The SEND and alternative provision reforms: current progress and future

It has been nearly two years now since the last government published SEND and alternative provision improvement plan: right support, right place, right time in March 2023. 

The current government has adopted the central plank of these reforms, namely to deliver more inclusion through mainstream educational provision. The original pilot programme for the reforms was planned to be 2-3 years. 

Key elements of the programme (such as the change programme partnerships and a pilot of standard format EHCPs) have progressed at different paces and others (such as practice guides, national SEN standards and new national framework of banding and price tariffs for high needs funding) do not appear to have progressed to any significant extent.

Given the size of the challenge faced by these reforms, such patchy progress is perhaps unsurprising. However, since the general election, the new Government has switched SEN from the ‘Families’ to the ‘Schools’ Directorate and it is continuing to focus on its manifesto commitment to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, whilst it formulates its own detailed policy.

As regards legal changes relevant to these reforms, the current Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will almost certainly result in legislation which allows local authorities to open maintained special schools outside the academy system, a power which they are highly likely to use to try to plug gaps in provision and seek to reduce costs.   

Nonetheless, it is unlikely there will be any significant change in the fundamentals of SEN law arising out of these reforms. Logically, if mainstream takes on more delivery of special educational provision (SEP), the breadth of what is special educational provision will narrow, because more of what is now SEP will no longer meet its legal definition of provision which is “different or additional to” provision made generally in mainstream schools. A child is only legally categorised as having SEN if they have a learning difficulty/disability which requires SEP.  Consequently, if the pivot to more mainstream provision of SEN works, fewer children will meet the definition of SEN and fewer still will have EHCPs. So, the steep increase in the number of EHCPs and the corresponding increase in Tribunal case numbers may be contained by shrinking what is technically recognised as SEN rather than reducing parental entitlements under SEN law. 

Clearly, for that to work, significant changes would need to occur in the staffing, training and resources of mainstream schools and colleges. The proposed DfE standards for SEN presumably cannot be implemented until those resources are in place, especially in light of the enhanced inclusion assessment element in Ofsted inspection. 

Last year, Stone King launched its SEN Service, a service for SENCOs and Inclusion Leads, providing legal bulletins, surgeries and key template and guidance documents.  Phase 2 of that service is just being launched, with the release of a second tranche of guidance documents for our mainstream and special school clients. Find out more here.