Lots of people are talking about the need for deep reform of England’s SEND system. Not many of them are saying clearly what they want that reform to look like. If you’re an SNJ frequent flyer, you probably know that the House of Commons Education Committee is running an inquiry into solutions for the SEND crisis. The Committee has received over 880 written evidence submissions and many of those are now being published on their website – you can find them here.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be running a few posts looking at some of this written evidence. We’ll primarily be looking at evidence from organisations that have lobbying power with the government—that is, those who get to whisper their views into the ears of people in high places who can make policy.
We’re not doing this because we endorse their evidence, or because we think it’s accurate. We’re doing it so that parent carers have a clear idea just how powerful people want to reshape the SEND system.
We’re kicking this series off with one of the most powerful groups – local authorities.
Who are the local authorities?
There are 153 upper-tier local authorities in England that hold statutory responsibilities for local Special Educational Needs and Disability services. There are also several groups that represent them:
- The Local Government Association (LGA) “a politically-led, cross-party organisation that works on behalf of councils to ensure local government has a strong, credible voice with national government”;
- The lower-wattage County Councils Network (CCN), which represents 37 LAs, mostly in shire counties, thereby representing many of England’s most dysfunctional local SEND services;
- F40, a 43-council campaigning group set up to challenge unfair school and SEND funding;
- London Councils, a collective of London local government, the 32 boroughs and the City of London Corporation.
Three of these four organisations have submitted written evidence to the Education Committee’s SEND inquiry and have had it published. So what are they lobbying for?
LGA & CCN: Isos in a trenchcoat and dark glasses
If you’ve read a draft EHCP from an LA recently, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that the LGA and CCN submissions to the SEND inquiry are basically just cut-and-pasted content from someone else’s document.
Last year, the LGA and CCN commissioned an ‘independent’(!) study from a consultancy firm, Isos Partnership. The Isos report forms the basis of LGA’s evidence submission to the Education Committee’s SEND inquiry. The CCN’s submission’s recommendations section basically just says ‘read the Isos report.’
Both organisations interchangeably refer to ‘our report’ and ‘the Isos report,’ which gives some indication of the degree of so-called independence involved in it.
SNJ looked at the Isos report in depth last year: it’s safe to say that we weren’t fans. If you want a detailed dissection, read this article: a summary follows below.
In short, LGA, CCN and Isos are proposing a six-year, £5 billion reform programme that would change the law, throttle statutory SEND support, fetter the discretion of the SEND Tribunal, divert risk downstream towards people like us, whilst making the lives of councils a lot easier. There are some good things in these proposals, but the good things would only work if local government, health and school leaders behave very differently to how they behave now. And a lot of what’s proposed is toxic.
These are the main recommendations :
- Setting a new inclusive vision for education (and the transition from education to adulthood) that would guide every organisation involved in SEND.
- Setting up a new ‘independent’ quango – the National Institute of Inclusive Education – to define what inclusion means, to set nationally-agreed standards and expectations of SEND provision, and possibly also to resolve SEND disputes.
This “National Institute” sits at the heart of local government’s proposed SEND reforms. It would do something similar to what NICE does for the NHS: defining and promoting evidence-based practice, and acting as an “independent authority” on inclusive education. It’s not clear who this National Institute would be funded by, who it would report to, or how it would be staffed. Establishing this National Institute might also be a challenge with the current government, which is starting to take an axe to quangos elsewhere.
There are also already plenty of independent bodies involved in SEND standard setting and scrutiny, and local authorities loathe any contact with them. That makes it likely that there’d be a great deal of pressure from LAs to make this “independent” National Institute their own plaything.
If you’ve attempted to secure NICE-approved health provision for your disabled child recently, you’ll know just what little difference an independent body makes to the services your kid actually gets.
Anyway, that’s the scene-setting for these proposed reforms. Once the vision and the divine authority are in place, the fun really begins.
What do LAs really really want?
