“As a Committee we now want to move beyond simply pointing out the problems and focus on finding solutions that are realistic and practical for the Government to implement.
Education Select Committee Chair Helen Hayes MP:
Now stay calm… we bring you news of another SEND inquiry…
Last month, I was among a group of campaigners and charities, including our columnist, Catriona Moore of IPSEA (left of photo), who sat down with the new members of the Education Select Committee to answer their questions about the crisis in SEND from our perspective. This was encouraging.
Then, at the end, Ms Hayes revealed why we were really there—to help the MPs ensure they had the right Terms of Reference for a new inquiry. Oh. My. Lord. As Catriona expertly guided my wheelchair out of Portcullis House, we both thought, “Here we go again…”
What’s this all about?
The last inquiry from the previous Government’s Education Select Committee, in 2019 was so damning, the Department for Education was forced into action to launch the SEND Review and on to what is now the “SEND Change Programme”
How many inquiries into SEND have there been now? Not sure I have the fingers to count, but what I do know is while they may all have illuminated the nightmare in which families with disabled children live, none of them has yet to significantly improve their lives.
To be fair, this is a new government, and a new Committee, now headed by Helen Hayes MP, formerly Labour’s SEND spokesperson. Helen was a guest on our podcast a couple of years ago. You’d have thought she would have been the ideal person to be the SEND minister, what with her knowing something about SEND, but Mr Starmer thought otherwise.
But it’s meant that, while a competent policitican, the Schools’ Minister, Catherine McKinnell has a lot to get her head round—too much for one person. As a result, the DfE still does not seem to have a handle on what to do beyond a few hastily concocted mantras… inclusive schools, resource bases (a contradiction right there), Ordinarily Available Provision etc. But the money they’ve allocated— £740 million— is for improving accessible buildings, not for improving support for the children who desperately need it right now.
Who are the Education Select Committee?
The Education Committee is made up of cross-party backbench MPs. Their role is to scrutinise all aspects of the work of the Department for Education. This means they examine the government’s plans, actions and what it has achieved (or not) to hold government to account.
A number of committee members have personal or professional experience of SEND themselves, so it’s fair to say the subject is high on their agenda. However, going from this quote, it seems to be the effects on the system is more concerning than the effects on children.
“This crisis has many symptoms that bleed into the rest of the education system: from attrition in the teaching workforce to soaring levels of pupil absence. There are also symptoms which blight local councils’ budgets – ever increasing spending on transporting pupils to settings far from where they live, and the chaos of money being poured into tribunals that parents are expected to win. It’s widely accepted that many more councils could face effective bankruptcy if change doesn’t come soon.
Helen Hayes MP, Education Committee chair
What are the inquiry’s aims?
The committee have described this as a “major new inquiry focused on finding solutions to the crisis in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision.”
It is aiming to gather evidence on:
- Support for children and young people with SEND
- Current and future SEND need
- Current and future model of SEND provision
- Accountability and inspection of SEND provision
- Finance, funding and capacity of SEND provision
“Faced with years of increasing demand for SEND support, the cross-party Committee will focus on how to stabilise the system in the short term, and how to achieve long term sustainability with improved outcomes for children and young people. The inquiry will examine every phase of education and development, from the early years through to the age of 25.”
Helen Hayes MP, Education Select Committee chair
In other words, they are looking at everything that matters for children and young people with additional needs. That’s a big ask, and we have no doubt that they will be inundated with responses, probably into the thousands.
That will doubtless include the powerful local government lobby and their lackeys that we already know are gunning for disabled children’s entitlements. Recent suggestions include ditching the SEND Tribunal and removing the right to appeal when councils refuse an application for an EHC needs assessment. Councils now lose 98.7% of Tribunals because they make poor decisions. But instead of taking advice to improve their decision-making, they’re trying to circumvent the law entirely. Nice.
