Will SEND school funding be ringfenced? This is something we’ve repeatedly called for so that the budget provided for SEND is used just for SEND.
There is nothing in the Schools White Paper SEND proposals about ringfencing, but Schools/SEND Minister Georgia Gould MP mentioned it twice when she joined SNJ in a webinar this week. It wasn’t missed by the hundreds of parents, carers, educators and other SEND professionals who’d taken the time to join the event, either.
The previous Conservative governments refused to ringfence SEND funds, and we believe this is only served to make the SEND crisis in schools worse. The notional SEND budget is not a separate dollop of cash sitting in a pot with “SEND” scribbled on it like Winnie the Pooh’s Hunny; it is an identified amount within the school’s overall delegated budget that should fund spending on SEN support (and unfunded EHCPs). So if it’s not ringfenced and your school needs something urgently, there’s nothing to stop it being used. Depending on the ethos of the school, or the level of desperation, that may or may not be on supporting children with additional needs.
Was it meant in the way it usually is?
We’re not yet sure whether Minister Gould meant it in the way everyone else does, so here is the quote and you can find the other reference by watching the recording
“The idea is by moving the system so you have more money going directly to schools, ringfenced for children with SEND, the schools then, when children have needs that emerge, can develop individual support plans that are available in that school. They don’t need to go through an external assessment. They don’t need to go through an external process.”
Georgia Gould MP, Schools/SEND Minister during the SNJ webinar.
The above is both a new claim, and a misunderstanding—or wilful misrepresentation—of what the law already says. Firstly, children do not currently need to go through an external assessment to get support. The SEND Code of Practice and the CFA 2014 clearly state that when an additional need is suspected, support must be put in place and, if needed, external experts called in to do an in-school assessment or observation. In some places it even happens. But the fact is the law already says it should.
Secondly, school-level SEND funding is not currently ringfenced, so this would be a new development. Minister Gould’s words were seized on by knowledgeable parents and school staff in the webinar. Some warned that where money goes into a general school or trust budget, it can be absorbed into wider pressures. One attendee said they had seen EHCP money used to close academy trust deficits. Another put the solution bluntly: “Just ring fence the money.”
A different feel
Our webinar was different from many of the Minister’s other “engagement” events; it was parent-led and run, it had life and energy. The tough questions you sent in were actually asked, though of course, politely. The minister was challenged repeatedly on her replies.
You sent in almost 300 questions and we selected the most popular. We didn’t get through even a fraction, but the response from attendees was clear. Parents and professionals aren’t defending the current system because it works; they’re defending the legal rights it holds because, for many, those rights are the only route that has worked at all.
Minister Gould repeatedly acknowledged the distress families experience. She also repeatedly stressed that these are consultation proposals and that their thinking was evolving. If they’d been evolved in a more open and transparent way before publication, they might have understood sooner that they’d go down like the proverbial lead balloon. But it’s clear there is room for change, and please DO NOT give up writing to your MPs and speaking to your local media.
Why would ringfencing in these reforms make a difference?
The proposed reforms place far more responsibility on schools. If schools are expected to identify needs, write ISPs and deliver more provision without an EHCP, families need to know exactly what funding is attached, who controls it, what it may be spent on, how it follows the child, what records schools must keep, and what happens if it is not used for SEND. If money for this is spent elsewhere, children will be far worse off than they are now.
There was also deep concern about the 7-categoried Specialist Provision Packages. The minister said these were not intended to put children “in a box”, and that children’s needs are unique—although, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. She said an expert panel would develop the packages and that they would be reviewed. But she also acknowledged that there was still significant detail to work through.
Leave The SEND Tribunal alone
Despite assurances that EHCPs wouldn’t be disapearing, it’s clear attendees were not impressed by the minister’s claims that the SEND Tribunal would remain an important backstop. The consultation proposes a materially different structure: EHCPs would guarantee nationally defined Specialist Provision Packages, while much of the day-to-day provision would sit in setting-led Individual Support Plans ISPs). It also proposes removing the Tribunal’s role in placement disputes, so that it could require a local authority to reconsider but would not itself name the placement.
