Bridget Phillipson unveils £4bn SEND overhaul with new ISPs and EHCP limits
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has launched a sweeping reform of England’s special educational needs and disabilities system that pairs a £4 billion investment package with changes to who will be eligible for legal plans. The measures — a mix of new funding streams, fresh national standards and a redefinition of education, health and care plans — are intended to shift support earlier and into mainstream settings.
Bridget Phillipson’s 10-year plan and public messaging
Bridget Phillipson spent a weekend unveiling the Department for Education’s proposals framed as a 10-year plan for SEND. She framed the package as optimistic and inclusive, saying it aims to identify needs earlier and meet them consistently, and concluding that the moment presents "a once-in-a-generation chance for change. " The plan is presented as an attempt to rein in rapidly rising costs while investing to avoid higher spending later.
Education, health and care plans (EHCPs) changes
The government will change who can receive an education, health and care plan, or EHCP, narrowing entitlement so that by 2035 only children with the most complex needs qualify. EHCPs remain legal documents that identify a pupil’s needs and set out the support they should receive, with local authorities responsible for ensuring they are followed. The government notes that the proportion of pupils with EHCPs was stable at 2. 8% until 2015 and has since nearly doubled to 5. 3%, a rise it says could be unsustainable without reform.
Children who already have an EHCP, or who have been assessed as needing one, will retain that plan until they complete the phase of education they are in; reassessments will begin in September 2029. For example, pupils now in Year 2 will be reassessed when they reach Year 6. Parents will continue to be able to apply for EHCPs through local authorities and to challenge decisions at tribunal. The government expects the percentage of children with EHCPs to keep rising during rollout but aims for it to fall back to current levels by 2035.
Individual support plans (ISPs) and new inclusion layers
Alongside EHCP reform, the package introduces individual support plans, or ISPs. These documents will set out a child’s day-to-day needs, the support they should receive and the intended outcomes. ISPs are described as flexible, designed to operate across three layers of support labelled "targeted", "targeted plus" and "specialist", and to sit under new national inclusion standards intended to make mainstream schools more responsive.
What makes this notable is the explicit attempt to shift provision out of formal legal entitlements and into routine, earlier intervention within mainstream settings.
Inclusive Mainstream Fund and the £1. 6 billion investment
The reforms include a new Inclusive Mainstream Fund of £1. 6 billion over three years, provided directly to early years settings, schools and colleges. That fund is aimed at interventions such as small-group language support, staff training to identify commonly occurring needs and adaptive teaching styles to ensure children receive help where and when they need it.
Experts at Hand service and the £1. 8 billion specialist bank
For additional specialist support, the government will invest £1. 8 billion over three years in an "Experts at Hand" service: a bank of specialists — including SEND teachers and speech and language therapists — available to schools on demand in every local area. The service is designed to be accessible whether or not a child has an EHCP, so that every child can draw on those resources when required.
Funding totals, wider measures and system drivers
The £4 billion package sits alongside a planned record increase for high-needs funding of £3. 5 billion in 2028 to 2029, over and above Autumn Budget 25 funding. The reforms are presented as generational, intended to end a one-size-fits-all approach and the postcode lottery of SEND support. Other building blocks already cited include training for every teacher and the creation of 60, 000 new specialist places, plus a new generation of Sure Start-style family hubs with an in-house SEND practitioner in each hub.
The government says it drew on a national SEND conversation with parents and teachers, evidence gathered by the Education Select Committee and expert reports; parents' most consistent complaint was that SEND support is provided too late and often only after a fight. The stated causes — rising EHCP numbers, late identification and inconsistent local provision — are presented as driving the change: earlier, mainstream support and local specialist capacity should reduce the demand for legal plans over time.
Political context, pushback and commentary fragment
Opinion commentary has praised elements of the package as generous but has also warned of risks: one critique said the plan could be overturned by a future Reform government and flagged increasing public hostility in parts of the national conversation toward disabled children, linked to an "overdiagnosis" narrative. That piece cited a Facebook appeal offering £150 to a parent willing to claim a school budget was being spent wrongly. It also noted historical shifts: between 2012 and 2019 the number of children with SEND in mainstream schools fell by almost a quarter while attendance at special schools rose by nearly a third. The commentary in the material provided ends abruptly with a fragment — "But before Labo" — which is unclear in the provided context.
Technical note on the government web material
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