💬”Indeed, there is little value in a legal entitlement to provision if that provision does not exist.”

Excellent piece @lukesibieta.bsky.social

Frustrating how "it's hard to change people's views" has metastasised into "there's no point ever making an argument".

There is no solution to any of these problems that doesn’t involve building 500k or so homes a year that will bring real negative pressure on rent by materially outstripping new housing demand.

In policy terms, the search for 'things that are not scrapping the limit but tackle child povery' has just led to a bunch of policies that don't work all that well. Labour well on its way to spending enough on 'things to make Labour MPs less unhappy about not doing two child' to have done two child.

I think another helpful test is: “would a support unit improve access to learning from where we are now?” and/or “what would it take for support units to be a step on a journey towards inclusion?” For some schools (like Dixons) the answer to Q1 might be no, but for others it will definitely be yes

I agree with you that in an ideal world the focus would be on enabling as many children to be in mainstream lessons as possible - but policy doesn’t exist in a vacuum & must respond to the reality of a doubling of EHCPs & overflowing special schools.

Really important post with some v sensible tests for success. The tricky thing for DfE is that they’re trying to stem the flow to special schools via this policy & they think units are the way to give parents confidence & schools the resources they need.

One of the leaders I worked with in our report put it v plainly. “The current accountability measures are driving a wedge between what is right for the school and what is right for the students.”

Yes! This is so key, Ben. Accountability measures drive perverse incentives - including around admissions, off-rolling, seeking EHCPS etc. We make it hard & undesirable for schools to ‘hold on to’ children who require something a bit different.

The tribunal point is really important & demonstrates how poor the law is. If you applied the law to all children, tribunal would probably find 49% of them met the threshold. The legislation itself is bad which drives a lot of the problems.

Exactly. I wonder if some of the answer lies in separating out the various functions/rights of EHCPs (funding, school placements, tribunals etc.) Rather than making it an all/nothing. EHCPs were never designed to be funding docs & I would start by breaking this link explicitly.

I agree there are too many EHCPs. My worry comes from the inherent biases in deciding who “deserves” them & not. Eg, SEMH & children in AP have been overlooked for decades & I fear they would lose out here, despite being some of the most vulnerable children. Others will have different worries.

I agree EHCPs are (on aggregate) ineffective. I’m not persuaded that this means it’s morally okay to take them off some kids and not others (presumably in the hope that they become more effective for a smaller group?). I’m not sure statements were effective either.

I do also think much of the law is bad & needs cleaning up too. My worry is that we default to a narrative of “deserving” and “undeserving” SEND to decide who gets to keep legal protections & who doesn’t.

Yes agree with all of this. EHCPs are essentially individual commissioning documents, largely written by junior bureaucrats, with some small input from professionals, written devoid of the context of the school. I share your worries on getting rid of them, but also can’t see how we can continue…

And local authorities have little/no levers over schools to make them do anything. It’s the LA who is held account by the tribunal and ombudsman, not schools…