Sutton's SEND Reform Plan

Whilst the Council is ultimately responsible for SEND in the local area, the day to day SEND system is delivered by a ‘Local Area Partnership’ of organisations that work together. Cognus (who are commissioned by the London Borough of Sutton) work with the NHS, Integrated Care Board, schools and local organisations to support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their families.

National SEND reforms

Central government has announced reforms to how the national and local system SEND system should work. As part of this, we are working across the local area partnership to strengthen how services for children with SEND work in Sutton to try and make sure support is provided as early as possible.

The government has asked all Local Authorities to prepare a ‘SEND Reform Plan’ to identify what they will do to improve the system locally. We submitted our SEND Reform Plan to the Department for Education at the end of June. The plan will be published on this webpage once it has been approved.

For more information please see our pages on the SEND Reform.

Our SEND improvement journey

• In January 2026, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspected SEND services in Sutton in Sutton. The inspectors found that children and young people with SEND typically do well in education in Sutton. They also identified some areas for improvement.

• The one area for urgent improvement relates to how the NHS supports children with swallowing difficulties. Since January 2026, we have worked with the NHS and partners to take immediate action. We have brought in extra speech and language specialists to cut waiting times for vital assessments.

• A new SEND Improvement Board is being led by an independent chair to improve SEND services across health, education, and social care. This board will oversee the improvements we are looking to make as part of the national SEND reforms as well as those improvements we are looking to make locally.

• As part of this work, an independent parent panel has commissioned Sutton Mencap to set up a new parent carer forum for the local area. Through the new forum, local families will work alongside us to directly shape these changes before inspectors return in 18 months. For more information or to get involved, contact Sutton Mencap by emailing info@suttonmencap.org.uk or phoning 020 8647 8600.

What happens next?

When we hear back from the government on our SEND reform plan at the end of September, we will review the work that we need to do as part of that plan, the work we need to do as part of the SEND Priority Action Plan and we will use that information to work alongside newly appointed Parent Carer Forum to update our SEND and Alternative Provision strategy 2024-2027 for the next three years.