Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of SEND reform proposals on parents' statutory rights to request assessment, access independent experts and appeal decisions through to tribunal.

In the department’s recent special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) consultation, we proposed to preserve key legal safeguards for parents, including the continued right to request an assessment of whether their child needs an education, health and care (EHC) plan and to appeal decisions through to tribunal.

Our proposals include strengthening mediation services so that more disputes can be resolved quickly while retaining the SEND Tribunal as an important legal backstop for families.

We are proposing that parents and carers will continue to be able to appeal to the SEND tribunal on key decisions relating to EHC needs assessments, specialist provision package eligibility, which package their child receives, and review outcomes. Parents will also continue to be able to appeal to the tribunal if they disagree with a local authority’s placement decision. Under our proposed approach the tribunal will consider whether the local authority’s decision is reasonable and may quash the decision and order the local authority to reconsider.

Area SEND inspections provide independent evaluation of local arrangements, and the department, alongside NHS England, provides support and challenge to local area partnerships, including through the use of intervention, which we propose to strengthen, where the quality of local provision is not acceptable.

We will consider feedback from the consultation exercise carefully before making any final decisions.