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 reality of this is the family is far more likely to break down with an SEN child out of school and lots of issues start to cascade from that with the ultimate possibility of the state having to support the remaining parent to care for that child and very likely having to pay for the interventions that will likely be required when said parent breaks down and eventually is no longer able to carry on caring due to death or illness.
not all disabled children can live independently but with timely and appropriate intervention and ongoing support many are able to.
we no longer live in a world where extended families practise generational living and probably the last time we did there was the workhouse/orphanage for those that had no one able to support or care for them. Pretty sure most people don’t want to go back to those days. Although the way things are going in terms of right wing populism nothing would surprise me anymore.
’Inclusion’ was the new buzzword at the beginning of the 90’s. It was based on research that was taken out of context and misused in the hope of saving some money, so inclusion and budget cuts are nothing new. This has been going on for years and add in to that the 40% budget cuts to council spending from 2010 as part of the ideological and damaging austerity drive, add in a bit of Brexit (as it’s really tanked the economy) and a bit of Covid and we are where we are.
this is what happens when you have run a country to extract the maximum profit for the past 40 odd years. Currently we are just re arranging deckchairs on the titanic.

I don’t know what the solution is but removing the legal requirement for an EHCP won’t help unless you also remove the requirement for the local authority to have a duty of care for disabled children - then there will we be?

I think it's because they've been neglecting it for years but because awareness was lower on many conditions it wasn't really widely known about. Now that the need and the conversation about it has increased it's much of a bigger problem.

I remember the MN threads from 15+ years ago where posters were struggling with SN children and no help. Nothing has really changed. In other countries children get far more support and access to services.

im sure you didn’t intend/realise how offensive your first statement sounded. Have you ever been in to an SLD/Complex needs school? Every child benefits from an education designed to their level of ability. It’s this kind of reductive assumption 40 + years ago that led to children with severe LDs being dumped in residential hospitals and left in chairs all day staring at the wall. Thankful SpecEd has come on since then.
i do wholly agree with your second sentence though. There does need to be more local provision but also, we need to train and retain teachers which is hard enough in the mainstream sector. Many SEN teachers are burnt out after 5 years.

This is is how they used to do it, the transport supervisors would also do playground and lunch duty and then back home on the bus with the kids so there were two people around all day who could also help with things like a child having to be out of the classroom and so on.

Wow that’s super interesting thankyou.

I didn’t know about dyslexia at 7. My partner has horrendous dyslexia. I have a 4yo at the moment and I wonder whether he will have it.

@CosyRoby how do you know the parents don’t work?

Prior to Education Act 1970 children with a disability were classified as unsuitable for an education and came under health not education services. My elderly mum was funded to train as a special needs teacher in late 60s in anticipation of children with disabilities now needing to be educated following the change to law.
There were several council run special schools in our area.

Over the years her class intake changed from say children with Down’s syndrome to children with significant genetic disorders and very premature multiples who wouldn’t have survived a decade before. The work changed to more medical care eg tube feeding. She’d previously been more of a nursery type teacher albeit for older children eg spending time on toilet training as that made a massive difference to them and their family and life skills like shopping.
Towards end of her career in 90s there was the huge push for inclusion and all the specialist schools were closed. She retired as did many experienced teachers.
The current system is at breaking point and isn’t in best interests of children to be sent miles away by bus or in mainstream that can’t meet their needs.

People are having children when they are older. The risks are still low at an individual level, but across the country that will result in an increase in children with SEND.

But is it children who would thrive in a mainstream school with a slightly less demanding curriculum who are costing the LA hundreds of thousands a year in special school
provision and taxis? Surely those children have a lower level of need and (for example) can be taken to school by a parent rather than needing a taxi and two paid adults to keep them safe?

No, SEND is far worse. Adult social care is definitely a pressure, but the increase in SEND costs in recent years is leading to enormous deficits - my county council’s has £170m cumulative deficit for SEND, and it’s growing exponentially.

You know this do you- how?

Children need taxis when they have such high needs no local school could accommodate their EHCP.

An autism or adhd diagnosis does not get SEND money spent on you- need does.

So you’re happy for your children to be in classes containing several children with SEND who have no provision or support?

One word.
Taxis.

Not if their EHCP isnt accepted by local schools and parents work full time or who have no car and a very limited budget.

Councils have to provide a child with an education, if their schools say they are unable to they have to sort out an alternative and transport. All children are entitled to free transport if they’re attending their nearest suitable school and it’s over 2 miles away.

