Failure of EHCP transitions?

The Department for Education (DfE) has released an open letter sent to all local authorities. This letter suggests that transition from Statement to Education, Health and Care Plan is causing serious concern within central government.

Edward Timpson MP, Minister of State for Children and Families, is the DfE minister who is managing the special educational needs and disability reforms. Yesterday, 13 July, he sent an open letter out to all directors of children’s services and all lead members of children’s services at every local authority.

The letter can be found here.

EHCP transition

Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) were introduced by the Children and Families Act 2014. Children with a Statement of Special Educational Needs will make the move to EHCP by a transition process.

The most recent advice from the DfE about how the local authority should handle the transition from Statement to EHCP is here.

In order for a child to move from Statement to EHCP they must also go through an EHC needs assessment. This means that the local authority must seek advice and information from the following people:

• Parents/young person themselves if over 16.
• Educational advice (usually from head teacher or principal of post-16 institution).
• Medical advice and information from a health care professional.
• Psychological advice and information from an educational psychologist.
• Advice and information in relation to social care.
• Advice and information from any other person the local authority thinks is appropriate.
• Where the child/young person is in or beyond year 9, advice and information in relation to provision to assist the child/young person in preparation for adulthood and independent living.
• Advice and information from any person the child’s parent or young person reasonably requests that the local authority seek advice.

We have written previously about local authorities stating that they did not have to complete an EHC needs assessment in order to move from EHCP to Statement. This is wrong in law.

The current requirement is that the local authority completes the process of transition within 16 weeks. This includes a full EHC needs assessment.

Local authorities are struggling

Since the Children and Families Act 2014 took force in September 2014, we have advised a number of families about the transition process. In our experience, all local authorities are struggling with the process of transition.

It is not surprising that local authorities are struggling. They have been told that they need to transfer all children with a Statement to EHCP by 31 March 2018. That is now less than three years.

As of 15 January 2015, there were 235,980 children with a Statement of Special Educational Needs. For each of these children, the local authority must go through the 16 week transition process, including an EHC needs assessment.

The national cost of moving all Statements to EHCPs is estimated to be around £1.2 billion. This will be shared by all local authorities over the next three years. The amount each local authority will have to spend will depend on the number of children they have with a Statement. On average, it is roughly £3 million per local authority per year.

This cost comes at a time when all local authorities are facing continued cuts and austerity measures.

Central government has released £35 million to help with the transition. This has been shared out between all local authorities. It amounts to a contribution of 2% towards the costs of transition.

Aside from the costs of transition, there are simply insufficient educational psychologists, medical professionals and social workers to be able to comply with the requirement to undertake an EHC needs assessment for each child moving from Statement to EHCP.

The EHC needs assessment process requires the local authority to obtain and process far more advice than it had to when preparing a Statement of Special Educational Needs. The process of preparing a Statement could also take 26 weeks. Therefore, the EHC needs assessment has to happen far quicker, and requires far more advice, than local authorities are used to.

It is worth bearing in mind that there were ‘pathfinder’ local authorities who trialled the new EHCP system before the Children and Families Act 2014 took force in September 2014. Those Pathfinders were responsible for letting the DfE know difficulties and agreeing time frames.

We act for parents exclusively. It is deeply troubling for parents to face situations where local authorities have clearly legal obligations but do not have the time, money, resources, expertise and/or personnel to comply with their legal obligations.

What the letter says

The letter clearly indicates that central government has noted problems.

The body of the letter sets out concerns that the 16 week time limit is too short. There is also a warning that the EHCP must not be a re-branded Statement.

We have noticed substantial practice of local authorities simply ‘dropping’ the Statement into the EHCP mould. This practice must be rife for Edward Timpson to reiterate that the practice is not acceptable.

The letter makes two important announcements.

Firstly, the DfE will be asking their delivery support partner to provide local authorities with help in transition.

Secondly, from September 2015, the DfE will be changing the advice about transition from Statement to EHCP. This will mean that local authorities will have 20 weeks to complete transition.

Local authorities are required to give two weeks’ notice to parents and schools before the transition process starts. This notice period is likely to stay. This means that when you receive the letter advising that transition will take place, the 20 week time limit will not start for a further two weeks.

The renewed timetable will be applicable only for children who start transition from Statement to EHCP on or after 1 September 2015.

Conclusions

In reaction to the publication of this letter, twitter users have been asking whether this shows a failure in the guidance or a failure by local authorities.

The issue with the transfer from Statement to EHCP should have been identified by the Pathfinder local authorities. Equally, when preparing the guidance and advice, the DfE should have recognised that EHC needs assessments represent more work in less time than local authorities were used to.

The publication of this letter, and the change of the time limits, must be because local authorities are either uniformly failing to comply with current guidance or are preparing inadequate EHCPs in order to comply with time limits.

The fact that time limits are being changes is recognition that existing time limits were unachievable if a worthwhile EHCP was to be obtained. This calls into question the quality of the 2,765 EHCPs transferred from Statements in this first year.