As anyone with even a passing interest in Scottish education will know, the number of school pupils with additional support needs (ASN) has increased massively in recent years.

In 2015, a total of 22.5 percent of all pupils were recorded as requiring some form of additional support as part of their education; by 2025, that figure had risen to 43 percent. If you look only at secondaries, 48.8 percent of pupils now have ASN, and that’s just a national average, so there will be plenty of schools across the country where more than half of all young people fall into this category.

Importantly, more than 90 percent of pupils requiring extra help also spend 100 percent of their time in mainstream classes.

This means that schools are now trying to accommodate a very wide range of increasingly complex additional needs, and the hard reality is that in many cases they are finding it impossible to do so.

Make no mistake about it: there are thousands of children up and down the country who are being failed because of a crippling lack of capacity across the education system, a problem that has been created in no small part by politicians’ failure to properly understand, plan for, or fund the well-intentioned policy of presumed mainstream inclusion.

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Ask the parents and carers of pupils with ASN about their experiences and you will, without doubt, hear horror stories about the battles they have been forced to fight on behalf of their children.

On paper, all pupils may well be entitled to the additional support they require, but, in so many cases, forcing councils to play by the apparent rules proves to be impossible, with budget cuts the most common excuse for inadequate – or sometimes entirely absent – support provision.

All of which brings us to a little-known statistic in the Scottish Government’s data on school pupils – the number who have something called a Co-ordinated Support Plan (CSP). This is an individualised plan prepared by councils in order to “identify, and ensure provision of, services for children and young people with complex or multiple additional support needs”.

There are other types of documents that do similar jobs, but what makes a CSP different is that it is legally enforceable.

According to official figures, 299,445 pupils are recognised as having ASN, yet just 1,165 have a CSP. Ten years ago, when 146,272 pupils had registered ASN, there were 2,716 with a CSP.

So while the number of children needing extra help has more than doubled, and the complexity of those pupils’ needs has rapidly increased, the total number with a legally-recognised support plan has almost halved.

Those numbers very clearly do not add up, which is why a group of charities is now speaking out about the lack of CSPs in place across the country.

48.8 percent of Scottish pupils now have additional support needs (Image: Getty)

The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition (SCSC) is warning that the lack of CSP provision means that vulnerable children are being failed, and has also suggested that hard-pressed councils may be increasingly reluctant to provide these legally-binding documents.

A spokesperson for the SCSC said:

“We are calling for urgent action from the Scottish Government and local authorities following figures highlighting a dramatic decline in the use of CSPs, which are designed to support those with the most complex needs.  This is despite a Scottish Government assurance that they would not fall, and against the backdrop of a dramatic increase in the numbers of those with ASN, including those with more complex needs.”

The SCSC says that the current situation and the direction of travel are not justifiable or acceptable. They point out that the threshold for receiving a CSP is “already challenging to meet”, and accuse local authorities of using “vague terminology to deny children the support they need”.

The result, they say, is that vulnerable pupils are being failed by the education system and prevented from ever reaching their full potential. They also point out that those from deprived areas are more likely to have additional needs, meaning that a failure to address the latter compounds the multiple problems of the former:

“This is of particular significance given the devastating impact of Covid-19 and the cost-of-living crisis. The Scottish Government, local authorities and other agencies need to collaborate to ensure that those requiring a CSP receive it, with the necessary resourcing in place to support this.”

The official line about this is basically that CSPs aren’t really necessary in Scotland, because support should be provided on the basis of need rather than as a result of holding the right paperwork. You’re not even supposed to need a diagnosis, never mind a legally-binding document, to get the help you need.

It’s a really nice idea but, as we know, the reality does not necessarily match the rhetoric, even with councils spending about £1 billion a year on ASN.

The government is always keen to point out that these sorts of decisions are the responsibility of councils, while councils always highlight the fact that their budgets are largely determined by decisions made at a national level.

It’s all part of a tedious back-and-forth that does nothing to make life better for Scotland’s pupils.

That said, the Scottish Government says that it does “recognise concerns around CSPs and will be reviewing the statutory guidance on their use”. To that end, a consultation on refreshing the related code of practice will be launched before the forthcoming Holyrood election.

Which is fine.

But even so, in a well-intentioned but overstretched system, it’s hard to see how we can ensure that every single child gets the support they deserve.