Introduction

This chapter considers the assumptions and implications of policy developments in multi-agency working over at least the last 40 years for the support of children and young people with disabilities. We look at four policy strands: that of post-Warnock statutory SEN assessment, inclusive education, the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda and the era of Education, Health and Care plans. Our focus is on education, and although the actual policies referred to would vary in other contexts, the overall argument will, we claim, apply to all. For most of the last four decades there has been a constantly renewed call to improve multi-agency working and, more recently, far-reaching structural changes to integrate services. However, it is questionable whether this has been for the benefit of children and young people with disabilities. Additionally, in the last decade, as multi-agency working has become more of a taken for granted, the trend of considering how to improve processes has diminished. We make the case that problems in multi-agency working have been repeatedly conceptualised in ways that do not tell the whole story and therefore do not make it easy for improvements to happen.

Multi-agency working has been understood in terms of ‘what works’, looking at systems and communication, rather than in terms of the complex politics around professional roles and relationships. The perspectives of parents and young people on how services should work with them has been ignored or ineffectively included.