The Problem with Politicians and the Equalities Act 2010

The problem with politicians - is that they have convinced themselves, that being voted into government gives them the right to take a wrecking ball to the society in which we live and to the rights and privileges that we have grown rather fond of. It is probably a characteristic of most new governments all of which are hungry for power and change when they come into office, but there is probably no better example of radical wrecking ball politics than this government. Whether you are talking about the revolution that is being imposed upon the Health Service, the Welfare Reform Bill or the proposals to change the way in which we support disabled children; all of these represent policy changes that involve a significant restructuring of the way in which services are delivered. You might argue that this is a government's right or even obligation - that if it was in their manifesto (however, vaguely) they are simply exercising their mandate. Perhaps - but actually I'm not so sure.

For a while it has  been accepted that many of the services that are provided by government, play an important role in enabling equality of opportunity across society and that without that intervention significant numbers of people would have difficulty in playing a full or even a partial role as citizens. The experiences of people from a the vast number of minority groups supports this belief. Moreover, the expectation that government has a role to play in promoting equality of opportunity was acknowledged in law in the Equalities Act 2010, which fully recognises the role that government plays in tackling discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity.

One of the slightly more technical provisions of the Act lies in the responsibility that public authorities have to assess the impact of any changes that they are making on people with protected characteristics.  So in this way if a local authority was intending to change the way in which they allocate funding to children with additional needs they would have to assess the likely impact of its funding strategy and ensure that the changes that it proposes are unlikely to discriminate against a person with a protected characteristic, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations.

Which is all well and good but what does such an impact assessment entail? According  to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, the Equalities Act 2010 does not state specifically how an equalities impact assessment should be carried out, however it does state that previous equalities and human rights case law suggests that it is preferable that the assessment of a policy's impact should be carried out before that policy is implemented. The presumption being that if you don't do it before you put a policy in place, that policy is unlikely to be able to take full account of the needs of the whole population.

Central to being able to carry out any effective equalities impact assessment, is the existence of an evidence base which can then be used to predict the likely impact of a policy. This is where it gets problematic for governments that want to revolutionise the way that things are done -where is the evidence base against which they can assess the likely equalities impact of the changes that they are proposing.

Lets take for example the changes that the government is proposing to the way in which Children with Special Educational Needs are supported. Its Green Paper Support and Aspiration (DofE,2011) suggests a number of ways in which support for children and young people with SEN might be re-organised. Some of these suggestions such as the development of a local offer of information about services are well established and researched proposals, for which a significant evidence base can be identified. In this way an equalities impact assessment (which currently is not available on the DofE website) would be able to assess the potential impact of  such a Local Offer and can legitimately test ways in which it might be implemented. However, where a policy initiative is not based upon an evidence base then any attempt to test that policy initiative during a pathfinder has to be defined as the generation of new knowledge. Which is how the National Research Ethics Service defines research.  An example of this would be the Green Papers proposal to pilot a combined assessment and do away with the Statutory Assessment Process, a combination of measures for which only a partial evidence base exists. The evidence for this can be found in the Pathfinder Specification for Support and Aspiration  which identifies a significant number of objectives amongst which are:

• Exploring how one planning process could be used for children and young people from birth to 25, and how this would work in particular at key transition points;
• Exploring ways in which the three main areas of support (education, social care and health) could be joined together in a single plan that focuses on achieving better outcomes, for example improved health, for children and young people;
• Identifying the professionals and experts that need to be involved in the planning process to secure the best support and establishing the lead professional who is accountable for the delivery of that support;
• Exploring ways in which the single plan could be linked to the commissioning process, to bring about an improved match between available services, and children and young people’s identified needs, anticipating their arrival at different points in the system and ensuring that support and provision is in place when children and young people need it;
• Exploring how the new health reform structures can be used to improve services for children and young people, for example exploring the opportunity for the Health and Wellbeing Board to promote strategic coordination or identifying the expertise required by clinical commissioning groups;
• Aligning resources, such as through pooled budgets, between agencies and services to improve delivery of support services for children and young people;
• Exploring how the support in the single plan could be transferable across local authority boundaries when families move home (i.e education, health and social care);
• Exploring how mediation could improve parents’ and carers’ experience of the system when they don’t feel the support they are being offered is the right support;
• Exploring how to achieve value for money and efficiencies in the new system; and

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/s/single%20plan%20and%20assessment%20pathfinder%20itt.pdf

 

The extensive use of the word 'explore' is the give away because in every instance the use of the word 'research' would have made more sense.

