Category: Committee

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Committee Education Select Committee SEND Review

NNPCF gives evidence to the Education Select Committee

The NNPCF co-chair Mrunal Sisodia gave evidence to the House of Commons Education Select Committee on 24 May, when a session was held on the SEND Green Paper consultation.

Mrunal was joined by IPSEA chief executive Ali Fiddy, Local Government Ombudsman Michael King and Imogen Jolley, Head of Public Law at Simpson Millar.

In the evidence session Mrunal spoke to key points on the SEND Green Paper, including:

  • The need for the incentives in the overall education, care and health system to be aligned with the needs of SEND children, young people and their families.
  • The need for improved accountability in the sector to ensure that when needs were not being met issues could be addressed.
  • The need to listen to families and drive early intervention and stop families getting to crisis point before help is given. This increases needs, creates anger, frustration, mistrust, and costs more money.
  • The need for the Green Paper to say more about long term outcomes for young people with SEND beyond education such as employment, community inclusion and independent living.
  • NNPCF support for national standards in SEND provision that, if set properly and implemented effectively, would help to drive greater clarity in what families can expect and what services need to provide.
  • Parental concerns about naming a setting from a suitable list for children with EHCPs.
  • The importance of strong advocacy and independent support for parents, for example through SENDIAS services and keyworking.
  • The role of Ofsted and the desire from parents that no school should be classified as good or outstanding without being good or outstanding for SEND.

You can find a recording of the session here: The Government’s SEND Review – Committees – UK Parliament

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Committee

NNPCF gives evidence to the Public Accounts Committee

Following the publication of the National Audit Office report into SEND (you can find a link to the NNPCF news story here http://www.nnpcf.org.uk/national-audit-office-report-on-send/?LMCL=UpfhZI ), the influential Public Accounts Committee has launched an inquiry into SEND.

NNPCF co-chair, Mrunal Sisodia was invited by the committee to give evidence on the 30th September. Mrunal was joined on the panel by Richard Kramer from SENSE representing the Disabled Children’s Partnership, Phillipa Stubbs from the Council for Disabled Children representing the Special Educational Consortium and Matthew Keer from Special Needs Jungle.

The Public Accounts Committee considers how effectively government policies have been implemented and, in his evidence, Mrunal emphasised the importance of coproduction and the frustrations of parent-carers who are not listened to and do not get access to services until they are in crisis. He highlighted the experiences of children with SEND in mainstream schools as being a particular concern.

Mrunal also spoke about how SEND services needed more money and a greater priority from local leaders. In addition, the money that is in the system is not being spent effectively because of poor joined up working and commissioning across Education, Health and Care services.

You can watch the evidence session here https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/4201eaf8-85f9-4f4f-b83c-80616d072fb9

It also featured on Today in Parliament on Radio 4 (starts approximately 19 minutes in) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00098q0