Solving the SEND crisis: report calls for culture shift and funding to make mainstream education genuinely inclusive

A new Education Committee report calls for a root and branch transformation of the way mainstream education caters to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). 

SEND must become an intrinsic part of the mainstream education system, rather than an addition to it, the Committee's report says, after MPs witnessed examples of good practice in English schools and abroad.  

Embedding inclusivity in all education settings, from early years through to post-16, and identifying needs early in a child's education, will enable support to be provided in the mainstream. The Government must therefore invest in the skills of all current and future school staff, making SEND the responsibility of the whole school.  

This cultural shift would then calm the rising need for complex, costly education health and care (EHC) plans in the long-term, and help put schools and local authorities' finances on a sustainable footing. 

The cross-party Committee calls on the Government to invest in both the education and health services' workforces, to ensure that the health service steps up to its role in solving the SEND crisis, and to improve collaboration between the two sectors. 

MPs recommend a review of the national funding formula for schools to take better account of factors that vary between local areas such as prevalence of need, deprivation and distances travelled by home-to-school transport. They also highlight the need to expand the number of specialist school places in the state sector so that more children can be educated closer to home and spending on expensive independent school places can be reduced. 

As well as setting out a vision for an inclusive education system and citing examples of replicable good practice, the report's introduction highlights the growing scale of need.  

Since the introduction of the Children and Families Act 2014, the number of children and young people identified with SEND has risen from 1.3 million to 1.7 million. In 2024/25, over 1.2 million children and young people were receiving SEN support, and nearly half a million had an EHC plan. 

The County Councils Network of the Local Government Association told the Committee that “increased complexity”, with children being diagnosed with multiple, complex needs, has become the “new normal”. 

Rising levels of need and pressure on the system have also led to assessments being carried out later, often after a child's needs have escalated. 

Autism is the most common type of need cited in EHC plans (33.6%), but the Committee heard that since the Covid pandemic there has also been a particular increase in speech, language and communication needs, and social, emotional and mental health needs. 

The report does not draw a conclusion on the causes of increasing numbers of children presenting with SEN needs, but cites a number of examples given by expert witnesses on page 19. 

Education Committee Chair Helen Hayes MP said: 

“When the Education Committee launched its inquiry, we already knew that the SEND system was broken, long past needing repair, and chronically letting down children, their families and their teachers. Our report presents a vision for how the Government can realise its laudable aim of making mainstream education inclusive to the vast majority of children and young people with SEND, who are present in every classroom. 

“This isn't just blue sky thinking. A model the Government can learn from already exists in the Canadian state of Ontario, where we saw teachers actively try to meet the needs of their pupils from their first day at school. Closer to home, we witnessed an inspiring whole-school approach to SEND at two settings in Norfolk. 

“We also call for an increase in the number of specialist state school places so that more children can be educated close to home, reducing the cost of transport and expensive independent school places. 

“Making sure every child in the country with SEND can attend a local school that meets their needs will require a root and branch transformation. SEND must become the business of every front line professional in educational settings, with in-depth training at the start and throughout the careers of teachers, senior leaders and teaching assistants. 

“The Government must develop a standardised, national framework for the support that children with SEND can expect in school, long before requiring an EHC plan, so that there can be confidence and clear lines of accountability. In the long term, a genuinely inclusive, well-resourced mainstream education system will bring down the desperate struggle to obtain an EHC plan. This will also help stabilise the sector financially. 

“We heard frustration from the local government and education sectors that the health service doesn't prioritise SEND, and can be a blocker to families getting the support they need. The Government must put SEND firmly on the agenda of local NHS commissioners and appoint senior responsible officers for SEND at a local level.  

“Some of this Committee's key recommendations will require investment to embed new practices and bring in new resources. But any piecemeal alternative would mean that we later look back at this period as the moment the Government failed to finally solve the SEND crisis.” 

The three levels of SEND provision 

There are three, graduated levels of support, moving from inclusive classroom practice to more targeted and specialist interventions: 

• Ordinarily available provision: everyday adjustments that all schools and settings are expected to provide. This level does not require a child to have a formally identified type of SEND. 

• SEN support: more targeted interventions and individualised support. Delivery of SEN support often involves the school's SEN-coordinator and can involve external specialists such as speech and language therapists and educational psychologists. 

• Education health and care (EHC) plans: a legal document issued by the local authority, and available for those aged 0–25 with complex and long-term needs. The local authority coordinates services set out in the plan, with input from professionals, the school, the family, and the child or young person. 

