What will the SEND reforms mean - FAQs
The Government has now published its Schools White Paper, detailing proposals to reform the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system. You can find the White Paper here including an easy read version.
The White Paper contains lots of information and you may have questions about what this means for you, your family and the people you care about.
Below we have provided answers to some of the most frequently asked questions. We will also be seeking further clarity and information from the Government on some of the topics in the White Paper.
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A Government White Paper is a policy document that lays out proposals for future legislation.
The new Schools White Paper, Every child achieving and thriving, details plans to reform the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system.
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The Government is proposing to organise support for children and young people into the below layers from 2029 onwards. It is important to note that there will be no immediate changes to already agreed support packages including Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs). Those that already have an EHCP will keep them.
Universal – support that is available to all children and young people regardless of need.
Targeted - For children and young people whose needs cannot typically be met by what mainstream schools provide as standard. Support at this level will be delivered in mainstream schools, in consultation with parents, and through new Individual Support Plans (ISPs), rather than EHCPs.
Targeted Plus - This will support children and young people who require more specialist input to thrive in inclusive mainstream education. The plan is to have better access to education and health professionals, and outreach from alternative provision or specialist settings. Pupils may access an Inclusion Base within their school, with tailored learning environments, equipment and specialist expertise. In some cases, Targeted Plus may include short-term placements in alternative provision or specialist settings.
Specialist (EHCPs) - Will apply to children with only the most complex needs in both mainstream and specialist schools. The paper does not define what is considered the ‘most complex needs’ however, it suggests that access to an EHCP and Specialist support will depend on whether a child meets the criteria and support needs outlined in one of seven nationally defined Specialist Provision Packages. There is no more detail on these yet.
Children with an existing EHCP will receive a needs assessment at the end of each phase of education. The local council will determine whether they need a Specialist Provision Package and therefore a continued EHCP. If not, they will transition to an Individual Support Plan in a mainstream setting, receiving support through the Universal and Targeted layers.
The Government states that a child can receive support from any layer of support at any time during their education, and that they are flexible and not sequential.
Schools will have a new statutory duty to publish an Inclusion Strategy. This must set out how they will deliver support across the Universal, Targeted and Targeted Plus layers. This means that for the first time, schools will be legally required to explain how they will provide evidence-based support for children and young people with SEND.
£3.7 billion from now until 2030 will also go towards making school buildings accessible, creating new special school places, and tens of thousands of new places in Inclusion Bases in mainstream settings.
The proposed Experts at Hand programme will give schools better access to expertise from education and health professionals, as well as outreach from alternative provision or specialist settings, to support more inclusive mainstream education.
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A consultation is when the Government asks for views before making final decisions and changing laws. In this case, they have published the above documents, set out a series of questions, and are inviting people to respond. It sets out the Government’s plans and ideas for future policy and what changes might look like in practice.
Anyone can take part – and we encourage autistic young people, parents, carers, professionals, and organisations to share their views and experiences as consultations are one of the main formal ways that people with lived experience can influence policy. Responses are analysed and the findings are shared with decision-makers, showing how proposals affect real people.
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Now that the White Paper has been published, there is a 12-week consultation period. During this time, the public, including families, young people, professionals and organisations can share their views on the proposals. We have produced a guide for those that would like support with responding to the consultation. The guide includes our interpretation of the questions as well as information you may wish to include in your answers. You can access the guide here.
Following the consultation, the Government will respond and make any changes based on the responses, then move on to passing legislation (Likely starting in Autumn 2026). This will mainly be focused on legal changes to EHCPs, introducing ISPs etc. It will go through full legislative process with opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny and amendments.
Between now and 2027, the Government will be working to create guidance and prepare schools for the proposed changes.
In 2028, new support will begin to be introduced.
The first pupils to transition to the new support system will be those finishing primary, secondary and post-16 education in the 2029–2030 academic year. Assessments will begin September 2029 and implementation will start from September 2030.
For more information on timelines, see this parent leaflet: What parents of children and young people with SEND need to know
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Yes, the Schools White Paper details reforms to the schools and SEND systems in England. The changes do not apply to other UK nations.
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This £1.8 billion programme will bring more expert advice and services from education and health professionals (such as education psychologists or speech and language therapists) into mainstream education settings.
£1 billion will fund expert professionals to work directly with mainstream schools, improving early support without requiring an assessment or referral, while £800 million will build the capacity of mainstream schools through expanding outreach from specialist and alternative provision settings.
The hope is that by 2029, a typical school could benefit from annual support which is equivalent to 40 days per average primary school, and 160 days per average secondary school. To support such an ambitious programme, the government aims to train over 200 additional educational psychologists per year in 2026 and 2027.
