Suffolk's SEND progress is real – but many families are still waiting

'A system that has not worked well for a long time'

The starting point matters. In November 2023, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) delivered a damning verdict on Suffolk's special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services: "widespread and/or systemic failings" that left children and young people experiencing delays, crisis-only support, and plans that too often failed to capture their needs accurately.

Children with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans in Suffolk were achieving less well than similar pupils nationally, and were more likely to be excluded from school or to find themselves not in education, employment or training. Phone calls and emails went unanswered. Families resorted to complaints — and often legal action — just to access the support their children were entitled to.

Two and a half years on, things have changed. The question is whether they have changed enough, and for whom?

The numbers tell a story

A monitoring inspection carried out across three days in March 2026 found a picture that is encouraging, albeit complicated.

In March 2026, 80% of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) were completed within the statutory 20-week timeframe — up from just 5% a year earlier, and well above the national average of 46.4%. The average time to complete a new plan has fallen from 46 weeks in May 2025 to 19 weeks and two days. The initial decision on whether to assess a child — which the government expects to be made within six weeks — is now being reached in an average of four weeks in Suffolk, down from five weeks a year earlier.

Suffolk County Council has invested £9.1 million into SEND services over three years. A SEND Improvement Board with an independent chair was established. Dozens of new posts were recruited across two phases. A focused 20-week improvement sprint, launched in June 2025, helped clear a backlog that had swelled to nearly 2,000 children.

Sharon Muldoon, service director for Education, Inclusion and SEND at Suffolk County Council, explained how the improvement came about. "Every month we will get new requests for assessments, and the clock starts ticking as soon as that request is received," she said. "Because we hadn't always serviced those within 20 weeks, your 20-week delivery is every month worsening because you have got children that might wait 32 weeks, 40 weeks, 50 weeks, 60 weeks, and until you clear those children in the system, your 20-week performance is pulled down."

The backlog has now been cleared. "What you have got now in our performance indicators is a live assessment of plans in the system," Ms Muldoon said, "and the majority of those are now in time."

Ofsted and the CQC recognised the improvement, concluding that "effective action" had been taken on EHCP timeliness and quality. However, on the second priority area from the 2023 inspection — strategic planning, governance and joined-up working across health, education and the council — the verdict was "ineffective action."

Two very different experiences

There are currently 11,939 children in Suffolk with an EHCP. For some of them, and their families, the system is already working markedly better. For others, the distance still to travel remains significant.

Sarah-Jane Smedmor, executive director for children and young people's services at Suffolk County Council, acknowledged the disparity. "Families who are coming into us, new into this process — we are getting really good feedback from many, many families who are saying that they are feeling they are co-producing their child's EHCP through that process," she said.

For families who have spent years navigating the system — including through the years of systemic failure the 2023 inspection documented — the picture is more complex. "Of course, our families who came in new to this process are experiencing a different experience, because we did not get this right previously, and we are now," Ms Smedmor said. "For some families, we are able to redress that balance, but not for all, and we are very aware of that."

The Ofsted and CQC letter, published this month, confirmed the broader pattern. Parents and carers reported mixed experiences — with some expressing "cautious optimism" while others remained concerned about the pace and consistency of change. Many described ongoing delays, poor communication and plans that lacked the specificity or precision their children needed.

Dr Kelly-Marie Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Childhood and Education at the University of Suffolk, said the timeliness improvements were genuinely welcome but cautioned against reading them as the full picture. "Many families still find themselves having to fight to secure their child's rights, including having needs formally recognised and recorded," she said. "For some, the process remains adversarial and exhausting, particularly for those who experienced the system at its most difficult in recent years."

Even where an EHCP is secured, she warned, that is not the end of the challenge. "It does not guarantee that the support set out in the plan will be delivered in practice. Too often, children are named for placements that are unable to meet their needs due to wider systemic pressures. In some cases, this means children cannot consistently attend school or are unable to thrive in the environments specified in their plans."

One concrete measure of improvement: complaints to the council have reduced, though officials did not provide a specific figure. What they were clear on is that the approach has shifted — problems are being resolved through direct conversation rather than being pushed into formal processes.

When the plan exists but the place does not

Dr Taylor identified a specific and largely hidden pressure point: a chronic shortage of specialist provision, particularly at Key Stage 1. "It is not uncommon for children to have a specialist placement named in their EHCP that simply does not exist in available capacity," she said. "As a result, families and schools are left managing the gaps between what is written in an EHCP and what can realistically be provided on the ground."

The 2023 Ofsted inspection noted that most disabled children and young people requiring residential special school provision were being placed out of county. While capital investment since then has helped more children remain locally, inspectors in March 2026 found that access to and availability of specialist provision remains uneven across Suffolk.

Communication: the persistent challenge

If there is one issue that runs through almost every account of what still needs to improve, it is communication. Families have struggled to reach caseworkers. Settings have received information late. Co-ordination between Health, Education and Social Care services has been uneven.

"We completely recognise that communication is not sorted," Ms Smedmor said. "It is inconsistent, and that was recognised by Ofsted and the CQC as well. That consistency is the most important bit — that is the bit that we are looking to achieve, so that families feel that is what they are receiving."

Part of the answer is structural. The SEND team is being reorganised over the summer, ready for the start of the autumn term. At present, caseworkers carry caseloads spanning children aged two to 24 — a range that Ms Muldoon described as an obstacle to quality.

"It is very difficult to have that level of complexity and be able to always write and deliver good plans and a good level of service," she said, "because a two-year-old's needs and plans will be very different from a 24-year-old's."

