English White Paper on SEN Proposals; lessons from Wales

Introduction

On 23 February 2026, the Government published its SEND Reform White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving alongside a consultation document on proposals to reform the SEND system.

Martha Glynn (Senior Paralegal) and Benjamin Deery (Paralegal) of SV Law explore some of the most potentially impactful proposals below, together with some useful insights derived from working within an arguably analogous policy framework in the current Welsh system. 

Summary of the Proposals

A fundamental principle underpinning the proposed reforms is the Government’s aim that the majority of children with SEND will have their needs met within a mainstream school setting. Four tiers of SEND support are envisioned: Universal, Targeted, Targeted Plus, and Specialist. The White Paper stipulates that ‘commonly occurring needs’ should be met in a mainstream setting with the universal level of provision. Children receiving Targeted or Targeted Plus support will have what has been titled the Individual Support Plan (‘ISP’). This plan will describe the child’s day-to-day educational provision and the support required and will be created collaboratively with parents.

The Specialist tier of provision is reserved for learners with the most complex SEND needs. The Government’s plan is that SEND provision at the Specialist tier will rely on a range of Specialist Provision Packages (‘SPP’), which will aim to provide a standardised, uniform regime of support for learners with the most complex need across the country. An independent panel of experts will advise the Department of Education as to what should be in the packages, to be reviewed on a regular basis.

The White Paper anticipates that there will be seven such Packages. Some of these will map onto familiar descriptions of complex SEND, while others will support a group of children and young people with different (or no) diagnoses but requiring similar support. It appears that the intention is that SPPs will operate in a manner similar to the NICE patient pathways relied upon in the healthcare sector.

Once an appropriate SPP is allocated for a learner based on their individual presentation of needs, their entitlement to this provision will be set out in an Education, Health, and Care Plan (‘EHCP’) by the local authority. A crucial impact of this change is that, whereas the current legislation requires that descriptions of need and provision in Sections B and F of an EHCP are finalised before a Section I placement is determined, this decision-making order looks set to change under the new proposals. In practice, it appears that local authorities will now identify which SPP a learner requires before choosing the most appropriate placement from a list of settings, before then going on to issue an EHCP based on that provision. This is because all settings will be commissioned to provide placements under a national framework with funding bands explicitly linked to the various SPPs. Although these proposals are yet to face the alterations that may arise out of the legislative drafting process, they mark a clear government intention to overhaul the current SEND framework.

Comparison with Wales

The legal framework for the provision of additional learning needs (ALN) in Wales is made up of the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 (‘ALNET’), the Additional Learning Needs (Wales) Regulations 2021 and the Additional Learning Needs Code for Wales 2021. The system was introduced over four years, from September 2021 to August 2025.

Wales has been untouched by England’s current framework, as ALNET replaced the system that existed in England before the Children and Families Act 2014 reforms. ALNET’s explanatory memorandum drew on the findings of a series of enquiries and reviews into SEN provision, highlighting the system as complex, bewildering and adversarial, as well as inefficient, bureaucratic and costly. The new system aimed to combat this by creating a unified legislative framework capable of supporting all children with ALN. This system looked to uphold an integrated, collaborative process of assessment, planning, monitoring, and a fair, transparent system through which appeals and concerns would be met with clear information and advice.

There are undoubtedly apparent similarities between the Welsh system and the proposed White paper reforms. However, the exact nature and extent of this comparison is difficult to assess whilst a number of crucial questions about the new system remain unanswered. Nonetheless, delving into the Welsh system (and analysing the obstacles that have arisen upon its implementation) is clearly useful when dissecting the Government’s new proposals and the gaps that will need to be addressed as it makes its way through the parliamentary process.

The Individual Support Plan v the Independent Development Plan

The White Paper envisages the introduction of a new statutory document to support the needs of learners with SEND, the Individual Support Plan (‘ISP’). Schools will have a statutory duty to produce and maintain an ISP for every child with SEND.

The ISP is comparable to its counterpart in the current Welsh system – the ‘Independent Development Plan’ (IDP), introduced by ALNET(W)A 2018. IDPs contain a description of CYP’s additional learning needs, the additional learning provision they require, and any other content required by the 2018 Act. Generally, all children and young people identified as having ALN will have an IDP. In the first instance, schools must prepare and maintain IDPs (that is, hold financial and administrative responsibility for them), unless certain circumstances apply.

