We now begin the public proceedings of the Education Select Committee this morning. I welcome members and our witnesses to the meeting. It is, as you will be experiencing, extremely warm in this room. Please help yourselves to water, feel free to remove your jackets and make yourselves as comfortable as you can be. This is the final oral evidence session in our Select Committee’s inquiry on special educational needs and disabilities, entitled Solving the SEND Crisis. We are very pleased to welcome the Minister Catherine McKinnell and her official Alison Ismail to give evidence to us. I will start by inviting the Minister and her official to introduce themselves to us.

Good morning. I am Alison Ismail. I am Director for SEND and Alternative Provision at the Department for Education.

Thank you very much. I will begin our questioning this morning. We understand that the Government’s goal is to have a mainstream education system that is inclusive for children and young people with SEND. What is the Department’s working definition of an inclusive mainstream setting?

One of the problems that we have heard and received a great deal of evidence on is that the state of the current system has resulted in a real collapse in the trust and confidence of parents in the system. I think what parents want to know is that we will reform the system from the Government and there will be accountability so that if things are not going as they should, there is somewhere to go with those concerns. Will you be setting out a working definition of an inclusive mainstream so that if a school is deemed by the Government to be an inclusive school, parents can be confident that they know what the characteristics are of that school, what expertise should be on-site, what the physical environment should be and what the makings are of a truly inclusive setting, so that schools can be held to account under a new system for whether or not they are modelling inclusive practice?

I echo everything the Minister said, but I will also say that there are a number of components to it and they will be set out in the White Paper. We frequently hear that parents and carers are looking for workforce confidence and capability. When they get the message from their child’s school that they feel equipped and competent to meet the child’s needs, that is a really important part of it. I think the capital point that you made is also important, and that is what we will invest in. Flexibility around adaptations for schools and a well-evidenced approach to the school environment is really important for parents. It is also that we are forward leaning and crisp and clear about what we expect our settings to offer for meeting all children’s needs. We know that all those things, as well as the point about early intervention and, wherever possible, support without a long bureaucratic process and without a diagnosis or a label, are important components for rebuilding confidence. As the Minister said, those are the things we will focus on in the White Paper.

Minister, you started off by saying that the current system is not working. You then also said that no one who is currently receiving provision would lose that provision. That suggests there will be a no-losers one-way valve for stuff going into the White Paper. What will change fundamentally? I think everyone can see that the current system is not working and is unsustainable. Are you envisaging significantly more money coming from Treasury to map against the recent increase in demand for SEND provision? Are you going to recruit more people in mainstream education? Are you going to expand physically the mainstream estate? I did not hear anything in your introduction that gave me the slightest clue as to how you will fundamentally address what we all agree is currently an unsustainable situation.

In broad terms.

Can I bring you back to some of the challenges in the current system? We have heard a lot from parents and from schools that ordinarily available provision in schools for children with special educational needs and disabilities is very broken in lots of places, and largely non-existent in some schools. That will be key to getting a more inclusive set of mainstream schools across the board. What plans do the Government have to improve ordinarily available provision in schools? What are the components of that improvement process? How will you clarify expectations for schools and local authorities on what should be available in a mainstream school?

We will come on to questions about accountability and the inspection framework. As a Committee, we have also seen very good examples of good practice. I think we would not be calling it a crisis if that good practice was happening everywhere. The question for Government is what levers are you going to use to drive that good practice across the whole of the country. Do you perceive, as you are thinking about reform of the system, any conflicts between a system that at the moment is focused on meeting the rights and needs of individual children, albeit that it does not do that very well in lots of cases, and the shift to an inclusive mainstream education? Are you concerned that that policy shift of the Government may result in some children not having their individual needs met because the system may become too broad in its focus as a consequence of that? Is there any conflict between the current rights-based approach and shifting to a more broad spectrum approach?

Thank you, Minister. We know about three quarters of students with SEND receive some provision, but it is inconsistent and the quality is all over the place. Much of the written evidence we have received as part of this inquiry states that there is a desperate scramble for EHCPs precisely because parents know that if they do not get one, the provision will be pretty dismal in some places. What are you going to do to address this?

Would you consider changing the SEND code of practice to enforce this?

