Abstract
The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system in England was reformed in 2014, including the introduction of child-centred legally binding education, health and care plans (EHCPs) and expectations for improved multi-agency working coordinated by local authorities (LAs). Since then, service-user satisfaction has declined, and children’s outcomes have not improved. Critics cite local variation in SEND provision and limited accountability for implementation failures as contributing factors. This scoping review summarises peer-reviewed and grey literature as well as open-access data sources reporting LA and multi-academy trust (MAT) level variation in SEND provision to identify key reasons for local variation SEND services, and data sources that could be used to better monitor local public bodies. We identified and graded 120 articles/reports (18 peer-reviewed, 102 grey) and 8 open-access data sources. The literature investigated nine topic areas; most studies were low quality. Eight open-access data sources included information about SEND prevalence, demand and provision complaints. Our review highlights that LAs were underprepared and under-resourced to implement the reforms. The administration involved in EHCPs contribute to variation in multiple ways. Greater standardisation and guidance for professionals could reduce variation. Existing data sources could be better used to improve monitoring and accountability for local provision, which should include MATs given their potential to influence SEND provision. Low-quality studies dominated the grey literature. More rigorous methods and reporting standards could also improve decision-making and service planning.
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Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files, except for domain-specific quality grades for each included study—these are available from the authors on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
Our review formed part of the HOPE study: Health Outcomes for young People throughout Education. We would like to acknowledge the support and input from our advisory group, wider HOPE team and steering group members including: Ruth Gilbert, Vincent Nguyen, Ania Zylbersztejn, Kate Lewis, Ayana Cant Matthew Jay, Ruth Blackburn, Stuart Logan, Jugnoo Rahi, Johnny Downs & Matthew Lilliman.This research was supported by Health Data Research UK under grant No. LOND1, which is funded by the UK Medical Research Council and eight other funders. Tamsin Ford is supported by a NIHR senior investigator award. All research at the Department of Psychiatry in the University of Cambridge benefits from the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR203312) and NIHR Applied Research Collaboration East of England. This study/project is funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research Programme (Grant Reference number NIHR- NIHR202025). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.
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JS conceived and designed the review, supervised by KBH and TF. TF secured the research funding. AA, JM, JS, IW, EC, and NN performed the literature searches, data extraction and study grading. JS and OW wrote the manuscript with editing support from AA and TF. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.
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This review did not involve human participants, and specific ethical approval was not required. Ethical approval for the overall study (of which this sub-study forms a part) was granted by the University of Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee (PRE.2021.058).
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Saxton, J.C., Albajara Saenz, A., Williams, O. et al. Examining local level variation in Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) service provision and associated data sources in England: a scoping review. Humanit Soc Sci Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-06319-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-06319-0
