“Co-production is the golden thread that weaves through everything we do,” trumpet council presentations about changing SEND for the better. But it’s evident that the golden thread is is something of a mirage.
The real deals go on behind closed doors. Unaccountable, unshared, and not for parent eyes. More on that in a moment.
But as we were finishing this article came the sound of champagne corks popping in council chambers across the land. Council bosses cracked open the good stuff as news broke that the Government had finally laid the most golden of golden eggs: writing off 90% of SEND debt.
“We recognise the current SEND system is not working for children or families, nor is it working for local authorities, which continue to face significant financial pressures. The Department for Education has set out the principles for a reformed SEND system which meets needs earlier, before challenges escalate, and will set out details of these plans in the upcoming Schools White Paper.
Alison McGovern, Minister of State for Local Government and Homelessness
Ahead of this, we are introducing support to address local authorities’ Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) deficits. All local authorities with SEND deficits will be eligible in 2026-27 to receive a grant covering 90% of their High Needs-related DSG deficit accrued up to the end of 2025-26. This grant will be paid in Autumn 2026, subject to each local authority submitting and securing the Department for Education’s approval of a local SEND reform plan.
We know that SEND reform will take time to fully embed and local authorities will need further support. For deficits that arise in 2026–27 and 2027–28, local authorities can expect that we will continue to take an appropriate and proportionate approach, though it will not be unlimited. From 2028–29, SEND spending will be covered within the government’s DEL budget so local authorities will not be expected to fund future SEND costs from general funds”
It’s something council leaders, officials, and their minions have for years lobbied hard for. They’ve spared no opportunity to complain about the rising cost of SEND and the growing number of EHCPs.
The fat cats club, the County Councils Network, put this big win down to their superior bullying, er, lobbying skills. That’s their ability to cast one side eye of blame at parents exercising their legal rights, while the other eye swivels to fix on ministers as they pile on pressure to raise the thresholds for these rights.
And we do support the writing off of council debt—how else are they going to move forward. But wait…this deal comes with strings. Of course it does.
Safety Valves all round
It’s not councils who will have the last laugh here. Because the golden egg has not plopped out of a government free-range goose. It’s been magicked up like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of the previous government’s safety valve scheme.
Safety Valve promised first aid cash to councils on life support from badly-managed SEND budgets. Badly managed in terms of never having been properly funded for the 2014 SEND reform’s expanded age-range, or through the evils of the austerity years, or for the post-pandemic rising tide of need. You would think these three things should have been enough for truly skilled lobbyists to convince the government to write off the tidal wave of debt and be done with it. But instead, councils went with demonising families and blaming the SEND Tribunal, while the government played dumb—wasn’t me guv…
We all thought Safety Valve and the other scheme, Delivering Better Value in SEND, had been discredited and were being left to shrivel, along with the last government. But, it seems, Labour has spotted an opportunity. To get the safety valve cash, councils had to agree to cut costs and go along with a government-planned program that, it turned out, most couldn’t manage. That small fact hasn’t deterred this government. This deal is the same thing all over again, only on a much bigger and rather more underhand scale… But I bet you won’t see councils complaining.
In theory, though, now they’re not going to be drowning in debt, councils should be able to work with government, decide what specialist provision they need close to home, and who they need to deliver it, and start to comply with the perfectly reasonable law as set out in the Children and Families Act 2014. But no. It won’t be like that, because this is only 90% of the debt, not 100%, so they still won’t have anything for provision.
Our way or the highway
“The government has said that it will provide a grant for councils to pay off their deficits in Autumn 2026, subject to each local authority submitting and securing the Department for Education’s approval of a local SEND reform plan.”
CCN
It’s state-sanctioned blackmail, basically.
Fundamentally, the Government is bribing councils to go along with whatever it wants to do with SEND in the Schools White Paper. So if you think councils will come to the rescue and help if there’s anything onerous or detrimental to children in the upcoming plans, think again. Councils have their eyes on the prize and they won’t let any disabled kids get in their way.
The government wants more children in mainstream by hook or by crook. And without EHCPs, by the sounds of it. And by that, we mean they’ll be in mainstream until something bad happens, whereupon they’ll be hooked out of class and into an attached unit set up without specialist teachers. And if that doesn’t work, yanked off to alternative provision or just excluded altogether. And they won’t have an EHCP to appeal either. But maybe we’re being pessimistic, because the government couldn’t be that cynical, could it?
Matt will, I’m sure, be along soon enough with his considered take once we know more about the details.
