Reform of the SEND system: What might the next stage look like and how can we build consensus?

Following the publication of our report on reform of the current “system” of support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), between November 2024 and February 2025 we facilitated a series of regional and national workshops with young people, parents and carers, health practitioners, educators, and local government officials and members. The aims of these conversations were to explore the issues raised in our report, foster mutual understanding, and discuss the ways in which system reform might be taken forward.

This document summarises the points raised in those workshops and our reflections on how those debates have added to the ideas in our original report. While the workshops have been attended by young people, parents and carers, education leaders, health practitioners, and local government officials and elected members, this document does not presume to speak for all young people, parents and carers and practitioners – this was not possible within the scale of this work, nor is it our role to do so. These workshops are one strand of many conversations taking place at present about reform of the SEND system and are but one contribution to the growing – and welcome – debate about how to support children and young people who need additional support in the future. This document seeks to show the areas of common ground and the points of debate when leaders from Parent Carer Forums (PCF), education settings, health services and local government come together to talk about the ways in which the current “SEND system” is not working and how it could be reformed. Below is a summary of the key points from the workshops.

The research conducted by Isos found:

• There has been tremendous value in bringing together leaders from PCFs, education settings, health services and local government. In an environment of mutual respect, curiosity and absence of blame, these discussions offer a template for wider co-productive discussions to guide future reform.
• We cannot emphasise enough the toll that the current system takes on many young people, their families, and practitioners. Despite the good intentions of policymakers, the unwavering commitment of parents to their children, and some brave practitioners who go above and beyond to help families, the current system is not working well for anyone in it. At its most extreme, the current system can cause long-term misery, stress and hardship for young people and their families.
• While “broken” is a term many people use and recognise, some argued that the term is not useful to those in the system currently nor at this stage when the question is how, not if, future reform will take place. The current system works in the way it has been constructed to work. If we think that the experiences and outcomes it is delivering are not what we want, we need to design a new system and avoid the design flaws of the current one.
• There is value in thinking about reform of the system as comprising two inter-dependent pillars. We have found this idea of “two pillars” a useful way of grouping our original eight recommendations and framing the debate about reform. The first pillar relates to building values, culture, practices and support capacity, while the second relates to the legal rules and parameters of the system. Participants in the workshops found this framing helpful and recognised the inter-related and mutually reinforcing nature of the two pillars. They also recognised that risk that, if the pillars are not aligned, the system will be inherently unstable – for example, if the system’s support capacity (Pillar 1) is weakened, there will be over-reliance on the statutory system (Pillar 2) to access support.
• We suggest that reforms of both Pillar 1 (support capacity) and Pillar 2 (legislative framework) are necessary and need to be taken forward in tandem. For some (particularly PCF leaders), building the inclusive capacity of the system (Pillar 1) must be done before legislative reform (Pillar 2) can be countenanced. For others (particularly education setting, health service and LA leaders), it will not be possible to rebuild Pillar 1 without reform of Pillar 2. The challenge for national policymakers is to devise a path whereby reforms of both pillars can be moved forward in tandem avoiding the risks that concern families (weakening of entitlements and a loss of support) and those that concern leaders of settings and services (that new capacity will be taken up by the existing statutory system, rather than rebuilding Pillar 1 support).
• There is, however, a counter argument that reform of Pillar 2 would be unnecessary if Pillar 1 was strengthened. This is not our view, but it is one that is held strongly by some of the groups that we have engaged, and it deserves to be taken seriously. For those who think Pillar 2 reform is necessary, it is important to be precise about the specific elements of the current statutory framework that need to be changed, and that this can be done in a way that increases support, access and accountability.
• A crucial first step on the road to reform is to set out a national vision, a set of foundational values and national expectations about what an inclusive system should look like. Consistent and clear expectations of inclusive practice and the role of mainstream education settings (akin to what used to be called “school action”), targeted services (akin to “school action plus”) and specialist provision is a crucial foundation to both pillars of reform. How can we train a workforce, design buildings, create curricula, fund provision, measure impact and accountability without clarity on the respective and complementary roles of mainstream / universal, targeted and specialist services?
• The early years is foundational to this new approach in every sense. There is both an opportunity and an imperative to start to build this new, more inclusive and holistic approach to education and childhood in the early years. The opportunity is one that is occasioned by the roll-out of early education entitlements, and the state’s increasing role as a funder and commissioner of early education, as well as the nature of the curriculum and pedagogy in the early years. There is also an imperative because getting a joined-up and holistic offer of support from education, family and therapeutic services in the early years can be life-changing for children and families, and avoid issues being left to escalate as children get older. This will require, however, significant commitment and investment in every sense to inclusive education and holistic support in the early years.
• Workforce planning and development holds the key to all proposals for reform. It is an obvious but essential point, but any system will founder if there are not sufficient practitioners, in the right locations, and with the right training and skills. Time and again in the workshop discussions, colleagues emphasised the importance of developing a workforce across education and all children and family services that could uphold the principles and practices of more inclusive and holistic system.
• A crucial characteristic of a future system is that access to support should not be dependent on having a statutory plan. The hollowing out of non-statutory SEN Support (and the reduction in wider support services for children, young people and families) has made it seem imperative to secure an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) to get access to a modicum of support and to ensure some degree of accountability for its delivery. We think it is vital that a future system provides a much broader “core” offer of support for all children and young people who need it, which does not depend on them having a statutory plan. For such a system to work, there would need to be significant initial investment in building the capacity of settings and services to deliver this “core offer”. Furthermore, that offer of support would need to have “teeth” in the sense of effective accountability and routes of redress for families.
• It remains imperative that a future system breaks down the barriers that continue to exist to joint working across education and health services. Any attempt to reform the current system must find a way to crack this age-old issue. It must align responsibilities so that partner agencies are enabled to work together to provide an integrated and holistic approach to supporting all children, young people and families thrive. There remains debate about the best way to achieve this, but consensus that a brave and fundamental change is needed.