Local areas will define the exact offer and distribution of resources, according to local circumstances. We will be looking to get more information from the government on how the offer will be constructed and what guidance local authorities will have in developing it.
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Inclusion bases (which are also sometimes referred to as SEN units, resourced provision, pupil support units, resource bases) are specific ‘hubs’ within mainstream schools that children and young people with SEND can access, to help them to feel happy and supported at school.
These bases may help with building specific skills and providing a space for children and young people to go to if they are struggling in the classroom environment. Our Cullum Centres are an example of an inclusion base, and you can find out more about them here.
Inclusion Bases will operate under two models:
Support Bases – commissioned and funded by individual schools, SEND schools or multi-academy trusts to deliver Targeted support.
Specialist Bases – commissioned and funded by the local authority to deliver specialist support. Under the proposals, all secondary schools are expected to have an inclusion base by September 2029. National standards for these bases will be produced.
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Every mainstream school will be required to deliver a ‘universal’ offer of high quality and inclusive teaching for all children. Children with additional needs will also be entitled to extra support on top of this universal offer.
Extra support is categorised into three different layers, targeted, targeted plus and specialist according to their level of need. The Government has said that children will be able to easily move between the layers of support according to their need.
Children and young people in the Specialist layer of support that are considered to have highly complex and specific needs that mainstream settings cannot routinely provide for will be entitled to ‘Specialist Provision Packages’ created by an independent panel of education, health and care experts in discussion with children and families.
We will be seeking further clarity on the distinctions between the different layers of support, how needs will be defined and the type of support that can be provided by each layer.
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No. Schools will be legally required to provide Individual Support Plans (ISPs) to all pupils identified with SEND. However, if parents feel the plan is inadequate or the support in the plan is not being provided, the paper does not outline any legal route to challenge this. Instead, disputes must be resolved directly with the school through their complaints process. This is one of our top concerns and we will be raising this as part of our consultation response and with our contacts in Government.
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- The paper is ambitious. We need this ambition to change a system that is not working for children and their families.
- The consultation is open for 12 weeks for the public to respond to. The Department for Education seems very open to hearing what people think about the reforms.
- All children with SEND will have a legal right to a support plan.
- Major investment has been announced to improve accessibility in mainstream schools, including Inclusion Bases which will be backed by national inclusion standards.
- EHCPs will not be scrapped completely. The right to challenge lack of support/EHCP implementation through tribunal will be maintained.
- Investments in more teachers, special school places, accessible buildings and Experts at Hand programmes.
- Guidance on reasonable adjustments.
- Schools will be legally required to explain how they will provide evidence-based support for children and young people with SEND through an Inclusion Strategy.
- The Children’s Commissioner will have a new remit to oversee and scrutinise the implementation of SEND reforms.
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- ISPs will be under the school’s control and parents will only be able to appeal them directly through the school. There will be no legal recourse. The risk is if schools do not put in place the support detailed in ISPs, there will be limited routes for parents to challenge this. It could create a more adversarial relationship between parents and schools.
- There is a requirement for all children with SEND to have a plan - but the Government will need to provide adequate funding for staffing and resources, so that schools have enough funds to recognise the SEN needs of all children that need a plan and are fully incentivised to support them.
- There is a strong risk that the investment announced to support the reforms will not be enough to give overworked teachers and schools the workforce capacity needed for them to provide the required levels of support.
- We are concerned about the risk that support packages will not be flexible enough to address the unique and potentially fluctuating needs of each individual child, and avoid leaving gaps if children don’t clearly fit into the predetermined support packages.
- Reviewing EHCPs at transition points could lead to more legal challenges, confrontation and risks of much needed support being cut off at a critical point for autistic young people.
- EHCPs will just be for children with the ‘Most Complex Needs’ – Complex needs in this case will be decided by who qualifies for the yet-to-be-designed Specialist Provision Packages. This means there needs to be a large focus on getting these packages right so they apply to all autistic young people who may require an EHCP.
- While Tribunal rights are retained for EHCPs, the tribunal outcome cannot mandate a child gets access to a certain school, instead the decision will go back to the local council. This means a risk of children missing out on the school place most suitable to their needs and could create longer, drawn-out processes and confrontation between parents and councils if the preferred school place is not given.
- The investment announced for training is nowhere near enough, and focuses on broad SEND training rather than anything condition-specific. We also need more clarity on how the plans will address the barriers that teachers face when it comes to implementing the knowledge and best practice gained from training.
- We are unsure whether there will be enough trained professionals to fulfil the Experts at Hand plan, including whether they will be able to compete with private health and school provision in terms of pay to attract enough staff.
- The White Paper outlines plans for specialist schools to provide outreach support and short-term placements for pupils enrolled in mainstream settings. The Government has committed to working with the sector to develop a stable funding model to achieve this, but as yet funding has not been announced so it is not possible to judge whether funding will be sufficient.
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You can find out how to get involved by signing up to campaigner updates. The Government has opened a public consultation, which asks the public, including autistic people, their carers and families, to share their opinions on the proposed changes.
We have created a guide to help you respond to the consultation so you can make sure your voice is heard. Signing up to updates will also make sure you hear about any other opportunities to influence MPs and Ministers to make the reforms the best they can be for autistic people.
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If your child leaves education before 2029/30, you are unlikely to be affected by these changes.
Every child with a specialist school place in September 2029 will be able to stay in a specialist school until they finish their education.
If your child has an existing EHCP and will still be in mainstream school in 2030, they will receive a needs assessment at the end of each phase of education (end of primary school, secondary school and sixth form/college). The local council will determine whether they meet the criteria for a Specialist Provision Package and therefore a continued EHCP. If not, they will transition to an Individual Support Plan in a mainstream setting, receiving support through the Universal and Targeted layers.
If your child has SEND but does not have an EHCP and will still be in school in September 2029, they will then be entitled to an Individual Support Plan to assess the support they may need to be fully supported in mainstream education.
Children still in school in 2030 could benefit from improved inclusion practices in mainstream schools, more accessible learning environments, and Inclusion Bases.
However, they could also face difficulty if the recommendations in their Individual Support plan are not met, or if the Individual Support Plan is not created with their and their family’s meaningful involvement. There will be no legal recourse to challenge this and complaints will be dealt with within the school.
Existing demands on school staff, if not addressed with significant funding, could mean that the ambitious plans to improve provision and implement the new system are not successful and this may be felt by SEND pupils.
For more information, see this parent leaflet: What parents of children and young people with SEND need to know
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We hope that some of these proposals will have a positive effect on the ability of school staff to provide more inclusive learning experiences for children with SEND. This includes the availability of Experts at Hand, Inclusion Bases in every secondary school by 2029, and improved training and guidance.
However, we are concerned that the promised funding will not be sufficient to support staff to implement the new layered support system, publish Inclusion Strategies and enact recommended interventions. Transition to the new system without adequate workforce funding will place undue pressure on school staff.
Teachers and school staff have shared concerns about workload, workforce numbers and retention, and the limitations these barriers place on providing SEND support. We are concerned that the current plans will not properly address this.
We are also concerned that the proposals expect significant knowledge and expertise sharing from professionals in specialist schools, despite the lack of additional funding to provide capacity for this.
We will be raising these concerns in the consultation process and with our contacts in Government.
For more information, take a look at this leaflet for school staff: Information on SEND Reform for those leading and working in mainstream schools
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One of our key concerns was that these reforms might be a cost-cutting exercise. Based on our analysis of the Schools White Paper, this is not the case. The paper proposes that £7 billion more will be spent on SEND support compared to 2025-26.
Department for Education (DfE) budgets will increase above what was previously planned - by £3.5 billion extra in 2028-29 to support investment in the SEND system. Large funding has been committed – but we still do not believe it is enough to meet the Government’s rightly ambitious plans.
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These reforms are long overdue, we know that far too many autistic people have been failed by the existing SEND system. We think the Government needs to go further in providing more funding and easier routes to accountability to get these reforms right.
Hearing your stories shows us just how important it is to make sure these changes really work for autistic children. We know that failures in SEND provision are felt for a lifetime by autistic people. We are also working hard to create change in many areas that affect autistic adults, including employment, health, diagnosis, mental health and social care. Read more about our work here: https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/campaign
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We are not completely opposed to these reforms. There are lots of details in the Government’s plans that we will be analysing and seeking further clarity on over the coming weeks. We know that significant changes are needed to make sure the education and SEND system works better for autistic young people, so everybody gets the chance to learn and be happy at school. Some of the proposals could really help autistic young people – but we also have lots of concerns we will be raising in our consultation response and with our contacts in Government. For example: we don’t think the funding announced to go alongside these reforms is enough to create the changes that are truly needed. We are also concerned about the lack of legal backing for Individual Support Plans. With your help, we will keep fighting to highlight the impact on autistic young people and make these reforms as good as they can be.
There is still a long time for consultation, and it reforms will go through the full legislative process. The Department for Education has so far been very open to engagement from the charity sector and parents so there is plenty of time to have constructive conversations aimed at getting these reforms right working with the Government to do so.