Additionally, the 2021 Code sets out that IDPs should be created in collaboration with CYP and their parents and developed on a flexible, person-centred basis that reflects their needs (Para 23.8). Similarly, the White Paper describes ISPs as containing key information about a CYP’s needs and support, be developed in partnership with parents, and will be digital, accessible, and evolve with the child (p12).

How will parents be able to dispute the contents of an ISP?

The White Paper makes little mention of how, if at all, the Tribunal will be involved in resolving disputes regarding an ISP. In Wales, parents are not able to appeal directly to the Educational Tribunal Wales (ETW) against school decisions regarding IDPs. However, in order for parents to be able to challenge school governing body decisions and plans, Sections 26, 27 and 32 provide mechanisms for school’s decisions and IDPs to be reconsidered by the local authority responsible for the pupil. The outcome of this reconsideration can then be appealed to the Tribunal. The reason for this approach was to avoid schools having to manage Tribunal proceedings themselves, allowing for disputes to be resolved ‘at a more appropriate level’ (ALNET(W)A 2018 Explanatory Notes, first published January 2011).

At present, it appears the Government does not share the concern that the school is not the appropriate body to manage such disputes. Instead, they have in fact focused on strengthening schools’ complaints process in order to resolve such disagreements. This would involve the school initially considering a complaint, and if it is not resolved, the complaint will then be considered by a panel of experts.

Will schools be able to cope?

Although there remain gaps in the Government’s proposal for the new SEND system, what is evident is that the legal duty on schools to provide for their pupils with SEND, with no direct and individualised support from local authorities, will greatly increase. As it stands, schools will have to manage the following:

1.      The maintenance of ISPs, the delivery of provision included within them, and the process of reviewing them annually.

2.      Dealing with complaints from parents regarding the contents of IDPs.

3.      If parents do not like the outcome of the complaint, the Government seems to envision that the next remedy would be a disability discrimination claim against the school.

Lessons learnt from the early years of ALNET(W)A 2018’s implementation are instructive as to whether schools will cope with this increased burden. The Welsh Parliament Children, Young People and Education Committee produced a report in July 2024 entitled ‘Implementation of education reforms: Interim Report’, setting out key findings of the Committee’s scrutiny of Welsh Government’s implementation of the ALN reforms. They concluded that providing school-maintained IDPs fundamentally increased ALN-related workload, and that schools did not have sufficient resources to put in place targeted provision for every child with ALN. Their research included the following:

1.      The National Education Union told the Committee that each IDP took around 7 hours on average to develop (para 24, p21).

2.      One ALNCO told the Committee that almost all parents were taking up the school’s invitations to come into the school to talk to the ALNCO and feed into the development of the IDP. Although this is positive, it meant that the ALNCOs held 190 meetings with parents in the first year alone. There also had to be time set aside for regular meetings for school based IDPs on an ongoing basis, which places huge demand on staff time (para 25, p21).

3.      They found that schools were increasingly creative with how they gave their ALN teams the capacity they need. They recommended that the Welsh government needed to consider the specific pay and terms and conditions of ALN staff.

They determined that the consequence of this increased workload and insufficient resource was that fewer children were being identified as having ALN and therefore as requiring an IDP. In fact, the total number of children identified as having ALN had fallen by almost a third compared to before the rollout of the ALN act began, despite the definition for ALN not changing under the new regime and the evidence indicating more children than ever before have additional needs of some sort. Needless to say, this was not the intended or anticipated result of the reforms.

The Government has committed to considerable increase in resource for schools on the coal face of delivering this new system. However, if they are to learn from the initial years of the implementation of the Welsh system, they must ensure that this resource is sufficient and thoughtfully implemented. Furthermore, it is about ensuring that the funding lasts. A cash injection now will certainly be of benefit to those currently working through the school system, but the Government must also guarantee that the benefit of the funding continues, particularly as the staged implementation of the reforms means the system won’t be in full swing potentially as late 2035. Otherwise, there could be a situation, as there has been in Wales, where schools have increased duties without increased and sustained funding. The primary consequence of such a situation is that children who have a level of need that requires, in Wales a school-maintained IDP or an English ISP under Targeted or Targeted Plus provision, simply will not receive it.

Other matters

What will be the threshold test for obtaining an EHC Plan?

