Solving the SEND crisis: House of Commons announces recommendations

What is the Education Committee SEN report?

On 18 September 2025, the House of Commons released its Education Committee’s report into special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provisions in England, in which it outlines urgent recommendations for the government to fix the broken SEND system.

The report highlighted how the current SEND system is not delivering for children, young people or their families, with poor experiences and outcomes becoming the norm, causing a SEND crisis in England.

It’s important to remember that this report only contains recommendations aimed at informing the Department of Education ahead of any proposed reforms to the SEND system. These will be formally laid out in its white paper due in this autumn.

It does not provide us with answers about what reforms will be made, but it does highlight the concerns about poor state of the current system and offers a pathway to create more inclusive education system for the future.

What does the report say about the current SEND system?

The committee describes hearing from “exhausted parents fighting for basic support, teachers stretched beyond capacity and committed professionals working within services buckling under pressure.”

Since the Children and Families Act 2014, which shaped the current SEND system, the number of children and young people identified with special educational needs has risen from 1.3 million to 1.7 million. Today, over 1.2 million receive SEN support and nearly half a million have an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan.

This has placed an overwhelming amount of strain on services and professionals in both education and healthcare.

The report details how the current system was not designed with inclusion in mind and instead addresses SEND needs on a case-by-case basis. This approach simply cannot cope with the rising demand, ultimately creating a SEND crisis.

It goes on to say that “the system’s inability to meet this need means that children and young people with SEND, and their families, are not consistently receiving the high-quality support to which they are entitled.”

In short, it describes what our families have been saying for years: the current system is not working, and that urgent, long-term changes are needed to meet current and future needs effectively.

What did the committee report recommend?

The committee did welcome the Department for Education’s focus on inclusive education but raised concerns about how it will be delivered.

In order for the government to create a truly inclusive education system, the report identifies that the following things must happen:

1.     National SEN standards for mainstream schools

It called on the government to establish clear national standards and expectations for ordinarily available provision and SEND support in mainstream schools to help education settings become more inclusive and reduce the need for EHC plans.

Evidence shows that a lack of standardisation in SEN support and ordinarily available provision in mainstream schools often leads to a variable quality of provision, which is driving more families to seek support through an EHC plan or a specialist placement.

The report recommends that statutory requirements for mainstream schools are introduced including adequate resourcing, access to specialist staff, appropriate equipment and an inclusive physical environment:

• Education settings should be accessible, safe and designed to meet a range of sensory and physical needs
• Teachers and support staff should have the expertise to support diverse learners and access to specialist professionals
• The curriculum, and its assessments, must be flexible, relevant and reflect and accommodate young people with SEND
• Indicators of success are not limited to academic attainment. The progress and outcomes of all pupils must be prioritised and the proportion of pupils with SEN should be published.

2.     Support professionals

The report recommends equipping education, health and local authority professionals with more training, resources and support to effectively and compassionately respond to the needs of children with SEND and their families.

It points to evidence that suggests that initial teacher training and the early career framework needs changing to integrate fit for purpose SEND content.

It also talks about the negative experiences families have with local authority staff and calls for targeted training for LA staff on child development, SEND and SEND law, alongside mediation skills training, to improve interactions with families and improve outcomes for children and young people.

3.     Sustainable funding

The report points to the urgent need for greater financial stability within local authority budgets, alongside a long-term plan for sustainability. The LA’s financial uncertainty and instability and inadequate school funding, which has not kept up with increasing costs or rising levels of need, is causing a crisis.

It recommends that the Department for Education urgently work with HM Treasury, the Ministry of Housing, communities and local government to secure the funding necessary to realise the vision of an inclusive mainstream education system, including a clear strategy to address the growing SEND-related deficits facing local authorities.

4.     Expand SEND capacity

The committee recommends improving SEND capacity by not only expanding the resources and infrastructure available but also by ensuring they are targeted effectively, underpinned by “robust data”.

It calls for the Department of Education to “facilitate a coordinated approach by implementing long funding cycles and comprehensive data collection, helping to build a resilient, equitable system that can deliver on the promise of inclusive education for all.”

5.     Improve early years support

Evidence shows that effective identification of needs, intervention and support in early years provides positive outcomes for children and reduces long-term costs and needs.

However, SEND support in the early years sector is significantly under-funded, under-resourced and inconsistently available. The report recommends that investment is needed to ensure staff are adequately equipped with the skills and resources to identify needs promptly and provide effective support.

6.     Broaden the post-16 offer

The committee is recommending a broader offer post-16, looking beyond academic qualifications and apprenticeships to a wider range of pathways and access to work experience. In addition, they recommend reworking the maths and English GCSE resit policy which disproportionately affects young people with SEND.

What did the report say about EHC plans? Will EHC plans be scrapped?

The committee identified that current levels of EHC plans are unsustainable but stressed that the solution is not to remove the statutory entitlements from the system. It clearly recommends that “the Department’s SEND reforms must not be based on any withdrawal of statutory entitlements for children and young people with SEND.”

The report points to evidence that shows that the increased need for EHC plans is because support is not being provided through ordinarily available provision or SEN provision, leading to parents needing to seek an EHC plan to get the support their child needs. It states that evidence shows that for children with less complex needs, high quality support can be provided without an EHC plan – but only if the education system is truly inclusive.

It references the SEN approach in Ontario, Canada, where entitlement is based on need rather than lengthy assessment processes like EHC plans, which often leave children with little or no support until the plan is in place in England. The support Ontario provides children starts as soon as a need is identified. This timely intervention has proved to improve outcomes and reduce the escalation of needs.

The committee acknowledges that there are some children with more complex needs who will always need an EHC plan. It has called on the Department of Education to strengthen the ability of local authorities to meet their obligations, and reduce pressure on other professionals, to ensure EHC support is provided more promptly and effectively.

Finally, the committee has advised the government to “avoid causing undue alarm and to rebuild trust and confidence in the system” by fully engaging parents and carers in any reforms. It has also stressed the importance of implementing reforms gradually, in a phased manner to allow for piloting in real-world settings before a national roll-out.

Only time will tell if the government heeds the warnings laid out by the committee and what, if any, recommendations it follows in its white paper due sometime this autumn.

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