Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that reform programmes for SEND and children's services are joined up so that the social care needs of disabled children and their families are met.

The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care published its final report on 23 May 2022. The Review heard from many families raising disabled children and has made a number of recommendations for disabled children, including around family help and the need to destigmatise support. The government will publish a detailed and ambitious implementation strategy for children’s social care.

The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper sets out proposals, including the creation of a single SEND and AP system in England with nationally agreed standards about the support that will be provided. The consultation closed on 22 July 2022, and the department will set out its plan for delivering improvements to the SEND and AP system later this year.

The government wants the best outcomes for children and families, with an approach that aligns the response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care with the reforms to the SEND system, to meet the needs of disabled children and their families. Our plans for children’s social care and SEND reform are being drawn up in parallel and we will continue to work closely so that reforms resulting from these reviews lead to a coherent system that works for all vulnerable children.