An all-encompassing inquiry
The focus of this inquiry is so broad, it’s almost doing the DfE’s job for it, just without the DfE’s staff and resources. We can only assume the committee has already digested all the responses to the 2019 inquiry and to the SEND review, and the recent NAO report, among many others.
In fact, the inquiry seems to take the findings of October’s National Audit Office report plus what they heard in our session and look to find answers to the points raised.
A few of these include:
- Inclusion, training and increasing provision
The committee says it’ll be “looking how to increase inclusion by providing high quality support, including changes to the curriculum, defining what inclusivity looks like in mainstream settings, and improving support and training for education practitioners.”
An agreed definition of inclusion is a good thing. How can you improve “inclusion” if you don’t know if your idea of it is the same as someone else’s? But where it says changes to the curriculum, bear in mind the Curriculum and Assessment Review is already analysing its own consultation, and this has a large element aimed at SEND.
Where it mentions training and support, the Government-funded Universal SEND Services programme is working hard at this, but there are still many schools that have never heard of it—and this is something that the government must do more comms work with schools on.
It asks what the DfE’s role is in improving inclusion and expertise in mainstream schools and early years “to achieve consistent, high quality SEN support”. The answer of course, is that the DfE’s role is to ensure its legislation protects and supports the vulnerable, its guidance spells out exactly how to do that, and crucially, that its policies and accountability measures do not make inclusion, fairness and wellbeing less likely to happen.
- Funding
The NAO report found that “if unreformed, the SEN system is financially unsustainable”,
The committee will look at how SEND is funded as well as how much it costs councils to provide. What it really needs to do is discover the secret sauce to getting the Treasury to stump up to fund councils to do what they must do—including SEND provision.
“With many councils facing a parlous financial state due to the huge deficits accrued by spending millions a year on SEND support, and with the statutory override due to end in 2026, the Committee will consider reforms to the way SEND is funded. “
- EHCPs
The committee also wants to “look for potential alternatives” to the EHCP system, “without reducing the level of support available.”
Wales tried to do that; it’s not going well. Let me say now, loud and clear. There is essentially nothing wrong with the law governing EHCPs. What’s wrong is that councils have been so starved of funding that they’ve demonised disabled children who need support and their parents who fight for it.
Nor is the fact that more children need support the fault of EHCPs or of parents. It’s a global phenomenon made worse because governments failed to forecast or plan for it. Therefore schools have been left under-resourced and lacking expertise, leading to worsening needs. And councils, also under-resourced, delay putting in support to save money, which has many knock-on effects for children as they grow up. EHCPs—and disabled children’s rights—are just an easy, tangible target. And all this happened under the shadow of government austerity policies, followed by a pandemic. It’s not that hard to understand, but here we are, a million inquiries in and still asking the same questions.
This point about failure to plan for growing numbers of children with additional needs is one I made at our recent meeting. So I’m pleased the committee is asking how needs might continue to change over the next decade and what the DfE should do to improve its current and future assessment thereof.
- SEN Support
A very welcome question the inquiry is asking is whether SEN support should be put on a statutory footing and what this would look like in practice. This is something that IPSEA, in particular, has championed, and with which we concur.
How would this work? We’ll endeavour to look at this in greater detail in the New Year so you have a good idea what it might mean.
What else will the inquiry focus on?
What won’t it focus on? It leaves little out and it’s hard to see how they can effectively analyse such a wide range of unquantifiable issues with a relatively small team.
The Terms of Reference are really just a very long list of questions, showing the committee listened to what we said, and now wants your thoughts on all of it (you’re welcome).
The last Education Committee SEND inquiry took 18 months, so if this follows suit, the government is likely already to have made its policy choices. But the committee must know this, so we shall see how long they take to report. However, given the number of questions, they definitely have their work cut out to formulate the recommendations from this inquiry. As to how much influence their recommendations will have, it is very hard to say.
