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SEND Strategy Governance Board

Four adults and one child sat down having a conversation.

Overview

The SEND Strategy Governance Board (SGB) has members who represent the large number of different groups and services that help and support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

It's the main job of the board to make sure that the East Sussex SEND Strategy is working.

The board:

We have created a video that introduces the SGB:

Previous Board Meetings

Notes from the most recent meeting (15 January 2026)

We met to agree a timetable and process to develop the next East Sussex SEND Strategy. The current strategy (2022 to 2025) was extended to 2026. This was done to make sure that we can use new national government policy on SEND. We expect this policy to be described in a White Paper soon to be put before parliament, to guide our planning for East Sussex.

As we develop our SEND Strategy, we will need to be guided by government policy as it is announced. We will need to build the improvements raised in the East Sussex Area Inspection Report (published in April 2025), into the Strategy.

Our meeting heard from the three expert groups who inform our Board. We were able to share those updates with representatives from the DfE (Department for Education). The DfE are supporting our work to improve support for children and young people in East Sussex.

We discussed the ways in which planned changes to the way the NHS operates in Sussex will affect our planning of SEND improvements. The Sussex ICB (Integrated Care Board) will merge with Surrey ICB from April 2026.

Changes are also planned to local government in our area, but have been postponed until 2028.

We agreed on a timetable to create a new East Sussex SEND Strategy (2026 to 2031) to be agreed by our Board at our 22 June 2026 meeting. This strategy will then:

It will be developed in such a way that it is able to focus on the improvements called for by the Area Inspection. It will also follow the national policy guidance that we expect in the White Paper mentioned above. 

Every Board member supported this planned way forward. Our members represent:

We will report back on progress towards the new SEND Strategy at our next meeting, 30 April 2026.

SEND Strategy Governance Board meeting notes:

If you would like to request any documents mentioned in the meeting notes, please email:

Members of the Board

A photo of David Smith.
A photo of Carolyn Fair.
A photo of Bob Standley.
A photo of Holly Riley-Saxby.
A photo of Sarah Speedie.
A photo of Jessica Stubbings.
A photo of Elizabeth Funge.
A photo of Honor Green.
A photo of Jane Flock.
Photo of Caroline Tozzi.
A photo of Chrys Poullikas.
A photo of Sally Pollanski.
Photo of Louise Moor.
A photo of Anne Marie Waite.
A photo of Emma Buggy.
A photo of Fenalla Potterton.
A photo of Peter Houlders.
A photo of Andrea Ferns.

Glossary of East Sussex SEND Terms

We explain some of the terms used on this website on our page, Glossary of East Sussex SEND Terms.

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