Last month, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson delayed the publication of the Schools White Paper, and along with it, any changes to SEND. She said there would be a “period of further “co-creation,” including families, teachers, and other experts. “Further”, as if it’s already been happening. As a quick recap pertinent to today’s discussion:
“To help us deliver the most effective set of reforms we can, I have taken the decision to have a further period of co-creation, testing our proposals with the people who matter most in this reform – the families – alongside teachers and other experts as you highlight in the Select Committee’s report. We will bring forward a full Schools White Paper early in the new year, underpinned by our belief that high standards and inclusion are two sides of the same coin.
Through this period of co-creation with parents, educators, experts and representative organisations, we will test policy options being considered and seek views through listening sessions in every region of the country, and fortnightly Ministerial meetings with key parent and expert groups. We will publicise these events clearly across the department’s channels to ensure that we reach as many people as possible. This builds on the constructive dialogue we have already undertaken, which has helped inform the principles guiding our approach. I will continue to listen directly to those working within the system, ensuring that our policy development is grounded in lived experience and fosters a culture of shared learning and constructive challenge.”
This mention of “co-creation” was interesting, welcome, but also perplexing because Ms Phillipson then listed a framework of five principles: Early, Local, Fair, Effective, and Shared. We added more detail to what she described these as in our post here, and Matt looked at the future of funding for SEND here in relation to these principles, both of which are also embedded below.
As I said in my previous article, the conundrum of “co-creation” is that it should be exactly that. To quote Julie Andrews’s Do-Re-Mi in The Sound of Music, let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start… But Ms Phillipson clearly sees co-creation as something that starts after she’s decided on the most important principles. But if she’d faithfully channelled Julie by starting the process alongside families, her principles would surely have included “rights-based” as the basis of any reform.
It’s entirely possible she meant “co-production”, where people come together as equals to develop services that work for everyone involved. It’s very similar, but using “co-creation” when there is already an accepted term implies a step up—being around the table and with editing eyes on draft policy documents. So let’s take her at her word (other than the initial oopsie.)
A letter from the Education Committee
In response to the delay announcement, the chair of the Education Select Committee, Helen Hayes MP, has now sent another letter back to the Department for Education.
In it, Ms Hayes also picked up on the phrase “co-creation”
“Your letter refers to a process of co-creation involving parents, educators, experts, and representative organisations. We would welcome further detail on how this process will operate in practice. In response to this letter, I would be grateful for an outline of the specific steps you plan to take to design and facilitate this co-creation process, including how stakeholders will be selected and engaged, how co-creators will be resourced to be equal participants in the process, how feedback will be incorporated, and how the Department will ensure that decision-making remains transparent, inclusive, and accountable.
Helen Hayes MP, Education Committee Chair
“We also wish to emphasise that this work must be underpinned by a strong and comprehensive equality framework, ensuring that the voices and experiences of people with a wide range of lived experiences, including children and young people themselves, are meaningfully represented.”
These are the right questions to ask—Ms Hayes has really turned into a SEND parents’ champion. We’d also like to know the answers, especially how participants are resourced. The NNPCF is government-funded, but now, it’s much easier and cheaper for wider participation to happen, thanks to Zoom and Teams.
Previous consultations (which is the closest most get to having a say) have been impenetrable to many parents because of the language used and the complexity of the questions. It’s just not necessary, and shows whoever created them doesn’t care how respondents will complete it. For the SEND Green Paper in 2022, we spent days, unpaid, translating it into plain language to help parents participate. We shouldn’t have to be doing the DfE’s job for it (at least, not for free). The accessible version was also late, meaning the consultation had to be extended—an own goal by the DfE which came off as a basic lack of care and planning. This recent research we featured should be studied by officials for lessons learned about the SEND Review consultation. They should also read this article by disability expert Richard Rieser about putting inclusion and equality at the centre.
Equal co-creating participants?
