Government launches consultation on SEN reform proposals

The aim of the consultation is to find ways to improve parents’ choice of schools and consider how funding for SEN support can be overhauled.

Responses from this period will be included in the government’s SEN green paper, which is due out later this autumn.

In launching the consultation, children’s minister Sarah Teather said: "Parents should be in control of their child’s education and future. They must be involved in discussions and decisions about the support they need rather than feel that they have to battle the system. I want to make it easier for parents to choose where their child is educated."  

Other issues being considering are how young people with SEN can be better supported when they leave school and how SEN can be spotted at an earlier stage.

Ways to prevent the closure of special education schools and how to involve parents further in decisions about their child's future are also being discussed.

The consultation has been welcomed by campaigners for children with disabilities.

Christine Leneham, director of the Council for Disabled Children, urged those who work with disabled children to respond and Julie Jennings, chair of the Special Educational Consortium said the consultation was "rightly focused on setting priorities and on taking practical action that is going to make a real difference".

Jolanta Lasota, chief executive of the autism charity TreeHouse, said: "All too often families come up against immense barriers when trying to access the services and support they need."

Teather did add that the government is to scrap the national disabled children’s services parental survey, which is used by councils and health trusts to measure performance, as "only a limited number of parents" responded to this in the past. She is calling for views on how parents can be better surveyed and consulted.

Laura Courtney, campaign manager for Every Disabled Child Matters, said: "I hope that [the parental survey] is replaced with another way of collecting views quickly so that there is not a gap."

The deadline for responses is 15 October.