Alex Sampson, Plymouth Socialist Party
The Labour government has announced its overhaul of SEND provision for young people, causing concern for children, teachers and parents.
Under new plans, instead of getting education, health and care plans (EHCPs), young people will be assessed for the new individual support plans (ISPs) which, depending on the level of support required, will be split into ‘targeted’, ‘targeted plus’ – which are to be agreed between schools and parents and reviewed annually – and ‘specialist’ needs. Only young people assessed as being within the ‘specialist’ layer of support will receive an EHCP, which will be young people with the most complex disabilities.
If this seems confusing and unnecessarily complicated, imagine how it will feel for stressed parents trying to negotiate this system and get their children the help they need to make the most of the education system. It is well-nigh impossible enough now as it is, but with these new layers of rules and definitions, it is likely to become insurmountable to those who don’t know how the system works.
And this is what the government is relying on. EHCPs are a legally enforceable framework of support for the needs of young people (up to the age of 25) which have to be delivered on by the local authority. The new ISPs are purely an agreement between schools and parents and there is no legal redress to ensure that schools are delivering support to these children.
Thanks to the removal of schools from local control into academies, local authorities have had minimal influence over schools to reinforce EHCPs for some time. So the system needed to be overhauled, but by bringing schools back under local democratic control rather than removing more children from the EHCP pathway and the support they need. Charities are suggesting around 270,000 children will lose their EHCPs under these new rules, which will save the government billions of pounds annually.
This is the real reason for the changes to the current system. The number of children with an EHCP has doubled since 2014, despite waiting lists for assessments being vast. It is undeniable that the SEND system costs a huge amount of money, but to just remove legally enforceable help from young people risks their already massively swamped schools to struggle further. As education budgets have been cut over the last decade and a half, councils have increasingly relied on privatised facilities to cover their legal obligations around SEND. The amount of money that is going directly to private profiteers is the real cause for the massive budgets, and should be brought back in-house.
Ultimately, the people who will lose out are the children who will be massively disadvantaged by the loss of necessary support within the education system, which will impact them for their whole lives.
It is absolutely unacceptable that children’s futures should be put at risk simply to save money, but it is the way capitalism works. This is why we need to fight for a socialist system which would give us fully funded health, social care and education systems, under the democratic control of education workers, student organisations and the local working-class community. We have the resources to ensure all children’s needs are met, allowing them to reach their full potential, no matter what, but it is currently hoarded by the super-rich. As Keir Starmer and his Labour government are acting in the interests of that same super-rich, we will have to fight for the services we need and the resources to properly fund them.
