SEND · England · new plans issued in 2025

More than half of new special-needs plans miss the legal deadline.

In England in 2025, 46.1% of new education, health and care (EHC) plans were issued within the 20-week legal limit, excluding cases where legal exceptions apply; 10.3% took more than a year. In 2019, 60.4% were on time.

Priority: Provide timely, suitable support and protect rights across SEN Support and EHC plan provision. What would change it →

Evidence last reviewed 3 October 2026

Overview

The short version

Three key measures

Who feels this most?

The national figure hides a postcode lottery. The same legal deadline is met for almost every child in some councils and for fewer than one in five in 20 others. Families in the slowest areas wait longest for a plan — and the plan is only the start of getting support.

The family pathway: from request to support — what is measured, and what is not

The statutory process in order. Equal-sized steps show sequence only. Each step says whether national data exist; the step that matters most to families — the support in the plan being delivered — has none.

Legal process — sequence, not a quantified funnel

  1. 1

    Request for assessment

    Published: 162,702 requests in 2025, up from 82,329 in 2019.

    More on this step
  2. 2

    Decision to assess (6 weeks)

    Published: 65.2% of 2025 requests were agreed for assessment.

    More on this step
  3. 3

    Final plan (20 weeks)

    Published: 46.1% of new plans on time in 2025.

    More on this step
  4. 4

    Specified provision delivered

    Not published nationally. No national statistic says whether the support in a plan is provided, or when.

    More on this step
  5. 5

    Outcomes and review

    Partly published: attainment by SEN status, and — from 2025 — annual reviews completed.

    More on this step

Where support gets stuck: the dossier in six questions

What share of new EHC plans is issued within 20 weeks?

Fewer than half of measured new plans were issued within 20 weeks

New education, health and care plans issued in England in 2025, by whether the final plan was issued within 20 weeks of the request. Statutory exceptions excluded, as in DfE’s headline measure.

England · Calendar year 2025

43,997 issued within 20 weeks ÷ 95,411 new plans covered by the measure = 46.1% (England, calendar year 2025, statutory exceptions excluded).

How late the other 51,414 plans were

  • More than 20 weeks, less than a year41,481 · 43.5%
  • More than a year9,871 · 10.3%
  • Not assigned to a band in the published table62

Scope: England · new EHC plans issued in calendar year 2025 · ages 0–25 · cases with a statutory exception excluded, as in DfE’s headline · counts plans issued, not requests refused or still open, and not whether support was delivered.

51,414 of the 95,411 new plans covered by DfE’s measure took longer than the legal limit, and 9,871 took more than a year. On-time performance has fallen from 60.4% in 2019 while requests have roughly doubled. The measure judges only the paperwork: it cannot say whether the support written into the plan is then provided.

England · Calendar year 2025 · Official statistics

Sources, definitions and data — Fewer than half of measured new plans were issued within 20 weeks
Geography:
England — New EHC plans issued during 2025, ages 0–25, excluding cases where a statutory exception applied
Measure:
Number and % of new plans covered by the measure
Period:
Calendar year 2025
Status:
Official statistics
Calculation:
Shares calculated from the published counts; they match DfE’s published percentages.
Compare with:
45.5% when every case is counted; 60.4% in 2019
Not included / breaks:
The law sets a 20-week limit from request to final plan, with exceptions — for example school holidays or a child’s extended absence (SEND Regulations 2014, reg. 13). This counts plans that were issued. It is not the share of all requests completed — 34.8% of requests were refused, withdrawn or undecided — and not the share of children receiving suitable support.

Source: DfE, Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2026, Data files: EHC plans (caseload); timeliness of new plans (20 weeks); requests; annual reviews (released 25 June 2026). Chart SEND-01.

View the data as a table
Time to issueNew plans% of measured plans
Within 20 weeks43,99746.1%
More than 20 weeks, less than a year41,48143.5%
More than a year9,87110.3%
All measured new plans95,411100%

How many children and young people hold a plan?

More plans do not tell us whether support arrives

Children and young people with a statement of SEN or an EHC plan, England, January 2010 to January 2026. Thousands.

England · January 2010 to January 2026

1996–2026 displayed window · observations only. Shading marks years outside the displayed record.

Thousand plansNo observations shownstatements → EHC plans0k200k400k600k800k200020102020719k
The number of plans has risen every year since 2015, to 718,838 in January 2026, about 3 times the January 2015 count of statements and plans combined (the two systems overlapped until 2018, so 2015 is not a count of EHC plans alone). A plan is a legal document; the count shows how many exist, not whether the education, health and care it specifies is delivered. The data also cannot show how much of the rise reflects more need rather than more identification or families seeking legal certainty.

England · January 2010 to January 2026 · Official statistics

Sources, definitions and data — More plans do not tell us whether support arrives
Geography:
England — Children and young people with a statement or EHC plan maintained by a local authority; ages 0–25 since the 2014 reforms
Measure:
Thousands of plans
Period:
January 2010 to January 2026
Status:
Official statistics
Calculation:
As published. 2010–2018 from the SEN2 2019 tables; 2019 onwards from the current release.
Compare with:
January 2025: 638,745
Not included / breaks:
From September 2014 EHC plans replaced statements over a transition to 2018, and could run to age 25 rather than ending at 16–19. Part of the rise is that wider age range, mostly young people in further education, so the line is not a like-for-like count of the same group.

Source: DfE, Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2026, Data files: EHC plans (caseload); timeliness of new plans (20 weeks); requests; annual reviews (released 25 June 2026). Chart SEND-02.

View the data as a table
JanuaryPlans
Jan 2010228,221
Jan 2011229,017
Jan 2012230,156
Jan 2013233,431
Jan 2014237,111
Jan 2015240,183
Jan 2016256,315
Jan 2017287,290
Jan 2018319,819
Jan 2019353,995
Jan 2020390,109
Jan 2021430,697
Jan 2022473,255
Jan 2023517,048
Jan 2024576,474
Jan 2025638,745
Jan 2026718,838

Who feels this most?

Does where you live change the wait?

Some councils issue almost every plan on time; 20 issue fewer than one in five

Local authorities in England by share of new EHC plans issued within 20 weeks in 2025 (statutory exceptions excluded), grouped in ten-point bands.

England, local authorities · Calendar year 2025
Local authorities010200–9%10–19%20–29%30–39%40–49%50–59%60–69%70–79%80–89%90–100%25
Council results run from 5.0% to 100.0%. The typical (median) council issued 56.6% of new plans on time — above the England figure of 46.1%, because several of the largest authorities are among the slowest. Hampshire issued 52.0%. Where a family lives makes a large difference to how long it waits.

England, local authorities · Calendar year 2025 · Official statistics

Sources, definitions and data — Some councils issue almost every plan on time; 20 issue fewer than one in five
Geography:
England, local authorities — 149 local authorities with a published figure
Measure:
Number of local authorities
Period:
Calendar year 2025
Status:
Official statistics
Calculation:
Authorities counted into ten-point bands of their published percentage.
Compare with:
England: 46.1%
Not included / breaks:
Each council counts equally, whatever its size; large councils with low rates pull the England figure below the typical council. Timeliness is not quality: a fast decision is not necessarily a good one.

Source: DfE, Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2026, Data files: EHC plans (caseload); timeliness of new plans (20 weeks); requests; annual reviews (released 25 June 2026). Chart SEND-03.

View the data as a table
Share within 20 weeksLocal authorities
0–9%11
10–19%9
20–29%22
30–39%15
40–49%9
50–59%16
60–69%11
70–79%14
80–89%17
90–100%25

Every council’s figure is in the local pages — Hampshire issued 52.0% of new plans on time.

Shareable visual summary

Visual summary

Image current

Every figure printed in the image matches today’s record, and its primary sources have been checked.

More than half of new special-needs plans miss the legal deadline.

46.1% of new plans in 2025 covered by the published measure were issued within the 20-week legal limit (statutory exceptions excluded). 718,838 children and young people aged 0–25 had an EHC plan in England (January 2026). Plans issued, not the date support starts.

  • 718,838EHC plans, January 2026

New plans issued within 20 weeks

46.1%

England. Source: DfE, Education, health and care plans.
Download image (PNG, 1024 by 1536 pixels)

More than half of new special-needs plans miss the legal deadline.

SEND infographic: 718,838 children and young people in England had an EHC plan in January 2026; 46.1% of new plans in 2025 were issued within 20 weeks.
Text and data version

More than half of new special-needs plans miss the legal deadline. 46.1% of new plans in 2025 covered by the published measure were issued within the 20-week legal limit (statutory exceptions excluded). 718,838 children and young people aged 0–25 had an EHC plan in England (January 2026). Plans issued, not the date support starts.

Records behind this visual summary
MeasureValuePeriodGeographyTypeSource
Children and young people with an EHC plan718,838Jan 2026Englandobserved countDepartment for Education, SEN2: statements and EHC plans
New EHC plans issued within 20 weeks (excluding exceptions)46.1%2025Englandobserved countDepartment for Education, Education, health and care plans

Image description: SEND infographic: 718,838 children and young people in England had an EHC plan in January 2026; 46.1% of new plans in 2025 were issued within 20 weeks.

All visual summaries, their source records and their publication state are listed on Shareable visuals.

Chapter 1 of 6

What is happening now?

Two groups are often run together. 1,319,780 pupils in schools were on SEN support in January 2026 — help arranged by the school, with no legal plan. 718,838 children and young people aged 0–25 held an education, health and care plan, a legal document a council must maintain; 538,547 of them were pupils counted in the school census. The two counts come from different collections and are never added together here.

How many pupils have special educational needs, with and without a plan?

Most pupils with special needs have no EHC plan

Pupils in all schools in England on SEN support and with an EHC plan, January 2016 to January 2026. Millions of pupils.

England · January 2016 to January 2026

1996–2026 displayed window · observations only. Shading marks years outside the displayed record.

Million pupilsNo observations shown0.0m0.5m1.0m1.5m2000201020201.32m0.54m
1,319,780 pupils were on SEN support in January 2026, up 33.0% since 2016; 538,547 had an EHC plan, 2.3 times the 2016 number. Plans have grown much faster, but SEN support is still the larger group — and it has no legal plan, no deadline and no national timeliness data.

England · January 2016 to January 2026 · Official statistics

Sources, definitions and data — Most pupils with special needs have no EHC plan
Geography:
England — Pupils in all schools (state-funded, non-maintained special and independent), January school census
Measure:
Millions of pupils
Period:
January 2016 to January 2026
Status:
Official statistics
Calculation:
As published.
Compare with:
January 2016
Not included / breaks:
School pupils only: early years settings, colleges and young people not in school are not in this count, so the EHC plan line here is lower than the all-age plan count.

Source: DfE, Special educational needs in England, academic year 2025/26, Pupils in all schools, by type of SEN provision — 2016 to 2026 (released 11 June 2026). Chart SEND-04.

View the data as a table
JanuarySEN supportEHC plan
Jan 2016991,981236,806
Jan 20171,002,069242,184
Jan 20181,022,537253,679
Jan 20191,047,163271,165
Jan 20201,079,000294,758
Jan 20211,083,083325,618
Jan 20221,129,843355,566
Jan 20231,183,384389,171
Jan 20241,238,851434,354
Jan 20251,284,284482,640
Jan 20261,319,780538,547

What the plans are for

The most common primary need recorded was Autistic spectrum disorder, for 226,723 plans in 2025/26.

Primary type of need, EHC plans, 2025/26
Ages 0–25, all settingsEngland

Each plan is recorded against one primary need. A child may have several; only the primary one appears here, so this is not a count of how many children have each condition.

  • Autistic spectrum disorder226,723 (31.5%)
  • Speech, language and communication needs160,344 (22.3%)
  • Social, emotional and mental health153,880 (21.4%)
  • Moderate learning difficulty70,259 (9.8%)
  • Physical disability25,501 (3.5%)
  • Severe learning difficulty24,538 (3.4%)
  • Specific learning difficulty16,949 (2.4%)
  • Hearing impairment8,918 (1.2%)
  • Profound and multiple learning difficulty8,695 (1.2%)
  • NEED_UNKNOWN7,832 (1.1%)
  • Other difficulty or disability6,844 (1.0%)
  • Visual impairment5,448 (0.8%)
  • Multi-sensory impairment1,685 (0.2%)
  • Down syndrome1,222 (0.2%)

Source: DfE, Education, health and care plans. Category names are the department's own, with abbreviations expanded.

View as table
CategoryCountShare
Autistic spectrum disorder226,72331.5%
Speech, language and communication needs160,34422.3%
Social, emotional and mental health153,88021.4%
Moderate learning difficulty70,2599.8%
Physical disability25,5013.5%
Severe learning difficulty24,5383.4%
Specific learning difficulty16,9492.4%
Hearing impairment8,9181.2%
Profound and multiple learning difficulty8,6951.2%
NEED_UNKNOWN7,8321.1%
Other difficulty or disability6,8441.0%
Visual impairment5,4480.8%
Multi-sensory impairment1,6850.2%
Down syndrome1,2220.2%

A rising count is not the same as rising need

A rise in a category means more children and young people are being recorded with that need as their primary need. It does not by itself show that the underlying prevalence in the population rose by the same amount.

Chapter 2 of 6

From request to support: where do delays occur?

Councils received 162,702 requests for an assessment in 2025, against 82,329 in 2019. They agreed to assess 65.2% of 2025’s requests. The legal limit from request to final plan is 20 weeks; in 2025, 46.1% of new plans met it.

Has timeliness got better or worse?

On-time plans fell from 60.4% in 2019 to 46.1% in 2025

Share of new EHC plans issued within 20 weeks, England, 2019–2025, on DfE’s two published measures.

England · 2019 to 2025

1996–2026 displayed window · observations only. Shading marks years outside the displayed record.

% of new plans within 20 weeksNo observations shown0%50%100%20002010202046.1%45.5%
Timeliness held at around three in five until 2021, then dropped as requests climbed, and has stayed below half since 2024. The two measures move together, so the fall is not an artefact of how exceptions are counted.

England · 2019 to 2025 · Official statistics

Sources, definitions and data — On-time plans fell from 60.4% in 2019 to 46.1% in 2025
Geography:
England — New EHC plans issued in each calendar year
Measure:
% of new plans
Period:
2019 to 2025
Status:
Official statistics
Calculation:
As published.
Compare with:
2019
Not included / breaks:
The two lines are the same plans, with and without the cases where a statutory exception applied.

Source: DfE, Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2026, Data files: EHC plans (caseload); timeliness of new plans (20 weeks); requests; annual reviews (released 25 June 2026). Chart SEND-05.

View the data as a table
YearExcluding exceptionsAll cases
201960.4%58.7%
202058.0%55.6%
202159.9%57.9%
202249.2%47.7%
202350.3%49.1%
202446.4%45.9%
202546.1%45.5%

Keeping plans up to date: annual reviews, 2025

Every plan must be reviewed at least once a year. Of 596,987 reviews due in 2025, 339,027 (56.8%) were completed in the year, 100,079 had been completed ahead of time, and 157,881 (26.4%) were not completed. This is the first year DfE has published it, so there is no trend yet.

Source: DfE, Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2026 — annual reviews data file, national totals.

Plans started and plans ceased, by calendar year
Ages 0–25, all settingsEngland

The plan count is taken on census day each January; new and ceased plans are counted across the calendar year. Because the two cover different periods, new plans minus ceased plans does not equal the change in the total, and neither figure is wrong.

  • 2019

    Started53,899
    Ceased—

  • 2020

    Started60,097
    Ceased—

  • 2021

    Started62,180
    Ceased—

  • 2022

    Started66,706
    Ceased34,724

  • 2023

    Started84,428
    Ceased39,419

  • 2024

    Started97,747
    Ceased44,862

  • 2025

    Started110,708
    Ceased50,346
View as table
YearPlans startedPlans ceased
201953,899—
202060,097—
202162,180—
202266,70634,724
202384,42839,419
202497,74744,862
2025110,70850,346

Chapter 3 of 6

Provision, places and specialist staff

45.5% of children and young people with an EHC plan were in mainstream settings in 2025/26.

The biggest gap in the evidence is here. A plan lists the education, health and care provision a child must receive. No national statistic records whether that provision is delivered, how soon, or by whom — so neither the rising number of plans nor timeliness can show whether support improved.

Where children and young people with an EHC plan are educated, 2025/26
Ages 0–25, all settingsEngland

The seven top-level placement categories the release publishes. Shares are of all plans, including young people over 16 in further education and those educated elsewhere.

  • Mainstream326,804 (45.5%)
  • Special211,442 (29.4%)
  • Further education100,815 (14.0%)
  • Educated elsewhere62,386 (8.7%)
  • Placement not known6,925 (1.0%)
  • Alternative provision / PRU5,530 (0.8%)
  • Non-maintained early years4,936 (0.7%)

Source: DfE, Education, health and care plans. The categories sum to the published total for this year.

View as table
CategoryCountShare
Mainstream326,80445.5%
Special211,44229.4%
Further education100,81514.0%
Educated elsewhere62,3868.7%
Placement not known6,9251.0%
Alternative provision / PRU5,5300.8%
Non-maintained early years4,9360.7%

“Educated elsewhere” is not a small residual

Alongside mainstream, special and further education, the release separately counts young people educated elsewhere — including those not in education, employment or training, those educated at home, and those in arrangements made by a council or by parents. That group is larger than alternative provision and early years combined.

The specialists behind assessments

The Children and Families Act requires a local authority carrying out an EHC needs assessment to seek psychological advice. This workforce is therefore part of the statutory process, not a general staffing statistic. These figures count psychologists employed centrally by local authorities; those working privately or through other arrangements are not in this count, so it is not the whole profession.

Educational psychologists employed by local authorities
School pupils onlyEngland

Full-time equivalent and headcount are both shown because they move differently. A headcount rising faster than FTE means more people each working fewer hours, which is a different thing from more capacity.

Dark bars: the first measure. Grey bars: headcount.

Source: DfE, School workforce in England. Full-time equivalent shown dark, headcount grey.

View as table
PeriodEducational psychologists employed by local authoritiesheadcount
2010/111,7241,895
2011/121,4341,728
2012/131,4631,721
2013/141,5941,721
2014/151,3621,633
2015/161,4041,741
2016/171,3681,617
2017/181,2061,478
2018/191,6552,145
2019/201,6942,013
2020/211,6992,047
2021/221,8172,162
2022/231,9392,325
2023/242,1022,546
2024/252,1922,726
2025/262,3323,023

2,332

Educational psychologists (FTE)

2025/26, up from 1,724 in 2010/11

3,023

Educational psychologists (headcount)

More people, fewer hours each than the FTE implies

295,183

Teaching assistants (FTE)

2025/26, state-funded schools

Two series near each other is not a finding

The number of educational psychologists and the number of EHC plans are two separate published series covering different things. Placing them near each other invites a conclusion neither dataset supports: nothing here shows that assessment capacity caused any change in timeliness, or that it did not. The two are shown because both are part of the statutory process, not because the data links them.

Chapter 4 of 6

Outcomes and appeals

At key stage 4 in 2024/25, average Attainment 8 was 14.8 for pupils with an EHC plan, 33.8 for pupils on SEN support, and 50.2 for pupils with no identified SEN. These are school pupils — a different population from the all-age plan count.

Average Attainment 8 score, key stage 4, 2024/25
School pupils onlyEngland

Attainment 8 measures achievement across eight qualifications. The maximum is 90.

  • No identified SEN (507,595 pupils)50.2
  • SEN support (82,294 pupils)33.8
  • EHC plan (34,297 pupils)14.8

These groups are not comparable populations

These groups are not comparable populations. A child has an EHC plan because an assessment concluded they need provision beyond what a school ordinarily provides — the group is defined by the presence of need. The gap between the groups therefore describes the groups, and says nothing about whether the support worked. No published dataset supports reading it either way, and this page does not.

Source: DfE, Key stage 4 performance. State-funded schools, England.

View as table
GroupPupilsAverage Attainment 8 score, key stage 4, 2024/25
No identified SEN507,59550.2
SEN support82,29433.8
EHC plan34,29714.8
Meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, key stage 2, 2024/25
School pupils onlyEngland

The share of eligible pupils reaching the expected standard in all three subjects.

  • No identified SEN (502,060 pupils)74%
  • SEN support (109,208 pupils)29%
  • EHC plan (37,161 pupils)9%

These groups are not comparable populations

These groups are not comparable populations. A child has an EHC plan because an assessment concluded they need provision beyond what a school ordinarily provides — the group is defined by the presence of need. The gap between the groups therefore describes the groups, and says nothing about whether the support worked. No published dataset supports reading it either way, and this page does not.

Source: DfE, Key stage 2 attainment. State-funded schools, England.

View as table
GroupPupilsMeeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, key stage 2, 2024/25
No identified SEN502,06074%
SEN support109,20829%
EHC plan37,1619%

The key stage 4 breakdown by SEN provision begins in 2018/19; earlier years are published without it. Key stage 2 assessments were cancelled in 2019/20 and 2020/21, so those years are absent from the series rather than estimated. Key stage 2 and key stage 4 pupils in state-funded schools in England. This is a school-pupil population. It is NOT the 0–25 EHC-plan population used elsewhere in this chapter, and the two must never be divided by one another.

Association, not cause

These are associations. SEND intersects with disadvantage, health and school factors, and the data here do not isolate cause.

Appeals to the tribunal

Appeals lodged with the First-tier Tribunal (SEND) rose from 3,397 in 2009/10 to 29,446 in 2025/26 — 8.7 times as many.

An appeal is not a child

An appeal is not a child, and appeals cannot be compared with plans to produce an appeal rate: the two are published on different reference periods, cover different populations, and one child may bring more than one appeal. The count below is of appeals lodged.

Appeals lodged with the First-tier Tribunal (SEND)
Appeals, not childrenEngland

Financial years with all four quarters published. The right of appeal attaches to specific decisions — a refusal to assess, a refusal to issue a plan, the content of a plan, or a decision to cease one.

Dark bars: the first measure. Grey bars: appeals disposed of.

Source: Ministry of Justice, Tribunals statistics quarterly.

View as table
PeriodAppeals lodged with the First-tier Tribunal (SEND)appeals disposed of
2009/103,3972,879
2010/113,3842,948
2011/123,5303,756
2012/133,5443,557
2013/144,1553,615
2014/153,7343,631
2015/163,2363,141
2016/174,2773,721
2017/185,0394,337
2018/196,3744,511
2019/207,6947,090
2020/218,1307,871
2021/2210,0948,924
2022/2313,36010,941
2023/2417,55914,495
2024/2523,86119,464
2025/2629,44622,874

How appeals were decided is not shown here

This release publishes appeals received and appeals disposed of. It does not publish how they were decided, so no figure for the share of appeals upheld appears on this page.

Fewer appeals would not by itself show better support: families may stop appealing because the process is slow or costly. A rise can reflect more plans as much as worse decisions.

Access arrangements in exams

In 2024/25, between 345,055 and 534,390 access arrangements were approved for GCSE, AS and A level students in England.

On 17 July 2025 Ofqual withdrew its published access-arrangements statistics covering 2014 to 2024. Ofqual, Ofqual withdraws access arrangements statistics (17 July 2025) ↗

Approved access arrangements, GCSE, AS and A level
Exam candidatesEngland

Each bar spans the published lower and upper bound. There is no point estimate because Ofqual does not publish one.

  • 2015/16152,385 – 307,080
  • 2016/17178,135 – 321,110
  • 2017/18209,525 – 351,735
  • 2018/19223,005 – 349,570
  • 2019/20236,025 – 351,120
  • 2020/21210,670 – 309,530
  • 2021/22239,720 – 339,110
  • 2022/23267,130 – 380,190
  • 2023/24302,830 – 430,500
  • 2024/25345,055 – 534,390

Both bounds are shown everywhere, and they are never averaged. The midpoint of a published range is a number nobody published, and quoting one here would repeat in miniature the error that caused the original statistics to be withdrawn.

Source: Ofqual, Access arrangements for GCSE, AS and A level: 2024 to 2025 academic year. Official statistics in development.

View as table
PeriodLower boundUpper bound
2015/16152,385307,080
2016/17178,135321,110
2017/18209,525351,735
2018/19223,005349,570
2019/20236,025351,120
2020/21210,670309,530
2021/22239,720339,110
2022/23267,130380,190
2023/24302,830430,500
2024/25345,055534,390

Access arrangements and SEND are not the same thing

GCSE, AS and A level students in England with an approved access arrangement. Not all have SEND, and not all students with SEND have an access arrangement.

Chapter 5 of 6

Funding and reform

High needs funding allocated through the national funding formula rose from £6.18bn in 2019-20 to £11.45bn in 2025-26, an increase of 85% in cash terms.

High needs budget allocated through the national funding formula
Local authorities, not childrenEngland

These are allocations — money distributed to local authorities through the high needs national funding formula. They are not spending, and not outturn. What an authority actually spent, and whether it overspent, is reported separately in its section 251 return.

Source: DfE, National funding formula tables for schools and high needs, each year's own table.

View as table
PeriodHigh needs budget allocated through the national funding formula
2019-20£6.2bn
2020-21£7.2bn
2021-22£8.1bn
2022-23£8.9bn
2023-24£9.7bn
2024-25£10.5bn
2025-26£11.4bn

Cash, not real terms

These are cash figures as published. They are not adjusted for inflation, and this page does not adjust them, because the deflator choice would be a UK Facts judgement rather than a published one. Over this period general prices rose substantially, so the real-terms increase is smaller than the cash increase. Read the cash series as what was allocated, not as what it bought.

Allocated is not spent

An allocation is money distributed to local authorities. It is not spending, and it is not the same as whether an authority’s high needs budget balanced. Many authorities have carried deficits on the high needs block; that is reported in their own section 251 returns and audited accounts, not in the allocation tables used here, so no deficit figure appears on this page.

The ten largest allocations, 2025-26

Largely a measure of how big an authority is. Shown as amounts, not as a ranking of anything.

View as table
Local authorityRegionAllocation
KentSouth East£344.4m
BirminghamWest Midlands£306.4m
EssexEast Of England£259.6m
SurreySouth East£239.1m
HampshireSouth East£222.4m
LancashireNorth West£218.1m
HertfordshireEast Of England£205.7m
NorfolkEast Of England£152.7m
LeedsYorkshire And The Humber£148.3m
ESFAEsfa£145.7m

What is proposed, and what is law

This tracker records status, not merit. It does not say whether any proposal is a good idea — that is a political question — only whether it is a proposal, a bill, or the law. The distinction matters because a family reading about a change will want to know whether it applies to them yet, and for everything below except the 2014 Act, it does not.

  • In forceIn force since September 2014

    EHC plans and the 0–25 framework

    Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 is the law currently in force. Everything described elsewhere on this page — the duty to secure provision, the 20-week limit, the right of appeal — comes from it and is unchanged.

    Children and Families Act 2014, Part 3 ↗
  • Proposal onlyPublished 23 February 2026

    Schools white paper: Every child achieving and thriving

    Published on 23 February 2026, setting out the government’s intended direction for SEND. A white paper is a statement of policy intention. It changes nothing on its own, and none of what follows below has taken legal effect.

    DfE, Every child achieving and thriving ↗
  • Proposal onlyProposed February 2026

    Individual support plans for every child with SEND in school

    The white paper proposes a new legal requirement on schools to produce an individual support plan for every child with SEND, drawn up by teachers and specialists rather than by the local authority. This would be a new duty and would require legislation.

    DfE, Every child achieving and thriving ↗
  • Proposal onlyStated February 2026

    EHC plans retained, with transition from 2030

    The government has stated that EHC plans are retained and that existing plans and protections remain in place until at least September 2030; that transition from a mainstream EHC plan to an individual support plan would begin only in 2030; that children in year 3 or older would not transition until the end of secondary school; and that a child holding a special-school place in 2029 could keep it until they finish education. These are stated commitments in a policy document, not statutory guarantees.

    DfE, Radical expansion in rights for children with SEND ↗
  • Announced, not introducedAnnounced in the 2026 King’s Speech

    Education for All Bill

    The bill announced to legislate the white paper. Checked against the UK Parliament Bills API on the verification date: no bill of this title appears among the current session’s bills, so it has been announced but not introduced. Until it is introduced, passed and brought into force, none of the proposals above is law.

    UK Parliament, Bills before Parliament ↗
  • Proposal onlyAnnounced February 2026

    Funding announced alongside the white paper

    The government announced an inclusion grant of £1.6 billion over three years from 2026/27, £3.7 billion for more than 60,000 specialist places, £1.8 billion for an "Experts at Hand" programme, and £200 million for teacher training. Announced spending is not the same as spending that has occurred, and these figures are recorded here as announcements.