A few points to remember
- Remember that although we talk about the SEND “system” it’s not a neutral thing. The SEND system is run by leaders and officials—people—who make decisions according to their own organisational best interests. Few to none of them have disabled children’s needs as their priority over what it costs to meet those needs. That’s what you are needed here for—you, as parents or people who are passionate about disabled children’s lives, can put their wellbeing at the heart of every answer in this inquiry. How will what you are putting forward have a positive impact on a child or young person with SEND?
- Also remember, SEND doesn’t exist in a vacuum —ask how have education policies served to adversely impact disabled children—think behaviour policies, a narrowing curriculum, league tables. How do we make policy that works for disabled children? To include everyone, we should design for the most vulnerable, because those without additional needs can thrive in that system too, unlike the other way round.
- If you have specific research or real-life evidence of good practice that has benefited children with SEND, please send this in too.
How SNJ will help you approach it
There are a LOT of questions—but just use them to help you consider what concerns you most. You don’t need to answer everything— just put your constructive ideas for improvements and why. Over the years, I’ve received many, many emails from parents detailing the dreadful things that have happened to them. But this committee already knows how bad things are, so in this instance, instead of just writing out what’s happened, think about how you can frame your experiences to put forward solutions so they don’t happen to someone else. However, it’s still important to explain where poor decisions were made and especially of the impact on your family of public bodies not getting it right — your voice is up against those who would rather you just went away.
On Monday, Matt will bring you some useful tips and a template to help you answer. So rather than any further editorial, I’m just going to paste the questions from the Terms of Reference in for you to mull over until then.
The questions the committee is asking:
The terms of reference are also available in a number of accessible formats, including British Sign Language, Easy Read and in audio.
Support for children and young people with SEND
- SEN support in mainstream schools and early years settings including:
- Assessing the current quality of SEN support in mainstream schools and early years settings
- Defining what inclusivity in mainstream schools and early years settings should mean and look like in practice
- How can inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools and early years settings be improved to achieve consistent, high-quality SEN support? What is the DfE’s role in this?
- Whether SEN support should be put on a statutory footing and what this would look like in practice
- Outcomes for children and young people with SEND and how these can be improved
- Workforce issues for teachers, SENCOs, specialists, early years practitioners and all those who work with children with SEND
- What substantive training is needed for teachers, teaching assistants and all those who work with children with SEND to improve knowledge of SEND and pedagogical approaches to teaching SEND Children to increase their inclusion in schools?
- The role of and capacity of specialist schools, independent schools and Alternative Provision
- Education, Health and Care Plans:
- How can waiting times for EHC Plans be improved?
- What can be done to support parents, carers and children or young people before, during and after the EHC Plan process?
- How can the EHC Plan process be made non-adversarial?
- What alternatives are there to the EHC Plan process?
- Current and future SEND need
- The 2014 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) reforms, introduced by the Children and Families Act envisaged 20 years of change.
- How has SEND need changed over the ten years since 2014 and how will it continue to change over the next ten years?
- What are specific projections for future SEND need?
- What does the DfE need to do to improve their current and future assessment of SEND need?
Current and future model of SEND provision
- How does SEND provision vary between local areas and what can be done to promote consistency of approach?
- What changes are needed so that local education authorities can effectively plan for SEND school places and to deliver new SEND schools and new SEND school places?
- What can be done to improve the effectiveness of multi-agency and joined up working cross education, health and social care?
- How can specialist provision, especially support for conditions which occur infrequently but give rise to the need to a high level of support and which may be beyond the capacity of individual local authorities, best be provided and commissioned?
- How can excess profit-making in the independent sector be tackled without endangering current provision?
- What is working effectively within the current SEND system and how can best practice be sustained or scaled up?
- How can innovation be encouraged across the system to address the current pressures and challenges?
- changes needed to the curriculum in mainstream schools to enable SEND children to fulfil their potential? If so, what changes are these?
- What has the impact of the 2023 SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan been to date? What needs to be done to ensure further, longer term benefits are achieved?
