Department for Education written question – answered at on 21 April 2026.
Saqib Bhatti
Shadow Minister (Education)
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the potential impact of trends in the growth of EHCPs on costs to the public purse.
Georgia Gould
Minister of State (Education)
Families are having to fight and go through bureaucratic and legal processes to get special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support for their children despite funding increases to the high needs budget. These and other failures in the current system mean that families are rightly demanding reform and that is what the government is delivering. The plans for a reformed SEND system, including the allocation of £4 billion investment to support transformation of the system, were set out in the recently published Schools white paper and SEND reform consultation, and annexes.
The department’s assessment of future SEND spending will be updated following the SEND consultation and subject to future spending reviews.
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
A document issued by the Government laying out its policy, or proposed policy, on a topic of current concern.Although a white paper may occasion consultation as to the details of new legislation, it does signify a clear intention on the part of a government to pass new law. This is a contrast with green papers, which are issued less frequently, are more open-ended and may merely propose a strategy to be implemented in the details of other legislation.
More from wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_paper
