You may be feeling like the Department for Education has beaten you into submission this year with confusing consultation after consultation, claiming to be “listening” while analysing your responses with AI, and spending taxpayer cash on pointless “influencers” while looking to save money on your disabled child’s education.
If you’re feeling like there’s nothing you can do that will make any difference, you’re wrong. Before we detail those rights under threat in the title, here are a couple of things to alert you to:
- Yesterday, SNJ and our colleagues at the Save Our Children’s Rights campaign met Parliamentarians in Westminster to set out what is at stake with these cruel proposals. You can read a review of the meeting here, with video to follow. It also has a copy of the briefing for MPs we’ve prepared. We’d love you to download it and email it to your own MP – you could also drop a copy off at your child’s school.
- You may even not have bothered to sign the new petition to protect rights—but a massive showing for a petition is one of the ways you really CAN make ministers sweat. Please sign; it takes just a second. It’s gradually climbing thanks to the work of Save Our Children’s Rights volunteers Helen and Jesika, who are running a petition leaderboard for different areas- how’s yours doing? Check here and here.
Please don’t think you can leave it to us and our fellow parent carer campaigners—the ones who are telling you the truth. If you do, the Government will think you’re fine with them stripping disabled children’s rights away, and you’re happy with their bizarre claim that it’s the “biggest expansion of rights in a generation”.
Everyone wants improvements. But only LAs really want these proposals
We are not “naysayers”. We support better inclusion and the measures to improve early help. They are vital improvements. But there is the right way to do it, and there is the way this government is doing it: the do-or-die approach. Prime Minister Andy Burnham wants common sense for disabled adults’ bus travel, so why is he accepting this utterly brutal nonsense for disabled children? And we know that in 2019, Education Secretary Lucy Powell and the then Education committee warned the DfE not to reduce rights to fix the problems in SEND
What everyone MUST understand is what is at risk. It’s a complex area, and we don’t blame people for switching off—it’s been hard even for us to understand the myriad ways the DfE has made these consultations into a jungle of questions, documents and partial understanding, when the things that matter most have been buried, belatedly, deep in the undergrowth. At the end, you will find links to respond to the live consultations.
We’ve worked out there are 20 current legal entitlements that are at risk of being removed or diluted. As well as my SNJ colleagues, thanks go to Catriona Moore and Alex Stafford at IPSEA for legal and sense checks. Here is what’s at stake:
The 20 ways your child’s SEND rights are at risk
The right to support based on the child or young person’s individual assessed needs.
The Government proposes that eligibility for new EHCPs will depend on a child being assessed as requiring a nationally defined “Specialist Provision Package”. The statutory support in the EHCP would be drawn from these pre-defined packages, rather than individually specified according to all of that child’s assessed needs. This fundamentally weakens the current right to individually specified and secured support.
(General framing across Main consultation pp.69–70 )
The right to have special educational provision specified in a legally enforceable EHCP.
The EOTAS consultation details plans to place the provision currently in an EHCP into an unappealable Individual Support Plan (ISP)
- P.66 of the Consultation document says: “The setting will have the legal duty to deliver the educational offer in an EHCP.”
- P 47 says, “ISPs will set out the individually tailored day-to-day provision, and progress towards outcomes, which each child or young person will receive.”.
This means the duty to specify all the provision a child/YP requires to meet need AND the duty to secure it have gone. The LA picks the SPP, and the school decides how to deliver it, with no legal challenge to what it decides to offer or deliver.
The right to ensure the local authority secures every provision specified in an EHCP.
The Government proposes to remove the local authority’s current absolute duty to secure every item of special educational provision specified in section F of an EHCP, replacing it with duties concerned with access to support and sufficient funding.
The central issue is the loss of the current section 42 duties to both specify and to secure the specified provision, not the disappearance of every local-authority duty.
(“LA has continuing duty to secure access to support and provide sufficient funding to the setting.”)
The right to provision designed for the individual child, rather than limited by a standardised Specialist Provision Package.
The Government proposes to restrict the right to individually designed provision by tying EHCP eligibility and provision to a standardised Specialist Provision Package for a defined group of children or young people.
The local authority chooses the type of “specialist package”, which will determine the range of schools available. From the consultation, it appears that the school can then tailor as much of the package as it wishes–whether that will meet the needs of the child or not. And if it decides to change what it wants to deliver, it can, and the parent cannot challenge this at the SEND Tribunal.
(Main consultation, p.72: each SPP “will describe the support and provision a specific group of children should receive.”)
The right for parents & young people to be consulted before provision and placement decisions are made.
The Government proposes to weaken parents’ and young people’s right to participate before decisions are made, by determining the Specialist Provision Package and placement before the EHCP is developed.
(Main consultation, p.69: EHCPs developed “after the Specialist Provision Package and placement decisions have been made, rather than beforehand, as happens now.”)
The right to an EHC needs assessment based on individual need as in the current legal threshold
The Government proposes to change the current statutory threshold for an EHC needs assessment, an essential protection that has existed for around 30 years. It risks narrowing access to assessment, even though an appeal against refusal is retained.
