England’s SEND reform white paper – Every child achieving and thriving

Some of the key changes include:

• By 2035, the Government aims for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) to be reserved for children with the most complex special educational needs, in an attempt to help manage the costs of delivering what is one of the more expensive elements of the system.
• Instead, children with SEND, including those without EHCPs, will have an individual support plan (ISP), which the Government has described as being a flexible plan setting out what the child needs day-to-day. All children will have a legal right to an ISP with their institution, be it nursery, school or college, having a statutory duty to record and monitor SEN and provision in the ISP.
• Alongside EHCPs and ISPs, there will be new packages of support for children with SEND:
  • Targeted, which will be available to all children in mainstream schools. This may involve children receiving targeted help in small groups, and/or various reasonable adjustments.
  • Targeted Plus support which, in addition to Targeted support, will provide children with access to specialists such as educational psychologists or speech and language therapists, and possibly also dedicated SEND spaces within an education setting.
  • Specialist, which will be reserved for children with the most complex needs. It is this level of support that will be the basis for EHCPs in the future, underpinned by new evidence-based Specialist Provision Packages that set out the support the child should receive.

Children will be able to switch between these three layers of support if and when their needs change, and those with an EHCP will also be supported by an ISP setting out the day-to-day educational provision required.

• Once the legislation takes effect, children with an existing EHCP will have a needs assessment as they approach the next stage of their education (such as secondary school, sixth form or college). The relevant local authority will determine whether the child requires a Specialist Provision Package and therefore a continued EHCP alongside an ISP for day-to-day educational provision. Should a child not require a Specialist Provision Package, they will move to an ISP only.
• The first cohort to transition will be pupils at the end of primary, secondary and post-16 education in the academic year 2029/30, with assessments taking place from September 2029 and children moving to the new system from September 2030. All children transitioning from an EHCP to an ISP will retain the right to request a mainstream placement, and no child will move from a special school or college unless they choose to do so.
• The existing SEND Code of Practice will be updated and consulted on and will include a new requirement for all settings to ensure staff receive training on SEND and inclusion and to signpost training funded by the Government.
• Complaints about specialist provision will be focused towards council-commissioned but independent mediation services and the Government expects the majority of disagreements to be remedied through that process. Parents will still be able to appeal decisions to the First-Tier Tribunal (SEND) but this will be seen more as a last resort.
• In a reduction of the Tribunal’s powers, the Government consultation document provides that the Tribunal will no longer be able to name the placement for the child. In respect of appeals against setting decisions, the Tribunal will only be able to quash the Local Authority’s decision or order that it be reconsidered. Despite the significance of this decision, it is not one on which the Government is consulting as part of the consultation process.
• The Government has allocated £4bn of funding to these changes, with funding (it says) to be allocated directly to school budgets, rather than being provided through local authorities.

Other planned changes include moving all schools to be a part of school trusts (whether by joining an existing trust or the formation of a new school trust, including local authority established trusts or area partnerships), setting out clear responsibilities for local government, a new pupil engagement framework, minimum expectations for home-to-school partnerships, an increase in teacher numbers, funding for schools to improve maternity pay for school teachers and leaders, and improved professional development programmes for teachers, amongst others.

The White Paper and accompanying documents, along with a consultation on SEND reform, can be found on the gov.uk website, here.

If you have any questions about the planned changes or require SEND-related advice, please contact our Education Team.

This article has been co-written by Eloise Knight, Jonathan Walsh and Joanna Corbett-Simmons.