When Bridget Phillipson arrived at the Department for Education, she knew which issue would define her tenure. Within days, she was facing dozens of new Labour MPs grilling her about how she planned to overhaul the system for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). ‘From the outset we have gone out there to speak to the parliamentary Labour party,’ says an ally. ‘We know that this is a key postbag issue.’
Over the past ten years, the number of claims for special needs has exploded. A fifth of all children in England are now reported to have SEND; in Scotland, 43 per cent of pupils have some sort of additional learning need. For some policymakers, this reflects positive trends: a better awareness of mental health conditions and a shift in social expectations of what constitutes disability. Others are more critical, blaming SEND diagnoses on a change in legislation in 2014 and naivete about parents taking advantage.
Yet what no one can contest is the spiralling price tag. Half of the increase in total school spending since 2015 has gone on SEND, with expenditure hitting £11 billion a year in 2024/25. ‘Everyone can agree that something needs to be done,’ says a minister. ‘It’s just no one wants to be the one to do it.’
That task of reform now falls to Phillipson, who will set out her vision in a long-awaited white paper, expected by mid-March. It will argue that the current SEND system is unsustainable and forces parents to engage in lengthy legal processes for help. A key focus is expected to be on Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), which were brought in under the 2014 reforms. These are supposed to be for children with the most severe needs but their use has increased 83 per cent in the past decade, according to the Policy Exchange thinktank.
Under the existing system, parents can take their local authority to court to challenge decisions on an EHCP. Few appeals are blocked: 14,000 such cases were reviewed in the past year, with tribunals siding with parents 99 per cent of the time. Within Whitehall, there is frustration that these EHCPs have become a catch-all golden ticket. Parents whose children have varying degrees of needs can use these documents to access costly one-to-one tuition when services like a teaching assistant for multiple children would have sufficed. Phillipson, though, does not view her SEND proposals as simply an accountancy exercise. Rather, she wants her changes to be seen as a reflection of her thinking on public service reform. For her, the white paper is a chance to champion mainstream provision: a principle that goes to the heart of her Labour values.
Her supporters argue this has been shown by her choices in government. Last month, she freed up £3 billion to create 60,000 SEND places partly by suspending planned free schools. For two decades, academies have been the model for education, where schools are run by a trust rather than the state; now Phillipson hopes to impose her own Labour vision of what schools should look like.
Phillipson does not view her proposals as an accountancy exercise – rather a reflection on public service reform
Her challenge is that any changes to SEND provision will quickly degenerate into a battle for resources. ‘Adversarial’ is the word that crops up the most whenever funding on special needs is discussed. Parents are understandably anxious and keen to fight for the treatment they feel their family deserves, with the optics of any major change being inherently risky at a time when the government’s future looks unsure.
Polling from More in Common finds that three in five voters believe SEND support should remain a legal entitlement to all who need it. This figure jumps to 72 per cent among Labour’s 2024 voters: the highest figure of any voter group. ‘There is sympathy from some about the idea of overdiagnosis – though almost as many people think there is underdiagnosis – and there is real reluctance about reducing or restricting support,’ says More in Common pollster Luke Tryl. ‘This could be very much in the territory of the personal independence payment reforms where Labour struggles most with its own voters.’
The spectre of last summer’s welfare rebellion hangs over all this. A Labour MP paraphrases Lady Bracknell’s maxim: to lose one major vote may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness. With a new consultation launched this week, Phillipson’s supporters are at pains to point out that she is attempting to engage with those who will be affected. The new schools minister Georgia Gould – highly tipped by some in No. 10 – is widely praised for her efforts to get support. But already unions are warning about the impact of any changes on low-paid support staff. ‘They need a workforce to deliver this,’ warns one GMB official.
Opposition parties are unlikely to do Phillipson any favours. The Liberal Democrats are already making ominous noises about ‘children’s rights’ and how the ‘current direction could strip away crucial support’. Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, has signalled that retaining existing EHCPs is a red line for her party. Many Tories are sceptical about Phillipson’s would-be radicalism, with an electoral hammering looming in May. ‘How many of Bridget’s MPs really want to go out and sell this on the doorstep?’ asks one.
An unlikely ally for the Education Secretary is Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader. He has received what he calls ‘my first proper death threat’ for his warnings about SEND costs spiralling. Tice is keen to work with Labour, citing Durham Grammar School as a model of how schools could use old churches as sites for cheaper provision. Reform’s own proposals for SEND are expected by May in an interim report by the party’s working group.
In office, Phillipson has established herself as a political pugilist. She took on private schools and drove through VAT on fees; she fought for her party’s deputy leadership and lost, though without dishonour. Yet, in SEND, she is grappling with a miasma of inefficiencies, interests and incentives that would challenge even the most gifted of ministers. For all her hopes of eschewing adversity, conflict looks inevitable.
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