Co-ordinated Support Plans and the ASL Act 2004: What Home Educators in Scotland Need to Know

Scotland's system for supporting children with additional needs in education is governed by a dedicated piece of legislation: the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, commonly called the ASL Act. If your child has identified Additional Support Needs — or has a Co-ordinated Support Plan — this Act creates specific rights and obligations that shape what happens when you choose to home educate. Understanding these before you apply for withdrawal consent will save you significant confusion.

What the ASL Act 2004 Actually Does

The ASL Act established a statutory framework for identifying, assessing, and supporting children with additional support needs in Scottish schools. Its scope is broader than England's SEN system: ASN under the 2004 Act includes learning difficulties, physical or sensory impairments, autism, ADHD, mental health conditions, English as an additional language, family disruption, and any other factor that means a child is unlikely to benefit from school education without additional support.

Under the Act, local authorities have three core duties:

1. To identify children who have ASN
2. To assess the nature and extent of those needs
3. To provide support to address them

These duties are fulfilled through school enrolment. The school is the operational unit through which the council meets its ASN obligations. This is the central fact that determines everything else about how the ASL Act intersects with home education.

The Three Tiers of ASN Documentation

The 2004 Act created a tiered documentation framework. Understanding which tier your child sits in matters for home education planning.

No formal document. Many children with ASN are supported through informal classroom adjustments, differentiated teaching, and school-level plans that have no statutory standing. These are school decisions, not legal documents. They vanish entirely at withdrawal and have no bearing on the consent process.

Individualised Education Programme (IEP). An IEP is a school-level plan created by the school to coordinate support for a child with identified ASN. It is not a statutory document under the ASL Act — it has no legal force beyond the school that created it. It is not appealable. When you withdraw, it ceases.

Co-ordinated Support Plan (CSP). The CSP is the only statutory ASN document under the 2004 Act. It is used for children with complex, enduring needs that involve two or more agencies (typically education plus health, or education plus social work) and are likely to last for more than a year. The CSP creates enforceable obligations on the council. It is the only ASN document that parents can appeal to the Additional Support Needs Tribunals for Scotland (ASNTS).

If your child has a CSP, the home education process is more involved. If they have an IEP or informal support only, the ASL Act creates no additional procedural barriers.

What the ASL Act Does and Does Not Require at Withdrawal

The ASL Act does not create any restriction on a parent's right to home educate. Where consent is required, the withdrawal process is governed by Section 35 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, not by the ASL Act.

What the ASL Act does do is establish that the council's duty to provide ASN support operates through school enrolment. When you withdraw, the educational ASN support structure dissolves. The council does not have a continuing statutory duty to fund or coordinate specialist support for home-educated children under the ASL Act.

However, two specific rights under the 2004 Act survive withdrawal:

The right to request an ASN assessment. Under Section 2 of the ASL Act, parents can request at any time that the authority assess whether their child has additional support needs. The authority must consider this request even after the child has been withdrawn from school. In practice, councils rarely provide substantive support following a post-withdrawal assessment, but the formal right exists.

The right to information and advice. The council must provide parents with information about ASN support. Independent advocacy services funded under the Act — such as Enquire (Scotland's ASN helpline) — remain accessible to home-educating families.

If Your Child Has a CSP: The Multi-Agency Meeting

When a child with a Co-ordinated Support Plan applies for withdrawal, Scottish Government guidance advises the local authority to convene a multi-agency meeting before granting consent. The purpose is to ensure all the agencies currently named in the CSP — education, health, social work, wherever applicable — understand the proposed change and can discuss the implications for their respective involvement.

This meeting is for planning and does not by itself decide the consent request; the authority must still apply the Section 35 framework. What it does mean in practice:

• The consent process may take longer; the six-week figure is a guidance aim, not a hard deadline
• You may be asked to attend or participate in the meeting
• Agencies other than the education authority may contact you to discuss ongoing service delivery
• The CSP status and support arrangements should be reviewed through multi-agency planning; do not assume they continue unchanged or end automatically

After withdrawal, ask the authority and the other relevant agencies how the CSP and its support arrangements will be handled. The withdrawal materials do not guarantee that any particular NHS service continues; ask your GP or relevant NHS service how support can continue.

Requesting a CSP After Withdrawal: Is This Possible?

The right to request an ASN assessment remains after withdrawal, but the withdrawal materials do not guarantee that a CSP will be created, maintained, or continued unchanged for a home-educated child. Ask the authority and relevant agencies what assessment and multi-agency planning route is available for the child's circumstances.

If you are specifically seeking multi-agency coordination of your home-educated child's support — for example, because NHS, social work, and your own education provision all need to be aligned — ask the authority and relevant services what planning route is available; this may involve the Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) framework.

The Practical Impact on Home Education Planning

The ASL Act shapes home education planning in three concrete ways:

Budget for specialist services. Once you withdraw, active school-delivered specialist support generally ends. Services that were previously funded through the education authority — educational psychology assessments, specialist teacher input, structured literacy programmes — may become things you source and pay for yourself. NHS access is not guaranteed by the withdrawal materials, so ask your GP or relevant NHS service how therapy or other support can continue.

Carry over useful information, not the documents. Your child's IEP and school-based ASN records are useful background reading before you start home educating. They are not documents you need to maintain or reproduce. Use them to understand your child's profile, not as a template for your home provision.

Design around your child's actual needs. The ASL Act's framework is built around institutional provision. Home education gives you the flexibility to design something genuinely suited to your child — not a school-at-home replication, but an approach that takes their specific sensory, cognitive, and emotional profile seriously. Scotland's home education law gives you that latitude.

The Scotland Legal Withdrawal Blueprint includes specific guidance for families navigating withdrawal when a CSP or formal ASN identification is in place — including what to include in your consent application and how to handle the multi-agency meeting if one is convened.

See more Scotland guides →