An update on the anticipated reforms to SEND legislation

Details of the government’s long-awaited reforms to the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (“SEND”) plan are yet to be announced, despite confirmation that the forthcoming white paper will now be published in the autumn.

That white paper is anticipated to introduce a complete recalibration of the special educational needs and disabilities system.

Background of SEND legislation

In 2014, the Children and Families Act heralded the widest reforms to the system of SEND in thirty years. Under the Act, new duties were placed on local authorities to deliver SEND provision and Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) were introduced, which replacing the system of “statements” of SEN.

Alongside the 2014 Act, the government published the SEND Code of Practice, setting out guidance to local authorities, health and social care services, schools, parents and young people with SEN. In 2019, the government announced a review of the SEND system and published a green paper with the aim of improving an “…inconsistent, process-heavy and increasingly adversarial system.”

Subsequently in March 2023, the previous government published a SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, which mapped out a plan for the delivery of a single system, based on national standards and an improved system of EHCPs to no effect.

The new Labour government identified SEND reform as a key priority in its “5  Missions for a Better Britain” document.

It is widely accepted that the same shortcomings necessitating reform of the SEND system persist, but with the added urgency of increasing numbers of children identified as having SEND.

According to the Department for Education’s most recent statistics, published on 26  June 2025, there are currently 638,745 EHCPs issued in the UK, an increase of 10.8% from 2024.

Call to action for the Department for Education

In January this year, based on a report by the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee issued an urgent call for the government to take action to improve the system of support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

The committee’s suite of recommendations address the systemic failures present in the SEND system, and require inter alia, the Department for Education (DfE) to:

• Better understand the differences in the identification and support for SEN
• Make improvements to LA decision-making
• Ensure special schools reflect value for money
• Set out the provision which children with SEN should expect
• Set out what inclusive education looks like
• Provide specific support to local authorities to manage their SEN-related spending
• Urgently improve its data and use this to improve the SEN system.

Whilst the DfE recognised the “…the urgent nature of these matters…”  and agreed to implement the committee’s recommendations with target dates between March 2025 and April 2026, they confirmed, “…it cannot commit to setting out plans in the next six months, it will set out further detail later this year….”

A moving picture

Widespread changes have been anticipated since September 2024, when Education Secretary Bridget Philipson hinted at wider SEND reforms. This gathered further momentum following reports published by the National Audit Office, the Education Committee and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which identified the extent of the crisis, highlighting that meaningful reform will be complex and costly.

It is hoped that much needed clarity on the reforms will be provided by the DfE in the coming months. We will continue to keep schools updated.