Send support for school children in England to get £4bn overhaul | Special educational needs

Ministers will unveil a “generational” overhaul of Special Educational Needs and Disability (SENT) support, pledging £4bn to transform provision in schools england and warns councils that they could lose control of Send services if they fail to comply with their legal duties.

The reforms are expected to be a major policy moment for Keir Starmer and for the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson – which delayed the changes last autumn after a fierce backlash from MPs and parents.

Writing for the Guardian, Phillipson said it would be “enhanced support, not removed support” and said it was a once-in-a-generation moment to “define the future of education.”

The overhaul will see significant extra investment in special needs provision – welcome news as many feared the overhaul would be an austerity exercise given the rising cost of the services.

Phillipson will pledge a multibillion-pound investment, including tailored specialist support in all mainstream schools and 60,000 additional special needs school places.

The long-delayed proposals to transform Send into schools in England have led to a major hearing led by Phillipson to try to smooth their landing with parents, and with MPs, many of whom have previously said they were prepared to rebel against the proposals.

MPs wary of the reforms told the Guardian they were privately optimistic that concerns had been heard and that the vast majority of cases, particularly poorer children, would see improved provision, although they warned that detail could yet emerge in the full white paper to cast doubt on that.

In support of the reforms, the Prime Minister said that he had been closely monitoring the engagement with parents. “Getting the right support should never be a struggle – it should be a given,” Starmer said.

“This means no more ‘one size fits all’ system that only serves children who fit the mold. Instead, families will get tailored support built around their child’s individual needs, available on their doorstep.”

Under the changes, schools will get additional funding for specialized support for anyone with special needs, but there will be stricter criteria for children who have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), which makes children with Send legally entitled to support.

These will now be reserved for children with the most serious and complex needs, but new plans for children at lower levels will still provide additional support and legal rights. Parents have expressed concern that those rights will be revised when children arrive at high school.

Parents will also no longer have a free choice of which school to send their child to and will instead be given a list of possibilities, although appeals will be allowed and the Send tribunal can ask local authorities to reconsider.

The shake-up comes amid record demand for special needs provision and growing parental distrust in a system in which families currently win almost all Stuur court appeals that go to a full hearing.

Government sources said there would be new obligations for councils to meet their legal duties to pupils with special needs – more than half of EHCPs are still being issued outside the legal 20-week deadline.

“The white paper will put councils on notice – fail to meet their legal duties and they will be stripped of their powers to run Send services,” a government source said.

On Monday, the schools white paper will propose £4 billion over three years to improve inclusion in every mainstream school, which the government will say is a direct response to parents’ concerns that Send support is only being provided after years of fighting for it.

Early years settings, schools and colleges will get direct funding of £1.6 billion over three years, which can be spent on provisions such as small group language support.

There will be an additional pot of £1.8bn to create an “experts on hand” service, provided by local authorities, to fund additional Send teachers and speech and language therapists – who can be accessed whether children have EHCPs or not.

There will also be more funding to cater for high needs, additional special needs training for every teacher and the creation of 60,000 extra special school places, which will Department of Education said would end the “postcode lottery” and reduce costs for private schools and long-distance transportation.

In practice the funding is likely to be the equivalent of around £20,000-£40,000 a year for primary schools and around £50,000-£70,000 for secondary schools.

Once the reforms are fully rolled out, an average secondary school will receive more than 160 days of additional dedicated specialist time each year

Schools will also be required to have an “inclusion base”, delivered by the government’s previously announced £3.7 billion capital investment in schools.

“We’re not going to take effective support away from children, and what I’ll be setting out tomorrow is a decade-long, very careful transition from the system we have, which everyone admits isn’t working,” Phillipson told the BBC on Sunday.

“There will be a statutory underpinning and it will be set out. This will mean that there are clear routes and clear principles set out in legislation that will guide it all.”

Charities and think tanks have cautiously praised the reforms, although several said they believed they would fail without significant efforts to improve staff retention and recruitment – and with local authorities already regularly failing to meet their current obligations.

Jo Hutchinson, the director of Send at the Education Policy Institute, said that “without significant increases in the number of funded training places each year, there will not be enough educational psychologists available to staff these services.”

Nick Harrison, the chief executive of social mobility charity the Sutton Trust, said the changes would benefit poorer families who do not have the resources to fight for EHCPs.

“These ambitious reforms to the Send system are an important step in the right direction. It is essential that they tackle the double disadvantage that those with Send from poorer backgrounds face today,” he said.

“These reforms will stand or fail depending on whether the provision for pupils without EHCPs has enough funding to succeed in mainstream schools, and ultimately serves them better than the status quo.”

But Madeleine Cassidy, the chief executive of Send legal charity IPSEA, said the announcements “do not yet address the central issue of how illegal decision-making by public bodies will be tackled and how accountability will be strengthened.

“At this stage, it also remains unclear whether these reforms will strengthen, maintain or inadvertently limit the existing legal rights of children and young people with SEND.”

Learning disability charity Mencap, which has been highly critical of the welfare reforms, also said there was cause for optimism.

“The move to make mainstream schools more inclusive is welcome news,” he said. “Families must have their children’s needs identified early and that they can be given the right help immediately, backed by services that are fully funded to do the job, and rights that are supported by the law.”

In her Guardian article, Phillipson said she had heeded the calls for more funding to improve the system. “Many people have said – including in this paper – that the only way to achieve this is with significant new investment. That is exactly what we are doing,” she said.

But she said reform was needed as well as additional investment. “This is a reform government: fixing brick by brick the crises our predecessors left behind. It’s hard to think of one bigger than that.

“Any parent or teacher who has experienced the Send system will say that change is the right thing. Indolence – or indeed actions that fall short of true change – is itself a choice, because children with Send have been repeatedly let down over the past 10 years and more. Now is the time to reverse that.”

The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnhamsaid he was willing for the region to be an early adopter of the reforms and said he had made the offer to the government.

“The current Send system is not working well enough for anyone. That is the unanimous conclusion of the Greater Manchester Send Board, which combines parents and professionals,” he said.

“It can help build confidence in the changes if one area is willing to go first and share our learning. We won’t do that if we think this reform is just about cuts and reducing service and support.

“On the contrary, we are confident that a less adversarial and more preventative approach, with children and parents at the heart of it all, is achievable, and that Greater Manchester is uniquely placed to pioneer it.”