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.

How do you means test a child? Because an education is their right, not their parents.

I think there needs to be a set budget per child and six figures should only be spent on children who need round the clock nursing care for example.

We really shouldn’t be spending £100,000 a year on ‘emotional needs’ where the child is fully verbal and physically able with no learning difficulty.

Cost of locum Ep's seems to be 600 plus per day

Like how???

Yes I do see what you mean legally at the moment - but - maybe there should be a parental responsibility to contribute to that if they have the means?

And how do you suggest those children then get an education?

That’s all well and good, but these eye watering costs for independent school places haven’t occurred in a void. If you want to reduce the individual spend per child you need to massively increase the spend on maintained SEN schools, which will be extremely painful and probably unpopular in the short run.

Children also have the right to accommodation, but the government only provides it to their families for free if they meet certain criteria.

They’ll get an education, it just won’t have all the EHCP add ons presumably.

So my non disabled DD should have a worse quality of life because I have to pay for the schooling of her disabled DB? Or what if I just choose not to pay and he disrupts the schooling of all the other children, gets expelled, gets no education and ends up needing benefits for the rest of his life?

I mean, we could also just say that anyone whose parents can pay shouldn't get a free state school education. But we don't, because we generally believe that a child's right to an education shouldn't depend on their parents deciding to pay for it.

All children have the right of an education, but that doesn’t mean the best education money can buy that is tailored to them and exactly what they want.

There's a massive shortage in professionals. I did a psychology degree and thought about training as an EP, but there were so few training places for an additional 3 years of study, I didn't. Dreadful bottleneck on the training. Once qualified, the shortage means lots go freelance and charge a higher day rate, although £600 ISH a day is perhaps not totally bonkers for 6 years of study once you've factored in agency charges, tax pension and NI etc.

"They’ll get an education, it just won’t have all the EHCP add ons presumably."

That's going to make the classroom environment fun.

On an 8 hour day, that's £75 per hour before tax (and probably less going to the ed psych themselves). Considering I got paid £40 an hour fifteen years ago to tutor kids, I don't think that's a terrible rate for someone with a PhD and considerable professional expertise.

And probably won’t or is unlikely to occur. But what will happen if councils do go under and become bankrupt. I believe so far there has been some propping up and national bailing out, just as there has been in, for instance, higher education. Looking at the projected figures for 2027/8 it is hard to see how there aren’t going to be some crashes. The adult social care bill is approximately twice that of send I believe but they are of course interrelated.

I dunno what people think these 'ehcp add ons' are. There's not a menu where everyone gets a free puppy. They're things that level the playing field with non disabled peers. DD is able to be in school and learn with her peers, and should get good GCSEs, further study and we hope a job. The EHCP allows this to happen. Otherwise she's not in school and will be on benefits for her entire adult life. That's a lot more expensive than anything in her EHCP.

Improved medical interventions. We save babies who would have died 50 years ago. People had children younger because they left school at 14 and went to work.
I spent several months on a neo natal ward with my eldest. There are so many little ones living who have absolutely no quality of life nowadays and are being saved just because we have the medical know how. But how can we not save them if we are able ?

That isn’t the test that is applied for SEND - education has to be suitable for the age, aptitude and special educational needs of the child. Neither the council nor the tribunal are applying a “gold standard” - if the council can demonstrate that another provision can adequately meet need, then that is the placement that will be named for the child. Problems arise when there is a lack of provision, and/or where the council fails to secure adequate evidence to support its position and parents are able to, rightly, challenge and secure an alternative provision for their child.

Children died during childbirth more often. Children died very soon after birth that now survive.

I don't know exactly but now babies survive from 23 weeks. 1970s survival at 32 weeks would have felt like a miracle.

Many profoundly disabled children survive birth and the few weeks after, which they wouldn't have in the 1970s. Also children getting the diseases you listed died too.

"All children have the right of an education, but that doesn’t mean the best education money can buy that is tailored to them and exactly what they want."

Children with SEN aren't entitled to that anyway. Read the SEND code of practice.

Some truth here

But

Add in

• dramatic broadening of diagnostic criteria. People receive diagnoses and support now who would not have met criteria 25 years ago.
• medicalisation of an increasing range of normal or common (often temporary) emotive states including depression and anxiety
• increasingly individualistic society and a focus on/expectation for a tailored, individual educational experience as opposed to what works best for a group
• educational accountability that means schools are under too much pressure to demand academic attainment from children who are not suited to it

Well, I guess it depends in part the levels
of income that would trigger needing to pay. And I’m not saying it’s ideal but it’s also a significant and accelerating financial crisis. I suppose the quality of life of one child is always impacted - for better and worse (socially and financially respectively for the sake of argument) - by having siblings

The cost of raising a disabled child is already higher (significantly) to the family.
It is also far harder for both parents to work which reduces family income. I dont think means testing is the way to go. Unless you mean means testing all families and charging non disabled families for their child to be educated. Get rid of standard free education?
I doubt you meant that through

Children died during childbirth more often. Children died very soon after birth that now survive.
I don't know exactly but now babies survive from 23 weeks. 1970s survival at 32 weeks would have felt like a miracle.
Many profoundly disabled children survive birth and the few weeks after, which they wouldn't have in the 1970s. Also children getting the diseases you listed died too.

This does not explain the burgeoning spread in level 1 autism and Adhd.

NHS has a system of assessing new drugs, it has put the price on the year of quality life, calculated through established methods. If a new drug costs more, it is not approved for the use in NHS.

The similar price cap on cost/ouctomes needs to be introduced for SEN.

Best education money can buy?! That’s not what parents fight for, they just want their children to be able to access an education, be able to live independently and get a job so when they are no longer around they know they’ll be ok. Children with an EHCP couldn’t get ANY education without it.