Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 7
1st Report - Support for children and young people with special educational needs
Published 15 Jan 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Support for children and young people with special educational needs All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Department’s ability to reform the system is hindered by a lack of data, targets and a clear, costed plan. The Department accepts the need for major change, but lacks a clear, costed plan to push forward reforms and measure progress. Despite taking years to develop a plan to address recognised challenges, the Department recognises it needs to be much clearer on what it needs to achieve, how and when, through a costed plan with interdependencies and metrics for progress and benefits. In setting out metrics, the Department conceded it needs to further develop how it will look beyond educational attainment to understand if the system is working, such as by considering attendance which may indicate children feeling supported. The Department has a long way to go to build data across a range of areas, such as on SEN mainstream schools places, home to school transport and whole system costs. It continues to test dashboards across 32 local authorities, but it is unclear how these data will be used and when. recommendation The Department should urgently improve its data, and then use this information to develop a new fully costed plan for improving the SEN system, with concrete actions, and clear interdependencies, alongside metrics to measure outcomes. 7 1 Support for children and their families Introduction
From: Public Accounts Committee, 1st Report - Support for children and young people with special educational needs (HC 353), 15 January 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report for Committee's 1st Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026.
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the First report from Session 2024-25
Published 6 May 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" on each of the seven recommendations, but says it cannot commit to the six-month timescales on inclusive education and demand, or to setting out plans on local authority finances by March 2025.
- On variation in SEN identification and support, the government agrees, with a target implementation date of April 2026, and says work "in the next 12 months will continue" to identify and disseminate good practice from better-performing local authorities.
- On demand and inclusive education, the government agrees but states that it "cannot commit to setting out plans in the next six months"; it will "set out further detail later this year".
- On local authority deficits, the government agrees the matter is urgent but "has been unable to set out plans by March 2025". Its SEND reform plans, to be set out "in further detail in 2025", will "inform any decision to remove the statutory override".
- On health, the government says ICBs are legally responsible for SEND duties and that decisions are "taken locally". It will publish the NHS 10 Year Plan in spring 2025 and a refreshed Long Term Workforce Plan in summer 2025.