May I comment on that, and then I will respond on the code of practice? I want to pick up on what the Minister said. On the point about variation, one of the interesting things about the SEND system is that there is no single definition or threshold to be designated as SEND. In fact, the Education Policy Institute found that the single biggest determinant in whether you will be designated as SEND is your school. There is a huge variation. What we see from the visits we do and talking to schools is that provision for children with additional needs in one school might be done through their core offer, perhaps even without giving the label of SEND support, and in another school it might be considered to require an EHCP application. There is that interesting disconnect in the consistency of practice and consistency of expectations, which we know is really important to parents and carers. We do have a SEND code of practice, which is available. From what we hear and from the evidence that you have taken as a Committee, that needs to be perhaps clearer, updated and more accessible as something that we can clearly point to for the expectation on the core offer. It speaks very clearly about a graduated approach when there is a child with additional needs—the “plan, do, review” cycle, which I think many schools do to a high quality already. That cycle should be fully explored before the need for what it calls the statutory system, but we know that is not happening consistently. I expect that as part of looking at the overall system, we would definitely review whether there is more we can do to improve the code of practice.

You mentioned statutory support. The Committee has heard lots of evidence that suggests we should put SEN support on a statutory footing. What do you both think about that?

There are no decisions yet. Thank you.

Can I just clarify? You are saying that there is not a guarantee of continuity of provision. You are saying that where it is good quality, it will continue, but you are not giving a 100% guarantee of continuity of provision.

Yes, but you are saying there is not a 100% guarantee of continuity of provision?

That is not a 100% guarantee of continuity of provision. I think it is a yes or no answer.

You are saying that where it is good, it will continue, but you are saying that that is not a 100% guarantee.

Minister, I will give you one last chance to respond, but we cannot have this back and forth. The Minister has said what she is going to say, and you are going to have to take that and interpret it as you want to.

Minister, access to statutory support at this time depends on medical assessment and diagnosis when it should not, but in practice—in reality—there are far too many young people who are having to wait for assessment and diagnosis rather than having the support that they need early on. Why has this happened and what actions will you take to prevent this?

Statutory support should not depend on medical assessment and diagnosis, but the reality is that for a number of reasons, children are not getting the support that they need and are having to wait for that assessment and diagnosis. Can you talk me through the actions that you will be taking to prevent this?

I agree with everything the Minister said. The Minister mentioned ELSEC, but PINS, which is another programme we run, is a good example of schools involving parents in early support for children explicitly without the need for a diagnosis. The code of practice is very clear that support should be needs-based and not dependent on a diagnosis. There is interesting evidence from the Children’s Commissioner’s research that young people themselves don’t want to have a label or a diagnosis to get support. They want it to be easily available as far as possible. As you say, there is still often a strong perception that something like a clinical diagnosis for autism or ADHD is necessary to access support. We work very closely with our colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England on that, particularly in the real growth areas of children and young people who have SEND. For example, in 2022-23 there were 116,000 children with autism as the primary need on their education, health and care plan, and last year that had gone up to nearly 150,000. I agree with you that we need to find ways to get support without the diagnostic pathway being an essential part of it. It may be very important for a child or young person and their family for other reasons, but support within the education system should not be dependent on it.

We have heard that there is significant concern from parents and charities and stakeholders about the future of SEND reform already. Some of this has included suggestions of removing EHCPs from pupils in mainstream settings, or a raised eligibility threshold or even scrapping the tribunal system. Many desperate parents have said that waiting for an EHCP or taking the council to tribunal has been the only lever they had to ensure their child can access the support that they deserved and that is their educational right. Can you provide clear assurance that any reforms will not reduce access to statutory support for children and young people with SEND?

Good morning, Minister. In your opening statement you said that you wanted to be really clear that you will not be removing existing effective support. Who will be determining whether the support is effective? Will that be the Department, the parents or the school?

Some children out there today at school will receive a level of support that their parents feel is effective. The school may feel it is effective, but the Department may think differently. The parents will now be concerned that you are going to remove their support. If a parent believes that the provision they are getting is effective, can you guarantee to them that if they believe it is effective, it will not be removed?

When talking to parents and staff in schools, one of the groups of children that they find most difficult to manage in mainstream settings are children who display very challenging behaviours, where they need quite a lot of support and quite a lot of staff to manage that. How do you envisage that the system will be improved so that the children with those challenging behaviours can thrive and—you talked about all children—the other children in the classroom are not disrupted significantly by that?

