ESPCF, along with the parent carer forums in Brighton and West Sussex, and the charity Amaze, have written to all MPs in Sussex expressing concerns about the government’s SEND reform proposals.
Letter to Sussex MPs re SEND reforms (PDF)
We are concerned that changes might not result in “a radical expansion of rights” as is being suggested, but perhaps the opposite.
Concerns came through very strongly in the online sessions we held with East Sussex parent carers this week and last week, particularly about the proposed weakening of the powers of the SEND tribunal to direct a particular school or setting to be named in Section I of an EHCP (education, health, and care plan).
We will ensure these concerns are clearly reflected in our formal response and at any events we attend. We will also be collating information about where you can find out more about the SEND reforms, what they might mean for your family, and how to have your say.
We will keep striving to raise our collective voices wherever we can.
Read the full letter below
April 2026
We are writing in our capacity as the parent carer forums responsible for representing the voices and experiences of parent carers of children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in Sussex, with Amaze as our host and service provider to local families.
We want to let you know about our concerns regarding key aspects of the Government’s proposed SEND reforms.
The 2026 SEND reforms white paper, “Every Child Achieving and Thriving,” introduces several promising, long-overdue proposals, designed to improve early identification and support, seeking to reduce the adversarial nature of the current system. The ambition to make the SEND system more inclusive for all, proposals such as increasing access to experts at hand, and the commitment of additional funding are welcome. We will be sure to comment on these positive aspects when we respond to the public consultation, ahead of the 18 May deadline.
However, having analysed the detail in the consultation document, we are concerned changes might not result in “a radical expansion of rights” as is being suggested but perhaps the opposite. We are concerned that the proposed reforms risk weakening:
- The right to provision based on a child’s particular needs, through a shift to standardised Specialist Provision Packages (SPPs) into which individual children may not easily fit.
- The right to enforceable provision, as children potentially move from legally binding EHC plans to Individual Support Plans (ISPs) that appear, from the information currently available to us, to have no way of being enforced.
- The right to an EHC needs assessment and EHC plan, with unclear thresholds and restricted to children and young people with ‘complex needs’ that haven’t been defined. We are concerned that this will create gaps in the system through which children may fall.
- The right for parents to request and secure a specific school or college that can provide the support their child needs, with more emphasis on containing costs than meeting children and young people’s needs. We are afraid that the number of children without a suitable school place may actually increase under these proposals, resulting in more children and young people ending up without an education.
The system for supporting children and young people with SEND is clearly not working as it should, that is widely accepted. But we are concerned that the direction of SEND reform risks children and young people having to fit into whatever provision is available, or else missing out on education entirely. Also built into the new proposals is that schools themselves will hold more responsibility for handling complaints, leaving parents having to battle directly with very part of the system that is lacking capacity and resource, in order to get help for their child.
Legally enforceable protections for children and young people can’t be replaced by reassurances that schools will provide what they need. If provision for every child in a mainstream setting improves – as everyone hopes that it will – then these protections will simply remain as a backstop, and the number of EHC plans, requests for special school places and appeals to the Tribunal is likely to fall naturally.
Further information on the proposals and the concerns we share with other charities and SEND advocates is available on the IPSEA briefing for MPs.
We would be grateful for your support in asking the Government to avoid weakening or removing children and young people’s current right to support that meets their individual needs.
Yours sincerely
| Sally Polanski CEO, Amaze |
Holly Riley-Saxby Chair, ESPCF |
Fiona England PaCC Lead |
Rowan Westwood CEO, WSPCF |