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.

The equality act defines a disability as a long term impairment that significantly impacts on physical, cognitive or mental health. About 24% of UK population classifies as this according to statistics.

If you think of the huge variety of disabilities, ill health wtc then I would say 20% of children having some kind of need for additional support isnt a suprise.

Especially given the education system and what used to be standard has been cut to the bone. My friends child is 18 and in a complex needs provision. Very verbal and can present as able but actually has significant learning disability as well as autism, pda.

When he was a toddler he had portage, speech and language therapy wtc. Then when he started school they had a meeting and at that point he didnt have a statement as it then was. The school STILL provided a 1:1 and he was held back a year so did reception twice, then year one twice before then getting a statement and a specialist placement. The system was more flexible, there was more support available.

By contrast my own child age 9 has some very similar needs, autism, pda, also tourettes, absence type seizures and other needs (trying not to go in to too much detail) but he had no support at all until I battled for an ehcp in year 2. By which time he was unable to access the toilet all day in school, was not accessing curriculum or much learning at all. But he wasnt 'too disruptive ' so he was left. I said he was not going to manage in yr 3 without much more support. And within weeks of transferring to junior school placement started to fall apart. By the January he was on a part time timetable, unable to eat or use toilet. Not accessing any learning and getting so overwhelmed it was unsafe. But LA said mainstream was fine despite EP and OT reports detailing overwhelm. He cant cope with being around that many people his current provision is at home EOTAS as no school in county to meet needs.

But he had to completely fail in mainstream first, then had a year with NO provision at all whilst I battled the local authority to get support. Had he have had the opportunity to be held back a year (I asked..no) but if he had been born ONE day later I legally could have insisted he was held back a year. If he had had smaller class sizes, some TA support, adapted curriculum. Staff trained in PDA he could have managed primary school I think. As it was there was no support at all. Even basic sensory accomodations I had to fight for.

His education is now expensive 9hours a week is all he currently gets, we will be increasing it in line with capacity and ability but that alone is costing £40,000 a year. Its 2:1 at home and the LA are also stating (illegally) that I have to supervise it. This means I can no longer work as a solo parent (court ordered no contact with other parent for safety)

Yes I am following appropriate complaints procedures and at point of having to go to Judicial review. An independent officer has investigated and found failings, non legal practice by LA... they dont care. Its cheaper to ignore findings, drag it out to judicial review. In the meantime I am on unpaid parental leave and reliant on benefits.

For context my elder 3 children all adults, working, living independently etc 2 of them also autistic and one has health needs too but he got some support with a statement or ehcp.

I also have 14 and 17 yr old autistic/adhd managing fine with a bit of support. One at college, the other needing some adjustment at high school and leaving one academy chain because they are being awful but I dont have the energy to fight. They are a top set, cognitively able child.. not that anyones cognitive ability defines them or their worth. But the fact that a mainstream high school environment wont make simple adaptations when in years gone by there was more flexibility, is partly why SO many parents end up battling for EHCP.

Investing in early support, having state owned specialist schools, making mainstream more adaptive and inclusive would all help.

But we would need to fundamentally look at structure of schools, class sizes, curriculum. I worked in mainstream and left because I couldn't cope with how many children were being failed. I work in complex needs now (or did) which is better but even there funding, staffing etc are all suffering.

Thank you to those on this thread who have taken the time to explain repeatedly and advicate for our vulnerable. Some of the attitudes shown are awful but not surprising.

Yes agree with this. Also EHCP plans so many are appalling written and not enforceable BUT a lot of the adaptations listed dont always cost lots of money many are more basic readable adjustments and accomodations that would have happened without an EHCP before. But lack of staffing, lack of investment, intensive curriculum and a system that just does not have the flexibility it did have and needs. Means more kids are needing the formality and protection (hollow laugh) of an EHCP..

Also lots of schools end up with holding pens of children who need specialist but no places and unless their parents fight it tribunal then they wont get a place because the LA is happy to leave them. A lot of kids are just about managed in primary but then no plans are made for high school snd it falls apart.

