• New £12,155,170 investment provided to council to set up ‘Experts at Hand’ offer
• Service to provide early support and fast access to specialists for Kent’s children
• Funding follows Labour’s investment to create new specialist SEND places in Ashford

Sojan Joseph, MP for Ashford, Hawkinge, and the Villages has today (15/04/2026) welcomed significant investment from the Labour government into local SEND provision. Kent County Council is to be allocated £12,155,170 to set up a new ‘Experts at Hand’ offer.
As announced in February’s Schools White Paper, the service is designed to provide children with early support and fast access to professionals like speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, and educational psychologists. The offer will involve partnerships between special schools, alternative provision, and mainstream settings to put support in place without needing to go through lengthy assessment processes.

Families in Kent have expressed concerns about long waits in the SEND system, which has led to issues escalating to crisis point before intervention. Labour’s reforms set out in the Schools White Paper, including the introduction of Experts at Hand, are designed to move support earlier in the process, closer to home, without parents having to fight for it.
The final guidance for Experts at Hand will be published next month, setting out how Kent County Council should use the funding to start standing up the service and the grant conditions associated with it.

Minister for School Standards, Georgia Gould, said:
“Too often, young people with SEND face a long wait for the support they need, holding them back from building important skills and thriving in education.
“We recently set out our generational SEND reforms to turn this around, and now, we’re getting on and backing councils with the funding needed to transform the system and make sure every young person receives the right support early on.
“Our Experts at Hand offer will make sure families don’t face a postcode lottery in support by boosting teacher capacity and ensuring nurseries, schools and colleges across the country have access to a bank of specialists who are ready to provide the additional help children may need.
“We’re clear that opportunity is for every child and that’s why we’re also putting £9 billion in to widen access to supported internships in every region – opening doors for more for young people with SEND to build the confidence, skills and relationships they deserve.”

MP for Ashford, Hawkinge, and the Villages Sojan Joseph said:
“I’ve heard from families in Ashford at the roundtables I’ve hosted over the past year about the incredible waits they’ve faced to get the support their children deserve.
“The motivation behind Labour’s changes to the SEND system is to put support in place earlier and more quickly, so issues don’t escalate and families get the help they need without a fight.
“Experts at Hand will open up access to specialist support that for too long has been unattainable, so that every child in Ashford’s can achieve and thrive.”
The announcement follows last month’s high needs capital allocations, where Kent County Council received a £28m – a £4m increase from the previous year – to create new specialist SEND places and enable more children to attend their local school. The funding was part of a record amount allocated to councils nationally.
A public consultation on SEND reforms is ongoing. Parents, children and young people across Kent alongside sector professionals, are invited to share insights, evidence, and feedback.