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.

Council can divert 5% of their standard education funding into SEN if needed. And it's always needed.

And yes definitely at a school level. Pretty much all the TA's at my DD2's infants are used for SEN needs. When DD1 was there 4 years ago every class had 1 to 2 TA's for general class support, small group teaching etc.

Just to say thanks all for your responses so far.
I am getting my kids to bed but will return!

PIP abuse? If you mean fraud then as per the official statistics it is actually

• The DWP’s earlier report put the PIP fraud rate at 0.0% (£0m) for the year ending April 2024.Officially reported PIP fraud rates are very low compared with other benefits — even so low that earlier reports listed a 0% fraud rate for 2023–24 because the amount identified was negligible

Stop listening to the rubbish that the Daily Fail and others with an anti disability agenda are pushing, and if you have an issue with what is spent on benefits then by far the biggest bill is on pensions not disabled adults and children.

And for reference because clearly you are so busy being angry about spending money on disabled kids, they don’t get PIP they are entitled to DLA, again after much form filling, lots of evidence, usually lots of tears on the parts of the parents filling these degrading and heartbreaking forms in.

Don’t you sit there on you high horse and judge until you have walked a day in the shoes of a parent of a child with SEND and have spent years fighting for everything for them.

Councils are not going bankrupt because of children with SEND, its because most councils have been mismanaged for decades and now its easy to point the finger at defenceless kids, its the easy way out.

Such a clear explanation thank you

@Mom6toomany I couldn’t agree more. Too many posters on here who have no idea or experience of what they’re talking about or are just being deliberately inflammatory

While I agree with the majority of your post @Mom6toomany i can’t agree that “Councils are not going bankrupt because of children with SEND, its because most councils have been mismanaged for decades” - council budgets have been slashed while their statutory duties have expanded, they’ve been hindered from reacting to local need as they’ve not been able to open new provision themselves, and they’re dealing with the post-COVID fallout that I think most people predicted but the government has failed to sufficiently resource them or the NHS to tackle.

All the things you mention likely play in to it, alongside higher pressure on children to have 100% attendance, too much curriculum content to squeeze in and expectations too high, so children who would have managed without additional support if there wasn't so much pressure to achieve and they didn't have to push through going to and staying in school all day when they were unwell are more anxious, so higher need. Cost of living crisis leading to parents being more stressed and some away from home more for work, reducing their time and ability to help their child regulate and to support their learning at home. Huge delays in getting support so needs that could have been prevented escalate so a higher level of support is required.
It's just a total shit show. So many factors that have led to a system that isn't fit for purpose. Had they been addressed earlier, and I'm sure plenty of school staff and parents were shouting to the councils about the need, we wouldn't be where we are.
It's the same with adult social care which is also a huge cost to the councils. Poor health care leads to higher social care need, then we have a stretched social care service which puts more demand on NHS so there's just a vicious cycle of firefighting and not having time/money to work in early intervention and prevention. That's another one that will affect the SEND budget too, getting support from CAMHs is like gold dust and it's schools that are left picking up the pieces trying to meet the child's needs.

Yes you make a valid case

I'm sure I will get shot down in flames for this one. But something which hasn't been mentioned is the cost of immigration from areas with

• poor antenatal care
• high rates of inter marriage
• reduced rates of literacy
• limited availability of free vaccination

My caseload (nhs, complex needs children), at least 40% were born abroad, with another 30-40% having parents born abroad. They are coming with complex genetic disabilities requiring life long care, specialist schools, big care packages. Of course we have to provide this, we cannot and should not refuse to provide care to vunerable children based on country of origin. But it is a contributing factor in increased SEN costs. The number of special school places in the area I work has more than doubled in 5 years, and there are still not enough places.

I don’t work for an LA, but I do work in health and social care. DH works for a private company. He is always shocked how the public sector seems to be in permanent crisis management mode, especially when finances are involved. And I think that’s the state we’ve got to with SEN. Rampant closure of maintained SEN schools, squeezing of LA budgets left-right-and-centre and mainstream schools that are no longer fit for purpose for lots of kids means LAs are acting at an individual level, crisis managing children with SEN into extremely expensive private options (or similar). On top of this, LAs will have also often spent lots more money trying to legally fight against naming these schools in the first place. It’s frustrating that there seems to be no thought to the bigger picture and actually no discussion around properly funding SEN for the long term.

None of this issue is due to the individual children or their families and suggesting it is abhorrent.

So many factors that have led to a system that isn't fit for purpose. Had they been addressed earlier, and I'm sure plenty of school staff and parents were shouting to the councils about the need, we wouldn't be where we are.

Absolutely this. There was always lots of talk on the importance of 'early intervention' with things like SaLT or OT input, but there is virtually NO intervention at any point for many children who need it. That isn't the fault of schools or health, they are both as thinly as spread as each other.

