What's in the White Paper?

Timing

It’s important to remember that currently these are only proposals, they are not the law, and if or when changes are made they are not due to come into effect until September 2030.  There will then be a long transition period while children and young people transfer over from EHCPs to the new system, generally at phase transfer points.  If you are being told that the law has already changed, this is not true.

Here are the main proposals:

Early identification and support

There is major emphasis on improved identification and provision for under 5s. Funding will be in place for Best Start Family Hubs and for all involved in caring for young children to have improved training to understand and meet needs from the earliest point possible. There will also be funding for strengthened transition between early years settings and schools.

Training

There will be new training on inclusion for all staff, including specific training for TAs, with shared expertise, coaching and contributions to professional development from specialist schools. £200m over three years has been allocated to this: it has been estimated that this will cover approximately half a day’s training for each staff member.

Tiers of support:

1. Universal
2. Targeted
3. Targeted plus
4. Specialist

Universal offer

There will be one inclusive system for all children with high quality teaching and support for all, underpinned by various improvements including better teacher training and ambitious leadership, and funding of £1.6 billion over three years for an Inclusive Mainstream Fund. In particular, it will be informed by National Inclusion Standards which will set clear guidance for the Universal Offer and set out layers of support and what they should look like. These will be formulated by experts and reviewed every two years for mainstream provision, and every five years for specialist provision.

Targeted support

For children with ongoing and commonly occurring needs which cannot be met under the Universal Offer. They will be supported within normal school resources, including possible access to a Support Base.

Targeted plus

For children who need more specialist support to thrive in the mainstream. School support will be supplemented by input from education and health professionals, and schools may group with others to deliver this. Children on this level may have access to a place in an Inclusion Base in their school, or time-limited support in alternative provision or a specialist setting.

No prior assessment be needed to go into the targeted and targeted plus tiers.

Specialist support

This will be for children with complex needs, to be defined by reference to seven Specialist Provision Packages. These are not finalised, but current proposals are that these should be:

A. Packages with heavily adapted curriculum content:

• 1. PMLD: more than one disability including a profound cognitive impairment, significant difficulty communicating, and other conditions.
• 2. Significant executive function problems including severe and permanent global learning disability, or lifelong communication disorder.
• 3. Complex executive function and communication difficulties, including significant permanent learning difficulties affecting some or all areas of speech and language, executive function, social and emotional, and motor skills and sensory.

B. Packages with adapted delivery of curriculum, including different environments:

• 4. Social and emotional development focused on challenging behaviour, e.g. ASD, ADHD, language disorder plus other learning and communication needs.
• 5. Social and emotional development focused on internalising behaviour, e.g. withdrawal and shutting down; may be due to ASD, language disorder or wider mental health needs.

C. Packages where provision is needed to enable access to the curriculum:

• 6. Sensory impairment (deafness, visual impairment, multi-sensory).
• 7. Physical disability, without significant learning difficulties, generally children who can access mainstream.

Children may have needs spanning across two or more of these categories. Packages will be drawn up by a national package of experts and should set out interventions, resources and standards required to support children with the most complex needs, and will be reviewed every five years. Some may be solely for mainstream schools.

Only children with complex needs falling into the SPPs will qualify for EHCPs, and local authorities will be responsible for providing resources and funding for support within SPPs.

Individual support plans

All children with recognised SEND will have ISPs, whether on targeted, targeted plus of specialist support. They will be digital and will cover day to day support. Schools will be responsible for drawing up and reviewing ISPs once a year, and will have a statutory duty to deliver the support set out in ISPs.

EHCPs

These will only be available for children with SPPs, who need support above what can be delivered through normal mainstream resources. However, because support in the mainstream will be improved, the bar for qualifying for an EHCP will be higher.

EHCPs will be formulated and issued only after decisions have been made about whether the child needs an SPP and, if so, which package or packages; they will also only be issued after decisions about placement have been made, and in consultation with the setting the child has been placed in. They are therefore likely to be formulated by reference to what the placement can provide rather than the child’s individual needs.

