Champagne is not a regular feature at special educational needs regionalpartnership meetings, but last week's gatherings were something of anexception. Celebrations broke out across the 11 partnerships as wordfiltered through that they would be around for another two years afterall. "It's such good news," enthused one local co-ordinator. "We havebeen inundated with messages of good cheer."
The Department for Education and Skills' decision to continue providingthe special educational needs regional partnerships with 2.125m ayear (Children Now, 23-29 November) is a massive source of relief to allinvolved.
Despite some clear signs of progress, ministers had previously refusedto make a firm funding commitment and senior figures at the partnershipswere starting to fear the worst (Children Now, 19-25 October).
An expanded remit
The partnerships - and those working with them - are also broadlyoptimistic about the DfES's ambitious plans to expand their remit at thesame time.
In short, ministers now want them to focus on the needs of children incare as well as doing more to help children with special educationalneeds.
The details have not been finalised but, according to the department,one definite new focus will be helping the Government to meet its publicservice agreement target around placement stability for children incare. This means the partnerships will be charged with identifying themain factors that achieve a reduction in the number of unnecessary movesfor these children.
"I'm pleased on two fronts," says Mark Rogers, assistant director ofchildren's services at Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council and amember of the north-west regional partnership's steering group. "Firstof all, partnership working has been extended for two more years and wewere waiting for that announcement for ages," he says.
"Then the broadening of the remit beyond special educational needsissues is just what we need because it actually allows the partnershipto be much more focused on the heart of Every Child Matters. We havepreviously said that we'd like to broaden the remit beyond just specialeducational needs issues and clearly the DfES has listened to that."
Jackie Harrop, assistant chief executive (children's services) atWokingham District Council, is similarly welcoming of the newresponsibilities that are being handed to the partnerships.
"Broadening their remit is a good thing," she says. "So long as youbring the right degree of expertise into the partnership from thelooked-after side then I think it will be to everyone's benefit. There'san overlap between looked-after children and special educational needsanyway, and the issues that you're dealing with in terms of out-of-areaplaces are very similar."
Others agree that the new remit is a logical progression of what isalready happening in some of the partnerships. They point to the factthat the East Midlands regional partnership has drawn up a protocolfocusing on the needs of looked-after children who are moved from oneauthority to another. Nine local authorities are signed up to theinitiative under which they are obliged to ensure that when a child withspecial educational needs is placed in their authority, there is nodelay in them receiving the appropriate educational provision.
But while most people involved with the partnerships have welcomed thenew focus on children in care, there are some lingering concerns abouthow the future will pan out.
Losing local touches
Paul Fallon, co-chair of the Association of Directors of SocialServices' children and families committee, said that while theassociation would welcome any initiative that progresses a holisticagenda, it "may have some concern about any one-size-fits-all proposalthat is not sufficiently sensitive to regional differences andneeds".
Daisy Russell, senior development officer at the National ParentPartnership Network, says her fear is that the partnerships could loosentheir grip on special educational needs issues.
"The most important thing to us is that they are able to continue thereally good work they've done for children with special educationalneeds and their families," she says. "While I would welcome the wideningof their remit, I do hope that they can still retain special educationalneeds as their main focus."
Meanwhile, Hugh Clench, facilitator for the southern regionalpartnership, is most anxious about the fact that the Government is notincreasing the level of funding the partnerships will receive.
"It's good news that the partnerships are going to continue. And, giventhat we're moving towards joining up services and bringing down barriersbetween the different professional groups, it makes sense to broaden theremit of the regional partnerships so that they follow that same trend,"he says.
"But at the same time it's a fairly enormous task and this will be thefourth year that we've had the same level of funding with no increase ofeven inflation. It's going to be difficult to widen the scope at thesame time as having static funding."
KEY POINTS
- England's 11 special educational needs partnerships were set up in2000
- The Government has promised to provide 4.25m to continue theirwork for the next two financial years.