    DfE, Radical expansion in rights for children with SEND ↗

Parliamentary status checked against the UK Parliament Bills API on 2026-08-16. This tracker is refreshed when the underlying status changes, not on a schedule.

View as table
ItemStatusStated
EHC plans and the 0–25 frameworkIn forceIn force since September 2014
Schools white paper: Every child achieving and thrivingProposal onlyPublished 23 February 2026
Individual support plans for every child with SEND in schoolProposal onlyProposed February 2026
EHC plans retained, with transition from 2030Proposal onlyStated February 2026
Education for All BillAnnounced, not introducedAnnounced in the 2026 King’s Speech
Funding announced alongside the white paperProposal onlyAnnounced February 2026

Every statistic on this page describes the system under the 2014 Act. None has been adjusted for the proposals above, because none has taken effect.

What is established, and what is argued

Levels 1 and 2 are what the published data shows. Levels 3 and 4 are questions people argue about, sorted by whether the data could in principle settle them. Putting them in the same list, clearly separated, is the honest alternative to either asserting an explanation or leaving the questions out.

  • Level 1 — Directly published

    The number of children and young people with an EHC plan has risen every year in the published series, and so has the number of requests for assessment.

    Directly published by DfE in the EHC-plan release. Nothing is inferred.

  • Level 1 — Directly published

    High needs funding allocated through the national funding formula has risen every year in the published series.

    Directly published by DfE in each year’s high needs NFF table.

  • Level 1 — Directly published

    Appeals to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND) have risen substantially over the published series.

    Directly published by the Ministry of Justice in Tribunals statistics quarterly.

  • Level 2 — Association in the data

    Pupils with an EHC plan attain markedly lower average scores at key stage 2 and key stage 4 than pupils with no identified SEN.

    An association between two published measures. It is not a causal finding, and the groups differ by construction — see the note on selection.

  • Level 3 — Competing explanations

    Why the number of plans is rising.

    Rising underlying need, improved identification, changed thresholds, population growth, and families seeking a plan because SEN Support did not deliver are all offered as explanations, including by government and by the sector. The published statistics count plans and requests; they do not separate these, and no figure on this site adjudicates between them.

  • Level 3 — Competing explanations

    Why appeals are rising, and why so many are lodged relative to plans issued.

    This could reflect more decisions being made, more decisions being contested, better awareness of the right of appeal, or worse decisions. The tribunal statistics record volumes, not the reason a case was brought.

  • Level 4 — Not answerable from this data

    Whether the provision specified in plans is actually delivered.

    No national dataset records delivery. The statistics record that plans exist and what is written in them.

  • Level 4 — Not answerable from this data

    Whether a child would have done better with different support.

    This requires a counterfactual that no observational dataset contains. It is not a gap in the statistics; it is outside what they can answer.

Chapter 6 of 6

Rights and definitions

A reference section: what the law says a plan is, the statutory steps, how the system got here, and the questions the national data cannot answer.

A child or young person has special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for them. A learning difficulty or disability means either a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others the same age, or a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of facilities generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream settings.

Children and Families Act 2014, section 20 ↗

An EHC plan is a legal document maintained by a local authority. It specifies the child or young person’s special educational needs, the outcomes sought, and the special educational provision required. Where the plan specifies special educational provision, the local authority must secure that provision.

Children and Families Act 2014, sections 37 and 42 ↗

The framework runs from birth to age 25, covering early years settings, schools, further education and young people educated elsewhere. This is why an EHC-plan count is not a school-pupil count.

Children and Families Act 2014, Part 3 ↗

The statutory route

Each stage is a statutory step with a legal test and, in most cases, a deadline. Appeal rights attach to specific decisions, so they are shown against those decisions.

From first concern to a finished plan
  1. 1SEN Support in school

    Most children identified with special educational needs are supported by their school without a plan, under a four-part cycle the Code of Practice calls the graduated approach: assess, plan, do, review. A plan is not the entry point to support, and a school cannot require one before it acts.

  2. 2Request for an EHC needs assessment162,702requests in the latest year

    A parent, a young person over 16, or a school or other institution can ask the local authority to carry out an assessment. Others, including health and social-care professionals, can bring a child to the authority’s attention.

  3. 3Decision whether to assess — 6 weeks

    The local authority must decide whether to carry out an assessment and tell the family within six weeks of the request. The test is whether the child may have special educational needs and may need provision through a plan.

    If refused: The family can appeal the refusal to assess to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND). Mediation must be considered first, but a family can decline it and still appeal.

  4. 4The assessment

    The authority must seek advice and information from the family, the school or setting, an educational psychologist, health, social care, and anyone else the family reasonably requests. Advice must be provided within six weeks of being asked for.

  5. 5Decision whether to issue a plan

    After assessing, the authority decides whether special educational provision through a plan is necessary. If it decides not to, it must say why.

    If refused: A decision not to issue a plan after assessment can also be appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND).

  6. 6Draft plan and choice of setting

    The family receives a draft and has at least 15 days to comment and to say which school or setting they want named. The authority must name that setting unless it would be unsuitable, incompatible with the efficient education of others, or an inefficient use of resources.

  7. 7Final plan — 20 weeks from the request46.1%issued within 20 weeks

    The whole process, from the request arriving to the final plan being issued, must take no more than 20 weeks. A small number of statutory exceptions can extend it.

    Right of appeal: The content of a final plan — the description of need, the provision, and the setting named — can be appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND).

  8. 8Annual review

    A plan must be reviewed at least every twelve months. The review can leave the plan unchanged, amend it, or start the process of ceasing it.

  9. 9Ceasing the plan50,346plans ceased in the latest year

    A plan ends when the authority decides the provision is no longer necessary, or when the young person leaves education. There is no automatic end at 18: the plan runs while it is needed, up to 25.

    Right of appeal: A decision to cease a plan can be appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND).

Stages without a figure are stages the official release does not publish a volume for. Nothing here is estimated.

Children and Families Act 2014, Part 3; SEND Regulations 2014; SEND Code of Practice 0–25. Volumes against the request, final-plan and ceasing stages are from the DfE release and refer to 2025.

Six common assumptions that are not the case

  • Common misconception

    “You need a diagnosis to get an EHC plan.”

    What the law says

    The legal test is educational need and the provision required to meet it, not a diagnosis. Section 20 defines special educational needs by learning difficulty or disability and the provision called for — it does not require a medical diagnosis, and no diagnosis is by itself a qualification.

    Basis: Children and Families Act 2014, section 20; SEND Code of Practice paragraph 6.23 on identifying need rather than labelling.

    Children and Families Act 2014, s.20 ↗

  • Common misconception

    “Only a school can request an assessment.”

    What the law says

    A parent, a young person aged 16 to 25, or a school or other institution can make the request directly to the local authority. A family does not need the school to agree, and does not need to go through the school at all.

    Basis: Children and Families Act 2014, section 36(1).

    Children and Families Act 2014, s.36 ↗

  • Common misconception

    “A plan means a special school.”

    What the law says

    Most children and young people with an EHC plan are not in special schools. The published placement figures on this page show the actual split. The Act also contains a general presumption in favour of mainstream education where a parent has not expressed a preference for a particular setting.

    Basis: Children and Families Act 2014, section 33; DfE EHC-plan statistics, placement breakdown.

    Children and Families Act 2014, s.33 ↗

  • Common misconception

    “A plan is a wish-list — schools do what they can.”

    What the law says

    Where a plan specifies special educational provision, the local authority must secure it. This is a duty, not a target, and it is not conditional on the authority’s budget.

    Basis: Children and Families Act 2014, section 42(2).

    Children and Families Act 2014, s.42 ↗

  • Common misconception

    “Support stops at 18.”

    What the law says

    The framework runs to 25. A plan is maintained while the young person is in education or training and the provision is still needed; it does not end automatically at 16, 18 or on leaving school.

    Basis: Children and Families Act 2014, sections 45 and 46.

    Children and Families Act 2014, s.45 ↗

  • Common misconception

    “SEN Support and an EHC plan are the same thing, counted the same way.”

    What the law says

    They are different statuses and they appear in different statistical releases. EHC plans are published in an all-age 0–25 release; SEN Support is published in the school census, covering school pupils only. Adding or comparing them without saying which population each covers produces a wrong number.

    Basis: DfE, Education, health and care plans; DfE, Special educational needs in England. Different populations, different releases.

    DfE, Education, health and care plans ↗

How the system got here

This is a record of what was legislated and published, not an assessment of any of it. The 2026 white paper is included because it is published government policy; it is marked as proposal, not law.

  1. 1970

    Every child becomes entitled to education

    The Education (Handicapped Children) Act ended the category of children deemed "unsuitable for education at school" and brought responsibility for their education under local education authorities. Before this, some children were outside the school system entirely.

    Education (Handicapped Children) Act 1970 ↗

  2. 1978

    The Warnock Report introduces "special educational needs"

    The committee of enquiry chaired by Mary Warnock replaced categories of handicap with the concept of special educational needs, defined by the provision a child requires rather than by a medical label. It is the origin of the framework still in use.

    Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Handicapped Children and Young People (1978) ↗

  3. 1981

    Statements of special educational needs

    The Education Act 1981 implemented Warnock, creating the statutory "statement" — a legally enforceable document setting out a child’s needs and required provision. This is the direct predecessor of the EHC plan.

    Education Act 1981 ↗

  4. 1994

    The first Code of Practice

    A statutory Code of Practice set out for the first time a staged model of identification and support in schools, with a statement as the final stage.

    Code of Practice on the Identification and Assessment of Special Educational Needs (1994)

  5. 2001

    Disability discrimination reaches education

    The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 made it unlawful for schools to discriminate against disabled pupils and introduced duties to make reasonable adjustments. These duties now sit in the Equality Act 2010 and run alongside — not inside — the SEND framework.

    Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 ↗

  6. 2010

    The Equality Act consolidates disability duties

    Disability became one of nine protected characteristics. Schools owe reasonable-adjustment duties to disabled pupils whether or not the pupil has an EHC plan, which is why a child can have rights under the Equality Act and no plan at all.

    Equality Act 2010 ↗

  7. 2014

    Statements become EHC plans, and the age range extends to 25

    Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 replaced statements with Education, Health and Care plans, extended the framework from 16 to 25, introduced personal budgets and the local offer, and required education, health and care to plan jointly. Every statistical series on this page that crosses 2014 crosses a definitional break because of this Act.

    Children and Families Act 2014, Part 3 ↗

  8. 2015

    School Action and School Action Plus become SEN Support

    The two pre-existing school-level categories were merged into a single SEN Support category. The recorded SEN population changed on the definition, and any long percentage series crosses this break.

    SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years ↗

  9. 2019

    Parliament examines the 2014 reforms

    The Commons Education Committee reported on the implementation of the 2014 Act, and the government announced a cross-department SEND review. Both are part of the published record of how the reformed system was assessed by its own legislature.

    House of Commons Education Committee, Special educational needs and disabilities (2019) ↗

  10. 2023

    SEND and alternative provision improvement plan

    The government published its response to the SEND review, setting out proposals including national standards and changes to the way places and funding are planned.

    DfE, SEND and alternative provision improvement plan (2023) ↗

  11. 2026

    Schools white paper proposes the largest change since 2014

    Every child achieving and thriving, published on 23 February 2026, proposed a new statutory individual support plan for every child with SEND in school, alongside retained and revised EHC plans for more intensive support. The government stated that existing EHC plans and protections remain in place until at least September 2030, and announced legislation through an Education for All Bill. Nothing in the white paper has changed the law yet; the statistics on this page describe the system as it currently operates.

    DfE, Every child achieving and thriving (2026) ↗

The other three nations

Education is devolved. Every figure on this page is England only. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland operate different frameworks with different legal definitions, and their figures are not directly comparable.

Registered break — Wales

  • 2021 to 2025 — Legal and definitional (Wales). Wales replaced the SEN framework — School Action, School Action Plus and statements — with the Additional Learning Needs framework and individual development plans under the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018, phased in from 2021. The Welsh Government states that from September 2025 the ALN system is the sole system for supporting children and young people with ALN in Wales. Across the transition the recorded count falls from 105,575 pupils (22.6%) in 2016/17 to 39,850 (8.8%) in 2025/26. That is a change in what is counted and on what basis, not a fall in need of that size, and pre-reform SEN categories are not equivalent to post-reform IDPs. source ↗

These figures do not compare

These are four different legal frameworks producing four different statistics. They are placed side by side so a reader can see what each nation measures, NOT so the numbers can be compared. Scotland's Additional Support Needs is a far broader category than an English EHC plan; Northern Ireland's statement is closer to an EHC plan but covers school pupils only. There is no common measure across the four nations, and this site does not construct one.

  • England

    Children and young people with an Education, Health and Care plan

    718,8382025/26

    Population:
    0 to 25
    Framework:
    Children and Families Act 2014
    DfE, Education, health and care plans ↗

  • Scotland

    Pupils recorded as having Additional Support Needs

    299,4452025

    43.0% of the school roll

    Population:
    School pupils
    Framework:
    Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004
    Scottish Government, Pupil census supplementary statistics ↗

  • Northern Ireland

    Pupils with a statement of Special Educational Needs (Stage 3)

    30,6492025/26

    69,186 at Stages 1 to 3

    Population:
    School pupils
    Framework:
    Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1996, as amended
    NI Department of Education, School enrolment — school level data ↗

  • Wales

    Pupils recorded with Additional Learning Needs or special educational needs

    39,8502025/26

    8.8% of pupils · 39,535 hold an individual development plan · 315 transferred to the ALN system and awaiting a decision

    Framework change: Wales is part-way through replacing one legal framework with another, and the count reflects that. In 2003/04 the figure counted School Action, School Action Plus and statements. In 2025/26 it counts individual development plans under the Additional Learning Needs framework, and no pupil remains recorded under the old categories. The fall across the series is a change in what is counted, not a fall in need of that size.

    Population:
    School pupils in maintained schools
    Framework:
    Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018
    StatsWales, Pupils in maintained schools with additional learning or special educational needs ↗

What the published data cannot tell you

  • Whether need is rising

    The statistics count plans, requests and recorded needs — that is, they count the system’s activity. A rise in plans is consistent with rising underlying need, with better identification, with changed thresholds, with population growth, or with any combination. The published data does not separate them, and no figure on this page should be read as a measure of prevalence.

  • Whether a child is getting the provision in their plan

    There is no national dataset of whether specified provision is actually delivered. The statistics record that plans exist and what is written in them, not what happens in classrooms.