But for now, young people, parents, carers, practitioners, schools, colleges, nurseries, unions, we are the only ones holding the line. You need to speak to your MPs and impress upon those not already on the side of families, how important it is to defend rights.
We’re already hearing that councils are holding back on making decisions until the WP is out. Please refer them to our post from IPSEA here.
Our joint campaign, Save Our Children’s Rights is leading this fight, and we are growing by the day. If you want to get involved in a practical way, sign up here. That can be from sharing articles, signing up for our SOCR newsletter, or helping out. You’re all welcome.
Co-production is the “golden thread”. Really?
Here’s where we came in…
As it stands, we don’t know what will be in that much-delayed White Paper. Last December, the Department for Education (DfE) was midway through its very public ‘national conversation’ about the future of SEND. It held five mostly one-way online ‘conversations’ as part of this, each one centred around one of their five stated principles of SEND reform: early, local, fair, effective, and shared.
On 17th December, they held an online ‘conversation’ about the ‘shared’ principle, where “education, health and care services should work in partnership with one another, local government, families, teachers, experts and representative bodies to deliver better experiences and outcomes for all our children.”
But two days before this ‘conversation,’ central government quietly told local authorities and NHS Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to get going with SEND reform preparation, on lines that, for reasons unclear, they deliberately withheld from everyone else.
Champing at the bit of change (that they want)
Programmes to improve provision have been underway for some time. Last week, we broke down interim evaluations of work started under the previous government’s SEND Improvement Plan. They showed early promise, but the proof is, as yet, far from convincing. Some of this will doubtless make it into the White Paper, if it ever appears. Remember what happened to the last Schools Bill?
But the Department for Education isn’t waiting for any pesky announcement of new legislation (or lack thereof) to hold it back. Recently, a local government source gave us sight of a letter and information pack. The letter (the one dated 15th December) was co-authored by senior DfE and NHS England officials and sent to local authority and NHS Integrated Care Board Chief Executive Officers. There’s a version of it here for Shropshire.
The letter thanked them for their “continued efforts to improve support and opportunities for children and young people.” Though considering it’s a standard letter, the thanks don’t feel that genuine. It then went on—at some length—about the truly marvellous things the government has (apparently) already done to create a SEND system rooted in inclusion.
Eventually, the letter got down to brass tacks (bold emphasis added by us):
“We are keen to work with local authorities towards a system that enables every child to achieve and thrive. In the new year, following publication of the schools white paper, we will ask every local area to produce a Local SEND Reform Plan, setting out how they will move to a new special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system built on the 5 principles set out by the Secretary of State: early, local, fair, effective and shared.”
“Full details of expectations of these plans will be published alongside the schools white paper. Support provided to local authorities will be linked to assurance that they are taking steps to make that system a reality, in conjunction with government confirming the detail of SEND reform.”
“Local authorities should not wait for these details to assess their current plans to ensure they are realising best outcomes and value for young people. System wide change will take time, and our children and young people only get one chance. We must therefore begin this essential work now and your leadership and partnership is critical to this.”
Ready, set, don’t wait for coproduction!
They’re asking LAs and ICBs to get ready to get ready, and in principle, there’s nothing particularly wrong with that. Last time, even though there had been over two years of pathfinders pre-2014, implementation seemed to catch councils by surprise.
The problem is, how can anyone properly ‘get ready’ if they don’t know what it is they need to get ready for? Whatever ‘that’ may be, the DfE and NHS England have offered local areas a helping hand. And this is where things get more interesting.
The letter came with some documents, including documents entitled Local Partnership Maturity Assessment Tool and Local Partnership Maturity Assessment Guidance. The idea is that local areas use this tool and guidance to measure how ready they are for SEND reform, so they can write their future plan. If you have a copy of the tool, we’d love to see it.
The guidance is protectively marked for government insiders only (soz!). It’s not supposed to be shared with external partners (oops). Somebody in government made this classification decision, sent the pack out to local SEND bigwigs on the 15th December, and then sent the Minister of State for School Standards out two days later to bat for the ‘shared’ principle of SEND reform (double oops!). Like a deleted episode of Friends, it’s “The one where we’re all supposed to work in partnership with each other.” Could they be any more sneaky? (Sadly, the answer is probably, yes)
Are you getting the picture yet? If you trusted them to be upfront, you might want to recalibrate your trustometer.
You said, we do (what we want regardless)
So what’s in the guidance?
