Parents frustrated by the multiple failings of England’s special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system have been warned it is not realistic to expect reform to happen quickly, as MPs announced another inquiry into the crisis.
MPs on the cross-party education committee in Westminster say the latest inquiry will seek to find practical solutions rather than just point out problems. The report from the previous one, which went on for 18 months, was published in 2019.
Labour MP Helen Hayes, who chairs the latest iteration of the committee, said they were aware this was “probably the deepest crisis” in the whole of the education and children’s services sector.
“We know that there has been a great deal of analysis of the issue,” she said. “What we are hoping to do is to focus on where reform is needed, what good practice could look like and where can we learn lessons.”
Tania Tirraoro, the founder and co-director of Special Needs Jungle, which offers information and resources for families affected by Send, expressed frustration at yet another inquiry. “Why don’t they just read what everybody else has said? It’s nothing that’s going to improve things right now – right now is where the problem is.”
Speaking before the launch of the inquiry on Friday, Hayes said: “It’s a huge task. If this task was easy to solve, it would not be such a deep crisis. The situation as it is at the moment is not sustainable, neither is it acceptable.”
Asked how long it might take to turn the system around, she said she was optimistic that solutions could be found, but added: “I don’t believe it’s realistic to say transformative change can happen very quickly.”
Hayes painted a desperate picture of the state of Send services across the country, with trust between parents and local authorities broken, children out of school and unable to access the support they need, headteachers in tears because they cannot meet children’s needs and MPs’ surgeries full of distraught parents.
“There’s such a sense of responsibility that we get this right across the whole of the House of Commons,” said Hayes. “MPs see the consequences of a system that is not working every single day.
“None of us confronted with the reality of these stories of families who are being failed, of children whose childhoods are being spent just fighting all the time for support that should be there for them, can ignore that responsibility. We have to do better.”
The committee plans to focus on how to stabilise the system in the short term, and achieve long-term sustainability with improved outcomes for children and young people, looking at every phase of education, from early years to the age of 25.
As part of their inquiry they will look at systems to support children with special educational needs in other countries, including Canada where there are higher levels of satisfaction among families, and Scandinavian countries.
The committee will also investigate how mainstream schools can be more inclusive of children with Send, including changes to the curriculum and improving support and training for teachers.
They will look at how to increase capacity and, with many councils building up huge deficits because of rising Send costs, the committee will consider reforms to the way Send is funded, and what happens when the statutory override, a fudge which keeps the deficits off local authority books, expires in 2026.
MPs will also investigate potential alternatives to education, health and care plans – legally binding documents that detail a child’s additional needs, but “without reducing the level of support available”.
“This crisis has many symptoms that bleed into the rest of the education system, from attrition in the teaching workforce to soaring levels of pupil absence,” said Hayes.
“There are also symptoms which blight local councils’ budgets – ever increasing spending on transporting pupils to settings far from where they live, and the chaos of money being poured into tribunals that parents are expected to win. It’s widely accepted that many more councils could face effective bankruptcy if change doesn’t come soon.
“There is absolute clarity that as a country we can’t continue with this endless cycle of failure. Turning this ship around will likely take years of careful reform, but the cross-party education committee will play our part by making evidence-based recommendations that the government can implement.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are determined to restore the confidence of families up and down the country and deliver the change they are crying out for, and we will work closely with the education select committee to do this.
“We are already making progress, with £1bn extra investment in day-to-day services, £740m directed to support local authorities to create more specialist places in mainstream schools and the curriculum and assessment review which will look at barriers that hold children back from the best life chances.”