28 January 2025 - Solving the SEND Crisis - Oral evidence

In this first session of its flagship inquiry, MPs will ask about the delays and difficulties families face in securing support via Education Health and Care (EHC) Plans, which are funded by local authorities and detail the help children with SEND should receive in school. Only half of councils provide EHC Plans within their 20-week target, and timeliness varies dramatically between local areas. 

The cross-party Committee will query whether SEN Support should be made a legal requirement for schools to provide rather than discretionary, or whether this could lead to less flexibility and more bureaucracy for mainstream schools.

MPs will also ask how schools could gain greater access to health professionals to meet the needs of children with SEND, both in-house and working more closely with the NHS, and what the Department for Education can do to boost numbers of school staff with specialist training. 

A second panel of witnesses will be asked how the system can improve the experiences of children with SEND as they transition from primary to secondary and post-16 phases, and how to tackle the disproportionately high numbers of exclusions that involve children with SEND. 

There will be questions about how accountability and complaints processes can be improved, including what Ofsted’s new inclusion criteria should look like.  

There will also be questions about how the Government can make the distribution of funding for SEND places and support more equitable across the country and the impact of Government interventions to relieve financial pressures on councils. A growing number of councils are concerned about their financial future as the statutory override, which lets councils keep their SEND overspends off their balance sheets, is set to end in March 2026.