The new model will organise caseworkers into phase-based pods — early years and primary, secondary, and post-16 — with staff developing specialisms and building more sustained relationships with a smaller number of schools. "It will take time for that to embed and to improve to the standard we would really want for our children, families and schools," Ms Muldoon said, "but I am confident that that will be the step change that the system needs."

A pre-booking app is also being introduced, allowing families to reserve a 15-minute consultation slot with their caseworker — a direct response to the feedback that making contact has too often been difficult or impossible.

Dr Taylor noted that the pressure extends well beyond the council's SEND team into schools themselves. SENDCos and wider school staff, she said, carry a significant burden that goes largely unacknowledged. "Beyond supporting children directly, they are managing complex administrative processes associated with SEND provision. This work extends far beyond pupils with EHCPs to include all children requiring additional support. Despite these pressures, most school staff continue to work tirelessly for the children in their care, often absorbing systemic shortcomings into their day-to-day practice."

Asked when a child entering the SEND system in Suffolk could reasonably expect to receive the level of service they deserve, Ms Muldoon responded: "The plans we are working to is that in September we will be moving towards those pods," she said. "We would hope that our practice throughout the next academic year will improve as those pods stabilise." In other words: a meaningful step change within 12 months — but not a quick fix.

The girls who are harder to identify

One of the more troubling details to emerge from the data concerns the significant gender imbalance among children with EHCPs in Suffolk: approximately 70% are boys.

Officials at the media briefing this week did not suggest this reflects a genuine difference in prevalence of need. They recognised that the most likely explanation is that girls are more adept at masking their neurodiverse traits, in school and/or home. Consequently, formal recognition, diagnosis, and support is harder to identify and often later.

Health professionals noted that this pattern reflects a national failure rooted in decades of medical research conducted predominantly on boys, with diagnostic frameworks that were calibrated accordingly. There is, they suggested, a substantial population of girls in Suffolk — and across the country — with unmet or unidentified needs.

The shift towards earlier intervention, a central ambition of the Suffolk partnership's current reform work, is expected to help address this. The challenge is identifying need before it becomes crisis — and doing so in children who may not present in ways the current system is best equipped to recognise.

The national context

Local leaders are candid that there is a limit to how much Suffolk's partnership can achieve on its own. The government's SEND reform programme — which will introduce new Individual Support Plans for all children with SEND needs in schools, and eventually restrict EHCPs to the most complex cases — is seen as the essential next step.

"Even if we get to the point where we are completely on top of all of the EHCPs and we are doing everything we need to do, what we know is the system still does not work for children," Ms Smedmor said. "That is the national system. The hope is the SEND reforms."

The reforms will be phased in from 2029, with EHCPs reserved for the most complex cases from 2035. Officials described this as a ten-year change programme — one with no quick wins for the families already in the system.

Dr Taylor said the prospect of reform, while widely acknowledged as necessary, carries its own uncertainties. "There is understandable concern among families and professionals about whether the proposed alternatives will offer the same level of protection and guarantee of provision," she said. "At present, this remains uncertain." She also pointed to the planned reorganisation of Suffolk's local government into unitary authorities as an additional risk factor. "These structural changes will inevitably affect how SEND services are delivered. There is hope that progress made so far will not be disrupted, but the risk of instability during transition cannot be ignored."

On the question of funding, Dr Taylor cut straight to the point: "The current SEND funding formula does not provide schools with sufficient resources to deliver all elements specified within EHCPs. Schools are therefore required to bridge the gap from already stretched budgets, creating difficult decisions about how best to allocate their limited resources."

For now, the partnership has submitted its first draft implementation plan to government. Officials said they are confident they have the funding and staffing needed for the immediate next steps, but were clear that additional resource will be needed as national reform takes shape. Suffolk's new political leadership — Reform UK took control of the county council following May's local elections — has been briefed and, according to Ms Smedmor, council leader Michael Hadwen has been supportive. "It is early days, but he is comfortable with where we are at, and he is very supportive of the work that we are doing," she said.

Ed Garratt OBE, chief executive of the NHS Norfolk and Suffolk Integrated Care Board, said the health partnership remained committed to delivering its part. "We recognise that greater consistency and stronger partnership working are still needed," he said. "We are committed to continuing to work closely across health, education and care to deliver joined-up, easier-to-navigate and high-quality support."

The opposition view

Simon Dowling, the Greens' deputy spokesperson for Children, Young People Education and SEND, said:

"It's great to hear that the council is getting a grip on EHCPs and Annual Reviews. This is a significant milestone, and we know that employees in the SEND service are working incredibly hard to keep on top of these given that the need for EHCPs is growing and growing.

"The letter is very clear that the Suffolk SEND partnership – which includes the council and health partners – still has much to do, and that action on some of the leadership and governance recommendations has been 'ineffective', which is very worrying considering how long parents have already been waiting for SEND improvement in Suffolk.

"It is clearly still a service under enormous pressure," he said, calling on the Reform administration to make improvements "an absolute priority" to ensure that "the improvement continues".

The bottom line

Suffolk's EHCP services are measurably better than they were in November 2023 and positive steps are being taken to address SEND service provision across Suffolk. The people responsible for running them are not hiding from the gaps that remain. The backlog has been cleared. Plans are being completed faster and, in many cases, more accurately. New families entering the system are, for the first time in years, reporting positive experiences.

But the inspection verdict is a split one, and the honest assessment — from the officials themselves as much as from the inspectors — is that the families who have waited longest are not yet consistently receiving the service they need. The pod restructuring, the new app and the national SEND reforms may deliver the step change that is promised. For the 11,939 children in Suffolk with an EHCP, and the thousands more who may yet need one, the next 12 months will be telling.

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