Special Needs Jungle and SEND legal charity, SOS!SEN recently wrote a joint letter to the new Secretary of State for Education, Lucy Powell, to ask for a meeting. We have yet to hear back*—we know, she’s got a lot to get through—but we wanted to share it with you here to keep you up-to-date that, while the summer recess may be in full swing, we are still on the case for all parents and carers, children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. As ever, we will keep you updated.
Dear Ms Powell
Firstly, congratulations on your new position as Secretary of State of Education, we hope you are settling in well. You arrive at a crucial time, as important changes are under consideration for the future of special educational needs provision.
We are writing from both Special Needs Jungle Ltd, a volunteer-parent-led, SEND advocacy website and SOSSEN, a charity that supports families with the law as they navigate the SEND system. We are both long-standing organisations, and are founder members of the Save Our Children’s Rights campaign.
The campaign was created as now-justified fears grew of plans to remove or dilute rights created in the Children and Families Act 2014, co-produced legislation that was designed to place children with SEND and their families at the heart of the process.
Unfortunately, due to implementation and funding deficiencies, this well-constructed Act has never been given a chance to do what it set out to achieve. The legislation itself is sound, but it coincided with austerity and massive funding cuts that have, over the years, created more unmet needs in children, and led to extraordinary amounts of unlawful behaviour by local authorities.
This behaviour, the very least of which is routinely refusing assessments of need, means that the most vulnerable families, who do not feel able to appeal, are the least likely to get support. At its worst, this persistent, deliberately unlawful decision-making, has led to young people taking their own lives through lack of support.
This behaviour has been documented by accountability group Measure What Matters, working with MP Chris Coghlan, and includes council whistleblowers and almost 2000 cases of evidence of councils’ misfeasance and misconduct. This must not be overlooked.
The removal and dilution of disabled children’s rights
We, along with most families, and much of the education sector, are deeply unhappy with the current SEND and EOTAS proposals, which will remove vital rights for disabled children and hand more power to those committing misconduct.
The proposals that have, and are still being, consulted upon, will remove rights to appeal bad decision-making, instead handing unchecked power to councils to decide the futures of disabled children they have never met.
The reforms are being sold as being “the greatest expansion of rights in a generation”. In fact, the new right to an Independent Support Plan (ISP) is an empty vessel, containing no guarantees of provision and no right to appeal, only to complain to volunteer school governors. There is much more to it than this, but suffice it to say that families are overwhelmingly opposed to these evidence-light proposals that we know will harm children’s education and wellbeing.
Public body accountability must include misconduct in SEND
In light of the anticipated passing of the Hillsborough Law, it is astonishing to us that in SEND, not only are public bodies not being held properly to account, they will be given more power to do even greater damage, while stripping away the only way families can get the vital legal redress, accountability and the provision their children deserve.
While it is true the Tribunal will still exist, it will be in a much diminished state including:
- no longer any right to appeal the provision a council decides a child can have, only how the council has “categorised” them
- no longer any right to appeal the setting a local authority decides on
- no longer any right to appeal a refusal for out-of-school support for children left traumatised and suicidal by unsuitable educational settings
- proposals for all children asking for EOTAS to have a named school which will decide if the child—whom it does not know—can have any EOTAS at all, potentially forcing them back into a school environment where they cannot thrive
- children pushed in and out of potentially unsuitable mainstream “inclusion bases” without any individualised assessment of need, if they don’t fit the mainstream learning environment.
Vital voices dismissed
While there has been engagement, our voices—those of highly-experienced parent carers, SEND legal charities, and educators specifically opposed to the legal proposals—have simply been dismissed. Our issues with the plans have not been addressed honestly and direct questions have been met with obfuscation or just silence.
Meanwhile, moves towards implementing the proposals are not waiting even for the consultation response to be published. Additionally, the way the DfE media operation has consistently deleted and closed critical comments on its expensive SEND proposals social media posts is disgraceful.
Don’t get us wrong, we are definitely in favour of better inclusion in mainstream (and in a more accessible society generally), but there is no need at all to reduce the law to do this.
