Call for Evidence
Solving the SEND Crisis
The Committee is seeking evidence on short term actions to stabilise the SEND system which is currently experiencing increased demand, protracted waiting times and increased pressure on schools and local authorities. The Committee will also be looking at how, beyond stability, long term sustainability of the SEND system can be achieved to support and improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND.
Mindful of previous reviews that have taken place in this area, and the evidence that already exists about the nature and scale of the problem, the Committee would welcome evidence primarily focused on solutions.
We will take particular care to ensure that the voices and experiences of children and young people with SEND are at the heart of our inquiry. We welcome evidence from parents and carers, early years settings, schools, local authorities, voluntary sector organisations, professionals, sector bodies and anyone else with an interest in the system of support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
Given the sensitive nature of this inquiry, not all of the evidence we recieve will be published.
The Committee has discretion over which submissions it accepts as evidence, and which of those it then publishes on its website.
The Committee may decide to accept evidence on a confidential basis. Confidential submissions remain available to the Committee but are not published or referred to in public.
For safeguarding reasons and to avoid identification, please refrain from naming specific people, educational settings or children in your submisson.
We would like to assure you that the Committee will consider all written evidence, whether or not it is published.
Terms of Reference:
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Support for children and young people with SEND
- SEN support in mainstream schools and early years settings including:
- Assessing the current quality of SEN support in mainstream schools and early years settings
- Defining what inclusivity in mainstream schools and early years settings should mean and look like in practice
- How can inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools and early years settings be improved to achieve consistent, high quality SEN support? What is the DfE's role in this?
- Whether SEN support should be put on a statutory footing and what this would look like in practice
- Outcomes for children and young people with SEND and how these can be improved
- Workforce issues for teachers, SENCOs, specialists, early years practitioners and all those who work with children with SEND
- What substantive training is needed for teachers, teaching assistants and all those who work with children with SEND to improve knowledge of SEND and pedagogical approaches to teaching SEND Children to increase their inclusion in schools?
- The role of and capacity of specialist schools, independent schools and Alternative Provision
- Education, Health and Care Plans:
- How can waiting times for EHC Plans be improved?
- What can be done to support parents, carers and children or young people before, during and after the EHC Plan process?
- How can the EHC Plan process be made non-adversarial?
- What alternatives are there to the EHC Plan process?
Current and future SEND need
- The 2014 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) reforms, introduced by the Children and Families Act envisaged 20 years of change.
- How has SEND need changed over the ten years since 2014 and how will it continue to change over the next ten years? What are specific projections for future SEND need?
- What does the DfE need to do to improve their current and future assessment of SEND need?
Current and future model of SEND provision
- How does SEND provision vary between local areas and what can be done to promote consistency of approach?
- What changes are needed so that local education authorities can effectively plan for SEND school places and to deliver new SEND schools and new SEND school places?
- What can be done to improve the effectiveness of multi-agency and joined up working cross education, health and social care?
- How can specialist provision, especially support for conditions which occur infrequently but give rise to the need to a high level of support and which may be beyond the capacity of individual local authorities, best be provided and commissioned?
- How can excess profit-making in the independent sector be tackled without endangering current provision?
- What is working effectively within the current SEND system and how can best practice be sustained or scaled up?
- How can innovation be encouraged across the system to address the current pressures and challenges?
- changes needed to the curriculum in mainstream schools to enable SEND children to fulfil their potential? If so, what changes are these?
- What has the impact of the 2023 SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan been to date? What needs to be done to ensure further, longer term benefits are achieved?
- At the points on the education pathway that SEND children are at greater risk of leaving school for long term absences, home schooling or exclusion, what reasonable adjustments and EHCP support would enable them to continue education in mainstream schooling?
- What can be done to reduce the disproportionately high exclusion rates for students with SEND?
- How should the health needs of children with SEND best be met while they are at school or in early years settings and who should fund this?