While the proposals do not state a “rise” in the threshold implicitly, in practice, fitting into one of seven categories is likely to have the same result, as a child or young person’s individual needs must fit within one (or perhaps more than one) package. Additionally, the proposal that a child’s needs must be “severe and complex” is far above the current threshold for an EHCP
(Main consultation, p.108: “We will set a clearer threshold for an assessment,” )
The right to an EHCP without first meeting an undefined “complex needs” threshold.
The Government proposes to narrow the right to an EHCP to children and young people assessed as requiring a Specialist Provision Package, replacing the current needs-and-provision test with a new eligibility gateway. There is still no standardised definition of “complex needs”, let alone “severe and complex”.
(Main consultation, p.70: “We will introduce primary legislation to establish that only those who require a Specialist Provision Package will need an EHCP.”)
The right to challenge inadequate descriptions of a child’s needs and the provision in an EHCP as separate points
The Government proposes to remove the separate rights to appeal the description of a child’s SEN (Section B), and the provision (Section F) to meet those needs. It will only allow those matters to be considered where relevant to an SPP or placement appeal, to help LAs decide whether and what SPP or placement might be required
Details currently included in the appealable EHCP will be moved to the non-appealable Individual Support Plan. That means there will no longer be an obligation to specify or deliver as there is now
(Main consultation, p.108: “Information about a child or young person’s special educational needs (SEN) or special educational provision (SEP) will be considered as part of appeals about Specialist Provision Packages or placements as appropriate, rather than being separate.)
The right to challenge decisions following an annual review, rather than waiting until the end of a Key Stage.
The Government proposes to restrict opportunities to trigger an appeal following an annual or early review by limiting school-aged EHCP reviews to the end of key stages.
Additionally, as the provision would then be in the individual support plan (ISP), the school itself can review it whenever it wants with no independent route of appeal by the parent/carer. They could, of course, complain, but that would be to the governing body of the school that had made the decision.
(Main consultation, p.70: EHCP “reviewed at the end of key stages by LAs,” with annual reviews retained only for early years and post-16.)
The right to request a particular school, college or other setting.
The Government proposes to limit the current parental right to request their choice of school, college or other setting. Instead, there would be a list of allowable schools that the local authority thinks can deliver the Specialist Provision Package it has chosen.
The proposals say parents and young people may request an alternative setting capable of delivering the package.
This proposal was trialled in the 2022 SEND Improvement Plan by some LAs and discontinued as unworkable.
(Main consultation, p.73: LAs required to provide “a list of recommended settings.”)
Loss of expectation that an EHC Needs Assessment should inform specialist provision, before placement in a Unit or Base
While there is no current right to an EHC needs assessment or EHCP before placement in every specialist unit or resourced provision, in practice, most children in a unit or base do have an EHCP. That means the parent can, at the moment, appeal if they think it is not the right place for their child.
The proposals take away this safeguard altogether. This means children risk being routinely placed in inappropriate provision, or placed alongside other children with vastly different needs. It also risks bases becoming a “dumping ground” as per the main SEND consultation (p.57), Inclusion Bases sit within the Targeted Plus layer, which do not require an EHCP, SPP eligibility or even an assessment of needs.
The right to appeal an unsuitable placement.
The Government proposes to weaken the remedy against an unsuitable placement, by expanding the grounds for refusal for a preferred placement. This means if the LA decides the placement isn’t “value for money” they can refuse the request without fear of an appeal.
(Main consultation, p.73: new “efficient education of others” and value-for-money tests as grounds to refuse a placement.)
Loss of the Tribunal’s power to name the setting a child needs.
The Government proposes to remove the SEND Tribunal’s power to name the child or young person’s placement. Instead, it can only direct the LA to “reconsider” the decision. This leaves families without a binding Tribunal remedy securing the setting found to be appropriate.
Effectively, that means what is “appropriate” is decided based on a setting’s ability to deliver the LA-allocated Specialist Provision Package, rather than on the individual needs of the child or young person. It places the system at the centre, rather than the learner, the complete opposite of the intentions of the 2014 Children and Families Act.
(Main consultation, p.108: “the Tribunal will not name the placement for the child.”)
The right to EOTAS when special educational provision in a school would be inappropriate.
Currently, Education Otherwise Than At School (EOTAS) is for children with an EHCP, where education in a school would be inappropriate. The plans narrow this to those assessed as having severe and complex needs, and where the LA agrees they need EOTAS
(EOTAS consultation, p.16: “EOTAS will continue to be available for children and young people with the most complex SEND who have been assessed as needing a Specialist Provision Package and an EHCP.”)
The right to have EOTAS provision shaped around the individual child, rather than restricted to a “Specialist Provision Package”.
The Government proposes to restrict individually determined EOTAS. It wants it to depend on Specialist Provision Package eligibility, rather than whether it’s inappropriate for the required education and training provision to be delivered in a setting. The proposals would name a school for every child, which would then decide whether, and how much, EOTAS was necessary. This could result in a child being forced into a school that cannot support them. It would amplify existing school-acquired trauma, and remove the possibility for potentially life-changing provision.
