Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason her Department found that (a) national standards were required to underpin SEND provision and (b) that existing legislation including (i) the Equality Act 2010, (ii) the Children and Families’ Act 2014 and (iii) the SEND Code of Practice were not fit for purpose.

The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision Green Paper highlighted that early identification of needs and provision of support does not happen consistently across the system, despite the best efforts of the workforce. The inconsistency means that parents, carers and providers do not know what to reasonably expect from their local settings, resulting in low confidence in the ability of mainstream settings to effectively meet the needs of children and young people with SEND.

National Standards will set out clear expectations for the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream schools, who is responsible for securing it and from which budgets. This will give families and providers clarity and confidence in the support that is ordinarily available, reducing reliance on Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans to access support.

The department has a comprehensive legal framework relating to support for children and young people with SEND. At the heart is the Children and Families Act 2014, the related statutory guidance and the Equality Act 2010. The guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25.

We will build on this foundation through the introduction of National Standards to help guarantee a more consistent level of support for those with SEND, no matter where in England they live.

The department is setting up a steering group of cross sector representatives, that will include parent-carer representatives, to oversee the development of standards. We will also test the National Standards in the context of our £70 million Change Programme, to ensure they are iterated and set up for success. The development of National Standards may require some updates to SEND legislation and the SEND Code of Practice. We will publish the National Standards in full for consultation.