By Vivienne Russell | 19 December 2012
Health providers should be legally compelled to provide Special Educational Needs services and assessments, according to MPs.
Commenting on SEN clauses in the draft Children and Families Bill, the Commons education select committee today backed the overall direction of the government’s reforms, but called for duties on the NHS to be beefed up. It also said many details needed to be clarified.Committee chair Graham Stuart said: ‘We believe that the draft legislation relies too heavily in its current form on the duty of joint commissioning between health and local authorities to ensure co-operation throughout the system.
‘It will be essential that the forthcoming regulations commit health providers to specific timetables when conducting SEN assessments and that responsibilities for health and local authorities in providing certain therapy services are substantially clarified.’
The clauses would bring in the biggest reforms to SEN in 30 years. They would replace SEN statements and Learning Difficulty Assessments with a simpler, single process, followed by the creation of individual Education, Health and Care Plans. Statutory protections would be extended up to the age of 25 instead of being cut off at 16 and parents and young people would be able to use personal budgets to buy in the support they require.
But the MPs said the draft legislation lacked ‘significant detail’, making it impossible to assess the impact of the proposals.
They made a series of recommendations, including a greater role for parents and young people in the design of local support and services (‘local offers’); closer working with further education providers; and the inclusion of independent special schools and colleges in the approved list of institutions.
