Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of delays in autism diagnostic assessments on (a) the capacity of schools to make appropriate SEND provision for undiagnosed pupils and (b) disruption for other pupils in the same setting.

The government is clear that access to educational support should not be dependent on a child or young person having a diagnosis. Instead, evidence-based support should be put in place at the earliest opportunity following the identification of a need.

Effective, timely identification and intervention is critical to improving the outcomes of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Through our proposed reforms, we will build on best practice and conduct research to ensure settings develop evidence-based approaches for identifying needs early, whenever those needs emerge, from early years through to post-16. More information on these reforms is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/send-reform-putting-children-and-young-people-first/send-reform-putting-children-and-young-people-first-html-version.

The department will introduce clear statutory duties requiring settings to identify and meet needs through evidence-informed approaches, and to monitor children and young people’s progress to ensure needs are met appropriately.

Additionally, we are investing £200 million to ensure that all teachers, educators, teaching assistants, support staff and leaders across early years, schools and post-16 settings can be trained to support pupils with SEND.

The department is also investing around £1.8 billion over the next three years for local area partnerships, including local authorities and Integrated Care Boards, to develop a new ‘Experts at Hand’ offer. This offer is designed to strengthen the capability of mainstream education settings. This will be achieved by providing access to support from key services and health and specialist education practitioners.

We are carefully reviewing and taking into account all responses submitted to the SEND reform consultation. The department will publish its response in due course and bring forward legislation at the earliest opportunity.

Legislation will provide the foundation for our reforms and we will continue to engage closely with young people, parents and professionals on how these will work in practice.