The Secretary of State for Education has issued a notice to modify section 42 of the Children and Families Act 2014.
This notice will be relevant to:
- local authorities
- health commissioning bodies
- children and young people with EHC plans
- parents
- others involved in the EHC plan process
It will modify the duty on local authorities to secure special educational provision and on health commissioning bodies to arrange health provision in accordance with EHC plans, so that they can discharge this by using their ‘reasonable endeavours’.
The notice applies from 1 May 2020 to 31 May 2020.
Under the Coronavirus Act 2020, the Secretary of State for Education can issue notices to temporarily remove or relax statutory requirements where this is an appropriate and proportionate action relating to the incidence or transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19).
Fazilet Hadi, policy manager at Disability Rights UK said “Any weakening of responsibilities to meet the needs of children and young people with EHC plans, could put pupils and students at greater disadvantage. Whilst support may have to be adapted due to the crisis, from that shown in EHC plans, young people with additional needs, urgently require the appropriate support to be put in place.”
For further information, please go to the link:
The SEN Lawyer and blogger Hayley Mason writes about this in her column on the website Special Needs Jungle: