The educational attainment of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) has stalled or declined since major reforms were introduced despite spending levels trebling, a report commissioned by local government leaders reveals.
And half of councils that responded to a survey said they would be insolvent within the next three years if high needs deficits were moved on to council books, the report says.
Councils’ special needs deficits are currently kept off their balance sheets but this arrangement is set to expire in 2026.
Now council leaders are urging the new Labour government to write these deficits off entirely.
Today’s report by Isos Partnership, commissioned by the County Councils Network and the Local Government Association (LGA), says projected spending on SEND provision will reach £12 billion by 2026, up from £4 billion a decade ago.
It outlines how children with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) have seen their attainment “flatline or decline” over the past 10 years.
SEND pupils’ attainment stalls
ECHPs were introduced in SEND reforms in 2014. The report looks at the academic attainment of pupils with these plans since then.
Only 8 per cent of pupils with EHCPs achieved the expected level in reading, writing and maths at the end of primary school last year - the same proportion as five years earlier in 2016-17.
And the proportion of students with EHCPs who achieved a level 2 qualification by the age of 19 dropped last year to less than a third (30 per cent) compared with nearly 37 per cent in 2014-15.
The report also reveals that 85 per cent of councils surveyed are now in the red with their high needs budgets, which includes money spent providing specialist places and top-up funding to support the education of children with SEND in mainstream schools.
The government has agreed bail-out Safety Valve deals with 38 councils that have the highest high needs deficits. These deals require them to reform their spending in return for extra funding to clear or reduce the debt.
The report warns that without the Safety Valve programme, total SEND deficits would be close to £4 billion.
The current national cumulative debt is £3.16 billion - a tenfold rise since 2018-19, when it stood at £318 million.
Those deficits are being kept off councils’ balance sheets until March 2026. One in four councils surveyed said they would become insolvent within a year or less of their SEND debt being put back on their books and a further quarter said they would no longer be solvent within three years.
Councils are struggling to cope with a more than doubling in the number of children with EHCPs within a system that has “inadvertently” created adversarial relationships between local authorities and parents, the report warns.
SEND plan ‘won’t solve problems’
The previous government produced a SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan aimed at improving early intervention in schools and creating a new system of SEND national standards.
However, eight in 10 parents of children with SEND and local council, health and education leaders surveyed for the report said they disagreed (47 per cent) or strongly disagreed (36 per cent) that the improvement plan would address the fundamental challenges in the system.
The report claims there is a “strong consensus” for a more radical programme of reform focused on meeting the needs of more pupils with SEND in mainstream education.
It argues that many mainstream schools currently lack the capacity, resources and, in some cases, the expertise to meet these students’ needs.
The report notes that more children with EHCPs have been placed in special schools compared with mainstream settings in seven of the past 10 years
It recommends that the new government invests in building capacity in mainstream schools to meet SEND needs, including ensuring access to therapists and educational psychologists, and provider wider inclusion support.
And it calls for a new national framework that describes types and levels of need, and provides clarity about what should be met in mainstream education.
It adds that expectations of ordinarily available provision should be established and overseen by a new National Institute of Inclusive Education.
Councillor Louise Gittins, the LGA chair, said: “For too long the current system has failed children with SEND and left parents struggling to ensure their child gets the support they desperately need.
“We are calling for action which builds new capacity and creates inclusion in mainstream settings, supported by adequate and sustainable long-term funding, and the writing off of councils’ high needs deficits.”
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