Ministers have set out their long-awaited plans for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reform today but many of the key proposals will not be rolled out until at least 2025.

The government’s SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan has been published almost a year after the department produced a Green Paper setting out its vision for reforming a system that is widely seen as being in crisis.

The plan includes creating new national standards in SEND and moving to a digitised system for education, health and care plans (EHCPs) but these reforms look set to take years to come to fruition across the country.

• Announcement: More places and new national SEND standards
• SEND review: Every proposal the government’s Green Paper put forward last year
• Three-year wait: Williamson launches SEND review

The government is also not planning to introduce any new SEND legislation in this Parliament, which means the new national standards it creates will not be statutory when they are introduced.

Last year’s SEND Green Paper plans to consult on giving councils powers to direct academy trusts to admit pupils as part of a drive toward a more inclusive system - described by then children’s minister Will Quince to Tes as a “game-changer” - does not appear in the government’s plan this morning. 

Instead, the plan says that the government will look at how it can make the process of applying to the secretary of state for a direction to admit a pupil “as effective as possible”. 

The upcoming Academies Regulation and Commissioning Review will set out plans to incentivise improvement for all children in all parts of the country, including support for children and young people with SEND who attend mainstream settings.

Here is everything you need to know:

New national standards for SEND

The government plans to introduce new national standards for SEND - a key proposal in last year’s Green Paper.

The new plan says the standards “will set clear and ambitious expectations for what good looks like in identifying and meeting needs, and clarify who is responsible for delivering provision, and from which budgets, across the 0-25 system”. 

The delivery of the national standards will be supported by new SEND and AP practice guides for schools and other providers.

However, the first three of these for mainstream settings are only scheduled to be finished by the end of 2025. 

The Department for Education has said that this year it will start testing elements of the national standards with new regional expert partnerships.

It said it plans to publish a significant proportion of the national standards “with a focus on those that are most deliverable in the current system” by the end of 2025.

These standards for mainstream schools will set out how schools should meet needs early so they don’t escalate, the DfE said.

New system of funding bands and tariffs

As set out in the SEND Green Paper, the government plans to develop a system of funding bands and tariffs so that consistent national standards are backed by more consistent funding across the country.

The plan says it will introduce a national framework of banding and price tariffs to meet the expectations set out in the national standards.

It adds: “While there will always be some local variation, to have a consistent, national SEND and alternative provision system and ensure value for money, we must move to a world where similar types of support are backed by similar levels of funding.”

The government said that bandings will cluster specific types of education provision, and tariffs will set the rules and prices that commissioners use to pay providers to deliver what is set out within the national standards.

However, these bandings and tariffs will only be introduced with new legislation, so this will not happen in this Parliament.

Digitising EHCPs

As planned in the SEND Green Paper, the government aims to develop digital requirements for the EHCP process.

EHCPs were introduced in the last set of SEND reforms in 2014 and set out what a young person’s needs are and how they will be met.

The government said digitising this “will reduce the burden of administrative process in the system, improve the experience and satisfaction of parents, carers and professionals and improve our ability to monitor the health of the SEND system”.

However, the rollout of this plan nationally will not start until 2025.

The DfE SEND and AP improvement plan, published today, says that this will also be “dependent on digital solutions tested and agreed upon”.

Local SEND and AP partnerships and inclusion plans

Ministers have said they will introduce local SEND and AP partnerships that “bring together partners to plan and commission support for children and young people with SEND and in alternative provision, meeting the national standards”. 

The government said it will expect local SEND and AP partnerships “to create evidence-based local inclusion plans that will set out how the needs of children and young people in the local area will be met in line with national standards”.

The DfE said it will develop and spread best practice of partnerships and plans through a Change Programme, starting with the creation of regional expert partnership areas from spring 2023.

Regional expert partnerships 

The government’s vehicle for introducing some of its reforms will be the creation of nine regional expert partnerships.

These will be funded by a £70 million Change Programme that will test and refine “longer-term systemic reforms”, including developing and testing national standards, creating strategic partnerships and inclusion plans, a proposed AP service and tailored lists.

The DfE said this will help guard against unintended consequences and build a strong evidence base to inform future funding and legislation.

Tailored lists

The government is pushing ahead with a plan for tailored lists of providers for children with SEND despite “significant concerns” from parents during the consultation.

The plan says: “A tailored list would allow local authorities to give clear choices to families and better meet the needs of children and young people, while supporting them to manage placements in a way that ensures financial sustainability for the future.”

Highlighting these concerns, the plan adds: “We have also heard some of the significant concerns, particularly from groups representing parents, carers and children and young people, about the introduction of the tailored list. Many were concerned that this would reduce choice, and that meeting the needs of the child or young person would not be the central consideration in drawing up the list.”

The DfE is planning to consult on this proposal and it will only be introduced with new legislation so will not happen during this Parliament.

New Sendco qualification

As proposed in the SEND Green Paper, the government plans to introduce a new leadership level Sendco National Professional Qualification for schools.

It will fund up to 5,000 early years staff to gain an accredited Level 3 early years Sendco qualification to support the early years sector, with training running until August 2024.

The plan says that, currently, Sendcos must complete the mandatory national award for SEN Coordination (NASENCo) within three years of taking the role.

It says the new mandatory qualification will be needed to ensure it provides the skills needed for the role, and that it aligns with wider teacher training reforms and is completed consistently.

Alternative provision plans

On AP, the department has said a new approach will focus on preparing students to return to mainstream school and prepare for adulthood.

It said AP will act as an intervention within mainstream education, as well as high quality, standalone provision, which will either be short or longer term.

The DfE also said there will be an extension of AP specialist taskforces, which work directly with young people in AP to offer intensive support from experts, including mental health professionals, family workers and speech and language therapists, backed by £4.8 million funding.

New school places

The plan says the government will approve a tranche of applications from local authorities to open new special free schools, and will shortly launch competitions to seek “high-quality proposer groups” to run them.

In a new DfE announcement this morning, ahead of the publication of the plan, it said that 33 local authorities have been selected today to have new special free schools built in their areas to add to the 49 already in the pipeline.

The department said these new places come as part of the government’s £2.6 billion investment between 2022 and 2025 to increase special school and AP capacity.

Fair Access Panels on pupil movement

The DfE has said it will work with local authorities, trusts and school leaders to “develop options for ensuring transparent decision making on pupil movement with the child’s best interest at heart”.

It said these will include reviewing arrangements for fair access panels - in line with new national standards around the role of specialist and mainstream schools in making arrangements for AP. 

It adds: “Alongside this, where a school place has not been secured through fair access, we will look at how we can make the process of applying to the secretary of state for a direction to admit as effective as possible.”

Ladder of intervention alongside new Ofsted inspections

The government has said there will be a new ladder of intervention for local areas from 2023 with robust action taken where statutory duties for children and young people with SEND and in AP are not met.

Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission launched a new SEND area inspection framework this year with inspections already underway.

Inclusion dashboard

As proposed in the SEND Green Paper, the government has said it will publish a local and national inclusion dashboard. This will happen from autumn 2023, giving an indication of how inclusive schools in a local area are.

The SEND and AP Improvement Plan says this dashboard, which will support the development of local inclusion plans, will “give parents improved transparency of local performance, informing decision making and driving self-improvement across the system with ongoing updates and iterations in response to user feedback”.