The plan to improve SEND and reshape EHCPs

The Department for Education (DfE) commissioned the SEND Review in 2019 with the aim to explore the challenges that families and children with special educational needs face.

In March 2022 the Government produced a green paper putting forward suggestions on how to make the SEND process better administered and how it can improve efficiency, which would, they say,  improve outcomes.

Despite many delays to the implementation of the recommendations laid out in the SEND Alternative Provision Improvement Plan it seeks to press on with revised EHCPs;

“This will include delivery of digital requirements for EHCP systems to improve experiences for parents, carers and professionals, decrease bureaucracy and improve the ability to monitor the health of the SEND system.”

The DfE wants to streamline EHCPs where currently there is a loose outline for EHCPs but the level of detail within them is at local discretion.

As the SEND green paper notes;

“There were inconsistences in the structure, length and formatting of EHCP forms, with the samples included in the analysis ranging from a maximum of 40 pages in one local authority to between 8 and 23 in another. The EHCPs produced by the local authorities in the sample would take approximately 50 minutes on average to read aloud to a child. This lack of consistency means that partners who work across multiple local authorities must navigate multiple processes and templates, reducing their capacity to deliver support and adding to their administrative burden… We therefore propose to introduce standardised EHCP templates and processes.”

Sounds sensible, but how will it work in practice?

The main point of all this is that EHCPs will be via a provided template from the DfE – a standard EHCP template with supporting processes and guidance is expected in 2025. This will standardise the information captured, simplifying the interpretation of the information within them and making it easier to input appropriately into each child’s journey. But as each child is an individual with differing needs and complexities, I do wonder how they will all fit into the relevant boxes as one size , in the case of EHCP’s, does certainly not fit all.

Another fundamental change to the management and administration of EHCPs is that the DfE is looking to make them fully digitised to make the process more efficient as each EHCP will have a fully auditable trail of activities and inputs.

Children identified with SEND find themselves in a multi-agency situation and the idea is that having their records tied together digitally will make it easier to interpret and understand their journey through the system.

This means that information sharing regarding the identification of SEND beyond boundaries of education support and placement is crucial. For example, others not currently included in the process, such as youth justice practitioners, can often identify unmet needs and have contextual and relationship information to contribute to a complete view of the child.

“We think the case is clear for all SEND services to move to digital systems for EHCPs. Digital systems can deliver better experiences for both families and professionals and enable them to continuously improve their services – focusing staff time on working with families rather than being hampered by partial understandings and disconnected bureaucracy.”

My concern is the availability of access to the information and the who will be responsible of its security given the rulings of GDPR.

It is said that a standardised response to EHCPs will make the entire process more accessible and easier to manage.

If only we had standardised children with SEND