It’s a frustrating time for Labour ministers. They’ve inherited an almighty mess, in nearly every department, and most of the solutions involve spending money.

Until the budget is announced at the end of the month, they’re not able to make big financial commitments. While they wait, they’re limited to restating already announced policies, leaving the media plenty of free time to make their lives miserable. Approval ratings have headed south fast. Being in government may feel more purposeful than opposition, but it’s a lot harder.

Labour’s challenge with education

This is the story of Bridget Phillipson’s first few months as education secretary.

The curriculum review has been initiated, as has a plan for a new style of Ofsted “report cards” to replace the current grading system. These were both pre-election pledges to the sector.

They might presage significant change, but I suspect that both will end up being rather less dramatic than many hope (or fear).

It’s more likely that Phillipson’s stint in the role will be defined by how effectively she deals with the really big problem in the education system right now: special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

This is not, of course, a crisis of her making, but one that’s been brewing for a long time and that even many Tories admit they left far too long.

But somehow, she is going to have to find a way to help local authorities clear debts that are now well over £2 billion and rising every year, while also helping more young people get the support they need.

Fixing the SEND crisis

Without help from Rachel Reeves in the Treasury, it will be impossible. Even with it, there’s a huge challenge.

Bailing out authorities would alleviate some of the worst symptoms but it wouldn’t deal with the problem: a system that is diverting an ever greater proportion of the schools’ budget towards costly education health and care plans (EHCPs) for children who’ve been failed earlier in their lives.

It’s a destructive cycle, as the more cash is diverted, the less is available for early intervention.

Overhauling the EHCP system is, though, an enormously sensitive task, given the understandable lack of trust from parents who’ve struggled through the existing adversarial system.

Nor is it at all obvious what should replace it: the last government did have a plan in place (though they never implemented it), but few think that’s the answer.

More recruitment needed

The other burning platform is teacher supply, which was acknowledged in Labour’s pledge to recruit 6,500 more teachers by the end of the Parliament, though exactly what that means is yet to be specified.

In its manifesto, £450 million was set aside to achieve this, which, if it survives the spending review process, is substantial.

We are likely to see it used to pay for a mix of bursary uplifts and retention bonuses in the short term. But it will probably require more above-inflation pay increases, like the one agreed this year, to properly ameliorate the damage done by 14 years of pay “restraint”.

That’s another difficult discussion to be had with the Treasury.

Structures can’t be ignored

Beyond these immediate priorities - and completing the troubled rollout of free nursery places for one- and two-year-olds - there is the question of a longer-term strategy for the school system.

The Tories let things drift for years, failing to pass bills that would have created some clarity in both 2016 and 2022.

Labour’s team will now have realised that their pre-election approach of keeping clear of structural questions isn’t viable now they’re in government.

Most of the levers available to ministers are, by definition, structural. If they want to make meaningful changes to Ofsted, or inspect MATs, or introduce new approaches to school intervention and support, they will have to get into the knotty structural questions.

The legal framework, such as it is, will need to be reconfigured. Whether the government figures all this out in time to include it in its initial bill - set to be introduced to Parliament in the coming months - is yet to be seen. We may see further legislation in the next session.

Patience, but for how long?

Phillipson’s greatest asset in all this is the turmoil that came before her.

Anyone operating in good faith knows what a shambles she inherited and is willing to give her time, space and support to come up with solutions.

But if no solutions are forthcoming, or a lack of money prevents them from being realised, patience won’t hold indefinitely.

Sam Freedman is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and a former senior policy adviser at the Department for Education

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