I will start by saying something very briefly to build on your previous answer and then come to the point about behaviour, if I may. As the Minister says about effective support, where that is well established and in place, we have been very clear that that will continue. On your point about what we are hearing, for example, from children’s charities, a week or two ago our Secretary of State hosted a group of representatives of children’s charities who are part of the Disabled Children’s Partnership umbrella body, who came in to see us. We heard that the families they work with do very much value and want to preserve that certainty and stability of provision, but they are also looking for a system where it can be more easily accessible, more transparently and consistently accessible, and where, exactly as the Minister says, there should not have been that fight to put it in place. We are very much taking representations and listening as hard as we can to what it is about the current system that is not working and what, on the other hand, is highly valued and we would look to continue in the best way possible. On the point you make about an inclusive system, which includes that full spectrum of core provision in local mainstream schools and then also local specialist schools, for example, I would say that in lots of areas they work incredibly well together already and we are keen to promote that. However, where we were seeing a shift that we wanted to support more children, for example, with social, emotional and mental health challenges—I referred to autism as one of the areas where we have seen a huge amount of growth, but SEMH in the jargon is another one—we would be looking to support more children in their local school wherever possible. I go back to the early answers we gave to the Chair about what the key components will be of the new system. There is an important thing there about making sure the workforce is well supported to work with those children and meet their needs. That includes school leaders and teaching assistants, for example, as well as teachers. I would also just mention the point about the school estate and capital. Some of the schools that already do this effectively have been able to make adaptations to the way that they are set up to make it easier for children who might have sensory difficulties; for example, provision of small group space and that sort of thing. Those are examples of the sorts of things that need to be in place alongside, as we were saying, an effective code of practice to help to guide schools that will be necessary to support the changes you mention.

Can you elaborate on the point about engagement? We have heard a lot of concern from parents about a lack of engagement from the Government, and the consultation that you have done in the public domain so far has been specifically for professionals. In a system where there is often very little trust between parents and professionals, that does not appear to have struck the right balance and given you a comprehensive enough range of views. What have you planned in terms of public engagement, and how can parents and organisations that represent them feed into the process ahead of the White Paper?

I wonder, given all that engagement, why you have not launched a national engagement strategy so that that is transparent in the public domain, so that it is clear exactly which organisations you are engaging with and so that everybody, whether they are part of an organisation or they are just an individual parent, has the opportunity to feed in their view in a systematic way that can take account of all those views.

I agree there is always more we can do, and we are always keen to find new ways to do that. I would also strenuously agree with you that that should include, wherever possible, children and young people themselves as well as their parents and carers.

We have heard from SENCOs that they are overworked, undervalued and isolated, as well as evidence highlighting incidents of head teachers and school leadership teams receiving training on SEND to ensure that fostering and inclusive culture is not the sole responsibility of SENCOs. What steps are you going to take to change the situation? Catherine McKinnell: From my perspective, they are not undervalued. I pay tribute to the work that SENCOs do, and indeed all school staff do, but I totally recognise the challenge. That is something that we would like to see addressed. In September last year we introduced a new mandatory leadership level National Professional Qualification, NPQ, for SENCOs. That is a three-year training programme for SENCOs to be skilled up and during that time supported in the challenging work that they do, because we want to make sure that they do have high-quality and evidence-based training so that they know what works and they are supported with knowledge and skills to be able to work with all leaders in their school to create that inclusive environment. We also fund a point of need training programme. It is the universal services programme, which helps schools and further education workforces identify the needs of children and supports them to find the tools to meet those needs most effectively. More broadly, we have updated the initial teacher training and the early career framework, which is the initial years of a teacher’s training, to include a greater proportion of SEND-related input so that they can be better trained in adaptive teaching and to make sure that we have a whole school workforce that understands, can recognise and has the tools to meet the needs of the children within their cohorts, which will hopefully as well go some way towards supporting the work that SENCOs do in trying to co-ordinate that education for the children within the school.

I agree with all that, and the other important point is that I agree that SENCOs do a fantastic job but often they may feel isolated. They may also feel that they spend more time on paperwork, assessments and those sorts of things—for example, advising about going for an EHCP—when they would like to spend more time working with their colleagues to embed that inclusive approach in the whole school. Any shift that we can effect that means they can spend more time in that respect and less on what they might perceive as bureaucracy would be helpful.

Teaching assistants and support staff are also essential, as we know, in the delivery of SEN support, but often they may be the least qualified staff working with the highest needs students. What specific measures will the Department implement to improve their recruitment, training and retention?

I think I heard that you recognise the importance of prioritising SEND, and better SEND training, at all levels within schools. I heard about initial teacher training, early careers teachers, more established, experienced teachers, as well as teaching assistants, so all school staff. I am going to move on to an important point that I have heard time and again, which is about ensuring that the staff have the time to have adequate training, that there is a strategy and therefore consistency and that they are able to embed the important practice. Catherine McKinnell: You raise an important point and I am very conscious that schools, teachers, teaching assistants and support staff do an incredibly important job. You are right that they should have the time to do that. That is something I am working on, on a much broader level, in terms of teacher retention and making sure that we hold on to our great teachers and school workforce. We are looking at a range of measures to reduce what might be seen as less effective and productive use of their time and the ability to spend time with children and young people and to invest in them. One of those is the assistive technology. While we recognise that there is no replacement for a teacher and there is no replacement for a teaching assistant in the classroom, some of the developments that we have seen in technology can certainly give teachers some of that time back to spend with the children and young people in their care. We are also looking at the curriculum. As I am sure your Committee is well aware, we have the curriculum and assessment review ongoing. I think it is important that we produce a very high-quality curriculum, a high-quality and trusted assessment system, but also where we can make sure that it is getting that balance right between the time to embed learning, to stretch learning, while also having a rich curriculum content in and of itself.