For refs just google for news stories at the time. It was quite big news then. Eg news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6215847.stm

This came up you might like too
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN02253/SN02253.pdf

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30306579 (WW1)

I view privatization, the destruction of local councils, the restriction on local council financing, all as entirely artificial crises caused by neoliberal ideology. Neoliberal economics is a re-run of Victorian liberal economics intended to produce an imperial economy which ran on the impoverishment of the working classes and involved a lot of lying propaganda then, just as it does now. There is one hell of a lot of money in this country, the question is how it us to be distributed, so yes, money will always be found by the rich for the rich.

There are many alternative economic paths and there were many other roads Britain could take prior to 2016, evidenced by our colleagues in Europe who did things differently and our own economy in the post war ‘trentes gloriouses’ which somehow, despite being smaller and poorer and still carrying war debt managed to be so much better for so many. The problem is inequality and how much of it all of our governments, neoliberalists all, have desired to bring back and inflict on us while telling us to be more change positive and manage change better among some other propaganda gems (this is my living memory if you hadn’t guessed). There were many economics textbooks and books written exploring other paths, before we went too far down the rabbit hole and all capacity for thought now seems to be lost. We follow Americas path and are just waiting for Britain’s Trump.
The Spirit Level book and The Equality Trust, resulting organisation and website, are always good places to start for the social and cultural implications of economics.

Economies are, especially the modern iterations, artificial and engineered. There’s no such thing as the free market. The very currency itself is now entirely fictional.

I read something interesting the other day about thinking like a developing country (because day to day life in Britain is now third-world standard) and changing economic priorities again that may be of interest, has some history in it https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/05/britain-manufacturing-power-developing-country-lessons-china

I think a lot of talk of deservedness etc is a red herring. The question is how do we sustain a population with such a high level of needs going forwards. My other thread has put a good guess at around 20% of children now having diagnosed SEN. That’s going to be a LOT of adults with needs, and while of course many of them will work, right now the majority of autistic adults do not work and are very over represented in the prison population etc

I feel like this is a public crisis about to happen, but everyone’s denying the grass is green.

Tax the rich. We need our money back. Stop privatisation, rebuild democracy built on local government (and free speech and decent media are a known part of that, the loss of which politicians themselves have been decrying for years). And find some way via law and constitution to stop individual governments ever selling off the Commons, communally-owned public sector industries and infrastructure ever again.

Sadly I think this sits on the other side of a new Dark Age now. A Dark Age freely chosen and inflicted deliberately upon the country by the greed of its elites working with a globalised super-rich.

Which rich people should we be taxing and how?

Most of UK income tax is already paid by a pretty small fraction of people. Growth would be better.

I don't think it's true that autistic adults are overrepresented in the prison population - men yes, ADHD yes.

Thanks for the references.

I had to make a HUGE fuss to get transition support for my daughter from year 6 to year 7. To me it was such an obvious risk point for an autistic child who'd been at the same primary since age 3.

Transition from one educational phase to another is something this country is truly dreadful at. See also nursery to school, year 11 to sixth form and school to university.

The many billionaires who have been created. I personally would target baby boomer landlords and their feckless children who inherited tenants as serfs.

The reason why the tax burden is unbalanced now is directly due to the impoverishment of working people and destruction of the working economy. It was a deliberate choice to allow low wages which do not pay the cost of living and are too low to tax meaningfully. It was a deliberate choice to recreate a serf population who do all the work to keep the country going and whose rights can be removed as soon as some rich idiot wants to bury them back in servants corridors and gardeners tunnels. Think about what the numbers mean and what they represent, dont just parrot them. Do doctors, nurses, teachers, bus drivers, firefighters and cleaners really “contribute nothing” if they earn lower than £30k? What about the army? Why is the amount at which people start to contribute now listed as above median wage outside London??

Lies, lies and statistical damned lies.

https://equalitytrust.org.uk/news/press-release/uk-still-taxes-the-poorest-more-than-the-richest/

https://www.oxfam.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-oxfam/fight-inequality/tax-the-rich/

No-one has to guess at the percentage with SEN, diagnosed or otherwise. The statistics are published each year.