Schools must work harder and better at mainstream inclusion: That’d be partly through mainstream schools changing the way they deliver the curriculum, the way they assess pupils, and the way that support is funded. But it’d also involve special schools working harder to support mainstream schools too.
More MDTs: The local authority contribution to this would be giving schools access to a team of multidisciplinary specialists who would be accessible without the need for an EHCP. Legally, of course, nothing is preventing these sorts of teams from being set up right now. But the next recommendation takes a politely-honed axe to children’s rights at the individual level.
ILRs: The LGA, CCN and Isos are proposing the establishment of a system of Individual Learner Records. In some ways, these would work similarly to EHCPs: there’d be regular, periodic assessments and reviews, and the Learner Record would be based on individualised provision. They’re vague on whether these ILRs would replace for EHCPs, or a more accessible alternative. They’re super-vague on who would be responsible for maintaining the learner records and ensuring their individual quality. And they are vaguest of all on what statutory duties would come with a Learner Record.
LAs really really want to remove parental rights and disabled children’s entitlements
But at the heart of these recommendations, there’s a proposal to cut back on individual rights. The LGA, CCN and Isos propose keeping a degree of parental preference within the school admissions process. But, “…for the system to be equitable and sustainable, the state must be clear on where the limits of individual choice and entitlement lie.”
What that would mean—explicitly—is removing the rights of young people and their parent carers to appeal to the SEND First-Tier Tribunal about a local authority’s decisions.
Put bluntly, local government and its flying monkeys want the judiciary out of the SEND picture. That’s because when an independent judicial body that includes SEND experts reviews LA decisions, they almost always find fault.
Instead, our local government anti-heroes want a non-judicial alternative. Presumably, that means a pliant and non-binding alternative. That would either be a vaguely-defined, vaguely-empowered “SEND Ombudsman,” or their imaginary National Institute of Inclusive Education.
Final Destination 20
On top of that, the LGA and Isos are recommending setting up something that they call a “Destination and Progression Service” in each LA. The upside of this would be smoother transitions to adulthood. They also want the age of transition from child to adult services standardised across education, health and social care – something that makes sense to anyone who’s tried navigating these systems for their young people.
The downside—and this is something that they clearly hope no-one is paying much attention to—is that under this proposal, our cuddly new Destination and Progression Service would wash its hands of the young people they support two years after the transition point.
So if the age of transition is set at 18 across all services, then the LA’s education SEND service bring down the curtain on your young person once they reach 20. At that point, you’d be the problem of the NHS or the LA adult social care team.
It’s a crude effort to slash the upper age limit of 25 on SEND support entitlement. If you have a young adult with SEND whose best years of learning were pissed away by the failure of local government and health to do their jobs when your kid was at school age, then that’ll just be tough.
LIP service and word salad
The other recommendations are mostly about top-level leadership. These proposals would set up Local Inclusion Partnerships where LAs, health bodies, schools, and parent carer forums would all play nicely together. These LIPs, “would have statutory powers and joint funding, and would be responsible for strategic planning and commissioning of a continuum of support to meet local needs (including the targeted offer of support and specialist provision) and decision-making regarding future statutory plans.”
Some of this work is already being explored by the SEND and Alternative Provision Change Programme. But the main aims of this proposal would be to lash health services to the accountability mast, to give LAs greater freedom to set up their own specialist SEND provision, and to enhance LA powers to direct school placements at an individual level.
Local government is also lobbying for more “strategic” use of independent specialist provision. By this, they really mean “a lot less of it, and only on our terms.”
They aren’t saying that no one needs independent specialist provision. But they are saying these schools and colleges should work to similar regulations and funding levels as the state sector does, and there should be no space for anyone to make profits out of it. Combine that (particularly the funding plan) with their plans to hobble the judiciary, and independent specialist provision would become largely inaccessible unless the LA agrees with you.
Finally, the LGA, CCN and Isos are calling for a National Workforce Strategy—something that would set out how many specialists the SEND sector needs, and what training all staff need. Our friendly neighbourhood National Institute of Inclusive Education would look after all of that.
