On 23 February 2026, the Government published the long‑awaited Schools White Paper, accompanied by a separate document, ‘SEND reform: putting children and young people first’, which outlines key proposals for reforming the SEND system. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the plans aim to make mainstream schools more inclusive and “deliver better life chances for children”. There is a great deal to digest, and we are still reviewing the proposals in detail. In this article, we highlight some of the key measures and offer our initial insights, reflecting on SEND in particular. This is not intended to be an exhaustive summary of all proposals.
Financial investment
The Government says that they will invest £1.6 billion over the next three years to make the mainstream system more inclusive for children with SEND. A further £200 million will be available for teaching training, described as a ‘national training package’. There will be an expansion of multi-agency support in mainstream settings. The Department for Education (DfE) states, “we will invest £1.8 billion over the next three years to create a new national offer called ‘Experts at Hand’, wrapping professionals such as educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, and occupational therapists around mainstream settings”. A further investment of £3.7 billion will go towards creating Inclusion Bases in mainstream settings, making buildings accessible and creating new special school places. The Government will also spend £15 million to develop National Inclusion Standards. However, the Office for National Statistics has already identified that there is a £2billion shortfall in these figures.
On the face of it, these are positive proposals, a welcome commitment to invest in a SEND system that has been failing families and schools for far too long. We are, however, concerned by several of the proposals which, if carried forward, would erode the hard‑won legal protections of parents and of children and young people with SEND. They also appear to offload critical responsibilities from local authorities onto schools, many of which are already stretched to breaking point.
Let’s have a look closer at some of these proposals.
New SEND support structure within schools
The DfE’s new system will start with a universal offer for all children. For those with SEND and requiring additional support beyond the “Universal Offer”, they will be able to access three ‘layers of support’ (Targeted, Targeted Plus, Specialist).
Targeted – structured interventions, including small-group work or personalised materials. Settings will have a statutory duty to record and monitor special educational needs and provision in a digitalised Individual Support Plan for children and young people with SEND.. This appears not dissimilar to “School Action” under the statementing system in the Education Act 1996
Targeted Plus – available for children and young people who need more specialist support to thrive in inclusive mainstream education. Schools will be able to draw on a new “Experts at Hand” service. This may include input from external professionals such as Speech and Language Therapists and Educational Psychologists, time-limited support in an Alternative Provision or a specialist setting, before reintegrating back into a mainstream setting. This appears not dissimilar to “School Action Plus” under the statementing system in the Education Act 1996
Specialist – For children with the most complex needs, there will be access to ‘Specialist Provision Packages’, developed and reviewed by experts, tested with parents, overseen by an independent chair and a national panel of experts. It is anticipated, there will be seven different types of Specialist Provision Packages and the Government considers that all of the most complex children and young people will be capable of falling within the remit of one of these seven packages.
Pupils will be able to move between the three layers of support as their needs change. In support of these changes, the existing statutory SEND code of practice will be updated and consulted on.
With the investment described above, schools will be responsible for identifying, arranging and funding provision at “Targeted” and “Targeted Plus”. For those children and young people identified as requiring a “Specialist Support Package”, each of the seven packages (addressed in more detail below) will be allocated a budget which LA’s will provide to schools. The budget will not be based on the child’s individual needs, but simply upon the particular Specialist Provision Package they have been allocated.
Individual Support Plans
Schools will be responsible for producing and monitoring a digitalised “Individual Support Plan” for all those with SEND. There is a minimum requirement that these will be reviewed by a school annually, reflecting the current annual review requirement for EHCPs.
Reading through the ‘SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First’’ paper, it appears Individual Support Plans will not be legally enforceable in the way that EHCPs currently are, particularly regarding the delivery of the provisions they contain. The direction of travel is towards universal early support within mainstream schools, but in practical terms this shifts responsibility for assessment, planning and decisions about support levels to schools and trusts, reducing the role of local authorities. It seems that any disagreements about an Individual Support Plan, such as the level of support specified or whether a child should move to the next tier of support, would need to be resolved through a school’s internal complaints process . This would limit parental rights to bring appeals before the SEND Tribunal, an independent expert judicial body, except for in limited circumstances (see below). As a result, schools may face an increased volume of complaints, disability discrimination claims, and even judicial review challenges, as they will be viewed by families as the primary decision‑makers.