There hasn’t been as huge an increase in recent years as some people like to portray. The most recent statistics released last year show 19.5% of pupils have SEN. In 2010, so before EHCPs, it was 20.9% or 21.1% (depending on which statistics you look at - I think it is a rounding issue adding up SA, SA+ and SSEN). In 2005, it was 18%. Going back several decades to the Warnock report in 1978, “some 20% appeared to need some form of special educational help. This may even be an underestimate…”

If you fail to provide support now, costs will be higher in the long run, including but not limited to even fewer disabled adults will work and even more will be in contact with the justice system.

@Needlenardlenoo autistic women are over represented in the female estate too. There was a report written about it a couple of years ago - maybe by the University of Nottingham IIRC - I will see if I can find it. ETA: Northampton, not Nottingham - here.

I am so sorry for your experience. My child has PDA and a little understanding goes a long long way. She was really impulsive as a young child and the teacher introduced "blurt desserts". She got a rich tea biscuit if she could go a certain amount of time without interrupting. Genius. Cheap. Plentiful supply of left over biscuits for teacher.

I'm not trivialising but it was an example that they saw her (she's a biscuit fiend) and wanted to work with her. She also got sent with many "notes to the office" and "to get the photocopying" (she likes to be helpful). And they let her off most homework and got the after school club to read with her to save all the screaming at me and DH.

Interesting @ExistingonCoffee! I've learnt a lot from you over the years 😀. Still way more men in prison of course, so arguably "being male" is the largest risk factor.

Definitely @Needlenardlenoo.

I worry about DS2. AuDHD and some other needs. Although he has an EHCP, he has the lowest level of need out of my DSs. DS1&3 have complex needs. Yet in relation to getting into trouble, it is DS2 I worry about the most. His risk taking behaviour and impulsivity are high. ADHD medication hasn’t been the as effective as I had hoped for him.

Yes simple adaptions would havd helped. Not the biscuits or any kind of bribery or reward strategy though. Ultimately his massively complex sensory profile means mainstream would never have been ok long term.

As it is one of our goals is to get so he can be ok in small groups, max 5. I think less than that really. With 1:1 adult support and be able to do this 2 or 3 times a week... this is an EP goal... now in EHCP. I can bet you that regardless of whether this is achieved or not that once he is at transition to high school age the LA WILL try and cease eotas and name a mainstream school. Despite all evidence showing he will never manage that. But they will do it hoping to get away with it if I dont go to tribunal.. again.. its what they do.

Cognitively he is very able in some areas but has a really spiky profile and nobody has ever been able to assess him properly because of the PDA. The EP has recommended on going involvement by an EP, to build a relationship and on the sly then assess more so we can get a clearer understanding of his cognition which will help us get education right for him. The LA refuse to do this. And its not a private EP, this is a LA EP. Invest now and I suspect he absolutely will give back later. Don't invest now... pay more down the line.

But regardless of if people can work/contribute etc financially they are still worthy of support of quality and dignity of life snd a full life with access to the community and what the world has to offer. Some on this thread I fear would go back to workhouses and institutions...

Finland apparently has 40% disability but they seem to do ok economically. The issue we have is distribution of wealth and systems that reinforce inequality.

I dont really want to get into it too much as a family battling with our LA for social care support my capacity is low snd some of the attitudes towards disability expressed online are horrific. So again thank you to those who are trying to reply and educate on here.

What we see at work, I work for an IAS service in a huge LA with EHCPs has happened is..

EHCPs = prioritised for support in schools. All but one of our local secondaries absolutely will not put in RA or proper support because the child doesn't have an EHCP.

The secondsry transition can be a mightmare as there seems to be a belief that the support they needed in primary is no longer needed in secondary so they refuse to put it in for at least a term. The amount of kids we have stop attending within the first term of year 7 is shocking and entirely preventable.

Then parent requests EHCP to get a fairly minimal level of support.

The EHCP ends up granted as the school has demonstrated they won't put the provision in without the plan.

Schools then are unreliable at putting the support in place and too many kids either are a) left to quietly fail b) EBSA c) behaviour becomes an issue and they are perm exed.

