One in eight children in special schools have parents who spent £5,000 or more on their assessments, according to research that reveals huge inequalities in how parents navigate England’s special educational needs system.
The research comes as the government is planning to overhaul special educational needs and disabilities (Send) provision in schools. Despite earlier reports that education, health and care plans (EHCPs) that detail support for each child would be scrapped as part of the overhaul, sources have told the Guardian that the plans will now survive the reforms.
The report by the Sutton Trust found that 65% of working-class families interviewed spent nothing on their child’s EHCP application, while only 29% of middle-class families did the same. In contrast, one in 10 of the middle-class families interviewed had spent more than £5,000 on the application process, including medical assessments, consultants and legal advice.
EHCPs were introduced in 2014, as a legal agreement between local authorities and parents for the additional support required based on a child’s needs. But the Sutton Trust report shows that parents able to spend thousands of pounds on their child’s applications were more likely to obtain sought-after special school places.
The research found that 12% of parents with children in special schools had spent £5,000 or more on their EHCP application, compared with just 1% of those attending mainstream schools.
Affluent parents were also more likely to contest local authority decisions at tribunals, the vast majority of which result in the successful award of an EHCP. Overall, middle-class parents were eight percentage points more likely to obtain an EHCP for their child than working-class parents.
Nick Harrison, the chief executive of the Sutton Trust, which campaigns for improving social mobility, said: “It’s unacceptable that a child’s background can dictate whether they get the help they need to thrive and be happy at school. This is a major barrier to their opportunities and can profoundly impact their long-term prospects.
“Right now, disadvantaged kids with Send are being failed by a system beset with inconsistency and mind-boggling bureaucracy. Getting the right support for a child shouldn’t be about a parent’s ability to pay. We need urgent action to make the system work better for everyone.”
Margaret Mulholland, the Association of School and College Leaders’ Send and inclusion specialist, said: “Schools and colleges work tirelessly to support these students but they are critically under-resourced and face wider problems of delays to assessments for EHCPs, and shortages of specialist staff such as speech and language therapists.
“Desperate families often pay for assessments themselves and fight for the level of care they want for their child through tribunals. But such measures are often more difficult for disadvantaged families and this means that we effectively have a two-tier system.”
The report found that children with special needs from poor backgrounds were “doubly disadvantaged”, likely to receive less support at school and end up with worse exam results than their better-off peers.
While 26% of schoolchildren in England qualify for free school meals, they account for 44% of children with EHCPs, while a further 39% receive additional support without an EHCP.
A Guardian investigation into the costs of Send found the highest-spending local authorities were concentrated in large, wealthy county areas in the south-east and east of England with higher prevalence of affluent parents.
Of the 10 English councils with the largest accumulated Send deficits, four were in the wealthiest fifth of council areas and a further five in the wealthiest two-fifths.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “Support should be based on children’s needs, not where in the country they happen to live, the ability of their parents to make the case, or whether or not they have an EHCP – which given shortages of funding and specialist staff is far from a silver bullet to ensure pupils get all the help they need.”
Georgia Gould, the minister for school standards in England, said: “This report lays bare how badly children with Send have been let down and denied the opportunities and support they deserve. Our mission is to break down barriers to opportunity so every child, not just the privileged few, can achieve and thrive.
“I’ve met parents who’ve had to fight every step of the way and we will not stand by whilst they continue to face a system that has failed them for far too long. That’s why we’re building a system with improved training for teachers, £740m to help create more specialist school places and earlier intervention for speech and language needs – reassuring parents that support will be available for, as routine at the earliest stage.”
