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.

PIP is based upon medical notes from doctors, so if somebody has fooled the doctors into a diagnosis for severe anxiety, the bearuacrats administering PIP can't/won't/don't question it. As we see people write on Mumsnet - 'are you a doctor?'. The DWP will consider fraud to be making multiple applications under false names, rather than laying it on thick to the doctor and exaggerating/fabricating symptoms on application forms.

To claim, with a straight face, that there's zero fraud in PIP is unreal.

Perhaps we should use every denied claim as a proxy for attempted fraud? If 46% of claims are rejected, what percentage were attempted fraud and prevented? What percentage slipped through the net?

Mostly because there isn't a one-size-fits-all model that will meet the needs of every type of SEND. Think about, for instance, the very different presentations of children with severe ASD, children at the highest end of the ASD spectrum, dyslexics, dyspraxics, children with Down syndrome, children with FAS, children with brain injuries, children with cerebral palsy, children with epilepsy, children with major mental health difficulties, to say nothing of all the rare complications of genetic defects. You can't train staff to have expertise in all of those, let alone chuck them all in together into one class.

And do you think even 5% - 10% of children having an extra £6k a year spent on their education is sustainable financially? Let alone the outlier cases of even 1% of that 5% having hundreds of thousands a year spent on their provision?

My DS attends a state school for children with severe and profound SEN. It’s an Outstanding school but massively oversubscribed and constantly trying to squeeze as many kids as possible without affecting the education of existing pupils.

It costs the LA over 3x more to send my DS there than it costs to send my other DC to their mainstream school but there’s no way my DS would ever have coped in a mainstream school - even if he had a 1-1 his needs are way too high. He also has transport to and from school because I can’t have my children in the same setting and their schools are in opposite directions.

Life would be cheaper and easier for everyone if I could have both of my kids at the same setting but life doesn’t work like that.

I know this
but shoehorning individuals into mainstream is going to work less well
there isn’t a one sized fits all non-SEN education either

but if you have all the SEN specialised teachers plus TAs in one building, including medical support, speech and physio - you could stream/split classes/groups into the best fit possible right now

I don’t know all the ins and outs of this, to be sure.

But I don’t think it’s true that the funding of more help for kids with SEND always comes at the expense of the rest of the children. My experience is that the additional LSAs in the classes are beneficial for all the children.

Oh, great. If we're not going to bother to educate those with SEND, let's not try too hard to house and feed them, shall we? How about some nice concentration camps for them? And if we're just going to leave them at home all day, who will decide which parent has to give up their career and indeed their life to look after them?

Where are you going to draw the line? At what exact point does society decide that a child is not worth educating even if it would massively improve their quality of life? What if we get it wrong when assessing whether a child is at that point and deprive someone of education when they could actually learn and grow up to be productive, economically contributing members of society?

The alternative looks like home education but that's not really a solution in my eyes.

A lot of SEN parents have to homeschool due to delays in being given a placement, but that doesn't stop parents requesting a personal budget (rightly so, in my opinion, though still hard to get), and still significantly impacts the amount of paid work a home educating parent can access. Then that sinks families further into poverty.

Electively home educated children, particularly those who's families didn't have much of a choice in that decision won't have access to tailored and trained resources to the same level as children who are supported and have acquired placements.

We are awaiting a named specialist, currently going through the appeals process, and it's crossed my mind quite a few times, but I know that despite the barriers my son faces, he is an extremely bright little boy and just needs to be given the right opportunities, yet I'm not qualified or educated in providing that education in a way that meets his learning style, and having different settings is important as he can't enter a learning mode at home and requires the distinction.

If I were a working parent, and I had to leave my job to fulfill this, there would be less money going back into the economy, locally and nationally.

My son would receive a poorer education than he would in a setting meaning he is also less likely to contribute financially to society when he is an adult and will further rely on the state, costing the taxpayer more money.

Being funded into a specialist setting is an investment in his future.

There are children who will never work in these settings and that's also OK, because their value isn't what economical reinvestment back into society they bring, but they equally deserve the opportunities to learn in their own way. I'm only saying this as I've had discussions with people who have said "well if they don't have the capacity to learn why are we spending money sending them to school" as a sort of gotcha card to defend the rescinding of SEN funding. I've not seen it posted here, but thought I'd bring it into the discussion as those who can't speak for themselves also deserve a voice.

