Schools white paper: Reaction from education lawyers

23 February 2026

The UK Government has unveiled its long-term vision for the education sector after publishing its schools white paper today (23 February).

The Department for Education’s (DfE) blueprint covers issues including special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reform, school groups, and parental complaints.

Browne Jacobson’s education team has commented on some of the main announcements from the white paper.

SEND reform

Philip Wood, Principal Associate, said: “The DfE’s vision on SEND is based on three overarching strategies – increasing the provision in mainstream schools including with the use of SEND units and an additional band of support and training to staff, changing the criteria for a child to secure an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP), and changing the appeal process and rights.

“While these moves are understandable given the escalating costs of supporting SEND pupils in recent years, they each and collectively face significant challenges.

“The proposal to increase the provision in mainstream schools is inevitably crucial if we want a truly inclusive system, but sufficiently funding these developments is of paramount importance.

“The DfE has announced £4bn over three years to assist with this – £1.6bn of which will be given directly to schools – but against a recent £5bn local authority SEND deficit write-off, it’s not clear whether this will be enough to move the dial after nine in 10 respondents told our latest School Leaders Survey said they were dissatisfied with SEND funding.

“While many in the sector would like to see more special schools, the government clearly feels that bolting on SEND units on mainstream sites is the most cost-effective way forward. Examples of how this could be achieved – such as repurposing surplus spaces or via purpose-buildings to create so-called inclusion bases – are set out in the Education Estates Strategy, published earlier this month.

“Raising the bar for awarding an EHCP to relate to new Specialist Provision Packages and creating a new school-led Individual Support Plan for children with less complex needs may well receive opposition from parents. They could view this new package as watered down support from what is currently available to those with an EHCP, which provides a legal right to specific provision.

“However, since the last reforms in 2014, the statistics for pupils with SEND in terms of outcomes, value for money and exclusions paint a poor picture of the system we have. Taken alongside the adversarial nature of the system and the time it often takes to have the right provision in place, all stakeholders should desire change.

“Not only will there be political challenges in pushing this proposal through Parliament, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a rise in determination among parents to secure an EHCP ahead of the full implementation in 28/29. Given that SEND Tribunal appeals are already at record levels, this could mean things get significantly worse before they improve in the longer term.”

Parental complaints

Victoria Hatton, Partner specialising in supporting schools with parental complaints, said: “The Schools White Paper represents a meaningful acknowledgment that the school-parent social contract has fractured, and that repairing it requires co-ordinated action rather than leaving schools and families to navigate the breakdown alone.

“The commitment to establishing minimum expectations for home-school partnerships and moving towards greater harmonisation between the requirements for maintained schools and academies are welcome developments that align closely with reforms we have previously called for.

“Meanwhile, creating a digital solution to improve co-ordination between multiple bodies for complaints and stopping complaints from being escalated through multiple avenues in parallel should help to address another key issue we’ve identified whereby external agencies have duplicated the complaints process.

“However, the white paper stops short of providing the legislative ‘teeth’ the situation demands. While the language around ‘minimum expectations’ and ‘mutual expectations’ is encouraging, the framework as currently described remains advisory in nature.

“What we really want to see is the DfE reintroduce mandatory home-school agreements with genuine legal force – including a requirement that parents sign before a child is registered. The white paper references home-school partnership agreements only as an example of good practice, which falls significantly short of that ambition.

“On complaints, the proposed digital portal and clearer signposting between external organisations directly reflect our recommendations and are substantive improvements. Yet the critical question of what happens when relationships irretrievably break down – including a last-resort mechanism linking persistent parental misconduct to pupil registration – remains substantively unaddressed.

“The government has listened to the issue of exponentially rising complaints – an issue our School Leaders Survey has illustrated over the past couple of years, while we’ve increasingly noticed a sharp increase in AI-generated complaints more recently – but has opted for co-design and guidance over compulsion.

“Whether that proves sufficient to meaningfully rebuild trust between schools and families remains to be seen. The proof will be in the detail and implementation to come.”

Groups of schools

Lydia Michaelson-Yeates, Partner specialising in the delivery of academy projects and conversions, said: “The government’s ambition for every school to be part of a trust is a welcome one given that we’ve seen evidence that many struggling schools have turned around performance by joining a strong trust – which brings benefits such as pooling resources, sharing best practices and collaboration.

“In order to fix the SEND crisis, we need high-quality, strong trusts rather than the existing two-tier system. Closer working between trusts and integrated care boards for the commissioning of professionals who can support SEND children will also help to shift from the fragmented approach to SEND provision.

“The big challenge for government is how fast and easily it can achieve all this, although in the white paper it acknowledges this will be a gradual process.

“The latest DfE data from November 2025 shows that local authority maintained schools still comprise 45% of all schools in England – this leaves about 10,000 schools that remain to be converted into academies.

“Some of these may convert into the new concept of local authority-run trusts, which marks a significant change in policy. One of the challenges these will have is in replicating the commercial mindsets that are embedded within the existing trust system.

“There is no mention in the white paper about the preferred size of trusts, although it does spell the end for single academy trusts. There are presently about 950 of these that will be expected to partner with other trusts.

“Also notably absent from the white paper is funding. The £25,000 academy conversion grant was abolished in December 2024, so it remains to be seen if trusts will be expected to pick up the costs associated with onboarding any new schools.

“There is much work ahead if the government is to succeed in its vision of putting collaboration at the heart of the system by moving to all schools being part of school trusts.”