The Committee heard that a failure to provide inclusive education in mainstream schools, largely due insufficient resources, combined with a lack of accountability, has fuelled an unsustainable growth in applications for EHC plans when those children's needs should be met at the two lower levels. 

Govt must define ‘inclusive' mainstream education 

The Government has stated its intention to improve the system by enabling the majority of children with SEND to have their needs met in inclusive, mainstream education settings. However, the Government does not have a clear definition of what ‘inclusive' mainstream education means. 

Recommendations:  

• DfE should publish within three months its definition of ‘inclusive' education, along with a clear rationale and examples of good practice. This definition should be underpinned by key elements: 

o   Accessibility of educational environments to meet pupils' sensory and physical needs. 

o   Expertise of staff to support pupils. 

o   A flexible curriculum which accommodates the needs of pupils with SEND. 

o   Accountability systems that examine and prioritise the progress and outcomes of all pupils so that inclusion is embedded as an essential component of quality for all settings. 

o   Good inclusive practice must always ensure rigorous, systemic approaches to understanding the individual needs of every child and delivering personalised support. 

Inconsistency in SEN support and ordinarily available provision 

The current inconsistency in SEN support and ordinarily available provision across England is unacceptable. It results in deeply inequitable experiences, delays in identifying SEN conditions and increases the levels of need for EHC plans. National standards must be introduced without delay to establish clear, enforceable expectations while allowing for local flexibility where appropriate. 

Recommendations:  

• DfE should publish a unified national framework for ordinarily available provision and SEN support. This should offer clear, evidence-led guidance and include practical, real-world examples tailored to educators and educational settings, ensuring that all practitioners have access to quality-assured strategies and interventions. 

• The Department should publish statutory requirements detailing the minimum resources, specialist expertise, and equipment that every educational setting must have access to as a part of their offer of SEN support, and in order to deliver an inclusive education. This would establish a clear, enforceable baseline covering staffing, training, physical materials, and assistive technologies.  

• SEN support and ordinarily available provision should be provided before or without the need for an official diagnosis. This would ensure timely intervention that can improve outcomes and prevent escalation of need while a child is waiting for an EHC plan. 

These changes will also reduce the need for EHC plans, which are currently the only means of getting support in a way that is backed up by law. 

Unsustainable demand for EHC plans 

Rising level of demand for EHC plans is unsustainable. The Committee heard this is explained not just by the increase in children presenting with complex needs, but because many families are not receiving the support that they should at the SEN support and ordinarily available levels. Some are instead seeking EHC plans as they are the only category of support with legal underpinning and which enables parents to hold authorities to account where provision is inadequate. 

Recommendation:  

• The Government must not respond to the current challenges by removing them from a system which lacks accountability. Evidence indicates that mainstream schools and multi-academy trusts practicing real inclusivity generate fewer EHC plans, as they meet more students' needs effectively without them. 

• The SEND Tribunal must remain as a backstop of the accountability process and they must be empowered to issue legally binding recommendations to health services. DfE and the Department of Health and social care (DHSC) must systematically monitor SEND Tribunal outcomes and identify local authorities that repeatedly fail to comply with their statutory duties. The Government should undertake focused work with these local authorities to understand why they are so often failing and support them through targeted interventions. 

Equipping the workforce 

Making mainstream education genuinely inclusive requires a whole-school approach with all front-line staff equipped with the training, resources, and support they need to respond effectively to the diverse needs of pupils with SEND and their families. It will also mean upskilling professionals in local authorities and the health sector and addressing shortages of educational psychologists and allied health professionals such as speech and language therapists and occupational therapists.  

A 2024 workforce survey of speech and language therapists found a vacancy rate of 19%. Only 58% of occupational therapists say they provide enough support to children and young people with SEND. These shortages mean a disproportionate amount of professionals' time is spent on assessments and writing reports rather than delivering support. 

Recommendations: 

• The Committee calls for a continuously updated cycles of Initial Teacher Training and the Early Career Framework relating to SEND, and for continuing professional development on SEND to be mandatory for all teachers in mainstream education. 

• DfE should mandate that at least one member of a school's senior leadership team should hold a SENCO qualification. Within four years all new headteachers should hold a SEND-specific qualification. 

• Improvements to the pay and skills of teaching assistants and learning support assistants. 

• DfE and DHSC should develop a dedicated SEND workforce plan to improve the recruitment and retention of educational psychologists and relevant allied health professionals. 

• Too many parents described interactions with local authority staff as distressing and adversarial, eroding their trust. Council staff should receive training on mediation skills, child development and SEND law, with a focus on the best interests of the child. 

