Dr David Buck C.Psychol AFBPsS is an Independent Consultant Educational Psychologist and a former SEN Ofsted Inspector.
Bridget Phillipson’s latest announcement on Special Educational Needs (SENs) is being billed as bold reform.
In reality, it is a weary rehash of old ideas dressed up as a “once in a generation opportunity”. The Education Secretary’s central claim is that spiraling demand for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) must be curbed by reserving them for children with the most “complex” needs. Yet EHCPs are now the only robust legal protection for SEN provision beyond the discretion of schools and local authorities. To shrink access to them is not reform. It is retrenchment.
Her language of “over-demand” from parents and schools will be familiar to anyone who has followed this debate over the past four decades. So, too, will her rhetoric of “inclusion”.
Inclusion is not new
The push to integrate children with SEN into mainstream schools did not begin in 2026. It began in earnest with the Warnock Report 1978, which reshaped the language and philosophy of special needs provision. It drew upon American developments such as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, which mandated special education in the “least restrictive environment” signed off in 1975 it somewhat pre-dates Phillipson’s current enthusiasm for “inclusion”. All her proposals are presented as novel whilst successive British statutes have already embedded the principles: The Education Act 1981 introduced the concept of special educational needs and the Statementing process, with a preference for mainstream schooling wherever possible. The Education Act 1993 created SEN coordinators (SENCOs) and a Tribunal system. The Education Act 1996 consolidated earlier provisions. The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 strengthened the right to ‘mainstream’ education and extended disability discrimination law to schools. The Equality Act 2010 required “reasonable adjustments” for disabled pupils. Finally, the Children and Families Act 2014 replaced Statements of SEN (SSEN) with EHCPs and extended support to age 25, mandating cooperation between education, health and social care services.
“Inclusion” is therefore not an innovation. It is already deeply embedded in law. The suggestion that today’s difficulties stem from a failure to embrace it is implausible. The problem is not philosophy but funding.
More troubling still is the new emphasis on “complexity” as the gatekeeper for legal protection. Complexity is not a reliable proxy for severity or urgency. A profoundly deaf child, a pupil with severe ADHD, or one with acute language disorder may have only a single, clearly defined need — but an urgent one, nevertheless. To imply that only the multiply diagnosed merit enforceable provision is to redefine need downwards.
We have seen this type of manoeuvre many times before e.g. “Care in the community” once accompanied cuts to institutional provision. Now “inclusion” risks becoming the rhetorical cover for narrowing statutory entitlement for SENs.
Individual Support Plans: re-heated
Phillipson’s other flagship proposal — Individual Support Plans (ISPs) — is presented as fresh thinking. It is simply not so. Before 2014, similar staged interventions were standard practice as a prelude to statutory assessment and Statements of SEN.
The old three stage model worked roughly as follows. At classroom level, teachers ‘differentiated’ their course content for the substantial minority (20%) identified since Warnock as having learning difficulties. If progress lagged, an individual education plan (IEP) was written by the class teacher and delivered with teaching assistant support. If that proved insufficient, further IEPs incorporated input from external professionals. Only after these three stages — often spanning several terms — would a statutory assessment be triggered, potentially leading to a Statement and the legal protections that followed.
Parents frequently experienced this as delay. Teachers, burdened by time and training constraints, often preferred swift progression to a Statement that would bring ring-fenced funding. SENCOs had to ration scarce support hours across Stages 2&3. Headteachers balanced training costs against the financial implications of rising Statements for which they would expect additional budgetary support. Local authorities (LAs), for their part, funded earlier-stage interventions while exercising bureaucratic caution over expensive statutory assessments — yet also used rising Statement numbers to argue for larger budgets from central government.
In other words, every actor operated within differing financial incentives that shaped their behaviour. Rebranding these stages as ISPs will not change those incentives. Without serious investment in training and staffing — and without legal enforceability — ISPs will once again be seen, like IEPs, as hurdles to clear on the way to guaranteed provision.
