“The impact of mediation on resolution of disagreements around special educational needs: Effectiveness and cost effectiveness”

ABSTRACT

Under England’s Children and Families Act 2014, local authorities (LAs) have a statutory responsibility to provide an independent mediation service for cases of disagreement between parents or young people and the LAs where parents or the young person are considering an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal Special Educational Needs (SEN) and DisabilityWe examined the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of mediation in resolving such disagreements without recourse to an appeal to the Tribunal. Our data comprised three national surveys, two supplementary surveys and individual interviews with LA staff and parents to explore implementation of the new mediation system and the impact on appeals and costs over 2014–16 from 109 English LAs who provided data. Our findings indicate that families who took up mediation were significantly less likely to appeal to the Tribunal, absolute risk reduction 13.58% (95% CI: 10.20%, 16.97%). The cost saving across all cases, of different complexity, was £636,462 overall, approximately £500 per case. Overall, mediation was found to be a promising method of disagreement resolution, reducing appeals and producing savings in both financial and human well-being costs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of both the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of mediation as a means of resolution of disputes about meeting children's SEN.

KEYWORDS:

• Mediation
• special educational needs
• effectiveness
• cost effectiveness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Various models of mediation are summarised by Hindmarsh (n. d.) and Zumeta (n. d.), including ‘facilitative’, ‘evaluative’,’ transformative’ and ‘narrative’.

2. ‘Due process hearings’ refers to a formal disagreement resolution option which is similar to the Tribunal system in England and Scotland.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department for Education [EOR/SBW2014/025].

Notes on contributors

Geoff Lindsay

Geoff Lindsay is professor of education and special educational needs and director of the Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research (CEDAR) at the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK. Email: [email protected])

Gavan Conlon

Gavan Conlon is a partner in London Economics, London, UK. Email: [email protected]

Vasiliki Totsika

Vasiliki Totsika was associate professor in CEDAR and the Centre for Educational Studies, University of Warwick, UK; she is now associate professor at University College London (UCL), London, UK. Email: [email protected]

Gemma Gray

Gemma Gray was research assistant at CEDAR and is now teaching fellow in the Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, UK. Email: [email protected]

Mairi Ann Cullen

Mairi Ann Cullen Cullen is senior research fellow in CEDAR, University of Warwick, UK. Email: [email protected]