- What steps should be taken to improve the post-16 landscape for students with SEND? What reforms are needed to ensure that all post-16 qualifications meet the needs of students with SEND?
- What steps can local authorities take to ensure funding is in place to meet the transport needs of post-16 students with SEND?
Finance, funding and capacity of SEND provision
- What funding is currently provided and what is needed for early identification of SEND, including in Early Years settings?
- What actions or reforms are needed to achieve financial stability and sustainability, both in the short and longer term, across the SEND system?
- What is the effectiveness of Government's interventions such as the ‘safety valve’ and Delivering better value in SEND programmes, including
- How have these programmes impacted local authority finances as well as SEND provision and outcomes?
- The statutory override is currently due to end in March 2026. What interventions do local authorities need leading up to March 2026 and what would local authorities like to see beyond March 2026 to ensure long term financial sustainability?
- Is planned capital investment in SEND capacity sufficient and is it best targeted to address need across the country?
- Is reform needed for funding of SEN support provision in schools, where currently the school is responsible for funding the first £6,000 of provision?
- What has been the impact on SEND provision for local education authorities who have issued Section 114 notices?
Accountability and inspection of SEND provision
- What should Ofsted's new 'inclusion' criterion for the inspection of mainstream schools look like?
- How can Area SEND inspections of local authorities be made more effective?
- Whether local education authorities need further powers to ensure that all schools in their area contribute to effective local SEND provision?
- How best to hold all schools, irrespective of how they are constituted or their governance arrangements, to account for their SEND provision?
- The role of other organisations such as the DfE, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Care Quality Commission in the accountability system.
The deadline for written subissions is Thursday 30th January 2025 at 6pm.
Accessible formats
Audio description (audio file)
Important information about making a submission
Please read this section before making a submission. This information is particularly important for people making written submissions in an individual capacity, and about their own lived experience.
Written evidence must address the terms of reference as set out above, but please note that submissions do not have to address every point.
Guidance on giving evidence to a select committee of the House of Commons is available here.
Individual cases
In line with the general practice of select committees the Education Committee is not able to take up individual cases.
If you would like political support or advice you may wish to contact your local Member of Parliament.
How your submission will be treated
The Committee has discretion over which submissions it accepts as evidence, and which of those it then publishes on its website. If your submission is accepted by the Committee, it will usually be published online. It will then be available permanently for anyone to view and may be found online by using search engines. It cannot be changed or removed. If you have included your name or any personal information in your submission, that will normally be published too. Please consider how much personal information you want or need to share. Your contact details will never be published.
Anonymisation
Decisions about publishing evidence anonymously are made by the Committee. If you would like to ask the Committee to accept your submission anonymously (meaning it will be published but without your name) please tick the box when you make your submission. This lets the Committee know what you would like but the final decision will be taken by the Committee.
If you would like to request that your submission be published anonymously, then you are responsible for ensuring you cannot be identified from your submission. Please make sure you have not included information that would allow someone to work out who you are.
We may anonymise or redact some of your submission if it is published, even where you have not requested this.
Confidential submissions
The Committee may decide to accept evidence on a confidential basis. Confidential submissions remain available to the Committee but are not published or referred to in public.
If you would like to ask the Committee to accept your submission confidentially, please tick the box when you make your submission. This lets the Committee know what you would like but the final decision will be taken by the Committee.
We may treat submissions confidentially, even where you have not requested this.
Information about other people in your evidence
If you include personal information about other people in your submission (including your friends and family), the Committee may decide not to publish it.
It is advisable to make your submission about your own experiences and to keep information about other people to a minimum.
Legal cases
We can’t publish submissions that mention ongoing legal cases.
Please do not include details of an ongoing case, or details that are likely to be the subject of future proceedings, in your submission.
Safeguarding
If your evidence raises any safeguarding concerns about you, or other people, then the Committee has a responsibility to raise these with the appropriate safeguarding authority.
If you have immediate safeguarding concerns about yourself or someone else, we would urge you to contact the Police on 999.