Within hours, the old rainbow logos were taken down and replaced with DfE signs. It made it clear where the coalition government’s priorities lay.
Less dramatic but of equal significance is the decision by new Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to reconfigure her department and move responsibility for special education needs and disabilities (SEND) policy out of the family division, where it lived for a decade, and into the schools team (Analysis, p10).
The move has been welcomed by children’s services leaders, who say SEND had played second fiddle to children’s social care in the DfE’s family division even though 1.7 million schoolchildren have SEND. The Association of Directors of Children’s Services highlights the past decade has seen the thresholds for accessing support for children with special needs rise significantly and a shift towards more high-cost specialist packages outside of mainstream education (Analysis p16).
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