LAST week the Labour government launched the long-awaited Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) White Paper, detailing proposals from the government to revolutionise the shattered SEND system that was inherited from the Conservatives.

It should never be forgotten that former Conservative Minister, Gillian Keegan, described the SEND system that they created as ‘lose, lose, lose’, and Reform’s callous ignorance of neurodivergent children who, according to Reform, are just ‘naughty’.

The government’s white paper has been warmly welcomed across the board and is crucially backed by a multi-billion pound set of radical reforms. This is particularly important to me, as parents of SEND children make up a significant chunk of the casework in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle.

There is a vast differential between the way that SEND children in our secondary schools are treated and that is going to change. Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) are seen as the ‘golden ticket’ and so much energy, effort and cost is geared towards being awarded them. Although any child currently in receipt of an EHCP will continue to receive effective care, much more of the focus will be on school inclusivity – ensuring that our schools are ‘neurodivergent first’.

Following many conversations that I have had with Department for Education Secretary of State, Bridget Phillipson about the situation in the Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency, educational ‘off-rolling’ and exclusion numbers are going to come under the spotlight like never before. In addition, for the first time, OFSTED-inspection regimes will focus on multi-academy trusts (MATs) themselves and there will be new inspection criteria that will assess inclusion and the provision for SEND children.

The new proposals are designed to bring about earlier intervention to support children with additional needs as soon as possible. The current system is often too adversarial, exhausting and failing the very children it is meant to help.

So, £3.7-billion will create tens of thousands of new places in Inclusion Bases in mainstream settings, improve the accessibility of buildings and creating new special school places. £1.6-billion will go straight to early years settings, schools and colleges to fund targeted help to make sure children get support where and when they need it. £1.8-billion will create an “Experts at Hand” service – a bank of specialists like SEND teachers and speech and language therapists, available locally for every school with or without an EHCP in place, meaning every child will be able to access these resources if they need them. £200-million to ensure every teacher is trained to support SEND pupils. Every child with SEND will have a legal right to an Individual Support Plan (ISP) or EHCP. Any transitions from EHCPs to ISPs for mainstream pupils would not begin until 2030, and only at natural transition points.

No child currently in a special school will be required to move to a mainstream school. And the option of tribunal as a last resort will be retained. There will now be a thorough and open consultation, until May 18, on these proposals following the biggest ever conversation about the SEND system.