The proposals mean:
- the LA will choose the package it wants for your child,
- the LA will name its preferred school, (even if the child cannot manage to attend),
- the allocated school will then decide whether, what type and how much education outside of school to grant.
This means decisions about EOTAS are likely to be made by a named setting with no expertise in individual out-of-school commissioning nor the capacity to do so. They will be in charge of overseeing the delivery, suitability and ongoing quality of that provision.
For example, how is a school/college going to dictate and oversee the provision for a 16-year-old apprentice with an EHCP in work, or a supported intern in a third-sector organisation? Without school reintegration, what is their end goal, other than to discontinue the plan?
Or, for a compulsory school-aged child, the setting could just decide the child has to attend wth no EOTAS. If the child then cannot attend, the parent may face prosecution. This puts the parent between a rock and a hard place. They could ask for an early EHCP review, but where would it get them? They cannot choose the school or the provision. If that parent then decides just to give up on the EHCP and educate their child themselves, the new rules in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act (p65) mean they must have LA consent to deregister a child with an EHCP at a specialist school (though considering it would save the LA money, it’s not hard to guess what it would go for). The power has, as we know the DfE wants, been removed from the family and handed entirely to the system.
(EOTAS consultation, p.16 ).
The right to meaningful parental involvement in choosing suitable EOTAS provision.
Linked to the previous point, the Government proposes to weaken parents’ and young people’s influence over suitable EOTAS provision by transferring management of the arrangements from the local authority to the named setting (which may or may not have the expertise to do so.)
(EOTAS consultation, p.17: “A school or further education setting responsible for delivering the Specialist Provision Package would take on the role from the local authority of managing any EOTAS arrangements.”)
The right to appeal when EOTAS is refused
The proposals take away the family’s right to appeal when the local authority refuses to accept that a child needs provision outside of a formal setting. For families whose children need this, it is a massive loss as EOTAS is often only won on appeal
The right to appeal when EOTAS is changed.
If the LA decides to change the agreed out-of-school provision at any time, the family will not be able to appeal. Presumably, this is because the day-to-day provision is now in the Individual Support Plan (ISP), which has no appeal rights. Only the SPP category itself is appealable.
The right to appeal when EOTAS is removed.
As with the removal of the right to appeal a refusal and change to EOTAS, the plans also scrap the right to challenge an LA decision to cease EOTAS arrangements. So even if a family is approved for EOTAS and the named setting organises it, it can be taken away at any moment. The family has no route for redress other than a complaint or an expensive disability discrimination case. The child would then be forced to attend the setting or face prosecution.
The right to security of continued EOTAS provision for younger children when they reach secondary age.
These plans would hit from 2030, meaning younger primary children with EOTAS face compulsory reassessment at the end of KS2. This would remove continuity and security and increase stress at the prospect that established arrangements will not continue.
(EOTAS consultation, p.27 and p.33 (Visual 2): “the local authority undertakes a needs assessment” at the end of the primary phase — early years/primary-age children on existing EOTAS only.)
The EOTAS consultation is still live
Even if your child never has an EHCP package for education outside of school, this consultation is about much more than that. We explain all in our articles, and how to respond
Live SEND-related Consultation Links:
- DfE EOTAS Consultation main page
- DfE EOTAS Consultation Document
- DfE EOTAS Response page
- SNJ Top Tips for the EOTAS & EHCP consultation: Protect your child’s rights to statutory SEND support
- SNJ: Mainstream SEND Funding: A simple explainer, another consultation, and why it really matters
- SNJ: WEBINAR RECORDING! The implications for children’s legal rights to EHCPs and EOTAS of the Government’s SEND proposals
- SNJ EOTAS Consultation: A further assault on children’s SEND rights with cost saving and reintegration to schools at its heart
- SNJ: Unison voices major concerns over SEND reform health plans for sick and disabled children out of school in the EOTAS consultation
- SEND reform: education otherwise than at school – what parents and carers of children and young people need to know (DfE)
- BSL version
- Upfront funding for mainstream schools: creating a ‘local SEND inclusion formula
- All our EOTAS / SEND proposals posts
- Closes 18th September 23:59
Please share this article with your child’s school, with your MP, and with other SEND parents. Together, we CAN make a difference
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Key Content
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- As The Guardian prints our joint campaign’s open letter, it’s clear people with lived experience don’t want to lose SEND rights
- 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
- EOTAS: Why the Government must listen to those with lived experience
- The Unacceptable Truth: 20 SEND legal rights at risk from the Government’s SEND reforms
- 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
- Dear Secretary of State for Education, Lucy Powell: an Open Letter from Special Needs Jungle and 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
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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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- What makes an autism assessment report genuinely useful to a school? - October 14, 2026
- Big ideas belong to everyone: Education, rights and lifelong learning for people with learning disabilities - October 12, 2026
- As The Guardian prints our joint campaign’s open letter, it’s clear people with lived experience don’t want to lose SEND rights - October 9, 2026
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