You have strayed a little way from teacher training at this point.

What evidence is there that the universal SEND service programme is driving long-term change in inclusive practice and, given its funding ends in 2026, will additional investment follow?

The universal services programme is long running, and it has been an important part for some time of our work to drive that whole school approach to SEND and make sure that the whole school workforce feels equipped to support children. A rigorous evaluation approach is part of that. I do not have more chapter and verse I can offer you now, but I am happy to follow up if that is useful. In terms of next steps for that programme, as you would expect, that is part of the overall landscape we are considering. We very much want to turbocharge the approach that underpins the universal services programme, which is about putting excellent SEND provision at the heart of the core business of all schools. Again as you would expect, that will be part of the overall programme we set out in the White Paper.

Minister, in your opening statement you talked about achieving inclusivity by building expertise, as you put it. Of course, we know that continuous professional development on SEND is still optional. There is lots of evidence out there to show that training is crucial for effective support to help children, so do you agree that rather than this being an entitlement or a right for teachers to access it, which is of course good, it should be an obligation if we are going to achieve good outcomes for children on SEND? Therefore, will you consider making that CPD mandatory for all staff?

I am really sorry, Minister, but we have a huge number of topics to get to and one of them will include Ofsted. The question was specifically about mandatory training and CPD for existing teachers.

The responsibility should not just lie with SENCOs. This is about building a culture of inclusion in all schools. Will you at least commit to considering making that mandatory and ensure that schools carry out regular audits, as has been suggested by a leading head teacher, on this issue to make sure that we are moving towards that continuous improvement and accountability towards the goal that we all want?

Inclusive culture requires good leadership. There are at present several level 7 apprenticeships available in educational leadership and, in particular, ones that relate to leadership in relation to SEND and SENCOs. Do you regret that the Government are restricting access and essentially abolishing level 7 apprenticeships in most cases?

The status of level 7 apprenticeships—this is the announcement that we had back in May?

Yes, from your Department saying that level 7 apprenticeships will be essentially abolished in most cases. At the moment, they are offering training in leadership for those leading our inclusive services and now you are getting rid of them. Do you regret that?

It is the training. Catherine McKinnell: However, we have been very clear, in terms of the way that we fund apprenticeships, that we target the funding where it can make the most impact, and particularly on the lower levels of apprenticeships and particularly ensuring that we bring young people into the market and support them throughout their apprenticeship journey. The schools have their budgets and can choose how to spend them. Some of that clearly will go on training and support for training. There are a range of apprenticeships available at various levels of the school system, which I know many schools are taking advantage of. That is what we want to see in terms of targeting the support where otherwise it may not have reached. Clearly, we have a finite budget due to the situation we were left in by the previous Government, which you will be aware of.

Would you be able to write to the Committee and talk to us about the effect of the level 7 apprenticeship changes on special educational needs leadership apprenticeships?

I would like to consider funding and finance now. The notional £6,000 threshold for SEN support has not been lifted for over 10 years since its introduction, yet we have seen significant increases in demand and rising costs for support services. Do you believe that the level of funding remains sufficient and is it sustainable?

The notional £6,000 threshold for SEN support.

We have also heard, as a Committee, a suggestion to ringfence SEN funding so that it can only be spent on SEN funding. Has the Department looked into this to ensure that schools are accountable for how this funding is used?

The reason it is a great question to ask is because something that seems distinctive about the SEN system is that it is not just about resource. It is about how you best use the resource and how it can be accessed and deployed effectively and as quickly as possible. The Minister mentioned the high needs budget, and that has seen very high levels of investment—I think about an 87% investment in the last six years. We have seen a lot of new funding going in there but unfortunately no real improvement in outcomes, which suggests that we should look very carefully at making resource available at an earlier stage through schools, colleges, nurseries and so on. The point about ringfencing and how we hold schools to account is a good one, but I would echo the Minister that that needs to be thought about in the round, particularly as we have noted that designation of SEND is so variable between schools. A child who might in principle attract that funding in one school because they are officially on SEND support might be having their needs met as effectively or better in another school without that label. I think it is about how you keep all those things in balance.

