Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance the Department plans to issue to help ensure that Individual Support Plans (ISPs) are portable across phases and settings, including post‑16 and further education.

There will be a statutory duty on schools and colleges to produce an Individual Support Plan (ISP) for every child or young person receiving targeted or specialist support, ensuring help keeps pace with their development, prevents challenges from escalating, and reduces the risk of them disengaging from learning.

Our ambition is that ISPs will be interactive, easy to use and available in a digital format, supporting consistency across the system and smoother transitions for children moving between settings and phases, as well as reducing workload for teachers and educators. Drawing on user‑centred research with schools, post-16 settings, families and professionals, we are exploring how best to design the ISP as well as exploring digital approaches, so that it reduces workload for teachers and educators by bringing information together in one place and cutting down on duplicated recording, while also supporting smoother transitions so children get the support they need in their new setting from the very beginning.