Talk to me about the SEND White Paper

In this blog, we explain the latest updates on SEND reform and what they mean for families. We cover the current laws, key statistics, tribunal trends, and upcoming changes, and provide expert advocacy to help you navigate the current system and prepare for the future.

You may have noticed that we do not allow posts that include political campaigning or speculation about SEND law reforms.  This is because the aim of Empowering Families of Children with SEND is to support parents to navigate the current SEND law to achieve best outcomes for their children. Deviating from this would negatively impact on the support we are able to provide today.  However, Sarah and Anna are working hard behind the scenes to keep up to date with the progress of reform. This blog will explain more. 

SEND reform has been under discussion for a long time – and reform is needed. Just one look at the Tribunal wait times of 16-18 months will tell you that change is needed.  

Some of the statistics that are coming out as a result of the Government’s investigations into SEND reform are relevant for our community and with this in mind we include them here: 

• Only 46% of all EHC Plans in 2024 were issued within 20 - 52 weeks - as you will know, legally this is a 20 week process. 

• 7% were issued after 52 weeks. 

• Placements: In January of this year – 2025, of all those with an EHC Plan: 44% are attending mainstream schools, 30% are attending special schools, with only 14% in Further Education and Post 16.  

There are also interesting statistics regarding Tribunals.  

• In 2023 – 24 (which is the most up-to-date data available, 11,157 cases were decided by tribunal. 

• Of these, 11,007 or approximately 99% were found in favour of the appellant. This doesn't mean that SENDIST agreed everything that was requested on the Working Document across the board, or every element of the appeal. It does mean though that despite all attempts by LAs, the law must be followed.  

• In 2011 to 2012 the number of times the Tribunal service found in favour of the appellant was 69% - LAs are getting progressively worse at accepting those which just shouldn’t be going to appeal.  

It is our opinion that if Government Inquiries were looking for where money is being wasted by Local Authorities, it's here.  

If tribunals are hearing in favour of the appellant because the law is being enforced, and children and young people require the provision that only an EHCP will ensure they receive, why are Local Authorities forcing parents into Tribunal? The finances used to fund unnecessary appeals must be used to provide the provision that parents are requesting rather than being wasted arguing the point.  

It's also interesting to note, out of 16,726 appeals, 5,569 were conceded or withdrawn before the hearing.  

It also comes as no surprise to us that the Local Authorities with the highest rates of appeals all are the Local Authorities who produce the poorest EHCPs, namely: 

• Hertfordshire 

• Newham 

• Slough 

• East Sussex 

• Derbyshire 

• Westminster 

Let’s just reiterate here that this must not be change at the expense of those who require the support. Change must be for the better, not change for changes sake.  

Whilst we are not a campaigning group, this is very much something that we are watching intently.  

For our community this unknown is clearly a cause for anxiety, at a time when they are already extremely concerned about their own child/young person’s current, and upcoming SEND support.  

Empowering Families of Children with SEND will continue to provide professional SEND Advocacy support and advice for the here and now – and will be fully prepared and enabled to support our community in the future.  

So, let’s try and break into chunks what the current situation is, and has potential to be.  

You will have heard of the SEND Code of Practice, first published in 2014, and amended in 2015. This ‘code’ is underpinned by the Children and Families Act 2014. Together they detail the support which must be in place for children and young people aged 0 to 25.  

This is already a 2-tier system, with the first level being SEN support, and the next being Education Health and Care plans: EHCPs. 

In January of this year (2025) 19.6% of all pupils were identified as having Special Educational Needs. Now this does sound like a lot of pupils, but if you ‘Flip the Narrative’ - it also means that 80.4% of pupils do not have Special Educational Needs. Depending upon which percentage you're looking at, this could appear to be either a lot, or indeed fewer than anticipated.  

Off the 19.6% pupils, 1.3 million receive SEN Support and only 0.5 million have Education Health and Care Plans. So that’s actually 483,000.  Once you divvy it up into thousands rather than looking at the percentage of million, the numbers seem smaller than the statistics would like us to believe. (Let’s also just add that there are over 9 million children and young people enrolled in education across the UK).  

SEND reform started to rear its head in 2019, and was cut short due to Covid. This was picked up again in 2022, and 2023 with the Green Paper consultation on the reforms namely the SEND Review: Right support, right place, right time, and SEND and alternative provision improvement plan. 

In June 2025 the current government stated that they would publish a White Paper in the Autumn of 2025.  

What is a ‘White Paper’ you may well ask?  

White papers are policy documents produced by the Government that set out their proposals for future legislation. White Papers are often published as Command Papers and may include a draft version of a Bill that is being planned. This provides a basis for further consultation and discussion with interested or affected groups and allows final changes to be made before a Bill is formally presented to Parliament. (verbatim from the Parliament UK website) 

WHITE PAPERS are issued by the Government as statements of policy, and often set out proposals for legislative changes, which may be debated before a Bill is introduced. Some White Papers may invite comments. 

GREEN PAPERS set out for discussion, proposals which are still at a formative stage (verbatim from the Houses of Parliament website) 

Does this mean its then going to be law?  

A White Paper outlines the Governments ‘proposals’ but is not yet statute law. This is a ‘consultation document’. Next comes: 

• the ‘Bill,’ then  

• a first reading and then,  

• a second reading, 

• then the Committee stage,   

• then it’s the Report stage - in the House of Commons which must also be debated in  

• the House of Lords, then it’s 

• a third reading,  

• then it must be made into Regulations with a Code of Practice to be followed.  

Nothing happens over-night.  

As part of the White Paper, the current government stated that they intend to set aside £760 million from the Transformation Fund in 2026-27 and 2027-28 for SEND reform.  

Our children aren’t suddenly going to lose their difficulties because it suits whoever is in Number 10, so support must be in place – we must keep this in mind as this progresses through the two Houses. 

As always, it’s down to funding: how much and where this will be spent.  

We are being told that the existing situation is unsustainable. As service users, we can tell you where money is being wasted – right here at base level – failure to provide suitable SEN support in school resulting in parents finding the only way they can get suitable support for their child is via an EHCP, pointless Tribunals for Refusal To Assess, and for LAs who pay a total disregard to SEND Law, who are choking the Tribunal system to breaking point. Break SENDIST and the whole EHCP process is a broken – now who would dare to state that this is purposeful – in making change essential?  

“If it ‘aint broke – don’t fix it” – maybe we should be looking to who it is that is responsible for breaking the system – its certainty not those who need the provision. 

We know that ‘Best Endeavours’ duties are routinely not being met in mainstream schools. Parents finding that a school will not or cannot provide for their child’s SEN cannot challenge this to an independent body as schools cannot be challenged via tribunal, judicial review or the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSO).  This failure of early support is fuelling the number of EHCPs. 

We know, from information from IPSEA, that those LAs who were involved with the ‘Safety Valve’ – a total of 38 Local Authorities, when ‘let loose’ with their interpretation of the purpose of this agreement attempted to use this to: 

• Reduce the number of EHC NAs undertaken 

• reduce the number of children and young people attending special schools and colleges 

• reduce the number of children and young people attending a school or college outside their local area 

• cease to maintain larger numbers of EHC Plans 

  
  

It was noted that concerns from the programme included that Local Authorities were prioritising financial concerns over children and young people's needs and the associated legal duties, and the Safety Valve programme was called to be scrapped.  

It would appear to us, that Local Authorities are not able, or indeed willing to be left to interpret and follow SEND law correctly. They have proven this by the inability to self-monitor, and look after the service users. There must be additional measures in place to ensure that this does happen, and potentially more than just the usual trope of “if you don't like it you can appeal.” 

Alongside the Safety Valve, programme the Department for Education also has the Delivering better value (DBV) in SEND programme. This optional programme works with 54 Local Authorities, looking to address budget pressures.  