The national funding formula has been criticised for failing to adequately reflect the needs of pupils with SEND, and it contributes to significant funding disparities between areas. In Devon a child who receives a high needs funding block will get £1,245. In Camden that same child would get £3,565. Effectively, that child is worth three times less in Devon than in Camden. I spoke to a head of a federation in Devon who had moved from London to Devon and was horrified at the level of support she could provide to the children with SEND in her classes in Devon. Speech and language therapies, an educational psychologist—she said that in Camden she could just bring it all in, because she had the money, and she does not have it in Devon. It is completely unfair. What assessment has your Department made of the impact of this funding formula on SEND provision and what steps are you taking to address these inequalities by reforming the NFF?

I think that is right. I think we are alive to some of the disparities in the system, but I would agree with the Minister that it is how we approach it in the round to try to address some of those without creating instability.

To be a bit more specific, do you accept that it is unfair that a child in Devon on a high needs block gets three times less money than a child in Camden? Do you accept that there is an unfairness in that allocation of resources?

Can I ask for a quick yes or no on this one? Are you looking at making the national funding formula fairer across the country?

Okay. I will move on. Given the importance of early intervention for children with SEND, what assessment has the Department made of the merits of prioritising a greater proportion of high needs block towards funding early years provision?

I have a supplementary, if I may. Shifting focus slightly, we know that the Government are extending a profit cap to private provision in the children’s social care sector. I would like to know, given all the funding challenges you are facing, whether you are going to extend the profit cap to cover the private provision of special education. We know that, in many cases, this private provision is overseen by the same private equity firms as those that are being tackled in the children’s social care sector.

As someone who used to be the budget holder on council for SEND, I know that the extension of the statutory override will be welcomed by councils across the country. However, is this just kicking the can down the road or is there a set of concrete actions that the Government are going to be working with councils on to ensure that by the time this extension expires in two years, councils can reduce those deficits and they will not be in the same situation in two years?

In that case, what would be in your discussions with MHCLG, especially as it has announced a consultation at the same time as the override has been renewed? Catherine McKinnell: The conversations are constantly ongoing with local authorities. I was looking at the list of local authorities and their most recent inspection outcomes under the new framework to see whether there is a pattern to which local authority is managing to deliver good outcomes within their budget. If I am really honest, there is not. You have local authorities that are performing really well under the new inspection framework, from Hartlepool to Rutland, and then you have ones that are underperforming. I would not want to name one without double checking so I do not set any hares racing, but I think the Department has been working for some time with local authorities on how to drive already the change to the system. I guess that is one point that I want to drive home in response to all these questions. It is not as if we are waiting for this work to begin when we launch the White Paper. The White Paper will be a marker on a journey that we are already well and truly on, working with schools, working with stakeholders, working with parents and working with local authorities to drive much better outcomes. Some are already seeing big improvement but others are much further behind on that journey. We will continue to work with them to support them to work within their budgets, but most of all to deliver better outcomes. That is always our No. 1 priority in the approach that we are taking.

On that point, then, can you offer reassurance to this Committee that the conversations are happening between the DFE, the Treasury and MHCLG on a long-term sustainable funding solution for SEND? Is that work happening yet?

Forgive me, just to press you on that, does that mean that essentially Treasury has spoken and you and MHCLG simply must solve this with what you have, or are there specific conversations going on that recognise that this is a crisis and that it is going to take cross-governmental and departmental strategy and rolling up of sleeves to get the finance in place to deliver the better outcomes that you have rightly talked about and that we agree with? Are those specific conversations taking place to reflect that this is such a crisis?

I echo that. I think that joined-up way of working was already very much how we approached things but the opportunity mission has given that a whole new focus. Those conversations with Treasury, DHSC and specifically MHCLG are very live and very frequent. I would mention perhaps home to school transport, which is something that I think you have heard about as a Committee. It so happens that that is not funded through high needs. It is funded, as you know, through local governments’ core budget, but it is so much part of the same picture that we make sure we are taking a joined-up approach to thinking about it there. Equally, we talk frequently to the Local Government Association, for example, and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. The other thing I would mention, to pick up on the Minister’s point about where local authorities are making progress in some respects and in some areas, is our change programme, which has been under way for a couple of years now. It is represented in every English region, with 32 local authorities in total working together to test what works in improving outcomes for children—that is a top priority—but also getting that partnership working with that focus on stability, which is so important.

The statutory override is a very big and specific problem, and it is not dealt with by the comprehensive spending review. The solution to it is batted back by two years, and that is a welcome relief for local authorities that they are not going to face a cliff edge. However, Darren’s questions were really about whether the Government have a pathway to a permanent solution to the statutory override before the next deadline approaches in two years. We would like to know whether there is a process for that or not, because we cannot see it at the moment. Could you be super brief in answering that but to the specifics of: is there a pathway that gets local authorities—between now and the deadline in two years’ time that the Government have set by way of the extension—to an end to the statutory override and stability for the SEND system for local authorities?