  • Whether outcomes are better with a plan than without

    Children with plans differ systematically from children without them — that is the point of the assessment. Comparing their outcomes measures the difference between the groups, not the effect of the plan. No published source supports a causal reading, and this page does not offer one.

  • How local authorities compare on quality

    Local figures show volumes and timeliness. They do not show quality of assessment, appropriateness of provision, or whether a refusal was right. A fast authority is not necessarily a good one, and a slow one is not necessarily a bad one.

  • How England compares with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

    Education is devolved and the four nations use different legal frameworks and different definitions. There is no common measure to compare, so this chapter does not construct one.

Evidence → choices → outcomes

What could improve it?

Children with special educational needs in England get suitable support on time, with their rights maintained.

These options link to their national assessment, including funding, delivery constraints and remaining uncertainties.

  • Assessed option · provisional

    SEND: timely and delivered support, child outcomes and family experience

    7/10 criteria scored

    Coverage of the appraisal, not an impact score.

    Delivery: Red

    Whole-life costs incomplete

    Evidence and delivery constraints

    Audits establish delays and capacity problems; no remedy is defined sufficiently for an effectiveness claim.

    Define specialist and mainstream support; protect entitlements; plan staff pipeline and commissioning; track delivered provision.

    Wellbeing listEvidence and assessment

  • Assessed option · provisional

    Close the early-language support gap

    Reach eligible children with evidence-based language support.

    9/10 criteria scored

    Coverage of the appraisal, not an impact score.

    Delivery: Amber

    Whole-life costs incomplete

    Evidence and delivery constraints

    EEF effectiveness trial supports language outcomes; the transfer to a gap-closing delivery programme and persistence of effects need checking. Programme availability alone is not a verified access gap.

    Audit reach, eligibility and delivery fidelity; cost trained staff, release time, screening, materials and follow-up. Protect SEND provision. Measure language outcomes and access. Proposed owners: schools, education bodies and councils as appropriate.

    Equality and opportunity listEvidence and assessment

This domain in the UK SWOT →UK National Action Plan →

How we assessed these options

What would it take to improve this?

What would move the needle?

The outcome we want: Children with special educational needs in England get suitable support on time, with their rights maintained.

The main constraint: Assessments and therapies depend on specialists who take years to train, council high-needs budgets are in deficit, and no national data show whether the support in plans is delivered — so DfE, councils and the NHS cannot see whether more money buys more support.

Constraint type: workforce, money, evidence.

The options on the table

What is funded now, and the changes assessed against it — the current baseline and the alternatives, before the position today and the actions.

Provisional single-reviewer assessments from the 6 October 2026 review; not approved business cases, and not government policy.

  • SENDDelivery RAG: Red

    Funded now
    Not yet stated in the record.
    The change assessed
    Not yet defined.

    Range if completed: 9.0–18.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))

  • Make council and SEND funding risks explicit before promises expandDelivery RAG: Amber

    Funded now
    Not yet stated in the record.
    The change assessed
    Build a service-duty, demand, reserves and workforce baseline for exposed councils; appraise settlement choices explicitly.

    Range if completed: 16.0–22.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))

Assessed with another page as home

These options also bear on this topic. The full assessment sits on the home page named under each.

  • Close early-language support delivery gapsDelivery RAG: Amber

    Home: Education.

    Funded now
    DfE funds NELI free for every state-funded school with a reception class, confirmed to academic year 2028–29 subject to spending rounds (reception improvement offer, updated July 2026); The proposal is protected teaching-assistant time to deliver all 20 weeks — not a replacement for statutory SEND assessment.
    The change assessed
    Deliver the evaluated Reception NELI model to eligible children currently missing suitable support, with protected trained-staff time.

    Range if completed: 20.0–23.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: incremental affordability (Co))

Alternatives already on record: 20 options listed under the points in the position today (11 without an action record), and 3 earlier options under other options compared. They have not been scored in the review.

The position today

  • What we can build on (2)
  • What is holding us back (4)School transport is an access and delivery constraint, especially for children with SEND. The NAO found rising costs and risks from reductions in discretionary services, but insufficient data to measure the effect on attendance. (NAO audit, October 2025 · England)
  • What could improve things (1)Building mainstream support for common needs and specialist capacity together could shorten waits without weakening entitlements.
  • What could make it worse (1)

Which quadrant a point sits in is our analytical judgement, not a statistical category. Each point says whether it is a measured fact, our synthesis or a risk.

What we can build on Strengths

  • 718,838 children and young people hold an education, health and care plan, a legal entitlement to the provision it sets out.

    Measured factConfidence: High· January 2026· England

    Source: Department for Education, Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2026 (Data files: EHC plans (caseload))

    Options assessed against this point: SEND (Red delivery RAG)

    What government has committed to

    Policy: Under the schools white paper and SEND consultation, education, health and care plans will be retained with a legal entitlement based on a specialist provision package; no child with a current plan will move to the new system until the end of their phase and not before September 2030; every child with a special school place in September 2029 can keep it; the SEND Tribunal remains for key decisions. These are proposals requiring legislation.

    Who and when:
    Starmer government (to July 2026), 23 February 2026.
    Since 20 July 2026:
    Kept by the Burnham government. Re-stated in DfE written answers under Burnham (8 Sep, 21 Aug, 21 Sep 2026). DfE says it will respond to the consultation 'in due course' and 'bring forward legislation at the earliest opportunity'; no government SEND bill was listed in session 40 as of 4 Oct 2026. Source: UK Parliament (written questions API; DfE answer), Written question 19783: Special Educational Needs ('EHC plans will continue to provide statutory entitlements ... No child with a current EHC plan will transition until the end of their phase of education, and not before September 2030.').
    Source:
    DfE, Radical expansion in rights for children with SEND (Bullets: EHCPs retained; special school place in 2029 kept; transition only from 2030; £200m training, £1.6bn inclusion grant, £3.7bn for over 60,000 places, £1.8bn Experts at Hand)

    Checked 4 October 2026. A commitment is not delivery.

    Options (2)

  • Evaluated early-language support exists: three months’ extra language progress for reception children with the weakest language.

    Measured factConfidence: High· 2018–19 trial· England

    Source: Education Endowment Foundation / RAND / University of Oxford, Nuffield Early Language Intervention (re-grant): evaluation report (2020) and addendum (2023) (Report Table 1)

    Options assessed against this point: Close early-language support delivery gaps (Amber delivery RAG)

    What government has committed to

    Funding: NELI is funded free for every state-funded school with a reception class until academic year 2028 to 2029, subject to spending rounds.

    Who and when:
    Starmer government (to July 2026), 6 July 2026.
    Since 20 July 2026:
    Not confirmed either way since the change of Prime Minister on 20 July 2026. No Burnham-era statement on NELI found; Burnham-era SEND teacher training (25 Sep 2026) and the Inclusive Mainstream Fund guidance (updated 7 Aug 2026) point schools to 'proven programmes' and the EEF Promising Programmes list.
    Source:
    DfE, Reception improvement offer (Section 'Speech and language development through NELI': 'funding is confirmed until academic year 2028 to 2029, subject to future spending rounds')

    Checked 4 October 2026. A commitment is not delivery.

    Options (2)

    • ShortlistedDeliver early language support in reception as a complement to assessment

      Screening and NELI meet common language needs in ordinary classrooms without delaying statutory assessment.

      Who: Schools; DfE · Evidence: Experimental or quasi-experimental evaluation · Status: Established · Works through Education: Screening and NELI meet common language needs in ordinary classrooms without delaying statutory assessment.

      Source: DfE, Reception improvement offer (Section 'Speech and language development through NELI': 'funding is confirmed until academic year 2028 to 2029, subject to future spending rounds')

    • Fund proven programmes from the Inclusive Mainstream Fund

      The £1.6bn fund (from 2026-27) pays for small-group speech and language support in mainstream settings.

      Who: DfE; schools, colleges, early years settings · Evidence: Experimental or quasi-experimental evaluation · Status: Funded programme

      Source: UK Parliament (written questions API; DfE answer), Written question 28974: Special Educational Needs: Finance (Experts at Hand £1.8bn grant over three SR years; £1.6bn Inclusive Mainstream Fund; local SEND inclusion formula consultation; 'further rebalancing of funding from the high needs budget into schools' budgets')

What is holding us back Weaknesses

What could improve things Opportunities

What could make it worse Threats

The actions worth examining

Our shortlist for this page. Research quality, policy status, cost and funding are judged separately; none of these is government policy unless its status says so.Our shortlist. None is government policy unless its status says so.

  1. Fund SEND capacity and track provision actually delivered — not yet costed / funding not identified
  2. Meet early language needs before children fall further behind — programme funding exists; project allocation unconfirmed

  • Action 1A12Policy status: announced proposal

    Fund SEND capacity and track provision actually delivered

    Plan and fund educational psychologists, therapists and training places against statutory duties, and publish whether support in plans is actually delivered alongside timeliness.

    The thread: issue, evidence, action

    1. Issue Weakness: 46.1% of new plans were issued within the 20-week legal limit, against 60.4% in 2019. Also: weakness, weakness, threat, opportunity, strength
    2. Evidence New EHC plans issued within 20 weeks; Support in plans actually delivered
    3. Action A12, this action

    Assessment (draft, 6 October review)

    • A new scope of this action (A12v2): SEND

      Delivery RAG: RedGate: pending

      Range if completed: 9.0–18.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))

      National plan: Wellbeing list

    Who decides:
    DfE, DHSC and NHS commissioners, councils, schools and colleges (England)
    Evidence:
    Expert or audit recommendation. System diagnosis from audit and fiscal analysis; the reform package itself is unevaluated.
    Expected effect:
    Direction plausible; size not established.
    Cost and funding

    Not yet costed

    Funding: Not yet costed / funding not identified

    Why it is shortlisted here: The page’s central gap: specialist capacity and a measure of support actually delivered.

    What it takes
    The problem

    Assessments wait for scarce specialists, high-needs budgets are in deficit, and no national data show whether the support in plans is delivered.

    Who is affected, and where

    Children and young people with special educational needs in England, with or without a plan. Territory: England. SEND law differs in Scotland (additional support for learning), Wales (ALN) and Northern Ireland.

    Policy status

    Announced by government, not yet in place. The February 2026 schools white paper announced specialist workforce and capacity funding; the reforms and any change to entitlements need legislation not yet introduced. A national measure of provision delivered does not exist.

    The evidence
    What the research found:
    High-needs spending rose 66% in real terms from £7.5bn (2016) to at least £12bn (2025); EHC plans rose from 2.7% to 5.2% of under-16s; deficits were forecast around £8bn.
    Evaluated on:
    England’s SEND system; England, 2016–2025
    Our recommendation (separate from the research):
    Publish support delivered, outcomes and family experience alongside timeliness, and cost specialist capacity separately from legacy deficits.
    Strongest counter-evidence:
    More money has not on its own improved outcomes; restricting access to plans could cut recorded demand without improving children’s lives.
    Cost and funding

    Cost completeness: Not yet costed. Funding: Not yet costed / funding not identified.

    • Educational psychologists, therapists, training places and recurrent support (recurring spending; paid by central government, councils, NHS): Not yet costed. Must be costed separately from legacy high-needs deficits. Announced national sums are shown in the earlier options on this page with their own status.
    Who pays:
    Central government through high-needs and health allocations; councils; the NHS for therapies.
    Financing proposed:
    Match named high-needs and health allocations to duties and cash timing; accounting relief on deficits is not service funding.
    Gap remaining:
    Unknown: specialist capacity has not been costed against duties.
    What delivery needs
    Skills:
    Educational psychologists (three-year training) and therapists.
    Operational capacity:
    Training places and supervisors.
    Infrastructure:
    Specialist places.
    Permissions:
    Commissioning across councils and NHS.
    Law:
    Existing duties; any change to entitlements needs legislation.
    Public consent:
    Families’ confidence in support without a plan.
    First step and stages

    First step: Audit provision gaps and specialist capacity with families, then publish a costed recruitment and delivery plan. (owner: DfE with councils and NHS commissioners)

    1. Meet existing duties now — Councils and schools (proposed stage, not an official timetable)
    2. Train and recruit specialists — DfE, universities, NHS (proposed stage, not an official timetable)
    3. Publish support delivered each year — DfE (proposed stage, not an official timetable)

    Depends on: A11 for early language needs; Workforce training pipeline

    Trade-offs
    Who gains and who loses:
    Gains for children waiting for support; councils carry deficits; other services compete for the same money.
    What else the money or effort could do:
    High-needs money spent here is not available for other education or council services.
    Strongest counterargument:
    Recruiting specialists from schools or private practice moves capacity rather than adding it.
    Risks:
    Fewer plans or appeals presented as success while unmet need rises.
    How we would judge it
    Baseline:
    Share of new EHC plans issued within 20 weeks (DfE).
    Leading indicator:
    Educational psychologist and therapist FTE; assessment-stage times.
    Outcome:
    Support hours delivered, attainment and attendance of pupils with SEN, complaints and family feedback.
    Continue, adapt or stop:
    Continue where delivery and outcomes improve; review where timeliness improves only because access is restricted.
    Earlier option on this page

    This card replaces the option “More educational psychologists and therapists” (announced: £1.8bn “Experts at Hand” programme announced February 2026.). Its evidence: Local authority educational psychologists rose from 1,724 FTE (2010/11) to 2,332 (2025/26). There is no national evaluation linking specialist numbers to timeliness or outcomes; the link is a plausible mechanism. DfE, Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2026 · DfE, Radical expansion in rights for children with SEND (23 February 2026)

    Sources

    Source published September and October 2025 (IFS); evidence reviewed 2026-10-04. Reconsider if: SEND legislation is introduced; DfE publishes a measure of provision delivered; The statutory override on deficits changes.

  • Action 2A11Policy status: established

    Meet early language needs before children fall further behind

    Trained teaching assistants deliver a tested 20-week language programme to reception children with the weakest language, with protected time.

    The thread: issue, evidence, action

    1. Issue Opportunity: Building mainstream support for common needs and specialist capacity together could shorten waits without weakening entitlements. Also: strength
    2. Evidence New EHC plans issued within 20 weeks
    3. Action A11, this action

    Assessment (draft, 6 October review)

    Who decides:
    Schools and trusts, with councils and DfE (England)
    Evidence:
    Experimental or quasi-experimental evaluation. A large randomised trial with the highest evidence security; the measured outcome is language, not SEND demand.
    Expected effect:
    +3 months (effect size 0.26): oral language of reception pupils with the weakest language (193 schools in England). A language outcome; not evidence of fewer EHC plans or lower SEND demand. The 2023 follow-up lost 55.5% of pupils.
    Cost and funding

    Not yet costed

    Funding: Programme funding exists; project allocation unconfirmed

    Why it is shortlisted here: Meets common language needs early in ordinary classrooms, with the strongest trial evidence — as a complement to, not a substitute for, assessment.

