When the Government published its consultation SEND Reform: Putting Children and Young People First, it acknowledged something families have known for years. The system is not working as it should. It is not working for too many children, their parents or schools. And it is no longer working financially for local authorities either.

The scale of the crisis can no longer be ignored. Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) have more than doubled over the past decade. High Needs spending has risen steeply, yet families still report delays, inconsistency and conflict. Local authority cumulative High Needs deficits are now widely understood to be more than £3 billion nationally. Many councils are being protected from effective insolvency only through temporary accounting measures known as the statutory override. Without reform, the trajectory was unsustainable.

Structural change wasn’t ideological. It was unavoidable.

Over time, EHCPs became the only way to secure support. Despite the formidable amount of paperwork involved, parents pursued plans driven by the need for certainty. Schools, stretched thin and under pressure, often lacked the resources to deliver consistent support without the statutory whip. The system became escalatory with ever more assessments, tribunals and defensiveness. With mainstream inclusion depending largely on postcode, the requirement for early intervention remained inconsistent.

The consultation proposes a necessary rebalancing. It sets out a three-tier approach of Universal, Targeted and Specialist support. It inserts Individual Support Plans beneath EHCP level. It proposes National Inclusion Standards and stronger expectations of mainstream schools. The intention is clear. Most children, the Government argues, should receive high quality, consistent support without needing to enter a lengthy statutory process. Amen!

Bridget Phillipson, clearly understands the moral and fiscal urgency of the situation. Her speech today (although too rhetorical for my liking) was at least reassuring and candid, recognising past failures of delay and inconsistency. There is something reminiscent of Estelle Morris in that approach, a willingness to speak plainly about the limits of the system, whilst keeping children at the centre of the conversation, and this bodes well.

It seems like an obvious point to say inclusion should be an everyday reality, not exceptional.

This is not a superficial proposal for reform. It includes mandatory SEND training, more clarity over ‘reasonable adjustments’ and a stronger accountability framework for inclusion. That deserves recognition. It signals seriousness of intent. Yet seriousness of intent does not answer the practical questions that parents are now asking.

What will these reforms actually mean on the ground? Will the National Inclusion Standards be binding in practice or interpreted flexibly across areas? Will funding genuinely secure the ambition for earlier intervention? What happens when parents feel that Universal or Targeted support is not enough? And perhaps most pressing, will EHCP thresholds deliberatively begin to tighten as seemed baked-in?

When Government says that most needs should be met earlier in the school setting and without a plan, many families hear something different. They hear that legal safeguards are falling away. That lack of trust has been shaped by experience. For many parents, the EHCP has been the only way to guarantee speech and language therapy, occupational therapy or specialist placements.

The Government has committed approx. £4 billion over three years to increase capacity for school inclusion. It is a big figure. But when spread across early years, primary & secondary schools, and colleges nationwide, £4 billion becomes less significant than it first appears. Inclusion requires more than just guidance. It requires physical adaptation of buildings, sensory safe spaces, smaller group teaching, embedded specialist expertise, more staff time and sustained professional development.

Mainstream schools were designed for standardisation of large cohorts and attainment metrics, not adaptive, neurodiversity informed learning.

Retrofitting a system at that scale is complex and expensive. Without continued and sustained investment, schools will be obliged to deliver cultural transformation with only marginal increases in resource. It amounts to an irreconcilable collision between well-intentioned ambition with structural reality, with SEND families caught in between.

Classrooms are often busy, noisy and cognitively demanding environments, governed by performance tables and tightly structured behaviour systems.

We are now asking these same structures to become universally inclusive. Inclusion is not simply about creating tiers of support (the proverbial plaster over the wound). It is about rethinking how children experience school on a daily basis. It is about relationships, emotional regulation, pacing and a genuine student-centered culture on the human scale.

If structural and cultural considerations remain unaddressed, the SEND reform proposals risk becoming an administrative reshuffle rather than a learning transformation.

We may streamline paperwork without reducing distress. We may manage deficits without rebuilding trust. Such is the nature of neoliberal performativity dynamics in education.

And yet, reform is still necessary. Needs deficits are rising sharply; councils face a financial cliff edge; EHCP pathways are overloaded. Families are exhausted from the fight. Parents must be heard throughout this consultation. Many fear the loss of safeguards, and this deserves respect. They reflect years of lived experience navigating a system that too often required legal escalation before support was delivered.

Success will not be measured by the ultimate number of EHCPs or by balanced budgets. It will be measured by whether children are seen and receive systemic support before they reach crisis point. Parents must feel listened to rather than managed; and schools must feel equipped rather than overwhelmed. If we truly want to build an inclusive system, we must reshape not only funding flows but the experience of schooling itself.

References

Department for Education (2026) SEND reform: putting children and young people first: Government consultation. London: Department for Education. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/send-reform-putting-children-and-young-people-first (Accessed: 23 February 2026).

Department for Education (2026) SEND reform: putting children and young people first: version for children and young people. London: Department for Education. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/send-reform-putting-children-and-young-people-first (Accessed: 23 February 2026).

Inline images are used from the above reports.

Blog Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosipaw/4643095630 (under creative commons license).