To ask you to explain SEND funding and bankrupt councils to me?

[Myanna]

I've read a few articles like this one:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/feb/05/send-costs-bankrupt-english-local-authorities

But I don't understand why the cost of funding SEND is so high that it's going to potentially/actually make most councils insolvent.

It's not like provision is generous or easy to get, from what I've read (I don't have a child who is supported).

Were these kids previously just not supported in any way by the state and was it left to families to cope as best they could?
Are these kids who previously wouldn't have survived, but now do because of better medical care and therefore need a lot of help?
Is this private equity running enterprises and charging huge amounts to local authorities?
Is it just inflation and the cost of employing people?

I really don't know much about this at all but I'm sure many on here do, so I'd really welcome your knowledge.

What happens to these services once the councils are insolvent?

I think I must quite local to you but my LA is clased as Greater Manchester
But I agree there is absolutely no need for either the colours or the labelling.

Because they aren't the problem. Even the top 1%, senior doctors and head teachers get into that bracket, they are living and mixing with the rest of us. It's the 0.0001% that are the problem, the billionaires. They seem untouchable though.

Those minibuses are awful. They haven't looked at this through the eyes and dignity of the young people at all.

Doctors and senior head teachers - why would i excempt them? Because you approve of their job? They would still take home more than people who earn less

If the billionaires are untouchable then we need to look elsewhere - unless you are happy to write off these children ?

although we can change the environment that stops pumping money into the billionaires pockets and make their wealth grow less quickly with the right policies

i actually agree with you

A mum I know with twins with SEND is costing her local council at least £80k a year, as both of them are at a private school for SEND pupils and their fees are covered in full. She is currently in the process of trying to get the council to fund their sixth form at another eye-wateringly expensive private school, the local sixth form apparently 'not meeting their needs'. Her whole life is spent advocating for her DC and taking the local council to tribunal, as far as I can tell. She doesn't have a job and she's made it her business to know the law around this stuff better than the councillors do.

I know of a disabled child that attends a top fee paying school with the fees paid by the LEA - £60k per year.

The parents argued that the child needed smaller class sizes due to the disability. So, it isn't always true that non-disabled kids get a better education than disabled kids.

I agree with this
I’m an adolescents team social worker and am baffled by the whole issue of parents using school transport in circumstances you describe here- one non working parent -DLA /Carers allowance and a mobility car yet still rely on state funded transport.

"she's made it her business to know the law around this stuff better than the councillors do."

Good for her although in my experience it's not difficult to know more about the law than the LA or councillors do.

It is the LA,s responsibility to find and fund a school that meets a child's needs if one can't be found in the LA but it can come at an eye watering cost so many LA,s are reluctant to do this if this mother has proved the school is the only school that csn meet her child's needs than good for her as its by no means easy
And the LA will always go for the cheapest option.

The issue is that these people are already highly taxed, will have huge student loans that will whip away an extra 9% of their earnings and may not be wealthy at all if living in London. We know high earners are already disproportionately taxed compared to middle earners and there are far more middle earners so it is far more lucrative to target them.

I suspect the reality is that there simply isn't the appetite amongst the struggling middle to fund SEN education in the way that many parents want. Nobody is wrong. The parents want the best for their children as we all do. The middle earners would have to make meaningful cuts to their lifestyle and their children's quality of life to fund the extortionately expensive education of someone that realistically will often never be a taxpayer and be dependent on the state for the rest of their lives.

Despite what many believe on this thread, very few people are cruel or have a complete disregard for disabled people. With a quarter of our population now disabled, almost all of us will have a family member or close friend that is disabled. The problem. Is though that funding someone to the tune of £100k plus a year needs an awful lot of taxpayers to fund them. You would need Council tax from 44 households to fund this placement and they wouldn't be funding anything else. Even if we use income tax then you would need 56 of the lowest 10% of income tax payers to fund the placement or two households in the top 10% of income tax payers. Remember they would be funding nothing else and not contributing to the NHS, potentially holes, defence etc. This would just pay for one child's education for one year.

I would have thought a social worker would have had more insight into reasons rather than making such ignorant comments
Quite worrying really.

Out of interest, if you could drive would you drive your child to school?

No because it causes huge disruption to the routine plus we did have to drive him for a few weeks at beginning of the school year
I had to wait outside the security gates with a teenager who couldn't understand why he couldnt immediately be let in causing him frustration and getting upset whilst staff were attending the children off the buses
And whilst he might also get frustrated on the bus he is in a harness so can't get up hes also inside the locked security gates so not a flight risk.