Our LA know we have particularly difficult secondary schools, some are frankly a nightmare but there is absolutely nothing our LA can do to intervene within the schools as they are all academies and the LA has zero authority over them.

My fear for the SEND white paper is that there won't be proper accountability brought in within schools. There's no point complaining in most MATs.

In my 4 years of this current role I've worked within hundreds of families, I can count on one hand the occasions when I've felt the motivation of parents was questionable when it comes to trying to game the system. The most issues we have are when they hit the end of year 11 and it is more fear from parents than dodgy motivations.

I do also agree independent specialists are profiting off this. My daughters school is 100k.

She gets weekly SALT and OT. Has a class of 4 children. 3 TAs and a teacher. Her class of 4 will bring in 400k a year. Teacher salary of 50k, tA salaries (being generous) 75k, that's still 275k left for her class..

But it is also a barn with very barny facilties. I struggle to see the justification for 100k a year, they also only have school 36 weeks a year.

I dont want my daughter in an independent, ive seen the problems that comes with them too often at work but it was that or home or a 180k AP package

I think it’s really unfair to question accountability of schools. The new Ofsted framework puts inclusion front and centre and if these schools are behaving as you say, they will absolutely cone unstuck in their inspection.

As a SENDCo I do my absolute best to provide the provision the 160 students I have on my register need. But the reality is we as a school simply can’t afford to provide everything I wish we could. I’m hoping the white paper will provide more funding for me to support more students. Right now I have so little money, so much need and so much accountability it’s an impossible situation.

This is my experience as well with a high school in a certain 'inspiring' academy trust whose former head is now childrens commissioner. And there is zero accountability or any way to challenge. Its a mess. The academy statement has added to this. At least previously you could complain to Head, to board of Govenors or go to LA if it was LA maintained. And so many academies off roll etc. Make a school a business and its no longer about the children, certainly not the children that might need a bit of flexibility or cost..

Unfortuantly I've spent 4 years tackling schools that absolutely are not doing their best, are actively being obstructive and have shocking attitudes towards SEN. Our most problematic schools are all belong to huge MATs.

The long term use of isolation is a scandal waiting to happen when that becomes public just how some schools use them.

We have lovely, inclusive primaries but our secondaries are just a nightmare in my LA.

Off rolling is a huge issue, that is supposed to be an ofsted priority but the schools know how to not leave a paper trail so it is parental word vs school's but when we hear the same story across multiple parents from the same school I can absolutely believe them.

I was in a SEN working party with the Conservative Party before the 2010 election. They reckoned 20% of children were on the SEN register at some time in their school life, as it was then. 5% of children had inborn SEN and 15% had SEN as a result of poverty, multiple deprivation or trauma. 5% of children needed a statement (now EHC plan). Baroness Warnock estimated 1% iirc, needed a statement - which they thought was an underestimate. The other 15% could have their needs met with school SEN support.

As I have said before 10% of children have SLCN - some are the result of inborn developmental speech and language disorders; others it’s because their parents have barely spoken to them, except to give orders. It is in society’s best interests long term to give those children the speech and language therapy, they need to stop the cycle down the generations (and reduce the resulting behaviour problems in boys, who may end up in the prison system).

We also heard how a high percentage of the male prison population couldn’t read sufficiently well to achieve functional literacy (age 10), and wouldn’t have been able to cope in mainstream secondaries. How could they get jobs?

I have also heard, socially isolated young men with ASD can end up being radicalised online.

@Mumofsend what can LA's do? I do think there is a massive problem with LAs acting unlawfully. But equally lots of schools pushed to the brink in terms of funding etc.

It feels like peools in systems need to push up and shout loudly but instead the push ends up being down... to the vulnerable. Ie local authorities campaigning to get statutory duties weakened etc as is happening with white paper.

And as for academies and accountability... where can we go? I am aghast at what I am seeing at a chain of academies in my county. Its interesting as I know the system a bit, legislation and duties because I work in the system. I chatted to a friend who is an assistant head in a non academy school, also horrified by how particular academy chain is behaving. But no clue what to do about it or where to. Will the new ofsted framework help? Doesnt feel like it.