The cycle repeats
In 2014, Statements were abolished and EHCPs introduced, partly in response to frustration about delay and bureaucracy. Now EHCPs are blamed rather than SSENs for generating delay and over-demand. But demand rises for a simple reason: they work! They are the only mechanisms that guarantee additional resources with a right of tribunal appeal, just like SSENs
If IEPs are revived as ISPs chiefly to reduce EHCP numbers, history will repeat itself. Schools and parents will still seek the only secure route to provision. The terminology will change; the incentives will not. Phillipson cannot be unaware of this. The profession understands it well. What is cynical is to present underfunded consultation plans as reform while quietly tightening access to the only legally enforceable safeguard.
Phillipson’s strategic use of “complexity” will not solve the problem either. If anything, it will intensify the medicalisation of educational need. When legal protection hinges on multi-layered diagnoses, categories with recognised “co-morbidities” will expand. Autistic Spectrum diagnoses, already associated with anxiety (40-55 per cent), depression (10-20 per cent), ADHD (30-70 per cent) and epilepsy (up to 45 per cent), will become more attractive gateways to protection. The cost implications will show a familiar asymmetry by falling primarily on education budgets, not health.
Meanwhile, the genuinely complex group — pre-school and early years children whose needs span multiple agencies — remains persistently under-resourced. ‘StartRight’ early intervention services and ‘Portage’ home-visiting provision have withered in practice. The families of this group lack the organised lobbying power of older cohorts, just as the elderly are easy to overlook, such groups lack a collective, cohesive voice and therefore become fair game for cuts.
A question of candour
If the objective here is genuinely to meet SENs, ministers must confront the funding gap openly. if the objective is to cut costs, they should say so. Dressing reductions in the language of innovation and inclusion insults the intelligence of both parents and professionals alike.
EHCPs may be imperfect. But they represent the culmination of decades of legislative development designed to protect vulnerable pupils from the vagaries of local budget constraints and management. To reserve them for only an ill-defined elite of those with “complex” needs is to hollow out that protection.
Demand for EHCPs will remain as strong as demand once was for Statements, because families will always seek the only mechanism that carries legal force. Shift the language from “deficit” to “complexity”, and the system will adapt accordingly.
There is nothing “once in a generation” about this cycle. It is the familiar parade of reform without resources. If ministers wish to break it, they must address causes rather than redefine categories — and fund inclusion rather than merely invoke its promise.
Dr David Buck C.Psychol AFBPsS is an Independent Consultant Educational Psychologist and a former SEN Ofsted Inspector.
Bridget Phillipson’s latest announcement on Special Educational Needs (SENs) is being billed as bold reform.
In reality, it is a weary rehash of old ideas dressed up as a “once in a generation opportunity”. The Education Secretary’s central claim is that spiraling demand for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) must be curbed by reserving them for children with the most “complex” needs. Yet EHCPs are now the only robust legal protection for SEN provision beyond the discretion of schools and local authorities. To shrink access to them is not reform. It is retrenchment.
Her language of “over-demand” from parents and schools will be familiar to anyone who has followed this debate over the past four decades. So, too, will her rhetoric of “inclusion”.
Inclusion is not new
The push to integrate children with SEN into mainstream schools did not begin in 2026. It began in earnest with the Warnock Report 1978, which reshaped the language and philosophy of special needs provision. It drew upon American developments such as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, which mandated special education in the “least restrictive environment” signed off in 1975 it somewhat pre-dates Phillipson’s current enthusiasm for “inclusion”. All her proposals are presented as novel whilst successive British statutes have already embedded the principles: The Education Act 1981 introduced the concept of special educational needs and the Statementing process, with a preference for mainstream schooling wherever possible. The Education Act 1993 created SEN coordinators (SENCOs) and a Tribunal system. The Education Act 1996 consolidated earlier provisions. The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 strengthened the right to ‘mainstream’ education and extended disability discrimination law to schools. The Equality Act 2010 required “reasonable adjustments” for disabled pupils. Finally, the Children and Families Act 2014 replaced Statements of SEN (SSEN) with EHCPs and extended support to age 25, mandating cooperation between education, health and social care services.
“Inclusion” is therefore not an innovation. It is already deeply embedded in law. The suggestion that today’s difficulties stem from a failure to embrace it is implausible. The problem is not philosophy but funding.
More troubling still is the new emphasis on “complexity” as the gatekeeper for legal protection. Complexity is not a reliable proxy for severity or urgency. A profoundly deaf child, a pupil with severe ADHD, or one with acute language disorder may have only a single, clearly defined need — but an urgent one, nevertheless. To imply that only the multiply diagnosed merit enforceable provision is to redefine need downwards.
