Ministers will unveil a “generational” overhaul of special educational needs and disabilities (Send) support, pledging £4bn to transform provision in schools in England and warning councils they could lose control of Send services if they fail to meet their legal duties.
The reforms are expected to be a key policy moment for Keir Starmer and for the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson – who delayed the changes last autumn after a ferocious backlash from MPs and parents.
Writing for the Guardian, Phillipson said it would be “improved support, not removed support” and said it was a once in a generation moment to “define the future of education”.
The overhaul will bring about significant extra investment in special needs provision – welcome news as many people had feared the overhaul would be a cuts exercise, given the soaring costs of the services.
Phillipson will promise 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 in schools in England have resulted in a major listening drive led by Phillipson to try to smooth their landing with parents, and with MPs, many of whom had previously said they were prepared to rebel on the proposals.
MPs who had been wary of the reforms told the Guardian they were privately optimistic that concerns had been heard and the vast majority of cases, especially poorer children, would receive improved provision, though they cautioned that detail may yet emerge in the full white paper to throw that into doubt.
Backing the reforms, the prime minister said he had closely observed the engagement with parents. “Getting the right support should never be a battle – it should be a given,” Starmer said.
“That means no more ‘one size fits all’ system that only serves children who fit the mould. 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 specialised support for all those with special needs, but there will be stricter criteria for children who have an education, health and care plan (EHCP), which legally entitles children with Send to get support.
Those will now be reserved for children with the most severe and complex needs, but new plans for children on lower tiers will still confer additional support and legal rights. Parents have raised concerns that those rights will be reviewed when children arrive at secondary 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, though 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 mounting parental distrust of a system in which families currently win almost all Send tribunal appeals that go to a full hearing.
Government sources said there would be new obligations for councils to meet their legal duties towards pupils with special needs – more than half of EHCPs are still issued outside the 20-week legal deadline.
“The white paper will put councils on notice – fail to meet their legal duties and they’ll be stripped of their powers to run Send services,” a government source said.
The schools white paper will on Monday propose £4bn over three years to improve inclusion in every mainstream school, which the government will say directly responds to parents’ concerns that Send support is only provided after years of fighting for it.
Early years settings, schools and colleges will get direct funding of £1.6bn 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 at hand” service, provided by local authorities, to fund additional Send teachers and speech and language therapists – which can be accessed whether or not children have EHCPs.
There will also be more funding for high needs provision, additional special needs training for every teacher and the creation of 60,000 extra special school places, which the Department for Education said would end the “postcode lottery” and reduce costs for private schools and long-distance transport.
In practice, the funding is likely to be the equivalent of about £20,000-£40,000 a year for primary schools and about £50,000-£70,000 for secondary schools.
Once the reforms are rolled out in full, an average secondary school will receive more than 160 days’ worth of additional dedicated specialist time every year
Schools will also be required to have an “inclusion base”, delivered through the government’s previously announced £3.7bn capital investment in schools.
“We are not going to be taking away effective support from children, and what I’ll be setting out tomorrow is a decade-long, very careful transition from the system that we have, which everyone recognises isn’t working,” Phillipson told the BBC on Sunday.
“There’ll be a statutory underpinning and this will be set out. This will mean that there are clear routes and clear principles set out in statute that will guide all of this.”
Charities and thinktanks have cautiously praised the reforms, though several said that they believed they would fail without significant efforts to improve retention and recruitment of staff – and with local authorities already routinely failing to meet their current obligations.
Jo Hutchinson, the director of Send at the Education Policy Institute, said that “without substantial 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 did not have the resources to fight for EHCPs.
“These ambitious reforms to the Send system are a significant step in the right direction. It’s essential that they tackle the double disadvantage that those with Send from poorer backgrounds face today,” he said.
“These reforms will stand or fall 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 unlawful 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.”
The learning disability charity Mencap, which was highly critical of the welfare reforms, also said there was cause for optimism.
“The move to make mainstream schools more inclusive is welcome news,” it said. “Families must have their children’s needs identified early and for them to be given the right help straight away, backed by services fully funded to do the job, and rights underpinned by 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 newspaper – 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 necessary as well as additional investment. “This is a reforming government: fixing brick by brick the crises left behind by our predecessors. It is hard to think of one greater than this.
“Any parent or teacher who has experienced the Send system will say change is the right thing. Inaction – or indeed action that falls short of genuine change – is itself a choice, because children with Send have been let down time and again over the past 10 years and more. Now is the time to turn it around.”
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said he was prepared 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 isn’t working well enough for anyone. That is the unanimous conclusion of the Greater Manchester Send board, which combines parents and professionals,” he said.
“It could help to build confidence in the changes if one area is prepared to go first and share our learning. We would not do this if we thought this reform is only about cuts and reductions of 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 everything, is achievable, and that Greater Manchester is uniquely placed to pioneer it.”
