Mime Think Pieces

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…

Local authorities across the country are developing Local SEND Reform Plans ahead of the June deadline. This is a major task, particularly given it comes alongside managing rising levels of SEND need, financial pressure, workforce constraints, and evolving national policy. For many areas, the challenge is no longer whether there is enough data available. It is how to use that information to make decisions that improve outcomes for children and young people, while remaining practical and deliverable across local systems.  Many local authority leaders are now asking the same question: how do we create a Local SEND Reform Plan that remains useful once reforms move…