Private Eye has a recurring column which appears under the satirical banner, ‘24 hours to Save the NHS’. At the heart of that incantation is a truth that applies directly to the SEND and AP Sector.
The NHS is never going to fall over in a day, and neither will specialist education. What will happen is far more insidious: without short-term, practical interventions, lives will continue to be negatively affected.
If a pound was paid for every page of consultation and green paper, evidence or opinion submitted to various committees, working parties and steering groups, we would not be dealing with the daily realities of staff burnout, workforce reduction, family frustrations and unmet needs.
That is not to say we don’t need long-term planning and reform. We really do. Our sectors and local areas are actively developing them, and we’re committed to long-term change.
But listening without acting soon becomes its own form of failure. We also need pragmatic responses with immediate impact, and as much as possible these should align with a plan for long-term change. Indeed, they should shape it.
There are many examples of excellent initiatives leading the way. Some LAs are establishing independent provision in contravention of their Safety Valve agreements to combat profiteering. Others, like Veronica Armson and the Phoenix Specialist Classrooms project in Tower Hamlets, are sharing their expertise to raise standards for whole areas.
The problem is that in a fragmented system under daily pressure, few have time to empirically evaluate the financial impact of their work, let alone shout about it from the rooftop of the school. And yes, we do mean financial impact. We all want the very best for all our children and young people, but the bottom line remains the bottom line.
Listening without acting soon becomes its own form of failure
And the bottom line is that we need affordable, pragmatic solutions now. That’s why the Alternative Learning Trust joined as a founding partner of Accelerating SEND Autonomy & Practice – or ASAP, along with Shireland Collegiate Academy Trust, Nexus MAT, and Venn Academy Trust.
The priority must be to stop the bleeding out of high-needs blocks and to reset the relationships between commissioners and providers of all types. ALT is lucky to work in genuine partnership with some of its home authorities, but colleagues tell us daily about the increasingly fractious relationships they have with commissioners.
Often, public sector provision gets cut, only for the private sector to flood in to fill the gap with much more expensive and often lesser-quality provision (or excessively high quality on a highly selective basis). It’s not just money that is lost but on-the-ground expertise from people who know and care about their communities.
We need sensible commissioning that is based on results. We need AP and special places that cost half (or less) than the private sector charges. And we need every penny spent on children and communities, not shareholder dividends.
The idea of the ASAP Programme is to bring creativity, energy, networks and urgency to drive change in the short term. If you’ve got an idea that maintains high-quality provision and can demonstrate cashable savings between 12 and 18 months, we’ll evaluate it, help develop it further, create toolkits to scale it, and importantly, broadcast it far and wide.
Of course, we recognise that no two schools or communities are the same, so this is about providing tools and capacity, not templates. We want to unleash the sector’s potential, not stifle it further.
ASAP’s programme lead Danielle Corley, a principal consultant at Premier Advisory Group, underlines the programme’s urgency: “We can’t wait for system reform to trickle down over years. The needs are immediate. ASAP is about making support real, visible, and effective – now.”
Resources will continue to be tight, but we can do much better with what we have. We can be better stewards of the now. We have the answers and we need to take our place as the creative solution providers. No one is going to give us the lead, so we have to take it. ASAP.
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