It is, it’s on my DS1’s diagnostic report from 2020, with ‘formerly Asperger’s’ as clarification.

I’m a SENDCo in a secondary and I don’t know how to address this total mess. I am currently trying to get hold of our SENO at the local authority, but she went on holiday mid-term and hasn’t returned by her return date. I’ve got parents with their own MH needs phoning every day for help and counselling, kids refusing to come in, children waiting for placement tribunals, parents asking for AP. I honestly quit.

So in the past those with severe Sen would have been in institutions / Sen school or at home the quality of provision wouldn’t have been very good so cheap to run. Those with moderate Sen would have been at home/ wandering streets or possibly in school but little would be expected of them. And those with mild Sen would probably have managed as school was not as pressured / loud as it is these days.
Better diagnosis /recognition, more Sen children in mainstream and changes in society has lead to more children needing support and government are struggling to fund that. But if they simply fund less children then those who only need a small amount of support will likely decline and need more support than if they had had support from the start. What would be better is if schools were properly funded in the first place,if classes were smaller and if each class has a TA as standard that person could do small group work with the children who need extra support without the need to use the sen budget. Then the sen budget could go on those with more significant needs.

Autism, adhd and MH diagnoses don’t get you SEND funding- need does.

SEND support for children in mainstream or in specialised schools both cost, it is in the best interest of school class majorities to have SEND children provided for and properly funded.

The number of complex needs pupils is rising exponentially.

10 years ago, we’d very occasionally get a pre-verbal pupil start in nursery, by the end of that year or the end of reception they’d get a place in the local autism special school. This year we had 14 pre-verbal children start our nursery- last year I think it was 16/17 pupils so it’s been slightly easier to manage this year. No one gets a place in the local autism school now as it’s full and the only way you can get in is via tribunal meaning out complex needs pupils are with us until Y6 now.

Yes we are better at identifying needs- but in our primary school that will be the children who are conversation partners, rather than social partners who come in with complex needs and whose needs seem to increase year on year.

these children all need a 1:1- when we do manage to get an EHCP from the local authority, we will get £7-8k in funding. A TA with the right experience costs £30k a year with on-costs to the school. Schools have to pick up the slack but it’s impossible- the latest teacher pay rise for example isn’t going to be fully funded and we’ve been told to cut support staff/ admin staff. There are no staff left to cut!

Can I just point out TA wages. TAS would earn more in Lidl and are the ones on the front line day in and day out with the most need and increasing responsibility. TA wages are going to need to increase as they sure as hell don’t get anywhere near £30k a year.

This is ridiculous. I can’t help but feel such diagnoses are losing credibility tbh

I know they don’t get anything near that and they should, they are absolutely the unsung heroes of the system and are incredible.

However that’s unfortunately the real cost to the school. If I get an agency TA it costs us around £145 a day which is just over £28k a year.

I think this is a completely reversed statement. It isn't about 'top schools' at all. It is about education failing children.

The reality is that SEN children are being failed by mainstream education (illiterate, needs totally unmet by whole class teaching they are unable to access, which is what happens with teaching initiatives such as 'teach to the top' and classes of 32 children).

Ultimately I think the issue is that mainstream primary education's attempts to teach children as a mass doesn't work. They need streaming by ability, in the same way secondary children are taught.

Example. My 8 year old, dyslexic, ADHD, ASD (no EHCP) DC last week was learning personification and alliteration. She can't actually write unsupported yet. As in, can't write a sentence. It's madness teaching anything other than basics to her. BUT there are also children in her class who can write in complete paragraphs.

Now, ANYONE, with a child being failed in this way by education would see there is something wrong.

There are 6 children in our DC's class at their level. So I assume there are another 6 in the other Y4 class. And there will be in the other primary school in the area. So why not put those 24 kids in one class and teach at their level? Instead of teaching higher level skills they'll bit lucky to hit by the age of 12?

What diagnoses? Children working years below their age in areas such as reading, writing and maths, medical needs and disabilities, hearing, sight and speech difficulties, dyslexia, trauma from abuse, cared for children or are we trying to do the tedious blame adhd and autism diagnoses for everything spiel? FYI it’s well known that ADHD and autism are under diagnosed and poorly supported in this country.

This needs to change as many experienced TAs are leaving due to simply not being able to afford being one. It’s more cost effective to have experienced TAs.

TAs are not on 28k a year.
They absolutely should be, but accounting for the fact they only work 40 weeks weeks a year most are on 20 at most