As part of the Government’s long-term reforms to strengthen the special educational needs and disabilities system in England and improve life chances, the schools White Paper, “Every child achieving and thriving”, announced around £1.8 billion of funding over the next three years for local areas to develop and deliver a new experts at hand offer. We also confirmed £200 million of local transformation funding for the next three years. These measures form a central part of the Government’s wider programme to strengthen mainstream inclusion, expand specialist expertise, and ensure children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities receive timely and effective support.
Today I am confirming how funding for the 2026-27 financial year, £429 million, will be allocated to local authorities through the experts at hand and local authority SEND transformation grant.
This funding is for local areas to work in partnership, led by the local authorities working jointly with integrated care boards, to start to deliver the new experts at hand offer. This will provide mainstream education settings across early years, primary, secondary, and 16 to 19 with improved access to additional, evidence-led support, advice and guidance from health and education professionals, so that children can receive the help they need earlier and more effectively. Local areas will draw on the expertise of a broad range of professionals, including speech and language therapists and occupational therapists, as well as educational psychologists, and specialist teachers, including those based in specialist settings. It will take time to transform the system, but we anticipate that by 2029 this funding means a typical setting could benefit from additional support equivalent to 40 days per average primary school and 160 days per average secondary school per year.
The funding will also enable the establishment of speech and language therapist advanced practitioners in every integrated care board area.
Finally, the transformation element of the funding will support local authorities to design and deliver their local SEND reform plan. This includes strategic planning and data work to integrate the experts at hand offer alongside existing services, and the local area’s wider approach to SEND reform preparation, as articulated in their local plan. Funding transformation in this way will ensure that every local authority can produce high-quality plans to ensure their local area builds a more inclusive mainstream system.
Today we have published local authority level indicative allocations, which will be confirmed in May, and a methodology document setting out how these allocations have been calculated. The document introduces the purpose of the grant and our expectations for how this funding should be spent locally.
Local authorities will be required to set out their delivery model and use of funding within their local SEND reform plans. These plans will provide assurance on appropriate use of the grant and demonstrate effective partnership working across education, health and care. Future support for high needs dedicated schools grant deficits will take into account progress against approved plans, including the establishment of a strong and effective experts at hand offer.
The Department for Education will publish the detailed experts at hand guidance later in spring 2026, including minimum delivery expectations, examples of best practice, and further information to support local planning. Final funding allocations for 2026-27 will be confirmed and published in May 2026 and payment will be made at the end of June.
Full details of this announcement, including the grant methodology and indicative allocations, have been published on the Department for Education section on the gov.uk website, here:
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