This is not helpful for children, young people, families or schools.
It should be noted that accountability reforms are proposed, such as Ofsted inspecting settings on their SEND inclusion and the requirement for school complaints panels to include an independent SEND expert when a school complaint relates to SEND provision. Underpinning this will be new National Inclusion Standards developed by teams of experts, setting out what schools need to do and providing practical guidance for staff. However, these measures are unlikely to be helpful in resolving disagreements in real time. Schools will also be required to produce an Inclusion Strategy.
Education Health and Care plans (‘EHCPs’)
EHCPs will continue to exist, but they will be reserved for children with the most complex needs who require a Specialist Provision Package. The statutory test will therefore move away from a “needs” led approach to whether a child or young person fulfils criteria for one of seven “Specialist Support packages”. This is what will determine whether they are considered complex.
A new LA led statutory assessment process will determine whether a child or young person requires a “Specialist Support Package” and therefore whether they require an EHCP.
The EHCP will then set out a child’s statutory entitlement to support. However, this will be based on the “Specialist Provision Package” that the child or young person will be allocated. Given the fact there will only be seven packages, this will inevitably be broad and not specific to the child or young person. The quantified and specified provision the child or young person should actually receive (section F of current EHCPs) will be described in an Individual Support Plan.. The DfE has stated that “in the future, only children and young people who need the overall package of support detailed in a Specialist Provision Package will be entitled to an Education, Health and Care Plan”.
EHCPs will be developed with the setting, and in consultation with parents after the Specialist Provision Package and placement decision have been made. It will include the education offer based on the relevant Specialist Provision Package, as well as health and care provision agreed during the assessment process. This, in our view, is putting the cart before the horse and is illogical. It is not possible to determine if a placement is suitable without first determining what the child or young person’s special educational needs are and what special educational provision they require. There is also no recognition that a placement may not be suitable due to current cohort and/or peer group, currently often a determining placement factor.
The school will have the legal obligation to arrange the provision contained within the EHCP. This is a marked change from the current system where the Local Authority is responsible. However, as this will not include any quantified or specified detail it is extremely doubtful that such an obligation will be practically enforceable through judicial review proceedings, in the same way a child can enforce against a Local Authority at the moment.
In our view this significantly weakens children’s rights and at the same time increases the risk of conflict and complaints between parents and schools.
The Individual Support Plan associated to the EHCP should include the quantified and specified provision. However, as set out above there is no clear right of enforcement proposed in relation to Individual Support Plans.
Schools will be responsible for reviewing the Individual Support Plan annually. In addition, Local Authorities will be responsible for reviewing the EHCP at key stages. Local Authority annual reviews will only be retained for Early Years and Post 16.
Under the current law, the test for issuing an EHCP is set out in section 37 of the Children and Families Act 2014, which refers to what is necessary, not what is complex. Case‑law has consistently interpreted “necessary” as falling somewhere between indispensable and merely useful. The proposed shift to a “complex needs” threshold, combined with the requirement that a child must first qualify for a Specialist Provision Package, appears to be a move to reduce the number of children eligible for EHCPs and to raise the legal threshold. Not only does this suggest that local authorities will issue fewer EHCPs, but it also places far greater responsibility on schools to assess need and plan and arrange support, despite many already being under‑resourced and overwhelmed. The question is whether the investment being proposed to will be enough to give schools the support they will need? Even if schools receive more funding, training and support from Experts at Hand, what will happen, for example, if schools do not have the space to provide the right type of environment that a child needs to thrive at school?
A further significant concern is that if Specialist Provision Packages become “nationally defined,” with a defined budget allocated to each of the seven packages, this will result in a “resource” rather than “needs” led approach. This will oversimplify the complexity of many children and young people’s special educational needs. The current legal framework is firmly rooted in the principle that provision and placement must be determined by the individual needs of each individual child, recognising that a one size fits all approach is not appropriate nor suitable in meeting needs. A move away from this approach risks a regression in the law by 40 years or so.