As previously mentioned, according to the White Paper only those who fall into the ‘Specialist’ tier will be entitled to an Education, Health and Care Plan. These children are described in the White Paper as the most ‘complex’. In Wales, children and young people can be in receipt of either a school-maintained or LA-maintained IDP. Although there are certain ambiguities in the 2018 Act, essentially whether a child requires a LA-maintained IDP is dependent upon whether the CYP has needs that may call for provision it would not be reasonable for the school to secure, or has needs or requires provision, the extent or nature of which the school cannot adequately determine (Section 12).

Under the new proposals for the English system, a child will be assigned to Specialist Provision Package, and their entitlement to that provision will then be set out in their EHC Plan. Therefore, we might assume that the threshold for whether they require an EHC Plan will be more centred around whether they require the specific provision set out in one of the seven SPPs. This of course raises questions about CYP who do not fit neatly into these SPPs, but whose needs go beyond what a school considers themselves able to provide with an ISP.

Further, the White Paper has confirmed that parents and young people will be able to appeal to the Tribunal against a decision that a CYP hasn’t met the threshold for an SPP and therefore an EHCP, or if they require a different SPP. They will also be able to appeal to Tribunal regarding a local authority decision around placement. This could lead to what has been seen in Wales, where parents can simultaneously appeal an LA’s decision not to take over maintenance of a plan, and a placement decision seeking a specialist school, that latter of which is conditional on the former. However, this may not be a possibility if Tribunal does not have the power to name a school in a Plan, only to quash the decision and order the LA to reconsider.

Parental Preference?

It does also appear that the treatment of parental preference might also move closer to the Welsh system, in that the link between the Plan that describes needs and provision, and placement decision, will be broken. Unlike the current English framework in which parental preference is central to a consideration of Section I, in Wales, there is no longer a presumption in favour of naming the school requested by parents. The starting in point in Wales is that a school should not be named in an IDP, unless the authority is satisfied that the child’s interest requires the provision be provided at that specific school (Section 48). If an authority is of the view at a CYP’s additional learning provision could be delivered at a mainstream school in the area, there should be no school named in the plan.

The Upper Tribunal case Cardiff Council v Mr and Mrs X (Parents of X) [2025] UKUT 068 (AAC) confirmed that there is no presumption that a child with ALN would be admitted to a school of parental choice under Section 48 2018 Act. The Tribunal said:

‘I accept that parental preference in relation to a school may possibly be a relevant matter when a child’s interest is being considered; but, given the formulation of condition (a), it is unlikely that a mere expressed preference will be afforded much, if any, weight. What is likely to be of greater weight are the reasons for that preference, particularly when those reasons relate to the child’s ALP.’

Parental preference also appears somewhat displaced in the new proposal. The White Paper bolsters the circumstances in which an LA does not have to name a parental preference, including when a setting is full, and with weight given to effectiveness of the provision, value for money, and the impact of a single higher cost placement on the ability of an LA to meet the needs of all CYP in the area. The new reforms also go a step further away from the centrality of parental preference. Not only will parental preference seemingly not maintain the status it has under CFA 2014, but Tribunal will also no longer have the power to step into the shoes of the LA and retake the decision to name a setting. Rather, they make an assessment as to the reasonableness of the setting decision, and will be able only to quash the original decision and order the LA to reconsider.  This is echoes of the approach taken by Independent Review Panels in permanent exclusions. As a result, the LA preference will have more weight and less vulnerable to be directed towards a different placement.

Conclusions

 The White Paper proposes a SEND system that resembles the Welsh system in a number of ways – school-maintained plans, local authority plans for more complex children, and the watering down of parental preference for schools, to name a few. The Government still has questions to answer regarding parental input into ISPs and the threshold tests that will determine whether a CYP qualifies for an EHCP, questions that the Welsh system has answered with the availability of an appealable LA review of school decision-making, and a question of whether the identification of need or provision of SEP is reasonable for a school to deliver. Ultimately, the implementation of the new Welsh system has reinforced something that to many is obvious and which must continue to be a priority consideration as the implementation of the new system progresses – that a system of reform cannot be successful without sufficient, thoughtfully-implemented government funding, particularly a system which is built upon considerably increased duties on schools.

Martha Glynn (Senior Paralegal) and Benjamin Deery (Paralegal) of SV Law, London.

SV Law will be covering the White Paper at its Training Day for Councils on 19 March 2026.