We have seen this type of manoeuvre many times before e.g. “Care in the community” once accompanied cuts to institutional provision. Now “inclusion” risks becoming the rhetorical cover for narrowing statutory entitlement for SENs.
Individual Support Plans: re-heated
Phillipson’s other flagship proposal — Individual Support Plans (ISPs) — is presented as fresh thinking. It is simply not so. Before 2014, similar staged interventions were standard practice as a prelude to statutory assessment and Statements of SEN.
The old three stage model worked roughly as follows. At classroom level, teachers ‘differentiated’ their course content for the substantial minority (20%) identified since Warnock as having learning difficulties. If progress lagged, an individual education plan (IEP) was written by the class teacher and delivered with teaching assistant support. If that proved insufficient, further IEPs incorporated input from external professionals. Only after these three stages — often spanning several terms — would a statutory assessment be triggered, potentially leading to a Statement and the legal protections that followed.
Parents frequently experienced this as delay. Teachers, burdened by time and training constraints, often preferred swift progression to a Statement that would bring ring-fenced funding. SENCOs had to ration scarce support hours across Stages 2&3. Headteachers balanced training costs against the financial implications of rising Statements for which they would expect additional budgetary support. Local authorities (LAs), for their part, funded earlier-stage interventions while exercising bureaucratic caution over expensive statutory assessments — yet also used rising Statement numbers to argue for larger budgets from central government.
In other words, every actor operated within differing financial incentives that shaped their behaviour. Rebranding these stages as ISPs will not change those incentives. Without serious investment in training and staffing — and without legal enforceability — ISPs will once again be seen, like IEPs, as hurdles to clear on the way to guaranteed provision.
The cycle repeats
In 2014, Statements were abolished and EHCPs introduced, partly in response to frustration about delay and bureaucracy. Now EHCPs are blamed rather than SSENs for generating delay and over-demand. But demand rises for a simple reason: they work! They are the only mechanisms that guarantee additional resources with a right of tribunal appeal, just like SSENs
If IEPs are revived as ISPs chiefly to reduce EHCP numbers, history will repeat itself. Schools and parents will still seek the only secure route to provision. The terminology will change; the incentives will not. Phillipson cannot be unaware of this. The profession understands it well. What is cynical is to present underfunded consultation plans as reform while quietly tightening access to the only legally enforceable safeguard.
Phillipson’s strategic use of “complexity” will not solve the problem either. If anything, it will intensify the medicalisation of educational need. When legal protection hinges on multi-layered diagnoses, categories with recognised “co-morbidities” will expand. Autistic Spectrum diagnoses, already associated with anxiety (40-55 per cent), depression (10-20 per cent), ADHD (30-70 per cent) and epilepsy (up to 45 per cent), will become more attractive gateways to protection. The cost implications will show a familiar asymmetry by falling primarily on education budgets, not health.
Meanwhile, the genuinely complex group — pre-school and early years children whose needs span multiple agencies — remains persistently under-resourced. ‘StartRight’ early intervention services and ‘Portage’ home-visiting provision have withered in practice. The families of this group lack the organised lobbying power of older cohorts, just as the elderly are easy to overlook, such groups lack a collective, cohesive voice and therefore become fair game for cuts.
A question of candour
If the objective here is genuinely to meet SENs, ministers must confront the funding gap openly. if the objective is to cut costs, they should say so. Dressing reductions in the language of innovation and inclusion insults the intelligence of both parents and professionals alike.
EHCPs may be imperfect. But they represent the culmination of decades of legislative development designed to protect vulnerable pupils from the vagaries of local budget constraints and management. To reserve them for only an ill-defined elite of those with “complex” needs is to hollow out that protection.
Demand for EHCPs will remain as strong as demand once was for Statements, because families will always seek the only mechanism that carries legal force. Shift the language from “deficit” to “complexity”, and the system will adapt accordingly.
There is nothing “once in a generation” about this cycle. It is the familiar parade of reform without resources. If ministers wish to break it, they must address causes rather than redefine categories — and fund inclusion rather than merely invoke its promise.