Once the legislation takes effect, children with an existing EHCP will have a needs assessment at key transition points in their education, such as moving to secondary school, sixth form in school or college. The Local Authority will decide whether the child requires a Specialist Provision Package and therefore an EHCP alongside an ISP for daily educational support. Where a Specialist Provision Package is not required, the child will move to an ISP only under “Targeted” or “Targeted Plus” support.
The first cohort to transition will be pupils at the end of primary, secondary and post-16 education in the 2029/30 academic year, with assessments taking place from September 2029 and children moving to the new system from September 2030. All children moving from an EHCP to an ISP will retain the right to request a mainstream placement, and no child will be required to leave a special school or college unless they choose to do so.
The role of the SEND Tribunal
The DfE maintains that the SEND Tribunal will remain a “backstop” when rights are ignored. Yet a closer reading suggests that appeals would be narrowed dramatically and the SEND Tribunal’s powers significantly curtailed. Under the current proposals, parents and carers would only have the following rights of appeal:
- Against a decision not to carry out a needs assessment;
- Against a decision that a child or young person has not met threshold for a Specialist Provision Package;
- Against which of the seven Specialist Provision Packages the child or young person has been allocated;
- Against a decision a child or young person no longer needs a Specialist Support Package;
- Against a placement decision. However, importantly, this will only be on the basis the LA’s decision is unreasonable. The Tribunal’s powers will be restricted to quashing the LA’s decision on placement and ordering reconsideration. The Tribunal will have no power to order an LA to name a particular school.
If enacted, this would represent a profound weakening of the Tribunal’s current ability to direct a Local Authority to name a specific placement in an EHCP. After hearing expert evidence, weighing legal arguments, and applying specialist expertise, the Tribunal would be reduced to little more than a reviewer, unable to secure a concrete outcome for a child, and would instead return the matter to the very body that made the flawed decision in the first place. This approach is illogical. Indeed, the Government has provided no rationale whatsoever for this proposal. It risks entrenching errors, prolonging disputes, and delaying the provision children and young people need. And if disagreement over placement persists after the “reconsideration,” parents may be left with no realistic option other than pursuing complex and costly judicial review proceedings in the High Court.
The Government is also proposing to substantially limit, if not in practical terms, remove, the concept of parental preference. At present, depending on the school being requested, a Local Authority must name a school of parental preference unless specific exceptions can be made out. The proposals indicate the Government’s intention to widen these exceptions to such an extent that parents can simply express a view. This is a marked shift away from case law over the last 30 years. This is compounded by the fact that the young or young person’s views also do not appear relevant and there is not a single mention of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in either consultation.
Of further note is the fact that, despite being a specialist expert Tribunal, with experience having been developed over the last 30 years, the new proposals do not give the SEND Tribunal any power to order amendments to description of need or, description of provision within an EHCP.
It appears the SEND Tribunal will also no longer have any powers to make recommendations as to social or health care. For the most complex of children and young people this has been of significant importance under the current system.
At present, parents are entitled to request a personal budget from their Local Authority where an EHCP is in place. The Local Authority must at least consider such a request. There is no mention of whether this will be retained under the proposed new system.
When will the changes take place?
The reforms are set to roll out in three overlapping phases:
Phase 1 2025/26 to 2026/27: The DfE intends to publish new guidance during this period, signalling the start of the transition.
Phase 2 — 2026/27 to 2027/28: Schools and LAs will begin receiving support to align their practice with the new SEND framework.
Phase 3 — 2028/29 onwards: Full implementation of the reforms is expected, with the new system becoming the standard approach.
The importance of consultation
It’s important to remember that everything outlined in the SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First is still at the proposal stage and may change. These proposed reforms have significant implications for children, families, schools and the wider education system. Consultations only work when key stakeholders take the time to respond, and this is a crucial opportunity to shape the future of SEND provision.
The consultation is open for 12 weeks, and we strongly encourage parents of SEND children, parent groups, charities, schools, and trusts to review the proposals carefully and ensure their voices are heard.
To speak to one of our expert solicitors about SEND, please also do not hesitate to contact us on schoolsupport@wslaw.co.uk or by telephone on 0345 070 7437.