A sustainable model of funding 

Parents told the Committee consistently that insufficient and inequitable funding is eroding the resources and support available to children and young people with SEND. 

DfE currently expects the SEND needs of the vast majority of pupils in mainstream education to be met with up to £6,000 of funding provided to their school, but this figure was introduced in 2014. The Committee also heard that funding from the High Needs Block is not distributed to local areas in a way that takes account of local challenges. 

Recommendations: 

• The £6,000 provision per pupil is inadequate and must be automatically uprated each year in line with inflation to prevent further erosion of support for pupils with SEND. It should also be ringfenced. 

• A comprehensive review of the National Funding Formula is urgently needed to ensure funding allocations reflect regional differences across the country in, for example, transport costs across rural areas and levels of deprivation. 

• Investment in new school facilities and resources should be based on longer-term funding cycles and be underpinned by improved data collection and analysis to ensure investment is targeted at the areas that need it most. 

• DfE must work urgently with the Treasury and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to secure the funding necessary to realise the vision of an inclusive mainstream education system. This must include a clear strategy to address the growing SEND-related deficits that have been suspended from local authorities' accounts by extensions to the statutory override (now until March 2028). 

NHS services ‘too passive' 

Government guidance on joint commissioning and collaboration between health and education services was published in the 2015 SEND code of practice. But the Committee heard that SEND isn't given enough focus by DHSC and NHS services, and that the sector feels “completely separate” from education. The health sector is also seen as too passive in what should be active partnerships with schools, councils and community organisations, working together to deliver services and to make mainstream education inclusive to pupils with SEND. 

Recommendations:  

• SEND should be identified as a priority across the health system and ongoing NHS restructuring must be used as an opportunity to strengthen the role and accountability of health services in supporting children and young people with SEND. 

• Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) should be fully engaged in local SEND systems, with clearly defined responsibilities and mechanisms for joint planning and delivery. The seniority, authority and visibility of senior responsible officers for SEND within ICBs must be increased.  

• Crucially, this must be backed by appropriate financial investment from the health sector to meet statutory duties, provide timely access to therapies and assessments, and contribute equitably to joint commissioning arrangements. 

Restoring trust and confidence 

Clearer communication from DfE, and having mechanisms to hold schools to account for delivering inclusive practice, will be crucial to ensuring that policies and reforms are understood and supported by the public and effectively implemented. 

Recommendations:  

• To rebuild trust and establish effective partnership-working in the best interests of the child, parents and carers should be treated as genuine participants in their child's education and be entitled to participate in discussions and decisions about their child. 

• DfE must urgently engage with Ofsted to ensure that the inclusion criterion within the new inspection framework is robust, measurable, and reflective of the experiences of all pupils. 

• DfE should introduce mandatory, comprehensive SEND training for all Ofsted inspectors so that they are equipped to identify gaps in provision. 

Early years 

The early years sector plays a critical role in SEND support by ensuring early identification of needs, but it is largely under-resourced. We recognise the Early Language Support for Every Child (ELSEC) and Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programmes as important tools for early intervention and preventing needs from escalating.  

Recommendation: DfE should ensure these programmes receive the necessary funding and resources to enable a universal rollout across England. 

Post-16 

We heard that young people with SEND often experience a sudden drop-in support after leaving secondary education, and that FE itself receives insufficient attention within SEND policy. 

Recommendations: 

• DfE should introduce a dedicated and ringfenced funding stream for SEN support beyond age 16. This would enable further education providers to recruit and retain specialist staff, provide tailored learning resources, and make the reasonable adjustments necessary to ensure mainstream post-16 education is genuinely inclusive. 

• Students who, based on past performance, are very unlikely to attain grade 4 in maths or English despite multiple resits, and who would benefit from pursuing a functional skills qualification in maths and/or English, should instead be supported to achieve a pass in that form of qualification. 

• The Committee supports the Transport Committee's call for a universal free bus pass for under-22s to ensure access to education and training.  

New special schools 

The Committee welcomes provisions in the Children and Schools Wellbeing Bill that give local authorities a greater role in establishing new schools, oversight of admissions, and the placement of pupils. These changes represent a positive step toward restoring strategic oversight at the local. 

Recommendation: DfE should expand specialist SEND provision by investing in high-quality specialist state schools, specialist ‘resource bases' in mainstream schools, and other mainstream provision. This should be achieved through shifting funding from some independent specialist schools to better value-for-money state specialist schools.