SEND reforms

The government is consulting on proposals to reform the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system.

Working in partnership to prepare for the SEND reforms

The following information is for everyone who has a role in supporting children and young people with SEND including children and young people, parents/carers, early years, schools, post-16 education colleagues and other professionals across education, health, and care.

Important work is underway in Lancashire to prepare for the first stage of the Government's SEND Reforms. These are national proposals currently subject to consultation, and existing SEND duties and support arrangements remain in place while this work develops.

As a Local Inclusion Partnership, we must produce and submit to the DfE has asked local areas to submit a SEND Reform Plan by Friday 19 June. The plan needs to be coproduced, and we want as many people as possible to understand what it involves and how they can take part.

The plan will focus on how Lancashire will intend to use any additional funding to improve support for children and young people with SEND and to support wider inclusion in schools. Part of this involves developing an 'Experts at Hand' offer for schools and education settings to access support and improve inclusive practice. The Experts at Hand system will also help to support children and young people with different levels of need, identified by the government as:

  1. Universal: What all children and young people have access to.
  2. Targeted: Support like small group interventions delivered by setting staff, and reasonable adjustments being put in place.
  3. Targeted plus: Support from Experts at Hand, a new service bringing specialists together (for example such as speech and language therapists, educational psychologists, and occupational therapists).
  4. Specialist support: For children and young people with the most complex needs, beyond what mainstream settings can routinely provide.

The SEND Reform Plan, once agreed, will be reviewed and updated every year as the national reforms continue. It will become the main tool for ensuring accountability, improvement, and investment in the right things.

Over the next few weeks, we will be carrying out activities to help shape the plan. It will also be on the agenda for meetings with school leaders to invite them to give their views, which will look at different parts of the reform plan, including early identification of needs, how support is provided in schools, and how the new Experts at Hand system will be used.

We are restricted in the actions we can take because of the short timescales for producing the first version of the plan the government has given us to prepare our initial plan. However, partners and stakeholders from across Lancashire, including representatives from our local inclusion partnership, will be invited to join sessions and to provide their views in other ways, such as through online surveys, so more can share their views.

In the meantime, we are committed to ongoing engagement about our plans for the reforms after the initial plan is submitted. There will be further opportunities to share views and to be part of developing futures phases. We will share more information as soon as there are updates, including how you can take part, so please keep checking back here to find out what's happening.

Nothing will change for any child or young person until the SEND Reforms have been agreed by the government. Any support and special provision that is already in place will remain until the consultation has been done and all views considered.

You can have your say on the government's plans through this consultation: SEND reform on the Department for Education's Consultation Hub.

You can also find out more at: Every child achieving and thriving and SEND consultation supporting information on GOV.UK.