02/09/2026
**I have now submitted my response to the EOTAS consultation.**
After listening to the SNJ webinar and spending time going through the proposals, I felt I needed to respond not only as a SEND advocate, but from more than **20 years of navigating the SEND system** and the experiences shared with me through a community of over **8,400 families**.
There are parts of these reforms I welcome.
We absolutely need better accountability, safeguarding and consistency around EOTAS.
But I have some significant concerns about **who will hold the power, who will remain legally accountable and whether families will still be able to challenge decisions when the system gets it wrong.**
One of my biggest concerns is the proposal for schools to have greater responsibility for EOTAS packages.
For many children, EOTAS isn't the first choice. It is often where families arrive **after everything else has been tried and school-based approaches have failed**.
So why would we then hand responsibility for building and managing that specialist package back to a school?
EOTAS should be built around **the individual child** – their needs, strengths, communication, sensory profile, regulation, learning and professional recommendations.
Not around what a school happens to have available.
I've also raised the huge **postcode lottery** I see through advocacy.
Why can a child in one local authority effectively receive only a few hours of tuition each week, while somewhere else a child may receive 15, 20 or 25 hours or a much broader package?
Individualised does not mean unequal.
I've called for **national minimum standards**, while protecting the ability to build a genuinely bespoke package around each child.
I've also been very clear about something else:
**Successful EOTAS should NEVER automatically become evidence that a child is ready to return to school.**
Sometimes a child begins learning, regulating and thriving precisely because the environment that wasn't working for them has been removed.
And reviews must not become a repeated question of:
*"Can we get them back into school yet?"*
The question should be:
**"Is this child receiving the right education and is it meeting their needs?"**
I've also asked for much stronger safeguards around parent and child/young person voice.
Families should never first discover the future of their child's education through a final decision letter.
They should have been **informed, involved and heard at every meaningful stage**.
Decisions should sit alongside appropriate evidence from EPs, specialist teachers and other relevant professionals, with the LA required to explain when it chooses to depart from that evidence.
My position is simple:
**National standards should create a floor beneath every child – not a ceiling above them.**
EOTAS should remain specialist, individualised, evidence-led and child-led.
The LA should retain ultimate accountability for securing the package.
And returning to a school building should be an individually evidenced possibility – **not the predetermined measure of whether EOTAS has succeeded.**
I've made my full consultation response available below for any parents, carers or professionals who would like to read it.
Please feel free to use it to help you think about your own consultation response too. The more SEND families who understand what is being proposed and have their say, the better.
📄 **My full EOTAS consultation response is attached/shared with this post; please copy and paste it into your browser.
///Users/test/Downloads/Rebekah_Herbert_EOTAS_Consultation_Response.pdf