You agreed the SEND reforms were the right ones
When you were a member of the Education Select Committee, you produced the SEND Inquiry report in 2019, saying:
“We are confident that the 2014 reforms were the right ones. We believe that if the challenges within the system—including finance—are addressed, local authorities will be able to discharge their duties sufficiently.” (Paragraph 17)
“We recommend that when the Government makes changes to address these challenges, it should avoid the temptation to address the problems within the system by weakening or watering down duties or making fundamental changes to the law.” (Paragraph 18)
Yet, this is exactly what your new Department is doing.
Nothing has changed materially since the inquiry; council behaviour has just become more egregious, as outlined in Helen Hayes’ 2025 SEND Inquiry, which echoed that of your own in 2019.
Special Needs Jungle and SOS!SEN would really welcome a chance to meet with you to discuss our grave and urgent concerns. It is vital that the Government takes families with them but—despite what you may have been told—it is not doing so and we are desperately worried that disabled children will pay the price.
Sincerely,
Special Needs Jungle Co-Directors: Tania Tirraoro, Renata Watts, Gillian Doherty, Dr Sharon Smith
SOS!SEN CEO: Richard Orchard Rowe, Legal Officer: Eleanor Wright
*Update!
Someone is watching. We sent our email on 22 July. Curiously, a few hours after we published this post on 4 August, we received a response thanking us for writing and our congratulations, and to say, “her office is aware of your request, and will be in touch if she is able to meet.” We do hope so, because the futures of thousands of disabled children are at stake.
If you think Ms Powell should meet us urgently, please share this and tag her on your social media channels!
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Key Content
Also read:
- WEBINAR RECORDING! The implications for children’s legal rights to EHCPs and EOTAS of the Government’s SEND proposals
- When things go right: Shining a light on SEND Practitioners making a positive impact [Giveaway!]
- From suspicion to support: why the Government’s child protection reforms matter for disabled children
- Have your say on the future of transport for disabled children and young people
- Unison voices major concerns over SEND reform health plans for sick and disabled children out of school in the EOTAS consultation
- Top Tips for the EOTAS & EHCP consultation: Protect your child’s rights to statutory SEND support
- REGISTER NOW! WEBINAR on the Government’s plans to cut EHCP and EOTAS rights. With SNJ & SEND legal charity, SOS!SEN
- Navigating constraints: Why a former PCF chair thinks the current model is missing the mark for families
- Dear Secretary of State for Education, Lucy Powell: an Open Letter from Special Needs Jungle and SEND legal charity SOS!SEN
- Research: Disabled young people define inclusive education as “learning in the place that’s right for them”
- Why every child deserves Portage, wherever they’re born
- Mainstream SEND Funding: A simple explainer, another consultation, and why it really matters
- WEBINAR RECORDING! The implications for children’s legal rights to EHCPs and EOTAS of the Government’s SEND proposals
- Unison voices major concerns over SEND reform health plans for sick and disabled children out of school in the EOTAS consultation
- Top Tips for the EOTAS & EHCP consultation: Protect your child’s rights to statutory SEND support
- REGISTER NOW! WEBINAR on the Government’s plans to cut EHCP and EOTAS rights. With SNJ & SEND legal charity, SOS!SEN
- What might the SEND reform proposals mean for specialist tutors, alternative provision and EOTAS?
- When Home-to-School Transport Doesn’t Fit: The Reality of Section 19 EOTAS
- EOTAS Consultation: A further assault on children’s SEND rights with cost saving and reintegration to schools at its heart
- The relentless march of SEND reform only hears views that fit the narrative
- SEND reforms: Where are care-experienced children?
- Part 2: The Invisible Lifeline: Why EOTAS is Non-Negotiable for the ‘Sanctuary Cohort’
- The Invisible Lifeline: Why EOTAS is non-negotiable for the ‘Sanctuary Cohort’ Part 1
- Inclusion doesn’t just happen in mainstream school: being included in education and in life should be the goal
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She is a rare disease & chronic pain patient advocate with Ehlers Danlos syndrome.
- Dear Secretary of State for Education, Lucy Powell: an Open Letter from Special Needs Jungle and SEND legal charity SOS!SEN - August 4, 2026
- Research: Disabled young people define inclusive education as “learning in the place that’s right for them” - July 30, 2026
- EOTAS Consultation: A further assault on children’s SEND rights with cost saving and reintegration to schools at its heart - July 15, 2026
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