CCLC welcomes the Department for Education white paper Every Child Achieving and Thriving and the consultation SEND reform: putting children and young people first but awaits further detail on whether children will receive meaningful legal protection
We welcome action to reform the SEND system to better help children and families access the help they need at the earliest opportunity. As a leading charity specialising in SEND law in England and delivering support to families, CCLC knows first-hand how difficult it can be to access meaningful tailored support in the current system, and what families go through to secure what their children need.
We welcome the announcement that more children will have access to individualised plans. We also welcome news that the Tribunal is being retained as a meaningful and substantive failsafe and the introduction of transparency and accountability measures for local authorities which fail to implement Tribunal decisions. We welcome the retention of EHCPs for those who need them and that no child will be asked to leave a special school. For children with complex needs, provision must be personal and individualised and based on need, not only on a nationally defined Specialist Provision Package designed by an independent expert panel.
We welcome schools being under a duty to give a child who needs it an individual support plan and the aim for these to be co-produced with families. We await further detail on how, and whether, the reconfigured complaints system will amount to a meaningful system of redress for children whose needs do not qualify them for a Specialist Provision Package, and how the duty to provide an individual support plan will constitute meaningful legal protection for children.
