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Amaze writes to MPs expressing concerns over proposed SEND reforms

29th April 2026

Amaze and the parent carer forums for Brighton & Hove, East and West Sussex have written to local MPs to express our concerns about key aspects of the government’s proposed SEND reforms.

We know there has been anxiety among our community about the upcoming changes. If you are still unclear about what it means for you and your child, read our post on What you need to know about the Schools White Paper.

Our concerns

Having finally had time to analyse the detail in the government’s consultation document, we are concerned that the proposed changes might not result in “a radical expansion of rights” as is being suggested, but potentially 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 the restriction to children and young people with ‘complex needs’ that haven’t yet 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 rights for children and young people with complex needs to thrive in mainstream, with the proposals leaning strongly towards these children and young people being placed in specialist provision

In our letter, we also wrote that the system for supporting children and young people with SEND is clearly not working as it should (which is widely accepted), and that 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. Crucially, the White Paper does not set out what these reforms will mean for children and young people who are already missing out on education and falling through existing gaps in the system. There is little clarity about how outcomes will improve for those currently failed or unsupported, including children and young people educated through education otherwise than at school (EOTAS), those experiencing emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA), those placed in alternative provision, or those without access to any suitable education at all.

In addition, the proposals include plans for schools themselves to hold more responsibility for handling complaints, which may leave 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.  Having a strong focus on accountability and inspection of the system to ensure it is working as intended would help.

We urged the government to avoid weakening or removing children and young people’s current right to support that meets their individual needs, and also suggested they could ask questions about the role of health in the new system, as this is not yet clear enough from the current proposals.

For further information on the proposals and the concerns we share with other charities and SEND advocates, read the IPSEA briefing for MPs.  We talk you through all the main proposals of SEND reforms in the recording of our free Amaze webinar on the SEND reforms that we ran in March.

You can still make your views heard

If you feel you want to have your say about the proposed changes, there is still time as the deadline for responding to the government SEND consultation is 18 May 2026.