Experts At Hand: SEND reform needs experts, but how will schools access them?
For much of the past year, the conversation around SEND has focused on reform. Less attention has been paid to a question that could prove just as important: who will deliver it?
The government’s ambitions £1.8 billion Experts at Hand programme aims to give mainstream schools easier access to specialist teachers and SEND professionals, but there are key challenges.
The tension at the heart of SEND reform is clear: the system needs schools to access more specialist expertise at a time when those professionals are already in short supply.
What is the Experts at Hand programme?
Launching in September 2026, the £1.8 billion Experts at Hand programme will fund local authorities and health boards to build and commission local banks of SEND specialists, who will work alongside schools and colleges to identify needs and deploy early support. Its core goal is to deploy educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, and specialist teachers directly into mainstream settings to deliver early, targeted interventions before needs escalate.
The workforce challenge facing Experts at Hand
As of November 2025, more than 64,000 children and young people were waiting to see a speech and language therapist, according to NHS England community waiting time data. Meanwhile, 88% of local authority principal educational psychologists reported difficulties recruiting staff, while 19% of teachers who needed support from an educational psychologist said they had been unable to access it.
These workforce gaps cannot be resolved overnight, as these roles require extensive specialist training. The government has committed more than £40 million over three years to grow the educational psychology and speech and language therapy workforce, including funding to train more than 200 additional educational psychologists each year from 2026 and 2027.
The investment is clearly necessary, but it also highlights the timescale involved. Expanding the workforce is a long-term solution. However, children experiencing barriers to education now, and the schools supporting them, still need access to appropriate expertise while that pipeline develops.
Experts At Hand isn’t just about recruitment, but access
Workforce shortages understandably dominate much of the discussion around SEND reform. Most mainstream schools cannot realistically maintain their own teams of educational psychologists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and specialist teachers. The range of needs within a school community is simply too broad for every form of expertise to sit permanently within one setting.
The programme funds services that individual schools and education settings could not commission alone, creating a new route to specialist health and education support through local partnerships. Its purpose extends beyond recruiting professionals; the programme aims to improve how schools access specialist advice and support.
The long-term question for SEND is not simply how many additional specialists the system can train. It is also how effectively existing expertise can be deployed, shared and made available to schools when they need it.
Expertise does not have to sit inside every school
Shared specialist services are one part of the picture. The Experts at Hand model itself is based on local authorities and Integrated Care Boards working together to provide expertise that individual schools could not reasonably commission alone.
Government guidance also emphasises advice, coaching and collaboration across education, health and care as part of developing local specialist support.
This also creates broader opportunities for the education sector. Alternative provision, specialist settings and organisations working with children facing complex barriers to education already hold considerable practical expertise. The question is how to make that knowledge and capacity more accessible to mainstream schools that may need additional support but lack the resources to develop every form of provision internally.
For some learners, the barrier to education is not academic ability or a lack of willingness to learn. Anxiety, medical needs, prolonged absence and other circumstances can make a traditional school environment difficult to access. Supporting these pupils requires understanding how to rebuild engagement and how provision can adapt without lowering expectations.
Alternative provision has a role to play in Experts At Hand
Alternative provision is often discussed primarily in terms of placements: where a young person goes when mainstream education is no longer meeting their needs.
The expertise developed through this work is highly practical. It involves maintaining educational continuity when a pupil cannot access a physical classroom and creating conditions for a young person to begin engaging with learning again.
Academy21 works with thousands of schools and local authorities to support pupils experiencing these kinds of barriers. Our provision is DfE-accredited and covers Key Stages 2 to 5, with enrolment in as little as 48 hours. Our live lessons are delivered by UK-qualified, trauma-informed, experienced teachers, and we have a dedicated team of SEND professionals who are highly qualified and experienced in supporting students with complex needs, from specific SEND needs such as autism and ADHD to behaviour challenges.
Flexible alternative provision like Academy21 should be part of the wider network available to schools, allowing them to easily extend capacity while guaranteeing zero overhead for the school and immediate support for every student.
It’s another critical route to experienced educators and flexible learning when the schools’ capacity is limited. Critically, it’s incredibly flexible, with short-term and long-term options for students, as well as bespoke programmes for every school to access the expertise and provision they need, when they need it, without long-term contractual obligations.
Pupils can access Academy21 classes from home, school, hospital settings or other specialist provision, while schools retain oversight of their progress through dedicated partner platforms. Access to provision that can respond to changing circumstances may become increasingly valuable as schools navigate a SEND system placing greater emphasis on inclusion and earlier intervention.
Making better use of sector expertise
Current waiting lists and recruitment difficulties demonstrate the scale of the need. The Experts at Hand programme also raises a broader question about how the SEND system understands and distributes expertise.
The government’s own Experts at Hand guidance recognises the value of bringing education and health professionals around mainstream settings, with a focus on specialist advice, direct support and workforce development.
Alternative provision providers can contribute to this wider infrastructure. That does not mean positioning AP as a replacement for specialist health services, or suggesting that online provision can resolve every challenge facing SEND. It means recognising the educational expertise already in the sector and considering how schools can access it when their own resources are stretched. As demand grows and workforce pressures continue, accessible educational capacity will matter.
Delivery will determine whether reform succeeds
There is understandable attention on the policy detail of SEND reform. Changes to EHCPs, Individual Support Plans and funding arrangements will have significant consequences for children, families and schools, and the debate around these reforms will continue.
The concerns emerging from local authorities, however, remind us that policy ambition and practical delivery are not the same.
A new inclusion standard will only improve outcomes if schools have the knowledge and support required to put it into practice. Earlier intervention will only work if children can access appropriate help before their needs escalate. Experts at Hand will only fulfil its promise if local areas can recruit, retain and deploy the professionals required to make specialist expertise genuinely accessible.
The workforce will unavoidably need to grow. But access to expertise does not always require another permanent staff member. It can involve specialist services, experienced providers, and flexible educational models that schools can bring in when their internal capacity reaches its limits.
Reach out to our friendly team if you would like to learn more about Academy21’s expertise and how we can support your school and students.
