Solving the SEND Crisis

Status / emerging findings

• SEND identification varies wildly between schools (systemic chaos rather than individual need), and diagnosis has become a de facto 'passport to services' despite no statutory requirement—indicating the system is broken at its foundation
• Educational psychologist pay has fallen 17% in real terms over 12 years; speech and language therapy has 19% vacancy rate; demand has outstripped supply for 15+ years—workforce shortages are structural and worsening
• High needs block funding is unsustainable; local authorities making repeated unlawful decisions; parents forced to pursue tribunal appeals (only 2% of EHC applications) as sole recourse—accountability mechanisms have significant gaps
• Early years intervention is massively underfunded and under-resourced despite being the most cost-effective intervention point; no equivalent SEND support funding exists in further education colleges
• Government response (Nov 2025) committed to 'early, local, fair, effective, shared' SEND reform principles but deferred detailed implementation to Schools White Paper (early 2026); did not guarantee continuity of existing provision, only 'effective' provision

Why it matters

Over 1.6 million children have identified SEND in England; the current system forces parents into adversarial battles to access basic support, leaves mainstream schools under-resourced and under-confident, and wastes specialist capacity on bureaucracy rather than early intervention—this inquiry is about whether children with SEND will have genuine access to local, inclusive education or continue fighting the system.

Tone arc

Inquiry opened with systemic diagnosis (high SEND complexity, funding unsustainability, workforce burnout) and evolved into increasingly critical interrogation of whether incremental fixes can solve a fundamentally broken architecture. By final evidence session (July 2025), committee pressed Minister on what 'effective provision' means and whether government could guarantee protection for vulnerable children—tone shifted from problem-mapping to accountability-seeking.

Key witnesses

Catherine McKinnell (Minister for SEND and Alternative Provision), Alison Ismail (Director for SEND, Department for Education), Dr Susana Castro-Kemp (UCL, SEND systems researcher), Dr Peter Gray (National Special Needs Policy Research Forum), Jo Hutchinson (Education Policy Institute), Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, Professor Ian Kessler (educational psychology workforce), Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists