This week, we hosted SEND Reform Starts Here: Crafting a Strong Local Plan Reform Plan in partnership with 31ten Consulting, with insights from Peter Nathan, Director of Education at Enfield Council.
Over 50 local authority leaders and SEND professionals joined us for a conversation that was honest, urgent and, at times, refreshingly candid about how hard this all is. Local areas are facing significant pressure around data, demand, provision, finance and parent confidence.
The session focused on what strong local SEND reform planning looks like in practice: how to use data well, build useful forecasts, connect plans to provision and finance, and monitor whether reforms are making a difference.
We have included a recording of the webinar below, along with 10 key takeaways from the session.
These are the 10 things that stood out
1. Collecting baseline data was harder than expected.
Even gathering baseline data has been a challenge, especially linking SEND cohort data with health and finance data.
Data sitting in different systems that have never been properly joined up is not a minor technical problem. A strong baseline gives everything else a firmer footing, making the forecast more reliable, useful and credible.
2. The plan is not the destination.
Many data models will help you meet the initial DfE deadline. Fewer will become tools that genuinely help make better decisions as reforms are implemented.
The question worth asking now is whether your plan will still be useful months after submission, or whether it will sit in a folder until the next return is due.
3. In a changing national context, static forecasts are limited.
Forecasts that are just a static picture from one point in time are not going to be useful.
The most important question your model should answer is not simply what will happen, but what happens if? What if EHCP request rates spike? What if legal thresholds change? What if we cannot expand specialist provision as quickly as we would like? A model that cannot be stress-tested will not survive contact with reality.
4. Averages can hide the messages you really need to see.
Granularity without complexity creates better decisions.
A cohort that looks stable at borough level might be growing fast in one cluster of schools. A need type that looks manageable across a phase group might be spiking in a single year group about to move into secondary. That level of detail changes what you commission and where you invest.
5. Your data model and your provision strategy need to talk to each other, continuously.
Data only matters if it changes decisions.
Producing a forecast and a provision plan as separate exercises is one of the most common weaknesses we see. The model should feed the plan. The plan should update the model. It is not a one-time exercise.
6. There is a clear appetite to measure more meaningful outcomes for children and young people.
The meaningful outcomes are the ones largely missed in the DfE data template.
Inclusion, attendance, exclusion, progress and long-term destinations all matter. Joe Miller highlighted the Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset as a particularly underused resource, tracking young people from school into the labour market.
7. If the EHCP cohort continues to grow, that might still be a success.
What happened compared with what would have happened without your intervention?
In a system where need has been rising for years, a smaller-than-expected increase may be a genuine achievement. Always having the counterfactual in mind is what separates monitoring that informs decisions from monitoring that just reports numbers.
8. Enfield went from around 6% of plans issued in statutory timeframes to a much stronger local position. It took years, and it was worth it.
Transformation is possible. But it requires a long-term view, not just a reform plan.
Peter Nathan was clear about what made the difference: strong leadership, a capital strategy tied directly to need, and an honest relationship with schools and families.
9. Cross-organisational working is where shared ambition meets the limits of shared data.
How can local areas use data to bring about a shared understanding of strengths and areas for development across all partners?
That was Joe Miller’s framing, and it ran through the whole session. Rebecca Smith from 31ten was clear that shared ownership is key to successful implementation, but that jointly held accountability and multi-agency working take real, sustained investment of time.
10. Culture change takes longer than structural change. Start it now.
A lot of this will live and die by whether parents and carers feel their children are going to get the support they need without an EHCP.
Changing parental perceptions was rated one of the biggest challenges of the reform, averaging 4.3 out of 5 in the poll, where 5 was hardest. Co-design, not just communication, is what changes that. And, as Rebecca Smith put it: culture change takes longer than structural change, which is why it needs to start first.
We are here if you need us.
