Some cash-strapped councils do have targets to “manage demand” for education health and care plans (EHCPs), Schools Week has found, amid concerns support for vulnerable children is being “rationed”.
It emerged last week a £19.5 million Department for Education contract with Newton Europe, to help 55 councils “deliver better value in SEND”, included “targeting at least 20 per cent reduction in new education, health and care plans [EHCPs] issued”.
The education committee wrote to the government this week saying it “appears to contradict evidence” from former children’s minister Claire Coutinho.
She told the committee in May the government schemes to help councils get huge SEND deficits under control were “not about targeting a particular reduction” in EHCPs.
