The Children and Families Bill must be backed up by resources

The recent publication of the Children and Families Bill heralds what has been promised to be the most significant reforms to special educational needs in three decades. Parents and families of children and young people with autism and the professionals who support them have been waiting with baited breath for its arrival.

Now the Bill is here want does it mean? First and foremost, it will have a wide-reaching impact and will dramatically change the way children and young people with autism access support. The consideration the government has given to how the Bill will improve the ability of young people with autism who are past compulsory school age to access further education, training and employment is worth praising. However, the Bill doesn’t yet go far enough to guarantee that young people with autism will be able to access the education they need if they are to really thrive. Ambitious about Autism’s Finished at School campaign has highlighted that less than one in four young people with autism access further education and the Bill must go further if this moral and financial absurdity is to be reversed.

One particular aspect with the Bill concerns young people aged 19 to 25 subject to an Education Health and Care Plan who fall out of education. It is a rite of passage for many young people to take time out of education – after all, that’s what a gap year is for – and life can also get in the way, such as a health issue interrupting studies. For young people with autism in these circumstances the Bill has to contain a duty on local authorities to undertake a review of the support it offers a young person with a plan when they become “not in education employment or training”. The current suggestion that a local authority undertake such review should it see fit may allow some young people to slip through services and not fulfill their potential. This will cost them and in the long run UK PLC too.

Finally, a note of caution before we all celebrate the potential success of the proposed legislation. What this Bill needs is long-term, cross-party support and a commitment to fund the needs of children and young people with special educational needs in the future. The Bill is being introduced against a backdrop of deep cuts to the budgets and services that children and young people with autism and their families depend on and, at the same time, schools and colleges are adapting to an entirely new funding system. Without adequate resourcing the Bill will fail to improve outcomes for young disabled people and in this circumstance, robbing Peter to pay Paul will not have the desired result.  Let us hope the government means to do what is right and means to see that right into reality. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
Andy Lusk is director of autism services at Ambitious about Autism. Follow Ambitious about Autism on Twitter https://twitter.com/#/ambitiousautism