The SEND improvement plan and reshaping EHCPs

One of the suggestions of the recent SEND review was to overhaul EHCPs, something that is being continued under the SEND AP improvement plan.

The Department for Education (DfE) commissioned the SEND Review in 2019. The aim of this review was to explore the challenges faced by children and their families with identified special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). In March 2022, after much consultation, a green paper was published which puts forward several suggestions as to how the SEND process can be better administered to improve efficiency and, ultimately, improve outcomes for those children and their families. In amongst the plethora of suggestion sits one around EHCPs (education, health and care plans).

Despite delays to parts of the implementation of the recommendations laid out in the SEND green paper, the SEND Alternative Provision Improvement Plan seeks to press on with revised EHCPs; “This will include delivery of digital requirements for EHCP systems to improve experiences for parents, carers and professionals, decrease bureaucracy and improve the ability to monitor the health of the SEND system.”

What does the DfE want to do with EHCPs?

In short, the DfE wants to streamline EHCPs. As things stand, there is a loose outline for EHCPs but the level of detail within them is at local discretion. This has resulted in inconsistencies at local and national levels, leading to inconsistent responses to them. This is particularly acute where professionals work across two localities: getting to grips with two interpretations of EHCPs takes time and increases the manual, administrative burden upon professionals.

As the SEND green paper notes; “There were inconsistences in the structure, length and formatting of EHCP forms, with the samples included in the analysis ranging from a maximum of 40 pages in one local authority to between 8 and 23 in another. The EHCPs produced by the local authorities in the sample would take approximately 50 minutes on average to read aloud to a child. This lack of consistency means that partners who work across multiple local authorities must navigate multiple processes and templates, reducing their capacity to deliver support and adding to their administrative burden… We therefore propose to introduce standardised EHCP templates and processes.”

Sounds sensible, how will it work in practice?

The central hook upon which EHCPs will be hung going forward will be via a template provided by the DfE – a standard EHCP template with supporting processes and guidance is expected in 2025. This will standardise the information captured, simplifying the interpretation of the information within them and making it easier to input appropriately into each child’s journey.

Another rule that the DfE is seeking to implement around EHCPs is that any changes to them will need to be signed off by the parents of the child. Their increased involvement is seen as central to the success of the SEND process going forward.

The fundamental change to the management and administration of EHCPs is that the DfE is looking to fully digitise them. This will make the process much more efficient and transparent, reducing bureaucracy, since each EHCP will have a fully auditable trail of activities and inputs. This will make interpreting each EHCP much quicker, too, since a complete record of professional and parental input will be visible to schools, professionals and parents.

Creating a central record will enable for greater control, ease of access and interpretation of data for everyone concerned. Children with identified SEND necessarily find themselves in a multi-agency scenario, so tying their record together digitally makes interpreting and understanding their journey easier.

This indicates that information sharing regarding identifying SEND beyond the boundaries of administering education support and placement is vital. For example, youth justice practitioners often identify unmet needs and have contextual and relationship information to contribute to a complete view of the child. Having rich information from multiple sources to consider in the SEND process is key to formulating practical support for their journey and enabling their future life achievements.

Technology supporting the single view

“We think the case is clear for all SEND services to move to digital systems for EHCPs. Digital systems can deliver better experiences for both families and professionals and enable them to continuously improve their services – focusing staff time on working with families rather than being hampered by partial understandings and disconnected bureaucracy.”

A number of different system and technology solutions exist across the education domain, so there’s no chance of every authority and school deploying the same software. Where the DfE will want the systems to work better for children is regarding consistency and interoperability.

Most systems have potential to support interoperability for a standard set of data fields curated by the DfE and to communicate with any third-party systems to send and receive as well as extract information. Whilst there are always challenges defining best practice categories through suitable consultation this will be vital in achieving earlier intervention and better SEND outcomes through the EHCP process.

Conclusion

A standardised response to EHCPs will make the entire process more accessible and easier to manage. The response to SEND should not depend upon where you live and the process should be transparent and consistent for everyone.

As a longstanding and experienced provider in the education domain, we have long seen the benefit of extended access to information as well as standards for interoperability with third party software. The ability to send and receive data seamlessly creates more accuracy and efficiency in the multi professional collaborative process that will ultimately benefit of children and families with identified SEND.

Creating a rich, single view of every child can only be beneficial in collating data for understanding behaviours and tracking responses. We too often see information, systems and processes and practitioners siloed and struggling to tackle the challenge of improving outcomes for the diverse needs of all children. So, this intervention from the DfE is welcome and so as a supplier we will be proactive in supporting this.