That is why the reassurance that “EHCPs will remain” didn’t settle the room. The title of the document can be anything; it’s that what’s in it is accurate, individualised and enforceable that matters.
If detailed provision moves out of the enforceable part of the EHCP and into an ISP, the practical value of the EHCP changes. For families, the difference between a legal duty to create a plan and a legal duty to deliver specified provision is not technical; it is the difference between a right and a request.
Our team and the attendees repeatedly asked why earlier support requires weaker rights (spoiler alert, it doesn’t, but the government won’t acknowledge it). If the new system works, fewer families will need to use the Tribunal. You don’t need to kneecap the Tribunal—especially given recent election results. Our children need their rights built in brick, not hay or sticks that the big bad Wolf of Reform can blow down, just because they can.
It often seemed that the minister was simply not taking on board what we, and those in the chat, were saying, as if only some of our words were getting through. She repeatedly mentioned success stories in units and mainstream, but isolated examples do not make the case when families see the opposite every day.
Does earlier support require legal change?
No, it doesn’t because most of what Georgia Gould described can be achieved under the current law. The current legal framework already allows children to receive SEN Support before an EHCP, and it already allows EHCPs to specify enforceable provision when statutory protection is needed.
None of these things: earlier support, better mainstream expertise, ring-fenced SEND funding, stronger SENCO capacity, clearer ordinarily available provision, better access to therapists, improved school environments, more specialist outreach, better special school sufficiency planning, and stronger local accountability, require reducing Tribunal powers to achieve. This is an intractable issue that we won’t be giving up on.
We’re happy to support the proposals that are genuinely beneficial to our children. As parents who’ve been through years of this, as opposed to the barely a year that the current DfE top team has, we most definitely know what we’re talking about. Intimately.
We must be truly heard, not just have our words bounce off the invisible forcefield that seems to “hear no evil” about the most damaging of these proposals.
Anyhoo, watch the webinar here and we’ll try to grab some shorter clips during next few days. And if you like what we do, and you want us to keep on doing it, please scroll down and donate if you can.
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Key Content
Also read:
- Top Tips for the EOTAS & EHCP consultation: Protect your child’s rights to statutory SEND support
- REGISTER NOW! WEBINAR on the Government’s plans to cut EHCP and EOTAS rights. With SNJ & SEND legal charity, SOS!SEN
- 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”
- Why every child deserves Portage, wherever they’re born
- Mainstream SEND Funding: A simple explainer, another consultation, and why it really matters
- 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
- EOTAS Consultation: A further assault on children’s SEND rights with cost saving and reintegration to schools at its heart
- What schools and practitioners are missing about Tamil and South Asian families trying to navigate the SEND system.
- Allergy Guidance issued—but wider medical conditions guidance back for more work
- Top Tips for the EOTAS & EHCP consultation: Protect your child’s rights to statutory SEND support
- REGISTER NOW! WEBINAR on the Government’s plans to cut EHCP and EOTAS rights. With SNJ & 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
- EOTAS Consultation: A further assault on children’s SEND rights with cost saving and reintegration to schools at its heart
- WEBINAR RECORDING: Will school SEND funding be ringfenced? Minister Gould said so, but does she understand what that means?
- SEND reforms: Where are care-experienced children?
- Part 2: The Invisible Lifeline: Why EOTAS is Non-Negotiable for the ‘Sanctuary Cohort’
- The Invisible Lifeline: Why EOTAS is non-negotiable for the ‘Sanctuary Cohort’ Part 1
- Where will all the teaching assistants come from? The research exposing the reality gap in the government SEND plans
- WEBINAR RECORDING! The legal implications of the Schools White Paper’s SEND Proposals
- The SENCO as gatekeeper: The White Paper proposals bring a responsibility of opening doors, not closing them
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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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