Children: Disability

(asked on 2nd June 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking through the SEND Green Paper to ensure that every family with a disabled child receives the social care support they need.


Answered by
Will Quince Portrait
Will Quince
This question was answered on 14th June 2022

The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper aims to ensure the right support is delivered for children and young people with SEND. The government is proposing to introduce national standards for how needs are assessed, identified, and met across education, health and care in order to drive greater national consistency. There is a clear focus on SEND in health workforce planning, new analysis will be commissioned into the level of demand for relevant health services for those with SEND.

There are also a number of measures in the green paper to strengthen accountability, including proposed new local and national dashboards which will set out performance data and metrics for education, health, and care. The Green Paper also sets out that statutory guidance will be produced clarifying that statutory responsibilities for SEND must be delegated to an ICB (Integrated Care Boards) Executive Lead and that The Health and Care Act provides intervention powers for NHS England where ICBs are found to be failing to deliver their statutory duties. The Green Paper is open for consultation until 22 July and the government will publish a national SEND and AP delivery plan later this year setting out the government's response to the consultation and how change will be implemented in detail.

The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care has also now published its final report, making a number of recommendations on the support that disabled children should receive. To respond to this review, the department will publish a detailed and ambitious implementation strategy later this year. The government is committed to aligning this with the SEND and AP reforms so that we build a coherent system with the best interest of all vulnerable children at its heart.

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