A local authority campaign group that campaigns for reform and fairness in education has backed a new report calling for a major rethink on SEND.
f40 said the report by the National Audit Office (NAO) on the crisis in SEND provision and funding mirrored many of their own concerns and was evidence that measures put in place to solve the issues, while welcome, were unlikely to work.
Cllr Alex Dale, Chair of f40, said: “We are heartened to receive this report because it clearly states many of the issues that we have been raising around rising demands on the SEND system and a lack of resources, funding and provision to meet those needs, which is failing everyone, especially children.
“For those local authorities and schools that receive among the lowest funding, the issues are even greater. We do need a whole system overhaul, but we also need fairer funding to ensure all children have access to the same opportunities and resources, regardless of where they live.
“The current SEND system is unsustainable. We agree that we need to invest in mainstream schools and ensure they are better supported to provide SEND provision. While there will always be a need for specialist provision for some children with the most complex needs, we need to work hard to improve confidence in parents that our mainstream schools are able to meet the needs of the majority of children who require extra help.
“To achieve this, we will need to better balance the accountability schools have across both their academic achievement and their inclusive practice, along with policy reforms to enable local authorities and schools to create a welcoming environment for all children with SEND.
“And we must also invest in early intervention so that children are given additional support as soon as problems first arise. The sooner we can help them, the better their outcomes will be.
“f40 is asking that school and SEND funding is levelled up across England, and that Government clears the huge deficit SEND budgets that have developed among local authorities in England in recent years through no fault of their own. We need to reset with a whole new approach, and we can’t do that with enormous debts that are threatening to topple so many councils.”
The National Audit Office report concluded:
- Following the Children and Families Act 2014, there have been significant increases in the number of children identified as having SEN, particularly those with education, health and care (EHC) plans specifying a need for support in more expensive settings.
- Since 2015, demand for EHC plans has increased 140%, leading to 576,000 children with plans in 2024. There has also been a 14% increase in the number of those with SEN support, to 1.14 million pupils in school. These changes have increased the cost of the SEN system.
- Although DfE has increased high-needs funding, with a 58% real-terms increase between 2014-15 and 2024-25 to £10.7 billion, the system is still not delivering better outcomes for children and young people or preventing local authorities from facing significant financial risks.
- DfE estimates that some 43% of local authorities will have deficits exceeding or close to their reserves in March 2026. This contributes to a cumulative deficit of between £4.3 billion and £4.9 billion when accounting arrangements that stop these deficits impacting local authority reserves are due to end. As such, the current system is not achieving value for money and is unsustainable.
- DfE has been implementing its 2023 plan for system improvement, but there remain significant doubts that current actions will resolve the challenges facing the system. None of the stakeholders we spoke to believed current plans would be effective.
- The government has not yet identified a solution to manage local authority deficits arising from SEN costs, and ongoing savings programmes are not designed to address these challenges.
- Given that the current system costs over £10 billion a year, and that demand for SEN provision is forecast to continue increasing, the government needs to think urgently about how its current investment can be better spent, including through more inclusive education, identifying and addressing needs earlier, and developing a whole-system approach to help achieve its objectives.
