DR UK responds to SEND Crisis Inquiry

Disability Rights UK (DR UK) has responded to the Education Select Committee's Solving the SEND Crisis Inquiry. You can read the full response below. 

The committee's aim of this inquiry was to "focus on how to achieve both short term stability and long-term sustainability for the SEND system to improve experiences and outcomes for children and young people". This comes after "a number of recent reports have set out in detail the extent of the crisis in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system, which is letting down children and their families, creating intense pressure on local authority funding and on schools." 

The inquiry welcomed evidence on the following key areas: 

• Support for children and young people with SEND 
• Current and future models of SEND provision 
• Accountability and inspection of SEND provision
• Finance, funding and capacity of SEND provision

In total, it covered over 40 questions across the four topics. 

Disability Rights UK's response challenged the scope of the inquiry, arguing that the failures of the SEND system are often misrepresented. Growing demand, financial unsustainability, and pressure on local authorities and schools are the most common issues highlighted, but this implies that the problem that needs fixing is the needs of Disabled children, not the system built to gatekeep and delay support. 

DR UK argued that the following issues are what's led to the SEND Crisis:

• The education system is institutionally and systemically ableist.
• Policy and practice prioritise gatekeeping support.
• The current SEND system ignores provision for the majority, despite legal obligations.
• The crisis in support provision happens before the classroom (including harmful attendance policies, disproportionate exclusions and transport restrictions). 
• The SEND system has a vacuum of accountability at every stage and level, which has enabled and normalised widespread unlawful practice.

Many recommendations were given on how to resolve these issues, and a consistent message throughout was that a Disabled child's access to education, as per their human right, must be a given - not an optional financial choice. 

You can read the full response, including all evidence and recommendations, by downloading the below attachments. 

Bethany Bale, DR UK Education Campaigner, said: "The scope of this inquiry is disappointing. For too long, Disabled children and their families have been blamed for the failures of the SEND system.

The SEND Crisis is not an issue of 'financial sustainability'; it is an issue of rights. Treating it as an economic debate is what has led to a vacuum of accountability, poorer outcomes for Disabled people, and the vilification of parents and young people fighting to access what they’re entitled to. To chronically underfund SEND provision is a political choice, not inevitable nor necessary. 

The most powerful way to tackle disability inequality in this country is to co-produce transformative change in education with Disabled people and our organisations, to create a system that no longer sets Disabled children up to fail."