Absolutely!
I wonder if some people have ever met a child with SEND, let alone spoken to their parents about their daily struggles to access the education that all children have a right to.
Not that I think that all children should have the same education, every child should receive an education tailored to their specific needs and abilities, whether they attend mainstream schools or an alternative. A lot of the increase in EHCPs has come about because of the narrowing of the curriculum, which excludes many children who would previously have coped with and thrived in their local mainstream school.

The cost is too high per child. Outrageously high. Its unsustainable. SEN isn’t reducing, it will only increase. I think we need to get real about the purpose of education as opposed to babysitting.

Removing profit making from SEND provision would be a start, as Wales is trying to do got children’s residential care.

My son went to a special needs pre-school in the early 2000s. It had been around since the 70s. They were brilliant, had years of knowledge, and also knew all the speech therapist, educational psychologists, portage, paediatricians etc. I was referred there by my sons paed. Then it became all about inclusion, the health visitors and paeds stopped referring children to the pre-school and it closed down just after he left. The school he went to was brand new, an amalgamation of two other special schools. The old schools had 250 pupils, the new one 200. So over 50 local children with SEN then had no place to go. But inclusion! The more able of them can go to mainstream. Then they find that's mainstream isn't actually all that inclusive. But there's no place for them at the local special school so they have to go further afield, private, taxis paid for. And now there's a load of money being spent on private SEN education and transport.

Inclusion didn't work and now we're left with the debt that closing or getting rid of places in special schools has left.

It’s not fraud so much as exploitation.
If state can’t meet need then the stupidly expensive non profit charity eduction provider can,
It cost £48k “alternative provision” as opposed to £8k state.

Not to say SEN children shouldn’t be educated to the best standard. My experience is that it’s just childminding with extras.

Needless to say, very very few children with SEND have provision costing that much. That tends to be the cost for children with very serious and complex physical and mental disabilities requiring very high levels of expert care. The vast majority are lucky if they get more than £6K a year spent on their provision.

I guess with so many children with SEND it also means a lot of parents that possibly can't work or can only work a few hours to fit around their needs and if lone parents that means possibly a big reduction in the council tax bill for that household so less council tax revenue. So much less revenue coming in and huge more in costs for SEND provision.

Too much of the provision is privately owned and they charge a lot. Contracts also get awarded that aren’t suitable for the child but tick the box for the Council but cause more harm to the child who then needs more input

Also in 2011 local councils were in effect banned from building new schools of any kind.

I didn't know this, @Octavia64 . Given the amount of new houses that have been built in my (predominantly rural) county, that's just bonkers.

The secondary school in my town can't accommodate the number of children who live here. Kids on the far side of town go to a village comp that is (just!) within the 3 mile limit where they'd be entitled to LA funded transport; kids on my side of town go to a largeish school that mostly serves 3 villages and is 6 or7 miles away. Because there are only 3 buses a day to the village nearest the school, they put on coaches for them.

It must cost a fucking fortune. And it'll only get worse, as more and more housing is built. (Not saying we don't need the housing, but we also need the things, like schools and doctors, that the people moving into that housing will need.)

With increased numbers of pupils why don’t authorities turn one primary one secondary into SEND only within a reasonable distance apart and place all resources in that school, stream for different academic abilities and different persobal needs. So you get all the qualified staff in one place. Much transport costs would be eliminated, and you could have more bespoke teaching.

No it won’t be perfect but then nothing is.

What on earth makes you think that eligibility for an EHCP is "so wide", let alone that there are hundreds of thousands of extra claims for one? Have you ever tried to get an EHCP? If you had, you would never say anything so crass. It really is very hard indeed to get an EHCP, let alone one that actually provides properly for all your child's needs. As for "hundreds of thousands", there were about 60,000 last year, over the entire country.

Neither private equity nor private taxi companies would be able to make money out of the system if there had been adequate investment in the infrastructure. A few councils banding together to provide their own transport service, for instance, could save themselves a fortune. Bear in mind, of course, that home to school transport is available to all children living more than statutory walking distance away from the nearest suitable school, not just children with SEND.

I seem to remember, that this started a while back when they closed a lot of special schools because it was seen as discriminatory, and that all children should be taught together regardless of special needs. It was felt at the time that it would be better for those children to be integrated into mainstream. Parents were keen that their children were not segregated.

The funding however did not follow. In the meantime, lots more children survived premature births, or were diagnosed with learning difficulties. Still insufficient extra funding to make up for those schools that had closed.

Perfect storm is then arrived at, where you now have 30% of children in a class with SEN of various levels, plus insufficient funding, it effects the class dynamics, and there are insufficient SEN schools because they were all closed.

In terms of council bankruptcy - the government has indicated that it will take on SEND funding, but it feels like they want to higher the criteria and stop legal challenges before they do.

Who knows? It’s an impossible task