Given the scale of unmet need, does the Department agree that the £740 million high needs capital for 2025-26 is only a starting point? What immediate plans exist for a long-term capital strategy to ensure inclusive and sustainable SEND provision across the country? I have children in my constituency who are waiting months if not years for placements, and often these are out of county.

Do the Government accept that capacity within specialist provision will need to be increased as part of the SEND reforms? Some children will need that kind of highly specialist provision.

How many additional specialist places will the capital budget deliver each year during the three years of the comprehensive spending review period?

This is the last question from me. If we go back to specialist state schools, what role will they play in the future SEND system, particularly in addressing regional shortfalls—I have one in my constituency—but also addressing cost pressures related to placing pupils in independent specialist provisions?

What role will the specialist state schools play?

Minister, to get a little bit more clarity on that, you have a capital budget that has been allocated following the comprehensive spending review. You have a desire to increase the number of places in mainstream schools and you recognise that there is a shortfall of specialist places in some areas. When will we be able to see the detail of how that funding is being allocated across the country so that we can see what the balance is for different regions but also between the expansion of places in mainstream settings? We have heard from plenty of local authorities that they have not been able to build new special schools for a long time. Government only started measuring the number of special school places two years ago. They are desperate in some areas to plug that gap for specialist provision alongside recognising, and I think sharing, the Government’s aspiration for more inclusive mainstream. The question is about when we will have the profiling of that funding so we can see how it is being allocated and how many places are going to be delivered within this spending review period.

I am sorry to interrupt. We do not need to rehearse the strategy again. The question is: you have a specific pot of money; when will the Government set out how it is going to be spent?

I will continue on that line of questioning. There have been calls on the Government to publish the data on both SEND provision and then the data they have about areas of high needs to see whether they match up. Of course, we know that they do not. Are you going to publish this data?

I do not have a clear, crisp yes-or-no answer on exactly what data we will publish. I think, as the Minister says, all this territory will be part and parcel of the plan that we set out in our White Paper. The Chair has referred to what we call the snap data, which is the data that we have systematically collected the last two years, where we talk to local authorities about the shortfall they are currently experiencing. Obviously, that sheds light in lots of important ways, including what we have heard about where there may be gaps in state special schools, which drive inappropriate reliance on independent special schools, for example. My expectation is that we will continue to consider that important reporting from local authorities about where they are experiencing a shortfall. I also expect that the exam question may start to change a little bit, if you like, when we have a clearer expectation overall of how that planning works and, as some embers have raised, how that might start to look different as we evolve a new system. Wherever possible we are accommodating children in mainstream schools, including sometimes specialist provision in that mainstream setting, as opposed to in a pure special school, if you like. I think the data is important because it sheds light on this very consistent theme we have explored this morning, which is about variation within different regions or even different smaller localities. You see varying pictures and the data is important in getting under the skin of that. I cannot tell you exactly at this point what we would expect to publish in the future.

That makes sense. You will be aware from the conversations around us that time is short, so I will just leave it at this question. You have obviously had this data; you have been collecting it for two years. What has your analysis shown you? Where are the needs?

I am very pleased to have had this data stream for the last couple of years because it underlines that point about the sheer variation in the system that we want to address. I think that sheds light on why it can be so frustrating for children and their families at the minute—it feels like it might be different if they lived in a different area of the country, but it can also drive quite an unhelpful binary feel that you are either in your local mainstream school or you are far away in a special school. We know that in some areas, there is a much more graduated system where schools work together, and alternative provision is part of that. It has shed a lot of light there. I think what we do see pretty much across the piece, regardless of whether it is an area that has historically had a lot of special schools or one that has had many fewer and tended to support children in mainstream, is strong feedback that there is a shortage of specialist places. I have spoken a bit about those particular areas of growth within SEND, so SEND has grown overall. If you look at, for example, hearing impairment, visual impairment, profound and multiple learning disabilities—some of those children who you might traditionally have expected to be supported in special—those numbers have stayed very, very steady. Where we have seen overwhelming growth is in autistic spectrum disorder, which we have mentioned; speech, language, and communication, which we have also touched on, especially in younger children; and in social, emotional and mental health, which covers a wide range of needs. So, mental health need, but also things like ADHD. Some of the function of having that data stream for two years now is that it can help us see not just where there is need, but which types of underlying need are driving that gap in provision. I think that is an important part of the picture as well.

So the most acute needs are going to be dealt with by the specialist school places, and that has stayed fairly consistent from the data you have seen from the last two years, but those other needs you talked about are going to be addressed in mainstream education. That is the general direction of travel, is that correct?

