A large part of the cost is the failure to provide sufficient special schools, so private equity have moved in, with large profit-making chains, often miles from the child's home so taxis are needed (and before that sounds like a perk, imagine putting your incredibly vulnerable child in a car with a completely strange man for an hour every morning and afternoon). School transport isn't just a SEND right - any child whose nearest possible suitable school is more than 3 miles away gets transported. It's just that the most vulnerable kids in the community are sent long distances, often out of county, due to lack of spaces.
State specialists can be between £10,000 and £30,000 a year. £10,000 is less than an EHCP child costs in mainstream (because to get an EHCP, the provision must cost more than the baseline, which is around £5,000 to £8,000 per pupil, plus £6,000 from the SEND additional budget). And specialists aren't a blob, like SEN bases are suggested to be. Their intake is targeted - so, is the child autistic with an IQ between 15th and 50th centile? If so, a local Outstanding state specialist offers an excellent and accessible tailored education, with standard offer academically so those kids can take GCSEs, BTECs, and learn well and effectively. Intake between 5th and 25th, or with significant PDA traits meaning the learning should be play-based and creative? Another fantastic local state specialist works with that intake. IQ between 1st and 10th? Again, a school offering sensory spaces, gentle phonics etc offers them a targeted and tailored offer, also fantastic school. Challenging behaviour due to trauma or deprivation leading to extreme aggression (think, excluded from 3 mainstreams) and there is a therapeutic, highly structured specialist.
What we lack are schools that are "mainstream plus", as on planes with premium economy. Some autistic kids can't cope with lots of people, noise, smell, stimulation and so mainstream schools are terrifying places and they will never be able to avoid significant harm. Their minds are different, so they will never be able to access an education not set up for them. Dyspraxia is almost normal amongst that cohort, so PE is inaccessible. But because they are academically able, nobody cares, despite the fact that almost all school refusal due to mental health is now recognised as in this group and PTSD from school for them almost normal. If their parents know what to do, they can force an EHCP and an education that doesn't break them, but all too often that happens only after they break down in mid-teens (completely stop being able to attend school, or self-harm, or develop eating disorders, or retreat to their rooms, or attack someone in school.... or some combination if that list, plus more). If those kids had schools that were built for them from the start, then all that could be avoided. Smaller classes, sensory audits to make the space accessible, teachers who were trained and properly understanding, PE that was designed with an OT and physio to work on the commonly absent skills, just a space designed for them... it would cost less than they cost in mainstream at the moment and the outcome for the state would be phenomenally better, as they would be able to grow up functional, contributing adults. I know that would work, because at the moment kids with EHCPs and this profile are often placed in independent mainstream as a sort of half-way house (or parents pay for it, in desperation). I know because I was once one of them, undiagnosed, and under the assisted places scheme went to a small independent school full of girls like me, before going to Cambridge.
Phillipson's reforms shove all SEN under one heading. So you'll get a base for all needs - anxious, clever 11 year old autistic girls will be shoved in a space with someone who is simply profoundly deaf, no other needs, who will be alongside angry, traumatised kids from horrific home circumstances, who will be alongside teenage boys whose autism is expressed in violence and the need for control. All actually need specialist schools, and if the state built them, it would save a fortune long-term because most of those kids, if properly supported and educated, could grow up to live independently and earn and pay tax. Instead, many will need social care, some will end up in prisons, and almost all will rely on benefits and the NHS to a heavy extent. How is that cost-effective?
We need to reduce reliance on private special schools and school transport, yes. But the intelligent way to do that is to build more special schools, tailored to various needs, and to allow kids to access them earlier - before devastating harm has been caused by inappropriate placement in mainstream (which is horrendous for teachers, and really harms the education of typically developing peers, too - if there are three very high needs kids in every state classroom, and no money for support for them, then who do people think the teachers will have to be focusing on?).
That is how you save money and deliver better. State specialists, and many more of them, that work for all the kids, so far fewer private schools are needed and way, way less insane reliance on transporting kids miles and miles, just to be able to access a school.
Instead, Phillipson is trumpeting a removal of the rights of disabled kids, in a way that will harm teachers and pupils in mainstreams at the same time. That 4 billion, split up amongst all the schools in the country, is just one TA per school. How's that going to make inclusion possible? And as for that 200 million for training.... it's across 4 years, and amounts to £50 per staff member. When you think that the Department for Education spend £360 million in 4 years on marketing and advertising alone, you get some sort of an idea of where the priorities actually are.