Teachers and schools face “a huge ask” implementing the government’s special needs proposals affecting hundreds of thousands of children, according to education leaders and MPs who otherwise gave the plans a cautious welcome.
Under the plans unveiled by Bridget Phillipson, mainstream schools in England will assess pupils with special needs and draw up individual support plans (ISPs), creating a potential workload burden before the changes take full effect in 2029-30.
The new plans aim to extend support to many of the 1.3 million children in state schools identified as having special needs but who do not have the education, health and care plans (EHCPs) currently required for individualised support.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The planned Send reforms are certainly necessary and seem sensible but they constitute a huge ask on mainstream schools to expand existing provision and implement training on a massive scale.
“The government does need to be careful about the workload and mental health impact on leaders and teachers. There is already a wellbeing crisis in the education workforce with sky-high levels of stress and anxiety, and it will be very difficult to implement any reforms successfully if education staff are broken under the weight of too many expectations.”
As part of the changes, the Department for Education (DfE) will create a set of national inclusion standards to iron out regional differences in support, and provide schools and colleges £1.6bn over three years to fund extra support. A further £1.8bn will fund local authorities to hire specialists for schools to call on. And another £200m will pay for additional teacher training.
Daniel Kebede, leader of the National Education Union, said: “The NEU has been calling for funding for more resources for inclusion in mainstream schools, so we welcome the announcement of the inclusion grant. However, it is too small. It only equates to a part-time teaching assistant for the average primary school and two teaching assistants for average secondary schools.”
MPs are also concerned that schools will lack resources. Ian Lavery, the Labour backbencher, said: “There has got to be enough finance in the system so that everybody has the support they need. The schools themselves need to be able to support the kids in their care.”
Ministers have identified Jen Craft, one of several Labour MPs who have children with special educational needs, as one of the key backbenchers on whose support they will rely in a vote.
She said she welcomed the overall thrust of the white paper but was concerned about how parents would be able to enforce their children’s rights to support.
The new system will allow parents to complain to schools and the government if they feel their children’s ISPs are not being met, but not to the existing Send tribunal. The white paper also mentions greater accountability for NHS bodies in providing Send care but does not make clear how that will be enforced.
“The big pitfall I see here is accountability,” Craft said. “There is still work to do to get this to the place where I feel confident in it.”
Referring to the government’s botched-plans to cut the welfare bill last year, Craft added: “But one thing is sure – this is not welfare reform all over again.”
Other MPs are worried about children moving from one stage of education to another, especially those who currently hold EHCPs but risk losing them at a future review.
One former minister said: “Judging by the comments by constituents on my Facebook post, it will be a huge problem getting people to trust that the reforms won’t be an attempt to take stuff away.”
Daniel Francis, another MP whose child has an EHCP, said: “The transitions are going to be very important, not just from primary to secondary, but also at 16 and 18. Hopefully this can be worked on through the consultation process.”
Ministers are not planning to pass the necessary legislation until 2028, giving them time to fix problems before facing a vote. But some in the party are concerned that some intractable issues will be impossible to solve.
Jon Trickett, the Labour MP, said: “It is a noble objective to try and make sure that every child gets the best possible future. But rolling this out is going to be quite problematic as you take each individual circumstance into account.”
Luke Sibieta, a research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said that the government “is not planning to save any money over this spending review period and, indeed, has added an extra £3.5bn in funding for 2028-29.
“If they do save money, it will be because they have increased mainstream provision and reduced the need for more costly, later interventions. They clearly want a system that delivers better value for money after 2029-30, and there is a long lead time to get the details right here.”
