programmes to build employers’ appetite for recruiting and retaining young disabled employees.
2. Help young people with SEND who progress straight from college into jobs to stay employed
Some college leavers would benefit from a phased entry into work with paid work hours increasing over a period of time. A more flexible FE funding system would allow learners to start work mid-academic year, while remaining on roll at college. They could then continue with some aspects of their education and have the support of staff who know them well during this transition period. Colleges should also be able to release learners early from a preparation for employment course, without fear of any ramifications of ‘non-completion’, if they are moving into paid work.
Ongoing support for young people with SEND and their employers could be made available for a fixed period after they leave college and start work, underpinned by a dedicated funding stream. The support would enable the employer and the young person to navigate some of the tricky situations that currently cause jobs to breakdown after the initial honeymoon period. It would likely be light-touch and low cost and possibly not even used extensively, but it would play an important role both as a safety net and, from an employer perspective, as a way of mitigating the perceived risk of recruiting a disabled person. In many cases, the support might be provided by the college, building on existing relationships with the employer and the young person. This funding would be additional to and separate from access to work funding.
There may also be changes to the benefits system that would promote sustained work for this group. Suggestions from those with expertise in this area would be most welcome.
3. Support young people leaving education to maintain their skills, attitudes and behaviours while they seek and apply for work
A Job Centre Plus-funded support programme could be available for young disabled college-leavers as they become jobseekers. Initial links could be established in the learner’s final term so there is no hiatus between college and employment support, and therefore less chance that they fall between the cracks.
The offer would be designed to maintain aspiration for work, confidence levels and skills (adding new ones if needed), through group activity and work placement, while the search for work continues. It would include bespoke support for job search, application and interviews. Staff skilled and experienced in supported employment practices could help with brokering working interviews, ensuring reasonable adjustments at interview are sought and obtained, job-carved opportunities are explored, and access to work funding is sorted out. There are examples of such provision in the Public Services Committee report which could provide a blueprint for this offer.
Two key actions would help bring about the alignment needed between these two key policy areas.
- Metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of the SEND system could include one or more that assess how successful the system is in ensuring that young people move on from it to lead fulfilling, purposeful, included adult lives, including employment where that is appropriate.
- The Department for Work and Pensions’ forthcoming Get Britain Working White Paper could include plans for targeted support for young disabled education leavers to ensure they progress as seamlessly as possible into employment.
While there are costs associated with these proposals, there are savings too – short and long-term. Young people and their families will feel more confident about moving on from education if there is a clear pathway ahead of them, meaning some young people spending less time in further education. Given that a full-time college place is always going to be more expensive than an employment support programme, that’s a saving.
In the grander scheme of things, it surely makes sense to put structures in place to help ensure that the money currently being invested into the SEND system results in a return for the public purse. Young people in work will be contributing to the economy, their need for benefits will be reduced, as will their use of health and social care services. As for the young people, the gains will be huge. Paid employment will make them more independent, feel more included and valued, improve their self-esteem and give them social connections. Slowly but surely the ‘lose-lose’ SEND system could be turned into a ‘win-win’.
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