An official review of additional support needs (ASN) provision in Scottish schools has found that the government and councils have failed to ensure that all pupils receive the help they need.
The new analysis, carried out by the Scottish Government’s own Professional Adviser for Education, warns that, despite some progress in recent years, support is “not always available at the right time”. It also states that the education system has “had to adapt to levels and complexity of need that have evolved faster than the infrastructure designed to support them.”
The final report makes a number of recommendations to improve the situation for young people, families, and teachers across Scotland. The Scottish Government says that these have been “accepted”.
The most recent statistics reveal that more than 40 percent of all pupils are now recorded as having some form of additional support need, and more than 90 percent of those young people spend all of their time in mainstream classes. The extra help they receive may reflect the impact of specific challenges such as dyslexia, neurodivergence, and mental health problems, but can also includes those dealing with issues such as bereavement or caring responsibilities.
In her review, Janie McManus – who as well as being a government adviser is also a former Chief Inspector of Education – finds that ASN provision in Scotland is too inconsistent, unpredictable, and incoherent. Her investigation has not involved any new data collection or “large-scale consultation”, instead setting out “to draw together what we know from national reports, data, and other evidence.”
Although there are “many examples of success” across the country, “the evidence shows pressures and variation that do not always support early, predictable, or sustainable delivery.”
McManus notes that education staff are having to cope with “increasing demand” whilst facing “pressure on time, capacity, and access to specialist staff.”
For families, problems are caused by “variation in processes, thresholds, and access to support”, with significant differences in experiences depending on where they live. The issue of “mixed experiences of multi-agency coordination” is also explicitly highlighted.
The report states that its findings “show a gap between Scotland’s ambition for inclusion and how additional support is experienced.”
This gap, it notes, is “visible from the early years onwards.”
McManus adds that the problem has not been caused by a lack of commitment, instead pointing to a failure to ensure that the system is able to cope with the level of need:
“[The gap] reflects a system that has had to adapt to levels and complexity of need that have evolved faster than the infrastructure designed to support them. Support often becomes more reliable only once needs escalate; early intervention is not always protected; and children and young people with similar needs do not always experience similar support.”
A number of “key areas” for improvement have been identified to ensure that additional support for learning can be “delivered more consistently and sustainably.” These include a “clearer national approach to planning and decision-making,” better workforce design, enhanced professional learning, greater capacity in the education, health, and social care sectors, and a delivery model that is “aligned to current levels of need”.
The report states that “strengthening these areas” would mean that better support could be provided at an earlier stage and in a more consistent manner:
“Emerging needs would be recognised sooner. Decisions would be more predictable. Families would have greater clarity about processes and expectations. Staff would have the knowledge, time and specialist input required to act with confidence. Support would be less dependent on escalation and more focused on prevention. There would be a stronger understanding of children and young people’s progress and the impact of additional support.”
READ MORE
- What happened next when a council tried to close Additional Support Needs centres?
- Aspiration vs Experience - Has the presumption of mainstream really worked?
- 'Not fit for purpose' - school leaders slam Additional Support Needs provision
- We're helping kids with ASN – not overdiagnosing them
A section of the report exploring the ‘Challenges across the system’ highlights significant pressures that mean the school and early years system is “now carrying a scale of need that exceeds what its current structures were designed to manage.”
This finding echoes that of Audit Scotland, whose own analysis revealed that the Scottish Government “has not planned effectively for the potential impact” of the country’s inclusive approach to ASN.
The report points to problems with ‘increasing demand and complexity’, the need for ‘adaptation within stretched systems’, the ‘timing and predictability of support’, the impact of ‘variations in local planning systems’, gaps in national and school-level data, and ‘variation in experience across Scotland’.
The result is a “gap” between the ambitions of a system committed to ‘Getting it right for every child’ and the “everyday experience” of those trying to secure the necessary levels of support.
In order to begin to address these shortcoming, six specific requirements have been included in the report. These call on the Scottish Government to develop a “shared national approach to planning and decision-making,” introduce a “workforce model aligned to the scale and complexity of need”, increase the “capacity to deliver early and sustained support”, ensure “clear and consistent multi-agency coordination”, deliver “Clear visibility of children and young people’s needs, support, and progress”, and build a “delivery model aligned to current system demand.”
The government is also warned that it should be willing to examine whether existing legal frameworks and duties are fit for purpose and able to deliver the “clarity and consistency now required.”
McManus argues that these changes would lead to a range of benefits, improving the quality of support for young people, the transparency of the system for families, and the clarity and assistance available to professionals.
She has provided six recommendations to the government, each of which is aligned to the ‘requirements’ already laid out in the report.
These involve the creation of a “shared national model for staged intervention and planning”; realignment of the workforce, including the introduction of a “coherent approach to professional learning across the workforce, embedded from initial teacher education”; improved early intervention capacity, better visibility of “need, progress and impact”, development of a new ‘delivery model’ across the system; and the need to make sur that ASN is “embedded as a core consideration within curriculum design, delivery, and assessment, so that approaches to learning consistently reflect the full range of learners in mainstream classrooms and support equitable access to learning and assessment.”
The report does not include information on the possible costs of any of these changes.
COSLA Children and Young People Spokesperson Cllr Tony Buchanan said:
“We welcome the final progress report on the Additional Support for Learning Action Plan. Six years after Angela Morgan’s review, progress has been made, though more remains to do. We now better understand the needs of children and young people, supported by new tools and stronger partnerships. Local and Scottish Government must continue working together with a shared vision that enables local and individualised approaches. We note Janie McManus’s report and will consider it jointly with Scottish Government.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We welcome the recommendations from Janie McManus’ rapid review of additional support for learning (ASL). They will help us respond to the shifting landscape in additional support needs (ASN), including how the pandemic has impacted ASL in schools, and the increase in percentage of pupils identified.
“There is general consensus across our education system that the principles of inclusion - on which our system is based - are sound.
“This year’s attainment data shows improved performance compared to 2024 for both those with and without a recorded additional support need and initial destinations for pupils with additional needs have improved over the long term.”