Like God’s wisdom, the DfE and NHS England are leaning on ‘seven pillars’ to rate local area readiness for SEND reform. The guidance document claims these pillars “put outcomes of children and young people and their families at the heart of strategic planning and commissioning.” That’s a bold claim, given that children, young people and their families aren’t allowed to know about them yet.
Local areas are supposed to rate their readiness for reform against a “scale of maturity”. In what sounds like something from the Epstein Files, they range from ‘not yet emerging’ through to ‘maturing.’ The DfE’s multi-million-pound roving teams of SEND professionals and financial advisers will help them do this (to clarify: none of these people are in the EFs.)
So how will local areas know whether they’re on the right track for SEND reform? Alongside the guidance, the DfE’s consultants are providing local areas with “the priority metrics we recommend you use to baseline your performance.”
Pillars of Eternity
If the DfE has already set out key performance indicators for reform readiness, then that’s a very clear indicator that the specifics of SEND reform have already been nailed down—they’ve just not been shared with the unwashed yet.
At top level, the pillars themselves sound sensible:
- Pillar 1: Co-production with parents and carers and Children and Young People
- Pillar 2: Effective system leadership and governance
- Pillar 3: Accurate understanding of needs through effective use of data
- Pillar 4: High Quality Service Delivery at universal, targeted and specialist level to promote inclusion
- Pillar 5: Effective partnerships working across education, health and social care
- Pillar 6: Skilled workforce across the partnership
- Pillar 7: Targeted, judicious and sustainable use of resources including sufficiency, place planning and capital
But things get a trickier once you drill down into what the DfE and England think good SEND reform readiness looks like.
In several places, Pillar 4 refers to “tiered support”, with the tiers indirectly described as “universal, targeted and specialist” levels of support. That’s a good match with some of the detail briefed to mainstream media outlets in recent weeks.
Maturing..
Here are some examples of what the DfE and NHS England consider to be ‘maturing’ (ie best) practice.
- “Local partners have a deep shared understanding and confidence across education partners to identify children and young people’s needs and pathways to provide support without waiting for medical diagnoses.”
- “Local partners have a strong understanding of what should be ordinarily available in every local education and training setting (as well as health and social care), who specifically should be paying for it, and are working together effectively to deliver and improve this. This includes educating a higher proportion of SEND children and young people in mainstream providers over time.”
- “Quality-first teaching in mainstream settings, combined with evidence-based SEN support and early engagement with parents, is helping to build knowledge and confidence in mainstream schools and SEN provision. This is resulting in both fewer children and young people requiring an EHCP and more children and young people being educated in mainstream settings.”
- “A high percentage of EHCPs are in mainstream. There is a developed analysis of attendance for children and young people with SEND in comparison with non-SEND peers and this shows positive trends.”
- “Schools are confident that the local partnership sets a high standard for outcomes-based accountability. Tiered support is robust, with strong universal foundations and effective turnaround models. The local partnership focuses on outcomes, not just processes, with a shared ambition for excellence.”
- “Schools strategically use all available resources across education and health to build capacity and have embedded specialist support within their systems at a whole-school level.”
- “Specialist professionals, such as educational psychologists and speech and language therapists, are deployed at a universal level to support early identification and support.”
Emerging…
On the other hand, “emerging” practice (ie, practice that needs to change if local areas are going to be ready for SEND reform) apparently looks like this:
- “There is little evidence that children and young people and professionals see outcomes at the core of decision making and monitoring.”
- “Local partnerships use a limited range of data when informing decision and monitoring outcomes.”
- “There are different interpretations of what ordinarily available provision looks like, resulting in disparities of outcomes across the area.”
- “There is an over-reliance on specialist settings for children and young people with an EHCP. Parents lack confidence in the mainstream offer.”
- “There is an over-reliance on long-term AP placements, with little sustained reintegration into mainstream schools.”
- “A high proportion of EHCPs are in special schools but there is some improvement in the number or percentage of children and young people attending their mainstream settings regularly.”
- “Schools are unclear on the commissioning approach and do not see outcomes as being at the core of decision making and monitoring by the local partnership. Tiered support is inconsistent, and universal provision could be strengthened.”
- “There is little evidence of trusting and respectful relationships within the local partnership.”
- “Basic understanding of performance data; demand drivers are not well understood.”
- “Dedicated School Grant (DSG) management planning is reporting a worsening picture with limited mitigating actions.”
So many words.
On one level, it’s a bit baffling that government decided this guidance was too sensitive to share with everyone. A lot of what’s in it is sensible, uncontroversial, and welcome. A lot of it is the sort of thing that Ofsted and Care Quality Commission already look for when they inspect local area SEND partnerships.
