Reform of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in Britain cannot mean giving more power to the very bodies that failed our children.
The publication of the Government’s long-awaited Schools White Paper, 150 pages promising to repair a system everyone accepts is broken, should have felt like a moment of cautious hope.
For children with lower support needs who can thrive in mainstream education if they receive timely help, there is genuine cause for optimism. Schools may finally be able to access funding more quickly, rather than forcing families into months, sometimes years, of exhausting bureaucracy simply to secure basic provision.
But for children like mine with higher support needs, the picture is more mixed.
I write not as a distant observer but as a member of the Ministers’ SEND Development Group. Unusually, alongside Aimee Bradley of The SEND Sanctuary, I was invited to contribute as a parent, with no expectation that we soften our words. Our role was not to keep ministers comfortable, as parent representatives have often felt pressured to do in the past. It was to tell the unvarnished truth about how families and children are treated within the current system.
At times, I wondered whether that freedom was more than anyone had bargained for.
Again and again, sometimes forcefully, I argued that reform cannot begin without honesty. That the system’s failings are not accidental or marginal. Families like mine have been routinely failed by local authorities, and any meaningful reset must begin with acknowledging the depth of that failure.
To its credit, the White Paper opens with recognition that the system is broken. But the scale of the the problem still feels understated. And that matters, because the proposed reforms would concentrate greater power in the hands of the very local authorities whose decisions have so often been found wanting.
There are positive proposals. For example the idea that the person who knows and teaches a child could draft their education, health and care plans (EHCPs), rather than officials who have never met them is sensible, if accompanied by proper training and accountability.
However, most concerning of all is the potential weakening of parents’ right to independent oversight. Currently, when parents appeal local authority decisions to tribunal, they win 98 per cent of cases. That is not evidence of a litigious culture among families; it is evidence that unlawful or flawed decisions have become the norm. I wonder: in what other area of public life would we respond to institutions being wrong the vast majority of the time by granting them more power?
Under the new proposals, parents would still be able to go to tribunal in certain circumstances. But if a judge determines that a local authority has named the wrong school placement, the decision would go back to that same authority to make again. From a parent’s perspective, that is not meaningful independent judgement. It risks becoming a procedural loop which a child potentially cannot escape.
Local authorities have long argued that parents can appeal too easily. The reforms appear, in part, to respond to that complaint by restricting when appeals can be made. But from where families stand, the issue has never been excessive rights, it has been flawed initial decisions that leave parents with no option but to fight. Restricting appeals does not improve decision-making; it conceals failure. Reform should prevent error, not protect it.
The White Paper rightly speaks about school standards and inclusion. Both are vital. But where are the equivalent standards for local authorities? Greater power must be matched by stronger safeguards. Yet there remains no guarantee that those making life-altering decisions about disabled children will have the necessary expertise. Allowing unqualified decision-making over a child’s future is not reform.
SEND reform should begin from a simple moral principle: the system should serve families, not fight them. When policy weakens parents’ voices, limits independent oversight or concentrates unchecked power, it risks entrenching the very injustices it claims to solve.
If the Government truly wishes to fix SEND, it must confront past failures without euphemism, establish clear professional standards and protect, not erode families’ right to independent judgement. Without that, 150 pages will not mend a broken system.
Consultation is therefore critical. It must not be a procedural exercise. We all need to once again speak clearly about the reality of our experiences and the safeguards our children need. Meaningful reform will only happen if those living this system every day make themselves impossible to ignore. Our children cannot afford another promise that changes nothing.
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