Obviously, there will be children within those groups who are very settled in specialist provision. We would not expect them to move, and we recognise it is a complex picture with many children having more than one need. However, in general, in all those real growth areas we would like to be doing more to support them in their local school where possible.

Minister, the National Audit Office said that misaligned priorities and incentives is undermining a whole system approach to SEND. What work are you doing, along with the Department of Health and Social Care, to ensure that your priorities are aligned to improve the care for SEND children?

How you are working with the other Departments, particularly Health and Social Care, to align priorities so you get a more joined-up system across Government to help children with special educational needs?

Alison, you talked about the data that the Government have been collecting and explained that the rise in cases relates to SEMH, ADHD and autism. What information, Minister, do you have on whether that is an increase in diagnosis or an increase in cases and prevalence of those conditions? Presumably, it is a bit of both, but which is the major driving factor? Going back to the 10-year plan you described, on the issues of prevention, what work can be done potentially to prevent some of these cases in the first place?

You have seen an increase year on year of need, so what is driving that increase in need and is any of that need preventable with other measures?

Minister, the question was not so much about the interventions you are putting in place. We can see that there are more children with need, and they need support, and you want to make support for everyone; you have said that repeatedly. The question is what is driving the need for more children to require support than was previously the case. Is there anything that you think you can do to reduce that tide of an ever-increasing number of children requiring additional support? Is there something that can be done to help those children to prevent it, or not? Catherine McKinnell: I feel that this is about all children within their education settings and driving better outcomes for all children. Some of the evidence and the evidence-based practice, the tools, the assistive technology, the teacher training, the English hubs, the inclusive PE—it is all part of a big picture of how we drive better outcomes for all children, and clearly within that are children with special educational needs and disabilities. I think upskilling, improving and progressing our ability to teach and meet educational need of children will not only change the lives of children with special educational needs and disabilities—change the current fight that their families have—but will drive better outcomes for those children who we know do not get the outcomes that we want to see at the end of the education system. It is about driving better outcomes for all children and clearly, by focusing on children with special educational needs and disabilities, we drive that better practice, which will drive better outcomes.

Perhaps, Minister, you could write to the Committee with some information on the data that Alison described on the drivers of the increasing number of children with special needs.

I am happy to add a little bit. I agree with the Minister around that early support being one of the best mitigations around escalating need. On your specific question about what is driving some of that need, unsurprisingly it is quite a complicated picture. Some of this is in line with quite a lot of global trends, autism for example, or children with autistic traits. Those numbers are rising in lots of different comparable countries. To some degree, lots of the countries we look at you would see more and more children in general being identified as having additional needs. Where we are more of an outlier in England is the amount of children for whom that results in the need for statutory support. Again, I think it is back to the point around how you can look at those children’s individual needs but again think carefully about the whole cohort in planning your provision all the way through—whether that is how you organise your workforce, how you plan your capital provision or how you look at your curriculum—to make all that line up to meet the needs of the children coming through. On your point about what we can do to divert escalation of need, because of the sheer range of children designated as SEND there is no simple answer to that. Some will have complex physical needs from very early on in their lives. Others we do see need presenting itself later on in their school career or, for example, as they approach transition to secondary, which we recognise is a key moment. We do have some evidence to help us here. For example, there is evidence that high-quality early years education and the early years foundation stage, if it is delivered well—to pick up on the earlier question—can help with diverting the need for SEND provision later on. As ever with SEND, it is a little bit of a mixed picture, but we do have some evidence about what can help with avoiding that escalation of need if it is not going to be helpful in improving outcomes for that child.

We are getting very short on time. We have a number of other topics that we would like to be able to question you on, so I encourage you to be concise in your answers and then we will get to the end of all our topics.

One way of strengthening multi-agency working that has been suggested to this Committee by the charity Contact was to strengthen the Children and Families Act 2014 by making these joint legal duties between Health and Social Care and Education for delivering those EHC plans. In your view, would that be effective? What other legislative levers can you pull to encourage greater health service involvement in delivering the support that is needed? That is, again, something that we have heard a lot is not happening.

In that White Paper, do you accept that in some cases, responsibilities that should be Health’s, and therefore the cost of them, are falling to schools, colleges and local authorities? Do you accept that in the White Paper, that needs to be addressed by some change in the legislative levers?

The SEND code of practice in the Department’s document supporting pupils with medical conditions does not address the question of the delegation of medical support to unregulated school staff. We know this is a situation that leaves potentially both pupils and staff extremely exposed because there are unqualified staff delivering medical support in school settings. That is a situation that is unacceptable. What work is the Department doing jointly with the Department of Health and Social Care to regularise that approach to make sure that there is clear guidance, but also to make sure that the financial responsibility for delivering medical support in education settings is borne by the Department of Health and that it is not eating into the already stretched high needs block, which we know is happening too much at the moment?