But anyone who’s had the pleasure of contact with the DfE’s Safety Valve scheme will know how this approach tends to work operationally. It’s basically now being rolled out to every local area.
You will comply with our (secret) targets. Or else.
The covering letter to this guidance made it clear that the DfE has metrics that they expect local areas to apply to this process. These metrics remain secret—but the numbers in them will be treated as targets. And they will drive decisions that, given the people involved, will be thuggish.
That’s because there are big accountability voids in this structure. It might be that the Schools White Paper will fill these voids—if DfE ministers are genuinely listening to parent carers, they’ll know this. If good practice is seen as fewer children with EHCPs and more children in mainstream, will leaders really care how those metrics are achieved, so long as they are achieved?
But the voids are not just about accountability to families. Local area partnerships will have their SEND reform readiness judged in part on specific things that happen at school level. What happens to schools and trusts which don’t see themselves as part of a local area SEND partnership?
For example, if the Patrick Bateman Academy Trust decides that its schools’ paths to high academic attainment and outstanding Ofsted grades don’t include educating children with SEND, forcing out kids whose needs escalate, or deterring families from applying for a place at one of their schools, what exactly can and will the local area partnership do about that?
The reform readiness framework has nothing to say there.
If it all seems too much, like it’s all been decided and there’s nothing you can do, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Find our campaign here.
We do believe they want to improve provision, we’re just not convinced they believe in the importance of rights, understand how to avoid unintended consequences, what coproduction or inclusion truly means or how to achieve it, or how much parents hate to be taken for fools.
All we can do now is watch, wait, listen, and organise. If you have something to share with us, our email is here.
Disabled Children’s Rights are Under Attack.
We’re fighting, but we can’t do it alone: we need your help more than ever.
We’re volunteer-run, but costs are rising. To help us keep going, please consider a one-off or, if it’s possible, a regular donation.
Read more about being a regular donor here.
We use Zeffy to fundraise, which doesn’t charge us a fee, so 100% of your donation reaches us.
Also read:
- Beyond EHCPs: Why Inclusion Needs More Than a Document
- The Unacceptable Truth: 20 SEND legal rights at risk from the Government’s SEND reforms
- How health and family support systems are failing children starting school
- 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
- 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”
- Mainstream SEND Funding: A simple explainer, another consultation, and why it really matters
- The toxic culture of obstruction that’s taken root inside England’s council SEND services is not only unchecked, it’s encouraged
- EHCPs 2026: A relentless rise, but who’s surprised? Plus SNJ’s annual LA Hall of Shame
- The relentless march of SEND reform only hears views that fit the narrative
- The Government thinks Ofsted will ensure SEND reform accountability. This evidence suggests ‘significant concern’.
- Capital carrot, SEND steamroller: The Government’s evidence-light reform route isn’t waiting for anyone
- Not in our name: How manufacturing consent for proposed SEND reforms has broken the social contract.
- Are SEND lawyers REALLY opposing the Government’s reform proposals just to protect their “vested interests”?
- Rights on paper, not in practice: What the legal aid cuts warn us about the Government’s SEND reforms
- Schools White Paper: What do we know so far about funding for SEND?
- Part 2: The Testimonies. Children died; the system looked away. Will government SEND reforms make this scandal even worse?
- Children died. The system looked away. Today, the Government is calling the human cost of cutting rights, “reform” [Part 1]
- SEND cash splash: What does it all add up to—and will ditching debt improve provision?
- Inclusion bases: a new label, a big ambition, same unanswered questions
- Fix SEND our way for 90% of SEND debt write off, Government tells councils, urging swift action on change. So much for co-production…
Don’t miss a thing!
Don’t miss any posts from SNJ – simply add your email address below. You must click the link in the confirmation email you’ll receive to activate your free subscription.
You can also keep up with us by following our
Want more? Be an SNJ regular donor!
SNJ is a non-profit and everyone who writes here does so voluntarily. We need your support to help us with costs by donating once or as a regular patron. Find out more here
- The Unacceptable Truth: 20 SEND legal rights at risk from the Government’s SEND reforms - September 9, 2026
- WEBINAR RECORDING! The implications for children’s legal rights to EHCPs and EOTAS of the Government’s SEND proposals - September 3, 2026
- From suspicion to support: why the Government’s child protection reforms matter for disabled children - August 28, 2026
Please share this article!
Discover more from Special Needs Jungle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
