New inclusion funding has landed. The evidence is due before you know it.

The Inclusive Mainstream Fund (IMF) is new, ring-fenced government funding announced in the February 2026 schools white paper, as part of the wider SEND reform programme. It is worth over £500 million a year across early years, schools and post-16, of which £83 million a year is for mainstream settings delivering 16 to 19 provision.

It is not a competitive grant. Allocations are calculated from your disadvantaged learner numbers using the 16 to 19 disadvantage block 2 methodology, weighted by study programme intensity. There is one payment, which the DfE expects to pay in July 2026.

The allocation basis matters more than it looks. The DfE chose low prior attainment because it considers this "most appropriate to recognise the distribution of students with special educational needs between providers". In other words, your allocation is sized by the learners most likely to have unidentified needs. Finding them is the first thing the fund expects you to do with it.

The reforms describe four layers of support: universal, targeted, targeted plus and specialist. The IMF is mainstream money for the universal and targeted layers, the support you give in ordinary classrooms. It does not pay for EHCP assessment, EHCP-named provision or specialist placements, which stay with the local authority through the high-needs block, with specialist expertise resourced separately through the £1.8 billion Experts at Hand programme. The fund is for meeting more need in your ordinary classrooms, earlier.

Independent training providers share a smaller slice of the 16 to 19 envelope, around £4 million in total, so individual IMF allocations are often modest. If apprenticeships are the core of your provision, your stronger funding argument is usually learning support funding recovery, not the IMF alone.

SEND reform goes further than the fund. Under the proposals in the February 2026 schools white paper and the current "Putting children and young people first" consultation, colleges are expected to hold a digital Individual Support Plan for every learner on targeted, targeted plus or specialist support. The plan is owned by the college, not the local authority, with assess, plan and review repeated for each learner. Legislation is not expected before 2029, but the direction is set. That is a workload that lands on every tutor, not a specialist team. Cognassist's personalised support plans are built to serve as that record.

"For young people with additional needs that cannot be met through the universal offer of support alone, targeted provision should be implemented as soon as needs emerge." — Inclusive mainstream fund: best practice for 16 to 19 settings, Department for Education, 25 March 2026.

The IMF does not end when the money is spent. FE institutions must set out how they will use the funding within their accountability statement, performance is reviewed annually through strategic conversations, and the DfE can escalate through its oversight and intervention processes where outcomes are weak. Settings must also show how the funding improves their universal offer. A point solution that helps you deliver support but cannot evidence it leaves you exposed at exactly the moment it matters.

Cognassist is built so that delivering support and evidencing it are the same action.

"Further education institutions will be required to set out how they will use this funding to transition towards the reformed system within their accountability statement, ensuring public accountability." — Inclusive mainstream fund for 16 to 19 providers: methodology, Department for Education, 25 March 2026.