    Builds on the option Earlier, evidence-based support in mainstream schools compared below.

    What it takes
    The problem

    Children who start school with weak language fall behind in reading and learning, and some wait a long time for specialist help.

    Who is affected, and where

    Reception-age children with weak oral language in England. Territory: England. The trial was in England; devolved nations would need their own decisions.

    Policy status

    Already in place. DfE funds NELI free for every state-funded school with a reception class, confirmed to academic year 2028–29 subject to spending rounds (reception improvement offer, updated July 2026); The proposal is protected teaching-assistant time to deliver all 20 weeks — not a replacement for statutory SEND assessment.

    The evidence
    What the research found:
    Three months’ additional language progress (effect size 0.26, 95% CI 0.17 to 0.35). A 2023 follow-up found about two months on early reading but lost 55.5% of pupils.
    Evaluated on:
    1,156 reception pupils with the lowest language scores in 193 schools; England, 2018–19
    Our recommendation (separate from the research):
    Fund the teaching-assistant time needed to deliver it well, and keep referral routes open for children who need specialist help.
    Strongest counter-evidence:
    Staff felt it worked less well for pupils with SEN; there is no evidence it reduces EHC plans or overall SEND demand.
    Effects on record
    • Oral language of reception pupils with the weakest language: +3 months (effect size 0.26) (randomised control schools; 2018–19 school year; effect size 95% CI 0.17 to 0.35; 5 of 5 padlocks). evaluated, high confidence; 193 schools in England. A language outcome; not evidence of fewer EHC plans or lower SEND demand. The 2023 follow-up lost 55.5% of pupils.
    Cost and funding

    Cost completeness: Historical price only; current cost and staffing to establish. Funding: Programme funding exists; project allocation unconfirmed.

    • NELI materials and training (recurring spending; paid by central government): Not yet costed. Trial price: £870 per one-form-entry school (£58 per child a year over three years), covering materials and training only. Current prices must be checked with the provider.
    • Teaching-assistant delivery time, cover and supervision (recurring spending; paid by central government): Not yet costed. Existing staff time is not free: it is taken from other work.
    • DfE-funded NELI offer to every state school with a reception class: amount not established — not committed (programme envelope, not a project award). No amount is published on the page read. Teaching-assistant time (C-A11-STAFF) is not covered.
    Who pays:
    Schools, from core or inclusion budgets.
    Financing proposed:
    A named school or inclusion allocation; an announced national grant does not confirm local staff time is covered.
    Gap remaining:
    Unknown: current prices and staff time are not costed.
    What delivery needs
    Skills:
    Trained teaching assistants.
    Operational capacity:
    Protected delivery time over about 20 weeks.
    Infrastructure:
    None.
    Permissions:
    None.
    Law:
    None.
    Public consent:
    Family involvement.
    First step and stages

    First step: Assess language needs and confirm staffing before choosing the programme. (owner: Schools)

    1. Screen language in reception — Schools (proposed stage, not an official timetable)
    2. Deliver the 20-week programme — Schools (proposed stage, not an official timetable)
    3. Assess and refer children who need more — Schools and SENCOs (proposed stage, not an official timetable)

    Depends on: Teaching-assistant capacity

    Trade-offs
    Who gains and who loses:
    Gains for children with weak language, often disadvantaged; staff time taken from other work.
    What else the money or effort could do:
    Teaching-assistant hours spent here are not spent on other support.
    Strongest counterargument:
    A generic programme cannot substitute for individual specialist provision.
    Risks:
    Screening that delays statutory assessment; diluted delivery without protected time.
    How we would judge it
    Baseline:
    Reception language scores at screening.
    Leading indicator:
    Programme completion at fidelity.
    Outcome:
    Language progress and later reading, including outcomes for children with greater needs.
    Continue, adapt or stop:
    Continue where progress matches the trial; review where it does not.
    Sources

    Source published May 2020 (trial); March 2023 (follow-up); evidence reviewed 2026-10-04. Reconsider if: A new evaluation of NELI at scale; Changes to SEND legislation.

    Also on: Education — one shared record, so its cost is counted once.

How the options are assessed

One shared record per option — the same one the national plan reads. Delivery RAG, gate and list membership are separate judgements.

  • SEND — Red delivery RAG; gate pending
  • Make council and SEND funding risks explicit before promises expand — Amber delivery RAG; gate pending

Provisional single-reviewer assessments from the 6 October 2026 review; not approved business cases, and not government policy.

  • A12v2Delivery RAG: RedGate: pending

    SEND

    A new scope of action A12 (A12v2); A12 itself is unchanged and nothing is inherited from it.

    Provisional single-reviewer assessment; not an approved business case.

    Who and where
    Population not yet defined. Jurisdiction: England.
    Result so far
    Range if completed: 9.0–18.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))
    Funded now (baseline)
    Funded baseline not yet stated
    The change assessed (marginal)
    Marginal change not yet defined
    What the evidence supports—and the next decision

    Reducing a council deficit is not the same as meeting a child’s needs. Announced SEND funding and proposed reform belong in the baseline with their status.

    Codex — AI-assisted analytical follow-up · 8 October 2026. Proposed appraisal design; the attributed scores below are unchanged. No funding or delivery agreement is implied.

    Define the change
    Specify a cohort and additional mainstream or specialist support, retaining entitlements while comparing suitable provision.
    Test whether it works
    Attendance, attainment, wellbeing, timely support and family experience; track exclusions, appeals and children without suitable education.
    Establish the cost
    Specialists, training, transport, placements, capital and recurring support. Separate accumulated accounting deficits from future resource costs.
    Protect against harm
    No saving is accepted if it comes from unmet need or lost lawful access; assess distribution by need and place.

    Read with the outcome evidence and sources in the full assessment. Monitoring proposals are not existing baseline measurements. A numerical benefit or cost score needs evidence for the defined increment, not just the scale of the problem.

    Full assessment of SEND: ten criteria, scenarios, delivery, costs and monitoring
    The ten criteria (0–3)

    Each criterion is scored 0 to 3 by the reviewer. “Not yet assessed” means unknown: it is never counted as zero.

    1. Scale and severity (Sc)3 of 3 — Severe harm across a broad population

      Reviewer’s reason: Provisional problem-importance judgement from linked site pages; not the scale of achievable benefit.

    2. Increment beyond baseline (Ad)Not yet assessed

      Reviewer’s reason: Define specialist and mainstream support; protect entitlements; plan staff pipeline and commissioning; track delivered provision. A missing rating requires a defined marginal change.

    3. Confidence in the proposed action (Ev)0 of 3 — No effect evaluation

      Reviewer’s reason: Audits establish delays and capacity problems; no remedy is defined sufficiently for an effectiveness claim.

    4. Expected incremental benefit (Bn)Not yet assessed

      Reviewer’s reason: Unknown unless a reasonably defined target-population benefit can be judged; no bonus merely for spanning domains.

    5. Residual harms (Hm)1 of 3 — Material harm/unresolved mitigation

      Reviewer’s reason: Rights and rationing risks; specialists unavailable at required scale.

    6. Incremental affordability (Co)Not yet assessed

      Reviewer’s reason: Specialists, training, placements, transport, capital and recurring provision; separate historic deficits from future costs.

    7. Delivery capacity (Ca)0 of 3 — Unavailable within scope

      Reviewer’s reason: Define specialist and mainstream support; protect entitlements; plan staff pipeline and commissioning; track delivered provision.

    8. Distribution (Fa)3 of 3 — Benefits concentrated on disadvantaged people with assessed burdens

      Reviewer’s reason: Provisional distribution judgement for the stated target; verify who pays, who gains and excluded groups.

    9. Meaningful first outcome (Ti)1 of 3 — More than three but less than ten years

      Reviewer’s reason: First meaningful outcome, not announcement: Timely and delivered support, child outcomes and family experience.

    10. Readiness (Rd)1 of 3 — Legislation/external agreement or major enabling work

      Reviewer’s reason: DfE, councils, schools and health commissioners in England; Specify service improvement before scoring reform

    Four weightings

    Normalised as 10 × weighted sum ÷ sum of weights, on a 0–30 scale. Where a criterion is not yet assessed, the range is the lowest and highest result if it were later scored 0 or 3 — not a score, a confidence interval or a rank.

    • Equal weights: Range if completed: 9.0–18.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
    • Evidence doubled: Range if completed: 8.2–16.4 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
    • Scale doubled: Range if completed: 10.9–19.1 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
    • Cost ignored (the funding gate still applies): Range if completed: 10.0–16.7 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.

    Funding gate: Not passed — the cost is not yet assessed or no allocation is committed for this scope. Ignoring cost in a weighting never removes the gate.

    Delivery RAG and gate

    Delivery RAG shown: RedReview’s claim: Red. Best the recorded evidence allows: Red.

    Review’s reason: Rights and rationing risks; specialists unavailable at required scale.

    Why it is not Green yet

    • Delivery obstacle: Rights and rationing risks; specialists unavailable at required scale..
    • Scope (population, place and increment) not verified against the delivery baseline.
    • No verified owner with the powers in place.
    • Delivery capacity not verified.
    • Lifetime incremental costs not complete.
    • No credible funding (a committed allocation for the scope).
    • Safeguards not specified.
    • Monitoring lacks a metric, a data source or a baseline.

    Green needs verified scope, a verified owner with the powers, verified capacity, complete lifetime costs with credible funding, specified safeguards and monitoring with a metric, source and baseline. Amber means appraisal gaps remain; Red means a material delivery obstacle. Red does not mean unimportant.

    Gate: Pending — appraisal incomplete (review label: “Pending: incomplete appraisal”).

    Why: Scores incomplete; Funding gate not passed (cost unknown or no credible funding).

    The gate is separate from national list membership: being listed does not make an option eligible, and an eligible option need not be listed.

    Cost and funding

    Lifetime costing: Not established. Review: “Full incremental costing not established in reviewed material”.

    Still to cost: Specialists, training, placements, transport, capital and recurring provision; separate historic deficits from future costs.

    Funding status: not established in review.

    Owner, powers and capacity

    Proposed owner: DfE, councils, schools and health commissioners in England (proposed, unverified).

    Powers: needs legislation or external agreement. Capacity: binding constraint.

    Powers and capacity read from the review’s Rd and Ca anchors; no proposed owner has agreed to act (the review: “Proposed owners have not agreed to act”).

    England:
    DfE, councils, schools and health commissioners in England (review)
    Scotland:
    not assessed
    Wales:
    not assessed
    Northern Ireland:
    not assessed

    Read from the review’s owner and scope text; not verified against the powers held.

    Dependencies, safeguards and risks

    Depends on: None recorded.

    Safeguards

    • protect entitlements (proposed, not yet specified)

    Risks and residual harms: Rights and rationing risks; specialists unavailable at required scale.

    Monitoring and measured results

    Metric: Timely and delivered support, child outcomes and family experience.

    Data source: Not yet named. Baseline: Not yet established.

    Measures already on the domain page

    A page measure is not necessarily the review’s metric; linking the two is an editorial decision still to be made.

    Evidence for the outcome

    Outcome: Timely and delivered support, child outcomes and family experience.

    Audits establish delays and capacity problems; no remedy is defined sufficiently for an effectiveness claim.

    Review record

    Assessment version: working-review-2026-10-06 (A12v2@working-review-2026-10-06).

    Reviewer: Author of the review blueprint (single reviewer, not named in uk-facts-complete-plan.json). Reviewed: 6 October 2026.

    Scored in the working review of 6 October 2026 on the shared ten-criterion scale (one reviewer); not independently calibrated.

    First 90 days (review): Produce a signed scope and current-delivery baseline; Define specialist and mainstream support; protect entitlements; plan staff pipeline and commissioning; track delivered provision. Obtain incremental costs and an accountable decision before expansion.

    Decision route: Specify service improvement before scoring reform

    An editorial screening framework by one reviewer, not a formal appraisal or business case. Proposed owners have not agreed to act.

  • A76Delivery RAG: AmberGate: pending

    Make council and SEND funding risks explicit before promises expand

    Proposed new action A76; sourced research home and appraisal design; scope and funding remain provisional.

    Provisional single-reviewer desk assessment, 6 October 2026.

    Who and where
    Build a service-duty, demand, reserves and workforce baseline for exposed councils; appraise settlement choices explicitly. (from the 6 October review) Jurisdiction: England.
    Result so far
    Range if completed: 16.0–22.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))
    Funded now (baseline)
    Funded baseline not yet stated
    The change assessed (marginal)
    Build a service-duty, demand, reserves and workforce baseline for exposed councils; appraise settlement choices explicitly. (from the 6 October review)
    What the evidence supports—and the next decision

    Publishing fiscal risk improves visibility; it does not fund statutory services or remove accumulated deficits.

    Codex — AI-assisted analytical follow-up · 8 October 2026. Proposed appraisal design; the attributed scores below are unchanged. No funding or delivery agreement is implied.

    Define the change
    Build a council-level service, demand, reserves and workforce baseline, then compare explicit settlement and service-delivery options.
    Test whether it works
    Services delivered against need, recurring balance, reserve use and quality; test demand and provider-price scenarios.
    Establish the cost
    Separate recurring resources, capital receipts, borrowing, historic deficits and transition. Reconcile SEND measures with the SEND appraisal.
    Protect against harm
    Do not frame an accounting permission or asset sale as sustainable recurring funding; protect statutory duties.

    Read with the outcome evidence and sources in the full assessment. Monitoring proposals are not existing baseline measurements. A numerical benefit or cost score needs evidence for the defined increment, not just the scale of the problem.

    Full assessment of Make council and SEND funding risks explicit before promises expand: ten criteria, scenarios, delivery, costs and monitoring
    The ten criteria (0–3)

    Each criterion is scored 0 to 3 by the reviewer. “Not yet assessed” means unknown: it is never counted as zero.

    1. Scale and severity (Sc)3 of 3 — Severe harm across a broad population

      Reviewer’s reason: Problem scale judged from the linked domain evidence; not a population estimate of those helped.

    2. Increment beyond baseline (Ad)2 of 3 — Specific material change to existing delivery

      Reviewer’s reason: Build a service-duty, demand, reserves and workforce baseline for exposed councils; appraise settlement choices explicitly. This is a provisional marginal-change judgement, to confirm against commissioned delivery.

