Jan 30, 2025, Children and Young People Now: SEND crisis: key challenges and five solutions to fix the system
A report by influential MPs concludes the special educational needs and disabilities system is failing to deliver for children and is unsustainable for councils. It puts forward proposals to address the problems.
Families in neighbouring council areas are also seeing marked differences in the quality of support received. For example, in Lambeth seven in 10 education, health and care plans (EHCPs) are written on time but in nearby Southwark the proportion completed within the time limit is less than a fifth (see below graphic).
Despite spending £10.7bn [$13B] a year on special educational needs and disabilities services, the system in England is failing to meet needs to such a degree there is a risk it will create a “lost generation” of children without major reform.
That is the verdict of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in its latest report on the SEND system, which it characterises as blighted by “an often chaotic and adversarial process liable to produce marked inequalities”.