Are you working cross-departmentally on the budget issue? Certainly, I have seen examples in my own constituency of different local authorities taking different approaches, so NHS staff are in some schools, and in other schools the same support is being provided by teaching assistants. It is straightforwardly unfair to an already stretched high needs block where that happens.

Minister, you touched on this with the earlier question from Darren, but I just wanted to explore further joint commissioning. The Council for Disabled Children told this Committee it would like joint commissioning to be a requirement rather than an expectation. In three parts, how would you assess the current joint commissioning practices, and what steps is the Department taking to improve joint commissioning arrangements for children and young people with SEND, particularly to ensure more effective collaboration between education, health and care services?

Thank you for that. The joint commission relies on robust data and information sharing. You have just highlighted that there are some areas in the country that are doing it well and others that are not. Are you taking steps to improve the data that is collected and do you anticipate the introduction of a unique identifier for children and young people that will enhance the collaboration and understanding between local authorities and education and health services?

I have one final thing. As a former teacher, I am aware that often Education takes the heavy weight of this. Are there any plans for these costs to be shared with the Department of Health and Social Care instead of it just falling in Education, because it often comes from the high-needs budget? Are there any plans to share this?

I emphasise the need for short answers so we can get to the end as soon as we can, now that we are almost at 12 o’clock.

Schools Week estimated that there are now 360 fewer full-time equivalent educational psychologists in 2023 compared with 2010, and over half of EPs feel unable to support children effectively due to their current workload. How does the Department evaluate the current deployment of educational psychologists and relevant allied health professionals for pupils with SEND? What specific action, if any, are you taking to maximise their impact on these pupils’ educational outcomes?

The Committee received positive feedback on the Nuffield early language intervention, PINS, which you mentioned, and the early language support for every child programme. What plan does the Department have to scale these initiatives universally and sustain their impact once current funding ends?

We also know that an increasing number of families, as I said, are turning to the SEND tribunal system, 97% of which are actually upheld. That is an extraordinary waste of valuable time in a child’s life, but also costs money both for the local authority and for the parents themselves. What steps can you take to prevent this escalation and ensure that local authorities meet their legal duties on SEND from the outset? Do local education authorities have the funding to fulfil their legal obligations?

We have heard that certain local authorities repeatedly breach SEND guidelines and regulations. Is the Department taking sufficient action to intervene and hold these repeat offenders accountable?

I would say that all this, as the Minister says, is in the scope of looking at the future system. How can we make it less adversarial with clear duties and responsibilities, and keep all that with much more transparent balance going forward? We have also discussed area SEND inspections, which take a look at how local authorities are operating and discharging their SEND duties. Again, we would agree that even though it is only a small proportion of families applying for or receiving EHCP who go through the tribunal, it is growing and, as you say, a very high proportion of cases are found, at least partly, in favour of the parents. That suggests that it is not a helpful part of the system, in that respect. I do not have data in front of me about exactly which local authorities are appearing most at tribunal, but it is one thing that they very consistently recognise as part of a systemic problem in the same way that parents and families do. While it is a hugely important part of the redress system that we will maintain, I would expect us to look at that in the round as part of our White Paper proposals.

Finally from me, local authorities have the responsibility for the delivery of SEND provision but have frequently lacked the power to do so, so they have not been able to open new schools, they have faced capital restrictions to expand existing well-performing schools and they have lost influence over pupil place planning and admissions policies. What steps are you taking to address this, and are we in this mess because of the fragmentation that academisation has created?

Minister, children with special educational needs are twice as likely to be on free school meals; 44% of children with an education care plan are entitled to free school meals. The Government have ended free school meals for children on UC transitional protection. How many children will that affect? How many children will lose out? What proportion of them are children with special needs?

My understanding is that you have removed the transitional protection for children with UC transitional protection, and therefore those children will not get free school meals any more. Are you saying that is not correct?

You are saying that with the changes to UC transitional protection, no child who is currently receiving free school meals will stop getting those free school meals? Is that what you are saying?

Perhaps you could just write to us on the detail of that afterwards, if that is okay. The final question is from me. I had some discussion this morning of the new proposed Ofsted inspection framework, and this obviously has an important role to play in strengthening school accountability for inclusion. How do you propose to monitor the impact of the new inspection framework and how will you know that it is being successful?

What emphasis are you placing on the role of that inspection framework in driving a more inclusive mainstream school sector?

Lovely, thank you very much. Can I thank you both for coming to give your evidence to us this morning? We are working as quickly as we possibly can following this evidence session to finalise our recommendations in our report, which we hope will be useful to you as you chart a way forward in this very important and very complex area of policy. Thank you very much.