    3. Confidence in the proposed action (Ev)1 of 3 — Indirect, mixed, modelled or weak causal support

      Reviewer’s reason: Site records cross-service fiscal stress; it does not show that any proposed funding formula improves outcomes.

    4. Expected incremental benefit (Bn)Not yet assessed

      Reviewer’s reason: Unknown: no sufficiently supported magnitude for this exact change.

    5. Residual harms (Hm)1 of 3 — Material harm/unresolved mitigation

      Reviewer’s reason: Bailout incentives, losses elsewhere and accounting fixes mistaken for capacity.

    6. Incremental affordability (Co)Not yet assessed

      Reviewer’s reason: Unknown: the proposed increment has not been costed and matched to an approved affordable allocation in this review. Existing programme envelopes are not that allocation.

    7. Delivery capacity (Ca)2 of 3 — Stretched but plausibly obtainable

      Reviewer’s reason: Do not treat asset sales or borrowing permission as new recurring grant.

    8. Distribution (Fa)3 of 3 — Benefits concentrated on disadvantaged people with assessed burdens

      Reviewer’s reason: Distribution assessed against the target group and the burdens described here: Bailout incentives, losses elsewhere and accounting fixes mistaken for capacity.

    9. Meaningful first outcome (Ti)2 of 3 — More than one and up to three years

      Reviewer’s reason: Timing judgement concerns the first meaningful outcome in: Statutory provision actually delivered, arrears/deficits and service continuity. It does not imply all long-term benefits arrive then.

    10. Readiness (Rd)2 of 3 — Named commissioning/allocation/coordination step

      Reviewer’s reason: Publish a costed continuity plan and alternatives for deficits without hiding service reductions. Owner: Treasury, MHCLG, DfE and councils in England.

    Four weightings

    Normalised as 10 × weighted sum ÷ sum of weights, on a 0–30 scale. Where a criterion is not yet assessed, the range is the lowest and highest result if it were later scored 0 or 3 — not a score, a confidence interval or a rank.

    • Equal weights: Range if completed: 16.0–22.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
    • Evidence doubled: Range if completed: 15.5–20.9 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
    • Scale doubled: Range if completed: 17.3–22.7 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
    • Cost ignored (the funding gate still applies): Range if completed: 17.8–21.1 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.

    Funding gate: Not passed — the cost is not yet assessed or no allocation is committed for this scope. Ignoring cost in a weighting never removes the gate.

    Delivery RAG and gate

    Delivery RAG shown: AmberReview’s claim: Amber. Best the recorded evidence allows: Amber.

    Review’s reason: Incremental lifetime costs and funding not established. Do not treat asset sales or borrowing permission as new recurring grant.

    Why it is not Green yet

    • Scope (population, place and increment) not verified against the delivery baseline.
    • No verified owner with the powers in place.
    • Delivery capacity not verified.
    • Lifetime incremental costs not complete.
    • No credible funding (a committed allocation for the scope).
    • Safeguards not specified.
    • Monitoring lacks a metric, a data source or a baseline.

    Green needs verified scope, a verified owner with the powers, verified capacity, complete lifetime costs with credible funding, specified safeguards and monitoring with a metric, source and baseline. Amber means appraisal gaps remain; Red means a material delivery obstacle. Red does not mean unimportant.

    Gate: Pending — appraisal incomplete (review label: “Pending cost, funding, scope and capacity appraisal”).

    Why: Scores incomplete; Funding gate not passed (cost unknown or no credible funding).

    The gate is separate from national list membership: being listed does not make an option eligible, and an eligible option need not be listed.

    Cost and funding

    Lifetime costing: Not established.

    Still to cost: Incremental lifetime costs and funding not established. Do not treat asset sales or borrowing permission as new recurring grant.

    Funding status: not established in review.

    Owner, powers and capacity

    Proposed owner: Treasury, MHCLG, DfE and councils in England. (proposed, unverified).

    Powers: needs a decision or allocation. Capacity: unverified.

    Powers and capacity read from the review’s Rd and Ca anchors; no proposed owner has agreed to act (the review: “Proposed owners have not agreed to act”).

    England:
    Treasury, MHCLG, DfE and councils in England. (review)
    Scotland:
    not assessed
    Wales:
    not assessed
    Northern Ireland:
    not assessed

    Read from the review’s owner and scope text; not verified against the powers held.

    Dependencies, safeguards and risks

    Depends on: Do not treat asset sales or borrowing permission as new recurring grant.

    Safeguards

    None specified yet.

    Risks and residual harms: Bailout incentives, losses elsewhere and accounting fixes mistaken for capacity.

    Monitoring and measured results

    Metric: Statutory provision actually delivered, arrears/deficits and service continuity.

    Data source: Not yet named. Baseline: Not yet established.

    Evidence for the outcome

    Outcome: Statutory provision actually delivered, arrears/deficits and service continuity.

    Site records cross-service fiscal stress; it does not show that any proposed funding formula improves outcomes.

    Review record

    Assessment version: working-review-2026-10-06 (A76@working-review-2026-10-06).

    Reviewer: Author of the review blueprint (single reviewer, not named in uk-facts-complete-plan.json). Reviewed: 6 October 2026.

    Carried from the earlier domain review (C record): must be calibrated jointly with the G/W/E/NG/NW/NE records before any combined comparison.

    Decision route: Publish a costed continuity plan and alternatives for deficits without hiding service reductions.

    An editorial screening framework by one reviewer, not a formal appraisal or business case. Proposed owners have not agreed to act.

Decision brief

  • Count the support children with EHC plans actually receive — and fund the specialists to deliver it — starting in one area

The leading option set out as a decision someone could take: who decides, who benefits, the best evidence, cost and funding, and the main trade-off. The full research record is one click away.

Decision briefPublic-policy proposalReviewed 2026-10-04

Count the support children with EHC plans actually receive — and fund the specialists to deliver it — starting in one area

The thread: issue, evidence, action

  1. Issue Weakness: 46.1% of new plans were issued within the 20-week legal limit, against 60.4% in 2019. Also: weakness, weakness, threat, opportunity, strength
  2. Evidence New EHC plans issued within 20 weeks; Support in plans actually delivered
  3. Action Fund SEND capacity and track provision actually delivered
Decision required
DfE, one council and its integrated care board run a two-year pilot that compares, for a defined group of children with EHC plans, the hours of support their plans specify with the hours they receive from educational psychologists, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists — with family experience and the cost of closing the gap — so new specialist funding is judged on support delivered, not only on plans issued on time.
Who and where
Children and young people aged 0–25 with an EHC plan maintained by the pilot council whose plans specify support from an educational psychologist, a speech and language therapist or an occupational therapist; and children awaiting an EHC needs assessment that requires psychological advice. Applies in: Local.
Accountable body
Department for Education (with DHSC and NHS England for health provision); the council and the integrated care board for the pilot area
Intervention
Record, for each child in the cohort, the support specified in the plan and the support actually received by profession, and direct high-needs, NHS commissioning and recruitment money to the largest gaps first.
Best evidence, and where it applies
No evaluation of a measure of support delivered exists. The case rests on audit evidence: high-needs spending rose 66% in real terms between 2016 and 2025 (IFS), timeliness of new plans has fallen since 2019, and no national data show whether the support in plans is delivered.Studied in: England’s SEND system (2016 to 2025).How closely the comparison transfers to this decision: Wales — low.
Extra cost of this change
Capital: none identified in the brief.Recurring: Educational psychologists, therapists, training places and recurrent support — Not yet costed; Specialist hours to close the measured gap, by profession — not yet established; Family experience survey — not yet established.One-off or mixed: Provision-delivery record (case-record changes, staff time to record sessions, data linkage) — not yet established; Independent evaluation with a comparison area — not yet established.
Funding
Not funded yet: a possible funding route exists, but nothing is allocated to this change.Committed to this change: none.Possible source, not an award: none identified.Unfunded: Unknown: specialist capacity has not been costed against duties, and the size of the delivery gap is unknown until it is measured.
Savings and wider benefits
Not yet specified: no cashable saving or avoided cost has been costed for this change. Expected outcomes are listed one by one in the research appendix and are never added together or counted as money available.
First 90-day step
Agree the cohort, the provision-delivery record and the family survey with the parent carer forum, and sign the council–integrated care board data-sharing agreement.The proposed first milestone; a 90-day date is not yet specified. Owner: Council SEND service and integrated care board, with DfE. Proposed by UK Facts, not an official deadline.
Twelve-month milestone
Not yet specified.Time to a first useful result: A first count of specified against delivered hours about six months after recording starts; any change in delivery after about a year of added specialist capacity.
Outcome, and when to scale or stop
Measure: Share of children whose specified sessions took place in the term; specialist full-time equivalents in post.Scale if: Delivered support moves towards what plans specify, family experience improves, and any improvement in timeliness is not explained by restricting access to assessment.Stop if: Providers cannot keep the record reliably, or delivery does not improve once specialist capacity has been added.
Main trade-off
Specialists hired for the pilot may come from schools, private practice or other councils rather than being new; recording delivered hours takes staff time; and publishing gaps may raise requests and appeals before capacity grows.
Source and review date
England's SEND crisis: costs, challenges and the case for reform (IFS comment) (3 October 2025 (Green Budget chapter, source of the figures); comment 12 September 2025); Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2026 (25 June 2026 (reporting year 2026)). Reviewed 2026-10-04.

An editorial proposal by UK Facts for discussion, not government policy. Records: A12 · costs C-A12-CAPACITY

Research appendix: study design, effect sizes and limits, alternatives, full costing, international comparisons and how we would know

1.The change, in plain words

Count the support children with EHC plans actually receive — and fund the specialists to deliver it — starting in one area

2.The decision requested

Decision
Approve and fund, for one council and integrated care board area, a two-year provision-delivery and specialist-capacity pilot alongside the area’s Experts at Hand offer: record specified against delivered support for a defined cohort, survey families, cost the gap by profession, and publish the results before DfE designs any national measure.
Accountable institution
Department for Education (with DHSC and NHS England for health provision); the council and the integrated care board for the pilot area
Geography
Local
Powers
Existing duties: Children and Families Act 2014, section 42 (the council must secure the special educational provision in a plan; the responsible commissioning body must arrange the health care provision in it) and section 26 (joint commissioning between councils and health bodies). Local recording and publication need a data-sharing agreement, not new law; a national statutory collection or any change to entitlements would need legislation, which has not been introduced.
Delivery partners
Council SEND and educational psychology services; Integrated care board and NHS community speech and language therapy and occupational therapy providers; Schools, colleges and their SENCOs; The local parent carer forum; SEND Information, Advice and Support Service; An independent evaluator

3.Who it is for, and what changes beyond today

Target population
Children and young people aged 0–25 with an EHC plan maintained by the pilot council whose plans specify support from an educational psychologist, a speech and language therapist or an occupational therapist; and children awaiting an EHC needs assessment that requires psychological advice.
Eligibility
Plans maintained by the pilot council and, for health provision, children for whom the integrated care board is the responsible commissioning body. Need is defined by the provision specified (profession and hours), not by plan type, so results can later be compared with other areas and nations.
Scale
All plans in the area that specify these professions, or a random sample big enough for the evaluation — chosen with the council from its caseload and the specialists it can actually recruit, not a national number.
Baseline
46.1% of new EHC plans in England were issued within the 20-week legal limit in 2025, against 60.4% in 2019; 9,871 took more than a year. Councils employed 2,332 full-time-equivalent educational psychologists in 2025/26 (1,724 in 2010/11); psychologists in private practice or other arrangements are not counted. The national statistics count plans, requests, timeliness and reviews — not whether the support written into a plan is delivered — so the pilot must measure delivery first.

Source: Department for Education, Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2026 (Timeliness of new EHC plans (20 weeks); published data files); Department for Education, School workforce in England: educational psychologists employed centrally by local authorities (Educational psychologists employed centrally by local authorities)

Change beyond existing law or funding
The February 2026 white paper announced £1.8 billion over three years for an Experts at Hand offer run by councils and integrated care boards, and over £40 million to train more educational psychologists and speech and language therapists; existing duties stay until new legislation, which DfE expects to take effect from September 2029. Experts at Hand is early, mainly group-based support in mainstream settings: its grant conditions bar spending on support named in existing EHC plans or on EHC needs assessments, so it is not a route for closing gaps in plan provision. What is added: a record of support delivered against support specified, by profession, with family experience and a costed gap — so the council and integrated care board can see the gap their existing duties require them to close, workforce growth can be aimed at it, and an on-time plan is never read as support received.

4.How it would work

Do: Record, for each child in the cohort, the support specified in the plan and the support actually received by profession, and direct high-needs, NHS commissioning and recruitment money to the largest gaps first Changing: more of the support already written into plans is delivered, and commissioners can see which profession is the binding constraint

  • Share of specified support hours delivered, by profession

    Hypothesis to test

    No national or published local measure exists; the pilot creates the baseline before any change can be judged.

  • Waiting time for psychological advice in EHC needs assessments

    Hypothesis to test

    More psychologist time may shorten assessments, but the published workforce and timeliness series cannot show that one causes the other.

  • Families’ experience of the support their child receives

    Hypothesis to test

    To be measured with a survey designed with the parent carer forum.

  • Attendance and attainment of children with plans

    Hypothesis to test

    A longer-term outcome; two years is too short to expect a reliable change.

Outcomes are kept separate and never added into one impact figure.

5.Best evidence

  • England's SEND crisis: costs, challenges and the case for reform (IFS comment)

    Author or institution:
    Institute for Fiscal Studies
    Published:
    3 October 2025 (Green Budget chapter, source of the figures); comment 12 September 2025
    Evaluation period:
    2016 to 2025
    Design:
    Analysis of fiscal and administrative data with expert commentary
    Sample or population:
    England’s SEND system
    Effect and uncertainty:
    High-needs spending rose 66% in real terms, from £7.5bn (2016) to at least £12bn (2025); EHC plans rose from 2.7% to 5.2% of under-16s; council deficits were forecast at around £8bn.
    Limits:
    Diagnoses system pressure; it does not evaluate any intervention or measure support delivered.

    Where: Green Budget chapter key findings 1–3; comment text. Affiliation is provenance, not proof of quality.

  • Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2026

    Author or institution:
    Department for Education
    Published:
    25 June 2026 (reporting year 2026)
    Evaluation period:
    Calendar years to 2025 (timeliness); caseload at January 2026
    Design:
    Official statistics from the SEN2 return by local authorities
    Sample or population:
    All EHC plans maintained by local authorities in England, ages 0–25
    Effect and uncertainty:
    Counts plans, requests, timeliness and annual reviews; there is no item on whether specified provision is delivered.
    Limits:
    Timeliness excludes statutory exceptions; an on-time plan says nothing about the support that follows.

    Where: Timeliness of new EHC plans; published data files. Affiliation is provenance, not proof of quality.

  • Every child achieving and thriving (schools white paper)

    Author or institution:
    Department for Education
    Published:
    23 February 2026
    Evaluation period:
    Not applicable (policy proposal)
    Design:
    White paper; cites emerging evidence from the Early Language Support for Every Child and Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools programmes
    Sample or population:
    Early years settings, schools and colleges in England
    Effect and uncertainty:
    £1.8bn over three years for Experts at Hand (£1bn professionals working directly with mainstream schools, £800m outreach from specialist settings); by the end of 2028/29 DfE anticipates support equivalent to 40 days a year for an average primary and 160 days for an average secondary school.
    Limits:
    Announced funding: 2026–27 allocations to councils (£429 million) followed in June 2026, and the grant conditions bar spending on support named in existing EHC plans or on EHC needs assessments. It proposes a new duty on settings to record and monitor provision in individual support plans (needing legislation), but the passages read set out no published national measure of whether EHC-plan provision is delivered.

    Where: SEND chapter: “Access to specialist support for SEND – Experts at Hand”. Affiliation is provenance, not proof of quality.

6.Alternatives, counter-evidence and who loses

Closest feasible alternative
Roll out Experts at Hand nationally as announced, keep the timeliness of new plans as the headline measure, and consider a national measure of support delivered only once the reform legislation is passed.
Strongest counter-evidence
The IFS finds the system failing many of the children it is meant to support despite billions in extra spending, with almost no way to judge whether that money is value for money. Specialists recruited from schools, private practice or neighbouring areas move capacity rather than add it — a risk DfE recognises by requiring areas to show that Experts at Hand adds capacity rather than displacing it. Wales’s reform shows that changing definitions changes recorded numbers without showing whether support improved.

Source: Institute for Fiscal Studies, England's SEND crisis: costs, challenges and the case for reform (IFS comment) (Comment text); Department for Education, Experts at Hand and local authority SEND transformation fund: funding for local authorities 2026 to 2027; and Experts at Hand: developing and delivering the offer in year 1 (Year 1 guidance, “Principles”); Estyn, Implementation of new additional learning needs system requires greater consistency and clearer guidance, report finds (News release text)

Distributional effects
Gains go to children in the pilot area whose specified support is missing; families who have already secured support through appeals or private reports gain less. Councils already in deficit carry the cost of any gap the pilot reveals. Children without plans are outside the measure unless the cohort is widened.
Main downside
Specialists are the scarce resource: educational psychologists take three years to train, so in the short run the pilot can measure the gap faster than it can close it.

The options compared, including current policy

  • The proposal

    Measure support delivered against plans, by profession, and fund specialists to close the largest gaps — one area first (this brief)

    Who is reached
    Children with EHC plans in the pilot area that specify psychology or therapy, and children awaiting assessment
    Evidence
    Audit evidence of rising spending and falling timeliness; the measure itself is untested
    Likely outcome and timing
    First delivery count in about six months; change after about a year
    Cost and funding
    Not costed; high-needs and NHS budgets under existing duties (Experts at Hand cannot fund support named in plans); nothing allocated
    Main trade-off
    Measures the gap faster than specialists can be trained; may move rather than add capacity

  • Current policy

    Current policy: Experts at Hand and the white paper reforms, with timeliness of new plans as the headline national measure

    Who is reached
    Early years settings, schools and colleges across England; children with and without plans
    Evidence
    Untested as a package; DfE cites emerging evidence from two programmes
    Likely outcome and timing
    DfE anticipates 40 days of support a year per average primary and 160 per average secondary by 2028/29; reform legislation not yet introduced (DfE expects it to take effect from September 2029)
    Cost and funding
    £1.8bn over three years; 2026–27 allocations to councils published (£429m); cannot fund support named in existing plans
    Main trade-off
    No measure of whether support in plans is delivered; timeliness can improve if access is restricted

  • Alternative

    Nuffield Early Language Intervention in reception — kept separate from system reform

    Who is reached
    Reception children with the weakest oral language, with or without SEND
    Evidence
    Randomised trial: three months’ extra language progress; no evidence it reduces EHC plans or SEND demand
    Likely outcome and timing
    Language gains within the school year
    Cost and funding
    Funded DfE offer to state schools to 2028–29; teaching-assistant time not covered
    Main trade-off
    Meets common language needs early but is not a substitute for assessment or specialist provision

  • Alternative

    Restrict access to plans to bring demand and deficits down

    Who is reached
    Fewer children with statutory plans
    Evidence
    The IFS warns that cutting support and legal rights without serious alternatives risks a repeat of the welfare cuts and could harm children who benefit from the support they now receive
    Likely outcome and timing
    Recorded numbers could fall quickly
    Cost and funding
    Lower high-needs spending on paper; not costed here
    Main trade-off
    Unmet need moves to schools, families and tribunals

  • Alternative

    Borrow Wales’s single individual development plan model

    Who is reached
    Every learner with additional learning needs, under a different legal definition
    Evidence
    Inspectorate reviews: improvement where implemented, but definitions applied inconsistently; recorded numbers fell with the new definition
    Likely outcome and timing
    Years of transition; Wales began in 2021
    Cost and funding
    Not established; funding impact evaluation weak
    Main trade-off
    Need definitions differ from England’s, so results do not transfer without matching them first

7.What other countries or the devolved nations show

Country lesson · Wales, Phased implementation from September 2021; Estyn thematic reviews September 2023 and December 2024

Replacing SEN with additional learning needs in Wales

Evidence: Expert or audit recommendationWeak match: context only, not a model to copy

What was changed
The Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 replaced the special educational needs framework: a single statutory individual development plan (IDP) replaced the previous statutory and non-statutory plans (statements, School Action and School Action Plus), with person-centred planning and ALN co-ordinators (ALNCos) in schools. The ALN Code came into force on 1 September 2021.
Study design and population
Inspectorate thematic reviews of participating schools and local authorities (Estyn), with the Welsh Government’s response. Not an outcome evaluation with a comparison group. Pupils with additional learning needs in participating schools and settings in Wales.
Measured outcome there
First review (2023): no evidence that children’s needs were not being met, but settings interpreted and applied the legal definition of ALN and of additional learning provision differently, with a few local authorities and schools using their own definitions while awaiting tribunal decisions; the number recorded with ALN fell in the transition while the share with a statutory plan stayed similar; evaluation of the impact of rising ALN funding was “variable and weak”. Second review (2024): reforms beginning to improve support where implemented, but inconsistent across settings; the Cabinet Secretary said some families may not be receiving the support they need.
Cost status
Not established: Estyn found funding transparency and impact evaluation weak; no cost per learner is published in the material read.
What failed or remains uncertain
No measure of provision delivered or of outcomes against a comparison; recorded numbers changed because the definition changed. Implementation varied by setting and local authority.
Why the UK differs
Wales’s ALN definition and IDPs cover a different group from England’s EHC plans (UK Facts’ four-nations SEND comparison shows four legal frameworks producing four statistics that cannot be compared). A Welsh count, timeliness rate or cost cannot be applied to English EHC-plan holders without matching need definitions first.
First change required here
Before borrowing any part of the Welsh model, define the English cohort by the provision a child needs (for example speech and language therapy hours) rather than by plan type, and record provision delivered against provision specified, which neither system publishes.

Not a UK forecast: the effect above was measured in that place and population. Source: Welsh Government, Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 (Overview; subordinate legislation table (ALN Code, 1 September 2021)); Estyn, Implementation of new additional learning needs system requires greater consistency and clearer guidance, report finds (News release text (29 September 2023)); Welsh Government, Written statement: publication of Estyn’s second thematic review: implementation of ALN reforms (Written statement text (11 December 2024)). Reviewed 2026-10-04.

8.What delivery needs first

  • staff — Educational psychologists, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists to deliver the hours plans specify, recruited without simply moving them from neighbouring areas. (Scarce resource shared with other priorities; owner: Council and integrated care board, with DfE and NHS England workforce training)
  • data — A child-level record of the provision specified in each plan and the sessions delivered by council and NHS providers. (Requirement; owner: Council SEND service and integrated care board)
  • law — A lawful basis and data-sharing agreement for linking education and health records about individual children, with a data protection impact assessment. (Requirement; owner: Council and integrated care board data protection officers)
  • public consent — Families agree to the record and help design the experience survey through the parent carer forum. (Requirement; owner: Council with the parent carer forum)
  • dependency — High-needs and NHS commissioning budgets for the added specialist hours: the area’s Experts at Hand grant cannot be used for support named in existing EHC plans. (Scarce resource shared with other priorities; owner: Council and integrated care board)

9.What it would cost

How the cost is built up: Measurement: data linkage and case-record changes + staff time to record sessions + family survey + evaluation. Delivery: for each profession, (hours specified − hours delivered) × cost per specialist hour + recruitment and supervision. Both kept separate from legacy high-needs deficits.

  • Educational psychologists, therapists, training places and recurrent support

    England: specialist capacity to meet existing duties

    Not yet costed (ledger C-A12-CAPACITY)

    recurring; price year not stated; Each year; Not yet established

    Read from the ledger record, which has no amount; it must be costed separately from legacy high-needs deficits.

    Source: Institute for Fiscal Studies, England's SEND crisis: costs, challenges and the case for reform (IFS comment) (Green Budget chapter key findings)

  • Specialist hours to close the measured gap, by profession

    Children in the pilot cohort whose specified support is not delivered

    Not yet established per specialist hour

    recurring; price year not stated; Two years; Not yet established

    Unknown until the gap is measured; priced from council and NHS pay costs or agency rates.

  • Provision-delivery record (case-record changes, staff time to record sessions, data linkage)

    Council and NHS providers in the pilot area

    Not yet established per area

    mixed; price year not stated; Set-up, then each term; Not yet established

  • Family experience survey

    Families of children in the cohort

    Not yet established per survey wave

    recurring; price year not stated; Once or twice a year; Not yet established

  • Independent evaluation with a comparison area

    Pilot area and comparison areas

    Not yet established per evaluation

    one-off revenue; price year not stated; Two years; Not yet established

10.Who pays, and what is missing

Programme envelope (a possible route, not an award)
None identified
Allocation committed to this change
None
Remaining gap
Unknown: specialist capacity has not been costed against duties, and the size of the delivery gap is unknown until it is measured.
Proposed financing
Added specialist hours for children with plans fall under the council’s and the integrated care board’s existing duties, so they would come from the high-needs budget and NHS commissioning budgets. Experts at Hand (£1.8 billion over three years from 2026–27; £429 million allocated to councils for 2026–27) cannot pay for support named in existing EHC plans or for EHC needs assessments, though the £40 million workforce fund (including training at least 200 educational psychologists a year in 2026 and 2027) adds supply. Measurement and evaluation would need a DfE research budget or council funds. None is allocated to this pilot, and accounting relief on high-needs deficits is not service funding.
Responsible payer
central government, councils, NHS
Budget displaced
High-needs money not spent on other support; specialist time moved from assessments and Experts at Hand work to recording and plan provision; NHS community therapy time.

11.First milestone and time to a useful result

Agree the cohort, the provision-delivery record and the family survey with the parent carer forum, and sign the council–integrated care board data-sharing agreement. (Owner: Council SEND service and integrated care board, with DfE. Proposed by UK Facts, not an official deadline.)

Time to first useful result: A first count of specified against delivered hours about six months after recording starts; any change in delivery after about a year of added specialist capacity.

What could delay it: Specialists can be recruited NHS and council providers can report sessions per child The data-sharing agreement is signed High-needs and NHS budgets can fund the added hours

12.How we would know

Baseline
For the cohort in the first term: hours specified and delivered by profession, waiting times at each assessment stage, family-reported experience, complaints and tribunal appeals.
Comparison
Statistically similar areas that start recording later (a phased start), with need defined by the provision specified rather than by plan type.
Leading indicator
Share of children whose specified sessions took place in the term; specialist full-time equivalents in post.
Follow-up
Every term for two years; attendance, attainment and family experience at the end.
Continue if
Delivered support moves towards what plans specify, family experience improves, and any improvement in timeliness is not explained by restricting access to assessment.
Adapt if
Gaps persist in one profession: redirect recruitment or outreach to it; if recording burdens staff, simplify the record.
Stop if
Providers cannot keep the record reliably, or delivery does not improve once specialist capacity has been added.
Thresholds
Not yet set: The size of the delivery gap is unknown, so any target for improvement must wait for the first-term baseline and the evaluation design.

What is not yet known, and how to find out

  • How many specialist hours are missing, and what would it cost to provide them, by profession? (cost)Next step: Measure the gap in the first term, then price it from local pay costs and vacancy rates.Scope: Hours specified but not delivered in the pilot cohort, for educational psychology, speech and language therapy and occupational therapy, over two years · Data or quotes needed: Specified and delivered hours per child; council and NHS pay costs, agency rates and vacancy rates · Who can estimate it: Council and integrated care board finance teams, with DfE
  • What does the provision-delivery record and family survey cost to run? (cost)Next step: Obtain quotes for case-record changes and survey fieldwork before launch.Scope: Set-up and two years of recording in one area · Data or quotes needed: Supplier quotes for case-management changes, staff time per recorded session, survey costs · Who can estimate it: Council SEND service with the evaluator
  • Does added specialist capacity raise delivered support and children’s outcomes? (effect)Next step: Test it in one area with a phased comparison before national design.Defensible route: bounded pilot
  • Should DfE collect provision delivered nationally, and under what legal basis? (legal)Next step: Decide after the pilot whether to add an item to the existing EHC plan data collection or to the reform legislation.
  • Can NHS community providers report sessions per child against what plans specify? (data)Next step: Test extraction from provider systems in the first term.

Sources last checked 4 October 2026 · Owner: Evidence editor (James Harris) · Next check: the first trigger: DfE special educational needs in England and education, health and care plans (annual, usually June).

What it would take

The order things have to happen in, who pays, and the effects and appraisals on record.

The order things have to happen in

  1. First, the prerequisite

    Audit provision gaps and specialist capacity with families

    Owner: DfE with councils and NHS commissioners

    No date: the timing depends on the steps before it.