There's no clean solution at all. It is a million fiery hoops to jump through to even get to the point of being considered for SEN funding for your child. It isn't an easy process by any stretch. Reducing access to SEN provision is certainly not the way to stimulate the economy.

ETA: spoke to soon. Didn't RTFT, sigh, what a disappointment.

Politics is a tinder box right now, and I know it’s not true but many people see memes about some kids costing £100k a year or more and think “my kid doesn’t get that” and that will contribute to the jealously that will push voters to a far right “small tax small state” - “your kid your problem” - situation and it will be a shit storm for everyone

we are almost there

I’m originally from a deprived area and that town has a higher than average SEN population. This mainly because families with SEN/SEN kids from surrounding areas are given social housing in my town. It’s cheaper rent so understandable, but it does put pressure on local services.

My daughter is part of one of the families offered social housing in the town, and my grandson is severely autistic. Waiting lists are huge, services are buckling under the strain. IMO, the council from the area my DD comes from should be providing money to the deprived town. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but I have seen the utter despair and frustration in these families. No school spaces in SEN schools, massive waiting lists for any sort of diagnosis.

My grandson cannot talk, he is still in nappies, he hurts himself all the time and spends his day spinning. Yet they want to put him in a mainstream school this September. It’s frightening

We could go back to the ilden days of pitting the children in asylums? No transport costs then.

(Sarcasm in case anyone misses that).

Incidentally... in rural areas we do have School Transport similar to the US system

It certainly seems that private equity is cashing in.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b718391f8ac9f298

I’ve used a share token so hope anyone interested can read it!

An EHC Needs Assessment costs in the region of £20k, that’s without any additional spending on support. The legal test for a needs assessment is whether the child has SEND and whether they may need recourse to an EHCP. That test is crippling for local authorities because it’s very very difficult to argue against.

There are not enough specialist places for the needs of today’s children but it’s actually not true that thsre are fewer places. There are many more (state as well as independent) specialist places now than ever before. But the demand outstrips supply hugely and therefore the independent sector charges what it likes. In excess of £100k/year (plus transport costs) is not unusual.

Part of the issue is that cost cutting over the years has now come back to bite councils in the arse.

So 25 years ago there was, despite lower numbers of kids, 3 specialist schools in our council area. Each had 2 school buses that collected kids, with a few getting taxis if they lived off the bus route.

They cut the school buses as a cost cutting exercise. Now all the kids get taxis, and they have would have saved money initially on the upkeep of the buses, but over the years taxis have got more expensive.

Then to cut more costs they closed three schools and amalgamated everyone into one new school. Now all the kids are not only getting taxis but are getting taxis further, which naturally costs more...

There's also no joined up thinking.

My DS is in a wheelchair. He cannot go to the school in our street because, despite being less than 15 years old, it has no level access. So he has to go to the next nearest school that does. Which is actually in the next council area as the two nearest in our area have no wheelchair access. That involves an expensive taxi.

I would prefer to take him to school as I feel our car is safer as I can transfer him, whereas in the taxi he is in his chair, but to do that I need my other DC to go to the breakfast club. However, as the breakfast club is oversubscribed they allocate spaces by distance, and as my DC can see the school from the house they don't have a space. Nobody can join the dots overall that it would be considerably cheaper all round to give me the breakfast club space and negate the taxi need.

What's particularly bonkers is that the school in our street is in two buildings. One "admin" building, which as well as the offices and staff room has the canteen, the gym hall and various other spaces is accessible. It's only the classroom block that isn't. So my DS goes to cubs in the school that he can't go to school in.

It also turns out that DS is actually the third wheelchair bound child that it has been deemed more cost effective to send elsewhere due to the cost of fitting a lift/stair lift and disabled toilet for. I'd hazard a guess that, once again, that's going to be a false economy long term.

It’s very clear that you don’t understand how difficult it is to claim PIP, DLA for children, or to secure an EHCP. These processes are not quick, easy, or generous. They are long, bureaucratic, and exhausting.
Parents are required to complete hours of detailed forms and provide extensive evidence — not just from a GP, but from specialists such as paediatricians, educational psychologists, speech and language therapists, and others. Waiting times regularly exceed legal limits, with little accountability for local authorities, and during these delays it is SEND children who suffer.