- At the points on the education pathway that SEND children are at greater risk of leaving school for long term absences, home schooling or exclusion, what reasonable adjustments and EHCP support would enable them to continue education in mainstream schooling?
- What can be done to reduce the disproportionately high exclusion rates for students with SEND?
- How should the health needs of children with SEND best be met while they are at school or in early years settings and who should fund this?
- What steps should be taken to improve the post-16 landscape for students with SEND? What reforms are needed to ensure that all post-16 qualifications meet the needs of students with SEND?
- What steps can local authorities take to ensure funding is in place to meet the transport needs of post-16 students with SEND?
Finance, funding and capacity of SEND provision
- What funding is currently provided and what is needed for early identification of SEND, including in Early Years settings?
- What actions or reforms are needed to achieve financial stability and sustainability, both in the short and longer term, across the SEND system?
- What is the effectiveness of Government’s interventions such as the ‘safety valve’ and Delivering better value in SEND programmes, including
- How have these programmes impacted local authority finances as well as SEND provision and outcomes?
- The statutory override is currently due to end in March 2026. What interventions do local authorities need leading up to March 2026 and what would local authorities like to see beyond March 2026 to ensure long term financial sustainability?
- Is planned capital investment in SEND capacity sufficient and is it best targeted to address need across the country?
- Is reform needed for funding of SEN support provision in schools, where currently the school is responsible for funding the first £6,000 of provision?
- What has been the impact on SEND provision for local education authorities who have issued Section 114 notices?
Accountability and inspection of SEND provision
- What should Ofsted’s new ‘inclusion’ criterion for the inspection of mainstream schools look like?
- How can Area SEND inspections of local authorities be made more effective?
- Whether local education authorities need further powers to ensure that all schools in their area contribute to effective local SEND provision?
- How best to hold all schools, irrespective of how they are constituted or their governance arrangements, to account for their SEND provision?
- The role of other organisations such as the DfE, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Care Quality Commission in the accountability system.
“There is absolute clarity that as a country we can’t continue with this endless cycle of failure. Turning this ship around will likely take years of careful reform, but the cross-party Education Committee will play our part by making evidence-based recommendations that the government can implement.”
Helen Hayes MP, Education Select Committee Chair
You can respond to the Committee’s inquiry on its website. There will also be oral evidence sessions announced in the New Year. The inquiry closes for evidence at 23.59 on 30 January 2025 — so you only have just over six weeks from now.
Watch Tania discussing the Inquiry on ITV Lunchtime news 20/12/24
Also read:
- Researching flexi-schooling: How beneficial is it for children with SEND?
- Oops, we did it again… The Government must now listen to more than 100,000 people who do not want to lose SEND rights
- Experts at Hand: When is an occupational therapist also a SEND expert?
- Could using AI to filter Government consultation responses lead to “algorithmic silencing” of neurodivergent voices?
- A council’s “improvement journey”? How determined SEND parents catalogued the trail of their LA’s unlawful behaviour
- Research: Social networks in special schools. Friendships, bullying and play
The Unacceptable Truth: 20 SEND legal rights at risk from the Government’s SEND reformsSeptember 9, 2026
Dear Secretary of State for Education, Lucy Powell: an Open Letter from Special Needs Jungle and SEND legal charity SOS!SENAugust 4, 2026
Mainstream SEND Funding: A simple explainer, another consultation, and why it really mattersJuly 22, 2026
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She is a rare disease & chronic pain patient advocate with Ehlers Danlos syndrome.
- Oops, we did it again… The Government must now listen to more than 100,000 people who do not want to lose SEND rights - October 1, 2026
- Could using AI to filter Government consultation responses lead to “algorithmic silencing” of neurodivergent voices? - September 30, 2026
- DfE must give its SEND reform Child Rights Impact Assessment a do-over; this time, without marking its own homework - September 24, 2026
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