  2. Then, the decision

    Publish a costed recruitment plan and a national measure of support delivered

    Owner: DfE, DHSC and HM Treasury

    No date: the timing depends on the steps before it.

  3. Then, delivery

    Train specialists; deliver early-language support in reception

    Owner: Universities, NHS, councils, schools

    No date: the timing depends on the steps before it.

  4. Finally, the measured outcome

    Support delivered on time, with outcomes and family experience improving

    Owner: DfE statistics

    No date: the timing depends on the steps before it.

Who pays, and what is still missing

Cost, committed funding and the remaining gap for the same scope and years. A programme envelope is not an award to a project; a proposal is not committed money. None of these costs has been established yet, so no total is shown.

Cost and funding ledger

  • Educational psychologists, therapists, training places and recurrent support

    A12 · recurring spending · not costed

    Amount
    Not yet costed
    Who pays
    central government, councils, NHS
    Committed
    None identified
    Proposed, not committed
    —
    Gap
    Not established

  • NELI materials and training

    A11 · recurring spending · historical price only

    Amount
    Not yet costed
    Who pays
    central government
    Committed
    None identified
    Proposed, not committed
    DfE-funded NELI offer to every state school with a reception class
    Gap
    Not established

  • Teaching-assistant delivery time, cover and supervision

    A11 · recurring spending · not costed

    Amount
    Not yet costed
    Who pays
    central government
    Committed
    None identified
    Proposed, not committed
    —
    Gap
    Not established

“Not yet costed” means no defensible cost has been found — not that the action is free. Lifetime benefits, benefit-cost ratios and forecast savings are never shown here as money available to spend.

Effects on record, with evidence ratings (1 record)

What the evidence says each action changes

Effects on record — these measure different outcomes, so they are not drawn on one scale
ActionOutcome and areaEffectCompared withEvidence
Meet early language needs before children fall further behindOral language of reception pupils with the weakest language Education and children+3 months (effect size 0.26)effect size 95% CI 0.17 to 0.35; 5 of 5 padlocksrandomised control schools; 2018–19 school yearevaluated; high confidence; 193 schools in EnglandA language outcome; not evidence of fewer EHC plans or lower SEND demand. The 2023 follow-up lost 55.5% of pupils.

How we would know

New EHC plans issued within 20 weeks; EHC plans in place; Support in plans actually delivered.

The outcome measures to watch. A baseline is where we start, not a target; where there is no official target we say so.

Measured results

What each option would be judged on, and the latest value of the measures already on this page. A measure moving is not proof that an option caused it.

Where the ideas come from

Research, counter-evidence and methods (5 sources; 2 claims held back)
  • Education, health and care plans, reporting year 2026 — Department for Education, 25 June 2026.Official statistics; England. Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-04.
  • Nuffield Early Language Intervention (re-grant): evaluation report (2020) and addendum (2023) — Education Endowment Foundation / RAND / University of Oxford (Sashka Dimova, Sonia Ilie, Elena Rosa Brown, Miriam Broeks, Andreas Culora, Alex Sutherland (RAND Europe); addendum: Merrilyn Groom, Elena Rosa Brown, Lydia Lymperis), 2020-05 (report); 2023-03 (addendum).Two-arm cluster randomised trial (97 treatment and 96 control schools), June 2018 to November 2019; 193 schools, 1,156 reception pupils with the lowest language scores in each class (1,071 in the primary analysis); England. Full text checked (read from an Internet Archive copy), 2026-10-04. Limits: No quantitative SEND or EHC-plan finding; staff felt it worked less well for pupils with SEN. Cost of £870 per one-form-entry school (£58 per child a year over three years) covers materials and training only, not teaching-assistant time.
  • Home to school transport — National Audit Office, date not stated.Public audit; England. Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-07.
  • regulation 13 — legislation.gov.uk, date not stated.Legislation; England. Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-04.
  • England's SEND crisis: costs, challenges and the case for reform (IFS comment) — Institute for Fiscal Studies (Luke Sibieta, Darcey Snape (comment); Eduin Latimer, Luke Sibieta, Darcey Snape (chapter)), 2025-09-12.Descriptive analysis of DfE SEN statistics and council spending; England. Full text checked (read from an Internet Archive copy), 2026-10-04. Limits: The two pieces date the £8bn deficit differently; check the 2026 reform baseline before using either as current.

Counter-evidence and criticism

  • Fund SEND capacity and track provision actually delivered: More money has not on its own improved outcomes; restricting access to plans could cut recorded demand without improving children’s lives. (Institute for Fiscal Studies)
  • Meet early language needs before children fall further behind: Staff felt it worked less well for pupils with SEN; there is no evidence it reduces EHC plans or overall SEND demand. (Education Endowment Foundation / RAND / University of Oxford)

Claims held back

  • Early language support reduces EHC plans or SEND demand — The trial measured language; it reports no SEND or EHC-plan outcome. Needed: An evaluation with SEND identification and plans as outcomes.
  • Brief threat cited to S39 (weakening access to plans) — S39 does not address this; the threat is sourced to S40 instead. Needed: None — re-sourced.

“Full text checked” means we read the report itself; “relevant passages” means the sections behind each figure; “summary or abstract only” means we could not read the full study, so no number from it is published here without another source.

Other options compared — not on the shortlist (3)

Other options compared

Options from earlier work on this page that are not on the shortlist. They remain valid choices; their evidence is shown as before.

  • preventionStatus: announced

    Earlier, evidence-based support in mainstream schools

    Aims to:
    Common needs — especially speech, language and communication — met early in ordinary classrooms, so fewer children wait for a plan to get help.
    How:
    Schools receive an inclusion grant to deliver proven programmes such as small-group language support, with staff trained to use them, and (proposed) an individual support plan for each child with SEND.
    Who decides:
    DfE; schools and trusts; councils.
    Main constraint:
    School budgets and staffing; quality depends on training and fidelity to the programme.
    Evidence:
    Moderate evidence — evaluated, with limits on scope or transfer
    See the trade-offs and evidence
    What the evidence shows
    Some specific programmes are well evaluated: the EEF’s trials of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention in reception found two to four months’ additional progress in language. Whether a national inclusion grant reduces demand for EHC plans has not been evaluated.
    Policy status
    £1.6bn inclusion grant over three years from 2026–27 and £200m for training announced February 2026; individual support plans need legislation not yet introduced.
    Resources
    The grant; trained teaching assistants and teachers; specialist advice.
    Consent and decisions needed
    Parents’ confidence that support without a plan will be reliable; changes to legal entitlement are contested.
    Time
    Programme effects within a school year; any effect on plan requests over several years.
    Cost and yield
    £1.6bn over three years (announced, cash); no published estimate of savings.
    Trade-offs and who pays
    Money spread across all schools may be thin where needs are greatest; a weaker legal route could leave some children with less enforceable support.
    How we would know it worked
    Leading indicator: Schools delivering evaluated programmes; requests for assessment. Outcome: Attainment and attendance of pupils on SEN support. It would not be working if: Requests fall but outcomes for pupils on SEN support do not improve.
  • capacityStatus: announced

    More local specialist places

    Aims to:
    Children who need specialist provision get a place near home, with less use of costly independent schools.
    How:
    Capital funding builds special school places and specialist units (inclusion bases) in mainstream schools.
    Who decides:
    DfE (capital); councils (place planning); academy trusts.
    Main constraint:
    Building takes years; staff to run places are the same scarce specialists.
    Evidence:
    Limited evidence — plausible mechanism, little direct evaluation
    See the trade-offs and evidence
    What the evidence shows
    The NAO found in 2024 that the system was not delivering better outcomes despite a 58% real-terms rise in high-needs funding, and that demand for specialist places outstripped supply. Whether new places improve outcomes or costs has not been evaluated nationally.
    Policy status
    £3.7bn for more than 60,000 specialist places announced February 2026.
    Resources
    Capital; sites; specialist teachers and support staff to run the places.
    Consent and decisions needed
    Local planning for sites; families’ preferences for placements.
    Time
    Several years from funding to open places.
    Cost and yield
    £3.7bn capital (announced, cash); running costs are extra.
    Trade-offs and who pays
    Specialist places can draw children and staff away from mainstream inclusion.
    How we would know it worked
    Leading indicator: Places opened; share of placements in independent special schools. Outcome: Suitable placements found without long waits. It would not be working if: Places open but waits and independent placements keep rising.
  • structuralStatus: proposed

    Put high-needs funding on a stable footing

    Aims to:
    Councils can fund the support plans specify without building deficits that threaten other services.
    How:
    Government decides how accumulated high-needs deficits are met and sets allocations that match statutory duties — or changes the duties.
    Who decides:
    HM Treasury, DfE and MHCLG; councils.
    Main constraint:
    Fiscal rules; councils’ wider finances; legal duties that are open-ended.
    Evidence:
    Limited evidence — plausible mechanism, little direct evaluation
    See the trade-offs and evidence
    What the evidence shows
    The NAO estimated in 2024 that council high-needs deficits could reach £4.6bn by March 2026, and found no consistent improvement in outcomes since 2019 despite rising funding. More money has not on its own improved outcomes; stability is a precondition rather than a fix.
    Policy status
    Deficits held off council accounts by a temporary accounting arrangement (the “statutory override”); a long-term settlement was not in force at the verification date.
    Resources
    Funding to clear or write off deficits; better data on what is bought.
    Consent and decisions needed
    Treasury decisions; any change to entitlements needs legislation and is contested.
    Time
    Funding decisions take effect from the next financial year.
    Cost and yield
    No official costing of a settlement; deficits estimated at up to £4.6bn by the NAO.
    Trade-offs and who pays
    Writing off deficits rewards overspending; capping entitlements shifts risk to families.
    How we would know it worked
    Leading indicator: Councils’ high-needs deficits. Outcome: Support delivered and outcomes, not just spending. It would not be working if: Deficits stabilise because support is rationed rather than delivered better.
The options side by side
OptionResourcesTimeEvidenceOutcome to watch
Earlier, evidence-based support in mainstream schoolsThe grant; trained teaching assistants and teachers; specialist advice.Programme effects within a school year; any effect on plan requests over several years.moderateAttainment and attendance of pupils on SEN support.
More local specialist placesCapital; sites; specialist teachers and support staff to run the places.Several years from funding to open places.limitedSuitable placements found without long waits.
Put high-needs funding on a stable footingFunding to clear or write off deficits; better data on what is bought.Funding decisions take effect from the next financial year.limitedSupport delivered and outcomes, not just spending.

Plan reviewed 2026-10-04. How we judge evidence.

How this connects

Sources and methods (5)

Method notes

  • England only. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have different laws and definitions.
  • EHC plan counts cover ages 0–25 in every setting, on census day in January. Pupils with a plan or on SEN support come from the school census, also in January, and cover school pupils only. New plans, timeliness and requests cover calendar years. The three are never added together or used as each other’s denominator.
  • Funding figures are cash allocations through the high-needs formula (2019-20 to 2025-26), not spending and not adjusted for inflation.
  • Tribunal figures count appeals, not children (financial years, 2009/10 to 2025/26).
Technical notes: every computed statement, populations and a declared interest

Everything on this page comes from a published source that is linked: primary legislation, the statutory Code of Practice, Department for Education statistical releases, and parliamentary papers. Nothing is drawn from professional or sector experience. Where the published record does not answer a question, this page says the data does not answer it rather than filling the gap.

Covers all children and young people aged 0 to 25 with an EHC plan, including those in early years settings, further education, and those educated elsewhere. This is NOT a school-pupil population and must never be used as a numerator or denominator against school-census SEN figures.

Series breaks: statements were replaced by EHC plans from 2014 (with the age range extended to 25), and School Action and School Action Plus were merged into SEN support in 2015. Charts that cross a break mark it.

A declared interest: the owner of this site works in SEND provision. That is disclosed because readers are entitled to know it, and it is why every statement on this page is tied to a published source.

View as table
StatementCalculationPopulation
718,838 children and young people had an EHC plan in 2025/26, 12.5% more than the year before.change = (latest − previous) / previous × 100Ages 0–25, all settings
The number of EHC plans has risen 103% since 2018/19, from 353,995 to 718,838.(latest − first) / first × 100 over the published seriesAges 0–25, all settings
110,708 new plans started and 50,346 ceased during 2025.Published calendar-year counts; not differenced against the January stockAges 0–25, all settings
162,702 requests for an EHC needs assessment were received in 2025.Published countAges 0–25, all settings
46.1% of new plans were issued within the 20-week statutory limit in 2025.DfE headline measure, excluding cases where a statutory exception appliesAges 0–25, all settings
45.5% of children and young people with an EHC plan were in mainstream settings in 2025/26.mainstream / all plans × 100, using the EHC-plan release’s own placement categoriesAges 0–25, all settings
The most common primary need recorded was Autistic spectrum disorder, for 226,723 plans in 2025/26.Largest primary-need category in the published taxonomyAges 0–25, all settings
Across 149 local authorities, the share of new plans issued within 20 weeks ranged from 5% to 100%, with a median of 56.6%.Minimum, maximum and median of the DfE-published per-authority percentage; no denominator is computed hereAges 0–25, all settings
Hampshire held 20,499 plans and issued 52% of new plans within 20 weeks, agreeing to assess 78.8% of the requests it received.Published per-authority figures, quoted directlyAges 0–25, all settings
At key stage 4 in 2024/25, average Attainment 8 was 14.8 for pupils with an EHC plan, 33.8 for pupils on SEN support, and 50.2 for pupils with no identified SEN.Published averages, quoted directly. No rate is computed across populationsSchool pupils
At key stage 2 in 2024/25, 9% of pupils with an EHC plan met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, against 29% on SEN support and 74% with no identified SEN.Published percentages, quoted directlySchool pupils
High needs funding allocated through the national funding formula rose from £6.18bn in 2019-20 to £11.45bn in 2025-26, an increase of 85% in cash terms.(latest − first) / first × 100, cash terms, not adjusted for inflationSchool pupils
Appeals lodged with the First-tier Tribunal (SEND) rose from 3,397 in 2009/10 to 29,446 in 2025/26 — 8.7 times as many.Sum of the four published quarters in each complete financial year; part-years excludedSchool pupils
In 2024/25, between 345,055 and 534,390 access arrangements were approved for GCSE, AS and A level students in England.Ofqual publishes a lower and an upper bound. Both are carried; they are never averagedSchool pupils

Last verified 2026-10-08. Data: DfE, Education, health and care plans, England (Reporting year 2026).