Ms Hayes asks how “co-creating” parents and young people can be ensured to be equal participants. This is a very good question. Anyone who’s done stakeholder work will know the difference between giving your input around the (virtual) table and having control over what ends up in the final product. That’s for officials and ministers, not the likes of us. Co-creation should mean helping create the final product. The Government knows that’s dangerous, though, because if it wants to cut children’s rights, no parent should be happy to have their name associated with it. So it will be very interesting indeed to see how the DfE defines co-creation and where it stops.
Involving young people will take considerable sensitivity, imagination and a desire to do things differently. Sharon and I are part of the United SEND Services stakeholder advisory group, run by Whole School SEND and its parent, nasen. USS has a young person’s group, and a member is supported to be included on the main group alongside us. Their views are valued as much as every other participant (if not more so). The Council for Disabled Children runs the DfE’s Flare young person’s group—but there are many other young disabled people’s groups in LAs across the country to also draw from.
Transparency and accountability
Ms Hayes asked for details of how the Department will ensure decision-making remains transparent, inclusive, and accountable. We look forward to hearing about this, too. We also look forward to hearing how they are going to tackle the Treasury about how to fund the whole thing, from the co-creation, the implementation, the monitoring of the implementation, and the future running of the system. For its part, the Treasury needs to understand that educating our young people isn’t a cost; it’s an essential investment in the future of the country, regardless of the economic potential of any individual child.
The DfE must never again, to quote the 2019 SEND Inquiry report, “preside serenely over chaos for five years to see that things were not quite going as planned.”
Which stakeholders?
Back in 2012-14, I, along with Sharon and Renata, were members of our respective parent carer forums, and we each contributed to the 2014 reforms that way, as well as the work I did via SNJ. But the landscape has changed significantly since then. SNJ’s enduring coverage has educated hundreds of thousands of parents and practitioners in the intervening years. A lot more information is available online and in Facebook communities that have brought support, knowledge, and community (though it’s always a good idea to double-check any legal information you are given from non-legal sources).
As a result, the days when it was acceptable to have just a single (although dedicated) small group of strategic parental stakeholders have gone. While the NNPCF has an important role to play, so do others. For a start, SNJ brings close to two decades of SEND advocacy experience and the perspective that longevity brings. But the truth is, no single group can encompass the entire breadth of SEND parental experience—although our Save Our Children’s Rights (SOCR) campaign coalition is determined to bring together as broad a church as possible. For example, our newest SOCR partners, Black SEN Mamas, bring a wholly different experience of how Black and Brown families are treated—as detailed in our 2022 research. We would like to see a truly diverse mix of parents’ groups as “co-creators”.
There are still thousands of parents who don’t know their rights and whose children do not get what they are entitled to. The latter should not have to depend on the former, but sadly, it does, more than ever. Even if they do get an EHCP, it is likely to be deficient in provision and compliance. This is grossly unfair—and this is one of the things that needs to change. Parents have enough to do to care for their disabled children without having to become legal experts too.
This is what we at SOCR ultimately want to see happen: that those charged with delivering a functioning system within the legal framework do so, with compassion, honesty, and efficiency.
It’s important that updated SEND Code of Practice guidance includes awareness of how different cultures and communities approach SEND to ensure all children have their needs identified and met—and their families are supported in a way that makes them feel respected and included. When the Government talks about “seldom heard” or “hard to reach” families, they must ask why, because a large part of it is how they’ve been treated before.
The Government wants parents to be able to trust the system. But given what they have been put through in the last decade, this will take more than time. It will require proof from experience. They will need to see that schools welcome their children and that teachers have the training and resources to support them, so they don’t need to seek statutory support. They will need to know that the school will work with them, and if their child does need an EHCP, they will be supported to access one that’s lawful and enacted out without having to police it themselves.
This is what it will take to have faith that a local authority is on hand with help, not vilification, and a partner in a just and inclusive system that’s accessible for everyone.
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Also read:
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”
- Beyond EHCPs: Why Inclusion Needs More Than a Document
- Navigating constraints: Why a former PCF chair thinks the current model is missing the mark for families
- Let’s write the true narrative of the SEND reform proposals: We want your unfiltered-by-AI views
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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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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