Prospect adds voice to open letter calling for govt pause on more “SEND improvement plans”

The Group Executive Council of Prospect’s Education and Children’s Services sector has collectively signed an open letter to Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, calling for a pause on announcing more “SEND improvement plans.”

The initiative, led by Special Needs Jungle, has been driven over concerns about continuing delays to the government’s SEND (special educational needs and disability) Review and its Green Paper proposals.

Special Needs Jungle’s open letter states:

“The recent disruptions at the ministerial level within the Department for Education and the corresponding lack of ministerial direction over the SEND Review, leaves us with concerns about the legitimacy of any forthcoming SEND improvement plan that may be published in the next few months.

“We are told that there were more than 7,000 responses to the consultation and that these were, until recently at least, still being analysed. However, we are concerned that the objections to the plans that many parents and organisations have fed back will have little impact on the proposals already laid out in the Green Paper.”

It goes on to highlight several concerns:

A difficult and inaccessible SEND Review consultation

The School’s Bill demise

• Lack of proposals on inequalities in the SEND Review consultation;
• Lack of legitimacy for any improvement plans;
• The possibility of a lack of consensus in the consultation.

The letter concludes by calling for:

“PUBLISH a straight analysis of the consultation as soon as possible. Let everyone see the results and let the new minister have time to get to grips with their brief and understand what is needed. Then work with everyone –the cross-sector Special Education Consortium, with SEND experts, and with parent-led organisations, as well as with LAs—to put our children, not politics, first

DELAY further plans for improvement until after the sector has had time to digest the responses and the minister has got up to speed with the issues.

REFRAME the proposals in the Green Paper to address the core issue: lack of accountability in the system.”

As well as signing the open letter, Prospect added its own comment:

“Prospect trade union calls on the Education Secretary to pause the announcement of more “SEND Improvement Plans” until everyone has had an opportunity to see and digest the response to the consultation and the changes that have happened in the interim to the Schools Bill and SEND plans announced since the consultation closed. There is too much inter-related work in all of these areas to consider progressing with one plan in splendid isolation. The absence of a joined-up plan, poses significant risks in terms of overarching strategy but also creates disjointed operational planning.”