The potential for these arrangements to become very burdensome is real – having a SEND group structure separate from a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) could lead to a messy and duplicative system.

Q33. How should disagreements about membership, provision, or funding in groups of schools for SEND be resolved?

More fundamentally, if disagreements are arising about membership, provision or funding, this is indicative of the SEND group not functioning as intended in the first place. The focus should be on designing a system that is unlikely to generate such disputes, rather than prescribing mechanisms to resolve them after the fact.

Q38. Do you agree that a SEND specialist (e.g. a SENCO) should sit on the school complaints panel when the complaint relates to SEND support and provision?

This should not be a blanket requirement. Practical availability is a significant issue: asking a SENCO to take time out of their role to review complaints places a considerable demand on professionals who are already stretched. Finding someone with the appropriate expertise and availability, and who also knows the school well enough to provide meaningful input, is a genuine and recurring challenge. The same challenges around availability are seen in relation to the SEND Expert on Independent Review Panels for exclusions. 

We also draw attention to a systemic risk this proposal does not fully engage with.

As greater numbers of children are educated within mainstream settings under ISPs, and given the proposed changes to the tribunal regime and the shift of responsibility toward schools, we anticipate a significant increase in complaints at school level. The centre of gravity in SEND disputes, currently focused on local authorities, is likely to shift increasingly towards schools.

This could cause significant delays in getting disputes resolved, particularly if the complaints panel composition requirements are onerous. Any reform to the complaints process must be designed with this anticipated increase in volume firmly in mind.

Q39. Is there anything further you would like to contribute to inform the remaining proposals still under consideration?

Tribunal reform

We welcome the proposal to bring a wider set of considerations to bear when deciding local authorities are consulting on EHCP placements, including amendments to the relevant tests.

It is clear that the current Tribunal process is not working: approximately 99% of cases are found in favour of parents, meaning local authorities lose the vast majority of cases they defend. 

However, the solution is not to make technical changes to the Tribunal itself – it is to fix the system as a whole, so that fewer parents feel it necessary to take cases to a tribunal in the first place.

The proposal to limit the Tribunal's role on placement to determining whether the decision was lawful, rational and fair, rather than making binding decisions raises many questions about how this will work in practice. That detail is not set out in the consultation itself with no information on how the tests will be applied, or how reconsideration will work. 

Our concern is that this could drive more parents toward the High Court, effectively moving the problem from one jurisdiction to another without resolving the underlying issues.

Parents can access legal aid for proceedings in the High Court, and both parties are likely to need to instruct lawyers, meaning the broader public cost of litigation will simply arise in a different, and more expensive, forum. We have already started to see some of that litigation given the delays post-COVID on Tribunal decisions. 

The position of schools

When things go wrong, as they inevitably will even in a reformed system, there is a broader discussion to be had about whether schools should have greater powers of challenge to the Tribunal where they cannot reasonably accommodate a pupil's SEND needs. 

Currently, schools are largely powerless to challenge decisions in the Tribunal and, in many cases, can only support parents by directing them to how to challenge decisions themselves. They frequently feel unable to effect meaningful change for the children who fall under their care. Schools are understandably reluctant to expend public funds on litigating against other agencies via alternative routes, leaving a significant gap between identifying an unlawful decision or process and having any practical means of enforcing a lawful one.

Any reformed system must take the position of schools seriously as participants in the SEND framework, which includes rights of challenge or redress.

Additional workload

In our spring 2026 School Leaders Survey, nine in 10 respondents told us they believe the proposed SEND reforms will add to their workload (76% said it will cause a significant increase and 13% said a slight increase). 

While this might be tempered with sufficient additional funding to hire further staff for handling that workload, 68% said they did not believe the announced funding was enough to bring it to life for their trusts and schools.

This is not surprising given the per school amounts for the mainstream inclusion fund are not significant, equating to less than half a teaching assistant for some primary schools.

Joining trusts

Also in our latest School Leader Survey, leaders overwhelmingly agreed that being part of a trust would help schools offer better SEND provision, with 62% saying it would significantly or somewhat help, only 10% not agreeing and the rest neutral.

Although, perhaps unsurprisingly, there is less confidence outside of academy leaders with only 25% of maintained participants agreeing that being part of a trust will help offer better SEND provision.

When asked about how achievable the vision for every school to be in a trust was though, only 4% felt that it was highly achievable with most saying it was achievable with some challenges (34%) or achievable only with significant changes (39%).

Get in touch

As the landscape of SEND disputes continues to shift, schools and trusts need to be prepared. Our expert disability discrimination in schools team is here to support you when things go wrong.