Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of moving SEND children onto Individual Support Plans on legal rights, risk to harm and recognisability of hidden disability.

Our reformed system will focus on earlier, more accurate identification of need, ensuring children and young people receive the right support at the earliest possible point without relying on diagnosis. The National Inclusion Standards will include whole school, universal approaches, as well as tools and approaches to identify and respond to needs through the targeted/targeted plus layers of support. These new Standards will support teachers to notice and identify where children or young people may be experiencing barriers to their learning, and suggest evidence-based approaches to support them.

Experts at Hand will also provide expert advice direct into settings to support staff to identify needs, without the need for bureaucratic hurdles.

The proposal is for Individual Support Plans (ISPs) to provide a record of need and provision for any child or young person receiving targeted, targeted plus or specialist support in school or college developed with children and parents/carers.

We have carefully assessed the impact of all our proposals and this is included in our published SEND reform: equalities impact assessment and SEND reform: child’s rights impact assessment.

Under our proposed reforms, Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) will continue to exist, guaranteeing statutory entitlements to education and health provision, with content agreed in consultation with young people and parents. Children and young people will be eligible for an EHC plan in the reformed system, if they need the support set out in a specialist provision package which will provide comprehensive, evidence-based support.

After a 12 week consultation period including over 200 engagement events, meetings and roundtables, the consultation has now closed and we are carefully considering responses.