Once again there have been reports that those participating in DBV are attempting to reduce the numbers of EHC Plans. Again, evidencing that leaving Local Authorities to self-monitor will not give those requiring the most support the support they need, but only that which the LA want (or not) to provide.   

There is a repeating pattern here of Local Authorities who, when left their own devices are using policy over law, and as service users we must support that this has to change.  

The reforms are also looking at transport costs, In July 2025 the Local Government Association published research that found increased spending by councils on home to school transport for children with special educational needs and disabilities. It recognised that transport costs have increased because more ‘children are having to be placed further from home and outside their local area’.  

Now we know, because of the work that we do day after day that this is because there is a lack of placements for our children and young people. We regularly have conversations during the appeal process with parents stating their children simply cannot travel over an hour to and from school.  

Travelling long distances, which comes at a financial cost to Local Authorities, also comes at a cost to those children and young people who must travel that far in order to find a school that can meet their needs. We also need to look at how Local Authorities are putting transport out to tender.  

We know of transport costings for our own children where the transport was more expensive than the cost of the school placement. This could not be justified by the distance or the cost of fuel. Once again this points to the need for investigation into those departments responsible rather than blaming those who need to use the service.  

Because the early stages of the system are so broken, LAs are being forced to place more children into expensive specialist independent schools, fuelling a rapid rise in extremely expensive independent schools, some of which are seeking to make profit out of SEN education provision. 

Proposals 

The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision improvement plan: right support, right place, right time Proposes a unified system for SEND and alternative provision, driven by new national standards. These standards were the central proposal of the original green paper.  

There are no immediate plans to amend existing legislation, although the government does intend to underpin the new National Standards with legislation once they've been rolled out, which is planned to begin in 2025. 

The intention of this is to: 

• create local SEND provision partnerships to lead change and Commission provision 

• set up a National SEND and Alternative Provision Implementation Board to oversee the implementation of the plan 

• develop a standard template for EHCPs and digitise the plans 

• create a 3 tier Alternative Provision system, focused away from long term placements 

• develop options for providing parents and carers with a tailored list of SEND educational settings 

• support a SEND and Alternative Provision change programme to oversee the reforms 

• improve skills in the SEND workforce with a particular emphasis on early intervention 

• strengthen accountability including a new local and national inclusion dashboard and refocused inspections of local SEND provision by both Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission  

• explore options for strengthening mediation between schools and Local Authorities before deciding on whether to make mediation mandatory 

• introduce a new national Framework of banding and price tariffs behind needs funding 

In a bid to improve SEND support in schools, all new SENDCos are now required to have a new leadership level National Professional Qualification. This can only be a good thing, as we have many conversations with SENDCos who feel that their knowledge is based upon their Local Authority policy.  

In December 2024 the education committee launched an inquiry, again looking into how to solve the SEND crisis. This inquiry is focusing on the support that children and young people are receiving, the current and future model of provision for children and young people with additional needs, and the finance funding and capacity of the provision. The deadline for written submissions for this inquiry was February of this year, (2025), however oral evidence sessions are ongoing.  

The situation cannot carry on in the way it is currently, however, any change must be for the long-term benefit of our children and young people with SEND.  

SEND children and young people become SEND adults – a glaringly obvious fact that is often overlooked. 

 Investing now will be an investment in their future; an investment that would ensure our children and young people are able to access employment and therefore become taxpayers - that money spent on them will be paid back, not just financially but in their contribution to society.  

Ensuring our children and young people have as much opportunity to be independent adults only comes from their being supported throughout their years in education. Investing in a relatively short period of their lives, to ensure that they go on to have the very best opportunities for a successful, enriched and fulfilling life.  

Surely this is the very least that any Government must do?  

Anna and Sarah have over 60+ years of joint experience in SEND including the transition from the 1996 Education Act (school action/school action+/statements) to 2014 Children and Families Act (Best Endeavours/EHCPs).  SEND has been reformed before and will be reformed again.  Anna and Sarah will ensure that they are trained and ready to provide seamless support for our community when the law changes. 

We are, and always will be, Stronger Together.   

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