Fairer funding
The F40 group departed from the Isos script in its recommendations: the purpose of the group is fairer funding, and that’s what it’s concentrated on.
Like the other local government groups, F40 wants to see more inclusive behaviour by mainstream schools, more SEND funding directed into early intervention, better pastoral support in mainstream, and more support from health services. It also wants LAs to have greater powers to direct the placement of individual pupils.
F40 wants a lot of changes to funding:
- a review of the dated and complicated formula that currently doles out high-needs funding unevenly;
- an upgrade to funding thresholds for mainstream and state special schools;
- a much bigger dollop of capital funding, to build more specialist SEND provision; and
- a complete write-off of the education funding deficits that LAs have built up.
You’ll be pleased to learn that F40 also has views on parental choice and the Children and Families Act 2014, although it doesn’t appear to have bothered to inform itself on the specific limits and duties of either: “The current legislation remains centred around parental choice, rather than well-informed opinions of professionals. There is also a lack of focus on ensuring that provision is proportionate to the level of need and is not greater than required.” Sigh.
Individual LAs and their terrible “big ideas”
These are the solutions to the SEND crisis being put forward by the biggest swinging dicks in the local government sector. On top of that, individual LAs have submitted their own recommendations for improvement too. These will carry less weight than the proposals from the biggest local government bodies, but with enough crack in their system, someone might find them attractive.
Most of these individual council evidence submissions want the same sort of thing as their representative organisations do. More inclusive mainstream schools working to a clear definition of inclusion. More early intervention. Fewer EHCPs. Deficits written off. Health services doing their fair share. Independent specialist providers shorn of their profits, and put back in their box with a local authority padlock attached.
But some councils have put forward their own ideas on top of that:
In recent months, Norfolk County Council have been pitching MPs and the Department for Education to trial six changes. These ‘powers to innovate’ form part of their recommendations to the Education Committee. They include:
- requiring the SEND Tribunal to take account of the council’s financial position and planning when making appeal decisions;
- eliminating the requirement in law for educational psychologists to provide advice to EHC needs assessments,
- kicking it down to a ‘reasonable endeavours’ duty; and
- applying funding tariffs to independent provision, linked to Ofsted ratings.
Norfolk would also like to see a process of “removing of EHCP within a mainstream context.” It doesn’t quite spell this thinking out fully—its submission drafting was poor, so that might be down to cowardice, or it might be just be plain incoherence. But it looks like Norfolk would prefer EHCPs to be limited to special school placements only.
Surrey County Council also has some big ideas. Its ideas are:
- Abolish the right to an EHC needs assessment for children under the age of five.
- Ringfence SEN funding in mainstream schools.
- Mandatory mediation (which was already dropped by the previous government after an outcry from the SEND sector; and
- Remove families’ right to appeal to the SEND Tribunal for decisions about non-maintained special schools.
Surrey would also like to see artificial intelligence used to streamline the EHCP process. That’s something they are of course free to do now, (A number of firms are already trying to flog this) although God help anyone whose plan gets produced by a neural network trained on Surrey’s piss-poor EHCPs.
And as you’d expect from this council, they want uppity parents to Know Their Place. They want government to: “reconsider the SEND tribunal process entirely and replace with mediation or other dispute resolution mechanisms that do not privilege families with higher social/cultural capital and the financial resources to retain legal advisors.”
The group of LAs who form the South East SEND & AP Change Programme Partnership also have views, and they are not at all keen on the law or its consequences:
“An overhaul of the tribunal process is urgently needed. Too many decisions are being made that are incorrect. 98.5% of LA decisions cannot be wrong.”
“Addressing the punitive Judicial Review system; creativity and innovation is blocked by this.”
“The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman gives parents an incentive to raise a complaint for a financial remedy.”
There aren’t any specific recommendations here – it’s just the sound of serially deadbeat dads, whining that the courts made their kids hate them. The LGSCO argument in particular is laughable: 92% of SEND complaints against LAs are upheld, and the median financial remedy is a three-figure sum.