The suggestion that disabled people or parents of disabled children are “pulling a fast one” to access benefits is both inaccurate and deeply offensive. It reflects a narrative pushed by certain sections of the media that frames disabled people as a burden or a problem, rather than recognising the systemic failures that actually exist.

Disabled children and adults are not responsible for the economic problems in this country. Claiming the support they are legally entitled to is not fraud — it is survival.

For context, I am a parent of two severely disabled children. We claim the benefits they are entitled to because the cost of raising disabled children is significantly higher. Both of my children attend specialist provisions and require additional carers. My husband and I are higher-rate taxpayers, and we do not begrudge a penny of tax that supports disabled people.

I am deeply grateful to the professionals who care for my children — many of whom earn little more than minimum wage despite doing extraordinarily demanding and skilled work. If there is a real injustice here, it is not disabled families receiving support; it is the chronic underfunding of care, education, and public services, alongside the greed and lack of accountability at the top.

Absolute rubbish. What's actually happening is that Quality First Provision is poor because funding for education hasn't kept pace with inflation. This means that children who would otherwise have their needs met within a standard class have special educational needs.

The impact of COVID is still being seen in the development of children, and there has been an increase in need.

The fact that NHS services have been cut to the bone mean that early intervention in SALT, OT, and Physio is not happening. Similarly, diagnostic services are unable to process children at a young age. Educational provision should be needs based but often provision is given based on diagnosis.

Secondary schools have less staffing and are trying to cope by increasing sanctions on children, which doesn't work. More children are 'disciplined' and the ones that can't cope end up with mental health needs.

The curriculum keeps being brought down, so more demand at a younger age means more children are 'behind'.

The move to making mainstream education the default means that special school places were reserved for those with learning disability. That means that those who don't quite fit the LD profile but can't cope in mainstream end up in independent specialist settings that are costly because they make provision that exceeds that of state special schools.

The fact that there are very limited v special school places and that independent special school places are so expensive, means that LAs resist placement until it's too late, so children who would have thrived in a special school at an earlier age are damaged and need much more intensive support.

The fact that special schools are so few and far between makes transportation costs higher.

I'd like to see the breakdown of that £20k. I can't believe it's anything like that.

But there often aren't additional TA's, it's the same ones, but now allocated as 1 to 1's for the children who are waiting for EHCP's, or for whom the EHCP doesnt meet need, or covering the 1 to 1 who is off sick due to stress/injuries sustained at work (2 TA's had injuries needing hospital treatment due to being hit, bitten or pushed by pupils) So it's actually the same staff number, but with much higher level of need.

There’s more than one reason of course but partly there are far more children described as having send, I say described because the jury is out on whether there’s genuinely more or different diagnosis criteria. There’s definitely more dc requiring emotional and behavioural support than in the past. There’s also children alive and thriving who wouldn’t have survived 50 years ago eg preemies but some have complex needs. We have higher expectations now too.

my council is one of several potentially bankrupt due to the Sen transport bill, rural county.

im not getting involved in saying rights and wrongs here just more dc are under the umbrella of Sen now

If only name changes weren't a thing on MN. I could keep a note of your name and avoid you.

I never mentioned children (DLA).

Have you ever spent a day in PMLD classroom? The amount of actual 'education' is fairly limited, much of the day is spent in carrying out therapy programmes to stimulate the childrem, make them comfortable, reduce the risk of needing expensive spinal surgery etc by effective positioning, feeding them (which can be hugely time consuming to do safely). It is care as much as it's education, and that meets need so it not wrong.

You cannot compare to a child with lower/no additional needs. Many families I work with are up all night providing essential nursing type care for their child. When the child is at school is when they sleep/shop for food/go to dr for themself etc. It's not about preference to work etc, it's literally about survival - In the area I work a mother killed herself and her child during covid as she had not slept for longer than 30 minutes at a time in 2 months due to her child's high needs, him attending school gave her the opportunity to sleep, when this stopped she couldn't cope.

Silly to begrudge people for needing to claim support from the state. Think of social safety nets as insurance - that could be you one day. No one is too clever, too hardworking, or too conscientious to end up disabled.

Partly because they now have to fund until age 25. That's 7 more years per child than it used to be.