An attempt to explain the SEND White Paper
What is changing and why so many families are concerned
The British government has published a proposed major reform of special educational needs and disability (SEND) support in England. Ministers say the changes will end adversarial disputes, ensure children receive help earlier, and reduce the need for legal battles between families and councils.
Many parents and SEND professionals have reacted very differently. Their concern is not simply about change. It is about enforceability. The current system relies on a legal mechanism that compels provision when disagreement occurs. The proposed system relies more heavily on administrative decision-making inside education services.
To understand why this matters, you first need to understand what an Education, Health and Care Plan actually is.
What an EHCP actually does
An EHCP is often described as a plan, but in practice it is a legal duty. If provision is written clearly in the education section of the plan, the local authority must secure it. Without an EHCP, a school is expected to support a child using its own resources. With an EHCP, the state becomes legally responsible for delivering specified support.
Families therefore pursue EHCPs not because they want paperwork but because they want certainty. The difference is enforceability.
EHCPs are intended for children whose needs cannot reasonably be met within ordinary school provision. In practice, families often apply after ordinary support has failed. That may involve persistent distress, attendance collapse, risk of exclusion, autism requiring structured support, learning disability, or the need for constant adult supervision. Access to therapy such as speech and language provision is also a common trigger.
England now has roughly half a million children with EHCPs. The number has risen sharply. That rise is often discussed as a rise in need, but it also reflects how the system functions. When provision is uncertain or subpar, families seek the only route that guarantees it.
EHCPs matter because they specify support, determine placement, and allow legal challenge. The wording of provision determines whether support is enforceable. A vague statement such as “access to support” allows minimal delivery. A quantified commitment such as defined hours of one-to-one assistance from a person with specific qualifications creates a duty the authority must meet. The plan can also name a school, and once named the authority normally has to fund it.
The most important feature, however, is appeal.
The tribunal system
If a council refuses to assess, refuses to issue a plan, or disputes provision or placement, parents can appeal to the SEND Tribunal. Tribunal decisions are binding.
When cases reach a decision, families succeed in the overwhelming majority of them. Nationally, around 99 percent of decided cases result in parents winning on the issues appealed.
This statistic is central to understanding the debate. It indicates that under-provision is not occasional. It is systemic. Each lost tribunal represents a case where the authority’s original decision did not meet the legal standard required to secure the child’s educational provision.
Local authorities are not necessarily acting maliciously. They are operating under constrained budgets while facing open-ended legal duties. But the outcome is clear. The system currently reaches lawful provision reliably only after formal legal challenge.
In other words, the tribunal is not a peripheral safeguard. It is the mechanism that makes the legal right effective.
What the White Paper is trying to change
The government argues the current model is slow, adversarial and inconsistent. Families, it says, should not need legal proceedings simply to obtain help. The reform therefore aims to shift support earlier and into schools.
The proposed structure has three levels. Schools provide universal support through improved identification and teaching adjustments. Children then access targeted specialist input such as speech and language therapy or educational psychology without needing an EHCP. Only the most complex cases receive specialist provision linked to an EHCP based on nationally defined criteria. Schools would record support in Individual Support Plans for children receiving additional help.
The intention is that support should happen because a child needs it, not because a family has secured a legal document.
If the new training programmes, specialist hubs and advisory services work as intended, one clear outcome would follow. Fewer disputes would arise and tribunal cases would fall naturally because provision would already be in place.
The capacity problem
The concern raised by many families and practitioners is that the reform depends on capacity that does not yet exist.
Once the announced funding is distributed across schools and the roughly 1.7 to 1.8 million pupils identified with SEND, the increase amounts to hundreds of pounds per pupil per year and tens of thousands of pounds per school. That can improve support but does not fundamentally change staffing levels. In real terms, it might fund part of a full-time teaching assistant post.
The model also depends on earlier access to educational psychologists, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists. England already has shortages in each of these professions. Training pipelines take years to develop and many areas already struggle to provide regular input even for children with EHCPs. Additional teacher training cannot substitute for clinical assessment and intervention planning carried out by qualified specialists.
The reform therefore shifts responsibility to schools while the professional workforce required to support that shift remains limited.
Specialist placements
The proposals also give local authorities stronger control over the cost of independent specialist placements and seek to reduce reliance on them.
Many non-maintained and independent specialist schools support pupils with the highest levels of need, including children requiring one-to-one, two-to-one, or even three-to-one supervision who cannot safely function in large mainstream environments. These placements frequently follow tribunal decisions that mainstream education cannot safely meet the child’s needs.
Their costs are overwhelmingly staffing. If funding does not cover staff wages, the placement cannot be delivered. If pupil numbers fall because placements are restricted, the schools lose financial viability. Some of the settings that currently support the most difficult-to-place pupils could therefore close. The alternatives would often be residential placements, unsuitable placements, or unsafe placements rather than cheaper local provision.
Why the reaction is so strong
The key disagreement is not about whether reform is needed. Most participants in the system agree the current process is slow and conflict-driven. The disagreement is about sequence, rights, and power.
The present system uses a legal route to correct under-provision. The proposed system reduces reliance on that legal route while giving local authorities greater discretion over provision and placement decisions.
Parents therefore see a specific risk. If improved services genuinely solved under-provision, tribunal cases would decline on their own. Instead, the reform reduces enforceability before there is evidence that the underlying capacity problem has been resolved.
This is why many families interpret the changes not simply as an administrative reform but as a change to the balance between rights and discretion. The question at the centre of the debate is whether support will be guaranteed by services or by law, and whether the new system can provide the same protection in practice that the current legal mechanism, despite its flaws, currently provides.