These LAs also want educational psychologists freed from the tiresome obligation to assess individual kids. They want to see SEN funding ringfenced in mainstream schools, or if that can’t be done, a higher threshold for EHC needs assessment.
Psychologist, heal thyself
In these proposals, you might be looking for things that local authorities think they could do better by themselves, before any new SEND reforms happen. Something that might indicate a degree of reflective practice. Something that might cause them a little bit of short-term pain for long-term gain. Something that’s not just about their unmet needs, or the failings they see in everyone they work with and everyone they work for.
If you’re looking for that, you’ll be almost entirely disappointed.
But one LA did submit some evidence where they put some thought into what they could do better.
Tameside’s (Greater Manchester) submission had many of the usual complaints and ‘solutions’, but it did also include the following:
“By shifting our perspective, we can create an education system that genuinely improves outcomes for learners with SEND. Success should no longer be about meeting a universal standard but about recognising and supporting the individual journey of each child. This change will not only enable learners with SEND to achieve their potential but will also empower them to see themselves as capable, confident, and valued members of their communities.”
“Streamlining and improving the overall quality assurance (QA) process for EHCPs is essential. This involves clearer national guidelines, more consistent training for those involved in drafting and implementing plans, and enhanced monitoring to ensure that the provision outlined in plans is both realistic and actionable. A focus on quality over quantity will result in more meaningful and effective support for children and young people.”
“Professionals must prioritise listening to families, recognising the importance of their insights and lived experiences. Families, in turn, need confidence that services are genuinely acting in the child’s best interests. These relationships are only effective when reinforced by consistent actions that demonstrate a commitment to working together.”
“Equally important is fostering a culture of accountability. Schools and LAs must be held to account for their SEND provision, with clear monitoring processes to ensure compliance with the defined descriptors.”
I’ve no idea whether Tameside walk it like they talk it (do let us know). But in a far from crowded field, this was probably the best LA submission so far.
Elsewhere, it’s looking pretty grim. We know that these local government lobbying messages are being pushed very hard behind closed doors and to the media. We know that they’re being well received in some quarters. The taxpayer-funded lobbying power on display here is something that SEND families cannot match. It was most recently shown by this completely ludicrous Guardian article that compared SEND transport costs to pothole repairs, getting both the detail and the initial framing hopelessly wrong.
We’ll see plenty more examples of this toxic briefing over the next few weeks and months. The Government’s Spending Review is being finalised, and the government is still making up its mind about SEND reform. But make no mistake: the core of what local government wants from SEND reform is right here.
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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”
- When the LA wants to cease to maintain an EHCP: The law and some top tips
- Inquiries and injustice: the SEND Inquiry hears the parental perspective
- Renewed petition to SCRAP SEND Safety Valve and write off council High Needs debt
- Cut neurodiversity assessment waiting lists in one easy step: Create more barriers to NHS referrals
- Should “SEN Support” by made a legal duty to make it work children with SEND? And what would that look like?
- PAC SEND report: Slightly pointless when decision-makers don’t know what they value more—money or children’s futures?
What kind of government is “bold” enough to scrap statutory EHCPs from vulnerable children?May 16, 2025
The SEND reforms in the Schools White Paper reveal rights given, and rights stripped awayFebruary 24, 2026
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Matt specialises in SEND stats, data analysis, and in-depth investigations of policies. He has given evidence to several Parliamentary Select Committee inquiries, and his articles for SNJ on SEND funding, local government policy, and the SENDIST Tribunal have been quoted in Select Committee inquiry reports and national media.
- Top Tips for the EOTAS & EHCP consultation: Protect your child’s rights to statutory SEND support - August 19, 2026
- Mainstream SEND Funding: A simple explainer, another consultation, and why it really matters - July 22, 2026
- EHCPs 2026: A relentless rise, but who’s surprised? Plus SNJ’s annual LA Hall of Shame - June 27, 2026
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