The White Paper sets out the government’s expectation for all schools to be in a school trust. As we work towards this desired end state, the White Paper and SEND consultation also propose transition arrangements to enable the reforms to the SEND system to proceed.
The May 2026 Kings Speech announced a new ‘Education for All’ Bill which will put into law the SEND reforms outlined in the Schools White Paper. In the briefing notes published alongside the King’s Speech, the government confirms that “a bill will be brought forward to raise standards in schools and introduce generational reforms of the special educational needs system” (pages 49-53). The Bill will legislate (among other things) to require schools to pool a portion of their funding for SEND.
It is CST’s view that we need to shift our mental model away from special needs education as an approach focused upon some learners with recognised needs (that is, those special educational needs and/or disabilities) to inclusive education as an approach for improving the quality of education for all learners.
This overarching aim is fundamentally important to the success of new arrangements. And it requires the group (legal entity) to be responsible and accountable not just for funding but for educational quality. We should be extremely wary of a reductionist approach which sees the sum of reform as a funding mechanism. . Currently, we are reassured that this is not what the DfE is proposing.
In this discussion paper, we set out why the group (legal entity) must be responsible and accountable not just for funding but for educational quality, and CST's concern about looser arrangements where financial governance is either entirely missing or dislocated from the responsibility for educational quality.
