Not long after David Johnston replaced Claire Coutinho as the minister whose responsibilities include SEND and AP, news came through that Nick Gibb, who has been the schools minister on and off for 10 years, had chosen to return to the backbenches. His replacement is none other than a former secretary of state for education, Damian Hinds.

Shortly after he resigned, Mr Gibb told Tes Magazine: “I will never cease to be deeply involved in education policy until I believe the job is done… I am not giving up on education policy. I am just giving up on being a minister” (Tes, 14 November 2023).

It’s an interesting idea that the job could, at some stage, be ‘done’, even with ministers as energetic as Nick has been, with his phonics crusade, his enthusiasm for the more esoteric elements of grammar, and his suggestion that schools shouldn’t be rated good by Ofsted if their EBacc take-up is below the national average.    

As well as the comings and goings at the DfE, the year has seen the dawn of the SEND and AP Improvement Plan (SENDAP IP) and the start of its implementation. This summary sets out some of the detail of what is starting to happen, followed by a briefer account of the progress of the implementation of the reforms to children’s social care, and ending with a glimpse of what might be to come in 2024 – and beyond!

SENDAP IP

Since the Improvement Plan (IP) was published in March, Regional Expert Partnerships (REPs) have altered their name, to become Change Programme Partnerships (CPPs), and Local Inclusion Plans (LIPs) have been renamed Local Area Inclusion Plans (LAIPs).

To avoid the mistakes that led to the 2014 SEND Reforms never being fully realised, shortly after the IP was published, an SENDAP Implementation Board was set up and has been meeting every three months since June this year. The meetings are chaired jointly by a minister from the Department for Education (DfE) and a minister from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). Claire Coutinho has been replaced by David Johnston for the DfE, but Maria Caulfield is still at the DHSC. 

We’ve seen £70 million set aside for a Change Programme to test and refine the reforms. Director-general John Edwards and his nine regional directors (RDs) – who were former regional schools commissioners (RSCs) – are overseeing the work of nine Change Programme Partnerships (CPPs), which will pilot a number of the changes.

Each CPP consists of:

• One lead council
• Between one and three supporting councils that are geographically close together
• One NHS Integrated Care Board (ICB).

Since 2022, ICBs have been replacing Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). Each ICB has to have a named executive board member who leads on SEND and is accountable for progress in this area. This should help to ensure that the services work more closely together than they have done in the past.

To provide some further detail to the structure of the new system, the names of the RDs and the areas they cover, as well as the 31 local authorities (LAs) forming the CPPs are listed below.

Nine regional directors (RDs)

• Jonathan Duff (East)
• Claire Burton (London)
• Katherine Cowell (North East)
• Vicky Beer (North West)
• Dame Kate Dethridge (South East)
• Hannah Woodhouse (South West)
• Andrew Warren (West Midlands)
• Alison Wilson (Yorkshire and Humber)
• Carol Gray/Kate Copley (East Midlands), job share

Nine Change Programme Partnerships (CPPs)

• East: Bedford; Central Bedforshire and Luton
• London: Barnet; Camden, Enfield and Islington
• North East: Hartlepool; Durham, Gateshead and Stockton on Tees
• North West: Manchester; Oldham, Rochdale and Trafford
• South East: Portsmouth; Brighton and East and West Sussex
• SW: Gloucestershire and Swindon
• West Midlands: Telford and Wrekin; Herefordshire and Shropshire
• Yorkshire and Humber: Wakefield and Bradford; Calderdale and Leeds
• East Midlands: Leicester; Leicestershire and Rutland.

The SEND and Alternative Provision Roadmap

Published alongside the Implementation Plan was a Roadmap, which lists the main changes together with an indication of how much time it may take to introduce them. A sample of these changes is given below.

Already underway is the development of: 

• National standards for SEND provision that underpin many of the reforms
• Local Area Inclusion Plans (LAIPs) that plan the provision and support that should be available in each area in line with the national standards
• A national template for EHC plans, complete with a digitised version. 

Although a start has been made on piloting these changes, they are not expected to be fully in place until 2025. 

Also in the pipeline are:

• Local and National Inclusion Dashboards to support the development of LAIPs and help to inform decision-making
• A system of funding Bands and Tariffs to support the National Standards and create a more consistent approach
• Tailored Lists of appropriate settings to help parents of CYP with an EHC plan to make informed choices.  

The latter has come in for some criticism, as parent organisations are concerned that it may mean a narrowing of the list from which parents can choose. 

Further details of these and other changes, together with details of when they are due to happen, are contained in the eight-page roadmap referred to earlier.

NAHT’s SEND council

At the last meeting of NAHT’s SEND council, and in recognition of the government’s proposal to make SEND and AP into a single system, chair Marijke Miles announced that it had been agreed that the council would henceforth be known as the SEND and AP council.

Children’s social care

Some of you may recall that, in parallel with the SEND Review, The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care was underway. Unlike the SENDAP Improvement Plan, the government’s response: Stable Homes, Built on Love, was called an Implementation Strategy. This took the form of a further consultation, together with consultations on the separate elements of: a Children’s Social Care National Framework and a Children’s Social Care Dashboard. Since the government’s response to the above consultations was published in September, on 15 December, the government issued an update in the form of a policy paper, Children’s social care: reform statement.

This included four further announcements:

• A National Kinship Strategy that sets out support for family networks providing loving and stable homes for children
• A Children’s Social Care National Framework that sets out the purpose, principles and outcomes that should be achieved in children’s social care
• Updated guidance on working together to safeguard children, which sets out how to safeguard and promote the welfare of children
• A data strategy that gives long-term plans to transform data in children’s social care.

Further information on all these can be found in the policy paper statement.

The time ahead

This summary has looked at recent changes to DfE personnel; the progress of the SENDAP IP; and implementing the reforms to children’s social care.  In 2024, whether or not there are further changes to the DfE resulting from a change of government, could, in turn, affect both the SENDAP IP and the changes to children’s social care. In other words, as Donald Rumsfeld once remarked:

“There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don't know.”

In this day and age, it is impossible to predict what may happen next, apart from the fact that change itself is likely to go on accelerating. So I’ll end with a list of what we know is due to happen; what is likely to happen; and leave out the unknowns as there’s not much you can say about them!

2024

• January: Sir Martyn Oliver takes over from Amanda Spielman as HMCI, at a time when serious questions are being asked about whether Ofsted is a force for good
• Delayed publication of Ofsted’s Area SEND Thematic Review of Alternative Provision (AP) due in the New Year
• Spring: a general election could happen
• Autumn: a general election is likely to happen
• Ofsted’s Area SEND Thematic Review of Preparation for Adulthood (PfA) is due to be published
• September: the NPQ for SENCOs replaces the NASENCO Award.

2025

January: although the general election is said to be definitely pencilled in for 2024, it doesn’t have to take place until 28 January 2025.

If you're reading this before the Christmas break, season’s greetings. If it's in time for the New Year, then my very best wishes to you for 2024. Whoever is in power this time next year, I hope they will build on the steps that are already being taken to make SEND and AP into one successful system.