16 October 2025 

Inequalities in access to support for children and young people with SEND is the subject of a new report, Double Disadvantage, by the social mobility charity The Sutton Trust. 

The report finds that children from less affluent families are more likely to have SEND, less likely to secure an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan and less likely to attend a special school than children from more affluent homes. Middle-class parents are more likely than working-class parents to appeal to the SEND Tribunal to secure special educational provision for their children. 

None of this comes as a surprise – and none of it is parents’ fault. 

Socio-economic differences in the way SEND is identified among children and young people and in the support they receive has been the subject of various studies, including a very comprehensive report by the Education Policy Institute in 2021. 

One of our biggest concerns at IPSEA is what happens to children whose families aren’t able to find information and advice about how their child should be supported in education, or who aren’t in a position to pursue their child’s right to support that meets their needs. 

We know that for every child whose parents appeal an unlawful decision, there are likely to be many more children in under-served communities whose needs are similar but who fall through the net. We are working to develop closer partnerships with community groups and organisations that work with families who don’t traditionally reach out to us, to help more children and young people receive the special educational provision and support they need and to which they are entitled. 

The fact that some families are better equipped than others to make the SEND system work as it should is emphatically not the fault of the law, or of families themselves. The parents who make it work are doing nothing more than securing the support their children need: they aren’t taking anything away from anyone else. 

The law should work equally for everyone – that’s what it’s there for. 

But for that to happen, public bodies need to comply with their legal duties without hard-pressed families of children and young people with SEND having to add “Enforce the law” to their endless to-do list. The House of Commons Education Committee told the Government the same thing last month. 

The ball is now in the Government’s court: will the forthcoming schools white paper set out a clear blueprint for making the education system work as it should for every child?

 

About the author

Catriona is responsible for IPSEA’s work in bringing about change by influencing the development of SEND policy nationally. Her background is in public policy and communications, and she has worked for a number of charities and public sector organisations, as well as in Parliament. In the past she has served as an elected councillor in a London borough, a special school governor and a charity trustee. She has personal experience of having a disabled child. In her spare time, she enjoys walking, reading, going to the theatre and being by the sea.

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