Ministers are being urged by MPs not to withdraw education, health and care plans and to instead introduce a set of national standards for special educational needs provision that all schools should meet as part of a plan to lift the sector out of crisis.

The Commons Education Select Committee has also called for an overhaul of the way special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision is funded, the creation of more special-school places and for the government to ensure that teachers, teaching assistants and other support staff have the expertise and training needs to support pupils.

It has published a report today bringing together the findings from its Solving the SEND Crisis inquiry.

MPs call on the Department for Education to ensure that SEND becomes an intrinsic part of the mainstream education system.

It claims this cultural shift would calm the “rising need for complex, costly education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in the long term, and help put the system on a sustainable financial footing”.

SEND reform

The government is set to announce plans for SEND reform later this year. A DfE adviser has previously revealed that as part of this, it was considering whether to continue with EHCPs.

This led to a campaign to try to protect the legal rights of children with SEND, culminating in a packed debate in Westminster this week.

The committee’s report notes that around half a million pupils in England had an EHCP last year, that this number has more than doubled since 2015-16 and that the current number is “unsustainable”.

It adds: “However, the solution to this cannot be to remove the statutory entitlements from a system which lacks accountability in many other areas and in which parents already have so little trust and confidence.”

Speaking to Tes, committee chair Helen Hayes said: “It is so important that the government engages with parents, understands the level of concern and loss of trust that there is at the moment and works to ensure that the reforms that it puts forward rebuild that trust and confidence.

“Any discussion about the erosion of the rights to EHCPs in the current context will be the only discussion the government gets to have.”

The committee also calls on the government to ensure that the SEND tribunal remains as a backstop in the accountability process.

In addition, MPs warn that the current inconsistency in special educational needs support and ordinarily available provision across England is “unacceptable”.

“It results in deeply inequitable experiences, delays in identifying SEN conditions and increases the levels of need for EHC plans,” the report says.

It recommends that a new framework of national standards for ordinarily available provision and SEN support be introduced without delay, to “establish clear, enforceable expectations while allowing for local flexibility where appropriate”.

SEN support is provided to pupils who have SEND but not an EHCP.

The need to define inclusion

Ministers have already indicated that reforms will be geared up towards mainstream schools becoming more inclusive for a wider range of pupils with SEND.

To help achieve this, the select committee says, the DfE needs to provide a definition of inclusive education within the next three months. It warns that it is “unacceptable” that this definition has not yet been provided.

MPs also call on the DfE to urgently assess the funding required to implement meaningful reforms to SEND provision.

Schools are expected to fund the first £6,000 of the cost of provision for pupils with SEND through a notional budget that is not ring-fenced.

MPs say funding for SEN support should be ring-fenced and rise with inflation.

The report adds: “The notional £6,000 threshold is insufficient to deliver good SEN support, placing unsustainable pressure on school budgets. The department cannot reasonably expect inclusive education to be realised without a significant increase in investment.”

The committee says a comprehensive review of the national funding formula is urgently needed to ensure that funding allocations reflect regional differences across the country.

It adds that the DfE must work urgently with the Treasury and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to come up with a clear strategy to address the growing SEND-related deficits that have been suspended from local authorities’ accounts until March 2028.

The committee wants to see continuous updates to initial teacher training and the Early Career Framework relating to SEND, and for CPD on SEND to be mandatory for all teachers in mainstream education.

MPs also say that the DfE should mandate that at least one member of a school’s senior leadership team should hold a Sendco qualification. Within four years, all new headteachers should hold a SEND-specific qualification.

More special schools

The committee recommends that the DfE should expand specialist SEND provision by investing in high-quality specialist state schools, specialist “resource bases” in mainstream schools and other mainstream provision.

This should be achieved through “shifting funding from some independent specialist schools to better value-for-money state specialist schools”.

Announcing the report’s findings, Ms Hayes said: “Making sure every child in the country with SEND can attend a local school that meets their needs will require a root and branch transformation.

“SEND must become the business of every frontline professional in educational settings, with in-depth training at the start and throughout the careers of teachers, senior leaders and teaching assistants.”

She added: “The government must develop a standardised, national framework for the support that children with SEND can expect in school, long before requiring an EHC plan, so that there can be confidence and clear lines of accountability.

“In the long term, a genuinely inclusive, well-resourced mainstream education system will bring down the desperate struggle to obtain an EHC plan. This will also help stabilise the sector financially.”

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “This report highlights the deep-rooted issues which have plagued the Send system for too long.”

She added that the report “highlights the need for actions we’re already taking, to make sure that evidence-based support is available as routine, without a fight, for every child who needs it - from significant investment in places for children with SEND, to improved teacher training, to our Best Start Family Hubs in every local area.”

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