Assessments will be required at the beginning of the EHCP process; however, LAs will only have to seek reports from services already involved with the child – there will no longer be a requirement to obtain advice and information that is appropriate or which parents reasonably request. Plans will still include health and social care elements. SPPs and EHCPs for under 5s will be fast-tracked.

Areas of needs will be redefined, and will be:

• Executive function
• Motor and physical
• Sensory
• Speech, Language and Communication
• Social and emotional

Placements in EHCPs

Parents will still have the right to express a preference, and there will be a strong legal duty for LAs to meet preferences for mainstream placements. When a child is going on an SPP, LAs must give a list of recommended settings able to deliver which is required under the SPP, although parents can request alternatives.

Independent schools will have to accept pupils if named and will no longer be able to opt out to maintain their area of specialisation.

In deciding on placements, LAs can take into account how effective a school’s provision is and value for money. This includes having the power to refuse a high cost placement if making it will impact on their ability to meet the needs of other children in the area.

Appeals

It is proposed that mediation will be strengthened. Tribunal appeals will be available for:

• Refusal of assessment
• Decision that a child has not met the criteria for an SPP
• Type of package including placement
• Decision to cease EHCP

However:

• It will not be possible to appeal to an expert tribunal about ISPs or their contents;
• The tribunal will have no jurisdiction in relation to targeted and targeted plus support – this will be dealt with through school complaints systems;
• The tribunal will be limited in relation to placement appeals to deciding whether the LA decision was reasonable. If it decides it was not, the tribunal will no longer be able to order the naming of a different placement. LAs will have to reconsider so potentially could name the same placement again.

Support bases

The use of these within mainstream schools and colleges will be expanded. There will be two types:

• Support bases – commissioned and funded by individual settings to deliver targeted support;
• Inclusion bases – commissioned and funded by local authorities to deliver specialist support.

Over time, every secondary school will have an inclusion base, as will most large primary schools. They may specialise in particular types of SEND, and will provide a source of expertise and training for mainstream staff generally.

Experts at hand

Each school will have on-site access to specialists, e.g. speech and language therapists and educational psychologists, to help with designing and implement strategies, training, etc, and the government proposes to invest in recruiting and training appropriate experts. They may also work with individual children with EHCPs. The aim is for mainstream primaries to access these for 40 days a year, and 160 days a year for secondaries.

It is planned also that specialist schools will deliver outreach support to mainstream schools.

Accountability

There are no proposals to improve LA accountability in terms of meeting time limits and securing support in SPPs; parents will therefore still have the current choice between, primarily, complaints systems (including the Ombudsman) and Judicial Review action.

Schools etc will have a statutory duty to ensure every child receives timely , high quality and effective support, including drawing up ISPs and securing the support described in them.

The White Paper suggests that they will be held accountable for any failures, as Ofsted now assesses inclusion and will check inclusion and support bases. However, of necessity Ofsted inspections do not happen frequently.

Issues around ISPs or provision for SEND generally within schools will be dealt with by school complaints systems. These normally involve stages going through the headteacher to the governors. Panels will be strengthened by the inclusion of an independent SEND specialist, e.g. a SENCo or senior staff member with SEND expertise from another local schools. However, governors will have no power to enforce their decisions, and are not trained in SEND or SEND law. It appears likely therefore that parents who are dissatisfied with this will, in appropriate cases, have to issue Disability Discrimination claims in the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal, and/or take judicial review action against schools.

Transition to new system

Investment in Experts at hand, the inclusive mainstream fund, creating inclusion bases and mental health support teams will begin in 2026. A new staff training programme will begin in September 2026. Work in National Inclusion Standards and updating the SEND Code of Practice will start now.

The new system for Specialist Provision Packages will be in place from September 2029 for new EHCPs. Children with EHCPs will retain them at least till they finish their current education phase or their parents choose to move to the new system, and transitioning will start with phase transfers to have effect from September 2030