So why does it matter that the evidence base required for an equalities impact assessment is research?  The answer lies in the range of protections for participants and clinicians that are built into a research project. Participants have to be fully informed about what is involved, they have to protected from harm and the project has to be put together in a way that it meets a range of rigorous quality standards and requirements as  outlined in the Health and Social Care Research Governance Framework (2005). In short it has to be done properly and it has to have ethics approval from properly constituted Research Ethics Committee.    

So what I am arguing is that because of the requirements of the Equalities Act 2010, government reforms must either have an evidence base with which to support the changes they are proposing or they must test their proposals through properly constituted and ethically approved research projects - otherwise the Pathfinders in which they are generating new knowledge are effectively conducting illegal research. It is my belief that many of the Pathfinder Projects currently being used to test new policy across government are in effect carrying out illegal research and that both the National Research Ethics Service  and the Equalities Commission should investigate the way in which the governments more radical reforms are being piloted and implemented.

What the implications of this are for governments who want to inflict radical change on us I'm not yet sure, but if it means that policy has to be properly researched and assessed before it can be inflicted on us then that would be not bad thing.

    

Support and Desperation

The green paper Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability ends its consultation period on June 30th. What has surprised me most is the relative silence that has accompanied its presentation given the long term implications of what is being proposed. But then given the skill with which this government  has managed to present its reforms and cuts as a battle against wasting money on the undeserving, it really shouldn't surprise us.

Support and Aspiration is no different and indeed has been particularly successful because it has been able to draw on the support of a great number of families with disabled children. As Ian Birrel ponted out in his Guardian article  "the core aims of Michael Gove's green paper have been broadly welcomed ". They key to that support has been the committment to replace the current plethora of assessments with a single Education, Health and Care Plan.

Under our proposal, by 2014, all children who would currently have a statement of SEN or learning difficulty assessment would be entitled to a new single assessment process and ‘Education, Health and Care Plan’ to identify their support needs.  Support and Aspiration p. 36

This looks fine because by making the Education, Health and Care Plan available to everybody who currently receives a statement of SEN, they will theoretically be making a broader range of support available to families whose child currently has a statement but at the moment is not eligible for additional social care support. On the surface this looks like motherhood and apple pie, but it doesn't add up.

Currently 4.9 disabled children per 1000 children are in receipt of social care services (2008 figures) of one form or another, so 0.49% of all children. This compares with the current number of children with statements of SEN which stands at a national average of 2.7% of all children. Now if we were to presume that the number of statements is going to stay the same the current proposals represent a 500+% growth in the number of children eligible to be assessed to receive social care services as a result of a combined Education, Health and Care Plan. This is self evidently not going to happen.

What is far more likely is that if the green paper is budget neutral the number of children eligible to receive social care services will actually remain the same. For those families this Education, Health and Care Plan will represent a significant improvement in  the co-ordination of the support that they receive. For the other (approx 4/5ths) children who currently have a statement they will not only not receive an EHC Plan but we can assume that they will not receive a statement, given that they won't exist. What they are likely to be left with is " A new single early years setting- and school based category of SEN" and no ability to have their child's educational provision guaranteed by a statement. So for some the green paper will offer improved support, others will be faced with uncertainty and desperation. 

That shouldn't surprise us - like much of what this government does it justifies its reforms by stigmatising those who are least able to defend themselves. Whilst  the proposals are imbued with a sensitive and in-depth understanding of the needs of severely disabled children and their families, that will have its roots in the experiences of David and Samantha Cameron, it funds that sensitivity by removing the support of children and young people whose needs are less complex, less visible and may on occasion, erroneously be attributed to the parenting skills of those who are not middle class. 

We do not know how effective the new system of school based SEN will be in including children without the additional support and protection of a statement, but when viewed in conjunction with reduced protection against expulsion that are a part of Michael Gove's other initiatives, the implications aren't great.