I suspect the reality is that there simply isn't the appetite amongst the struggling middle to fund SEN education in the way that many parents want. Nobody is wrong. The parents want the best for their children as we all do. The middle earners would have to make meaningful cuts to their lifestyle and their children's quality of life to fund the extortionately expensive education of someone that realistically will often never be a taxpayer and be dependent on the state for the rest of their lives.

Despite what many believe on this thread, very few people are cruel or have a complete disregard for disabled people. With a quarter of our population now disabled, almost all of us will have a family member or close friend that is disabled. The problem. Is though that funding someone to the tune of £100k plus a year needs an awful lot of taxpayers to fund them. You would need Council tax from 44 households to fund this placement and they wouldn't be funding anything else. Even if we use income tax then you would need 56 of the lowest 10% of income tax payers to fund the placement or two households in the top 10% of income tax payers. Remember they would be funding nothing else and not contributing to the NHS, potentially holes, defence etc. This would just pay for one child's education for one year

Agree with all of this. We just need to see some proportionality in the system. I'd love to pay for gold plated everything for everyone, but when we are seeing really important services pared to the bone and cuts left right in the center and very little investment in mainstream education then we have to accept that difficult decisions need to be made about how much can be spent on SEN.

I'm working a full-time as a higher rate taxpayer despite severe disability myself which limits my quality of life but which I do not claim benefits for because I earn a good salary. We each have a responsibility not to be greedy in how much state support we seek.

As discussed on the universal credit thread we've become a nation of entitled people who just can't see that there isn't an infinite budget for handouts however much we would love there to be.

The consequence is roads riddled with potholes, a healthcare service that is breaking at the seams, no money for libraries or playgrounds and mainstream schools running on ridiculously tight budgets

We have to accept that council budgets are finite and so is the government budget and that there needs to be a sensible balance in how it is spent

Unless your disabilities mean you are not able to care for yourself independently or travel independently from A to B
You may find you are not entitled to disability benefits anyway lots of disabled people aren't.

Yep.

Why is it a bad thing that a parent is advocating for their disabled children and educating themselves on the law?

It just seems as if parents of disabled children can't win. They need to take more responsibility and do more but apparently should also not advocate for their children and remain ignorant to relevant laws.

SEND funding has not been “cut to the bone”

Actually, it has tripled in 10 years, from about £5bn to £15bn per year in England.

And how do you think our SEN children will access a mainstream curriculum without SEN support?

I work full time from home because I would not be able to travel.

We are in an area subject to local government reorganisation. SEN provision is a key topic as some of the proposals would leave newly formed councils with much higher percentages of children needing Sen provision due to population demographics and poverty/deprivation. If you are in an area subject to local government reorganisation the consultation is now open for you to comment before the government decision later this year.

I drive my son to school. It’s 22 miles each way and I take him/pick him up every day. He gets high rate DLA but low rate care so I own the car, not on mobility as that seems to make a difference. It’s what’s best for him so I do it. However you also have someone on the road who some days hasn’t slept, and I mean at all. The other day my son woke at the 11.30pm and stayed awake all night with me downstairs with him before taking him to school. I had my 4 year old all day and then drive another 44 miles to pick him up/back.

The being awake all night is not every day but it’s frequent enough and he’s awake before 5 every day without fail. It’s just parenting and I’m not special or unique but these things don’t just exist in isolation. It’s not always as simple as saying- DLA + taxi = lazy parent. I was not safe to drive but there’s no choice.

Additionally, until specialist schools are built and children have access to a local school then they (and not the parents, the children) are entitled to transport to their school. The issues don’t exist in isolation.

I'm absolutely astounded by some of the posts on here. SEND provisions are woeful in my neck of the woods.

My DC has fuck all provisions (despite an EHCP and additional funding of £12k per year). We take her out of school at the moment and pay £1k per month for private SEN tuition to keep her on track with her peer group 🙄

It's the same thing whole school over. Very few 1:1's, kids with clear and obvious needs not being awarded EHCP's, SEN TA's being overloaded. In my DC class alone there are 7 kids with SEN. Only 3 have an EHCP. The funding is pooled.

The same is happening in schools all over my borough.

SEN funding isn't going to bankrupt the council as the kids just aren't getting it.

This just isn’t true though - the deficits that councils are running up are predicted to risk 4 in 5 councils becoming bankrupt in effect. These deficits alone are predicted to reach £14bn by 2027.
These are government figures, or do you know better?