Jan 15, 2025, Byline Times: Special Needs Child Provision in Crisis as 40% of Local Authorities Risk Going Bust
Children with special educational needs are being offered “inconsistent and inequitable” support by the Government, which fails to meet minimum legal requirements, amid a growing financial crisis at local authorities, a damning new parliamentary report has warned.
A big rise in the number of children with diagnoses and the rising numbers of local authorities in severe financial difficulties, is creating a looming crisis, the report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee warns.
The Committee is demanding action from Whitehall within weeks and warning that a failure to adequately finance the system now risks contributing to over 40% of councils going bust by April next year when new local authority financing rules begin.
“When this arrangement [excluding SEND spending from council debts] ends in March 2026, 66 local authorities (43%) could be at risk of breaching their statutory duty to set a balanced budget, and so would be effectively bankrupt”.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Conservative Chair of the Committee, said: “Urgent warnings have long been issued to Government on the failing SEND system from every quarter. This is an emergency that has been allowed to run and run. Families in need of help have been forced to spend precious energy fighting for the support they are legally entitled to, and local authorities to bear an unsustainable financial burden.
He goes on: “The immensity of this situation cannot be overstated. As a nation, we are failing countless children. We have been doing so for years. At the same time, we are creating an existential financial risk for some local authorities, caused by that same failing system. This report must serve as a line in the sand for Government. Every day that goes by for families not receiving the right support is another day closer to a lost generation of young people.”
Some of the statistics on the scale of the problem are startling. The number of children who need education, health and care plans has jumped by 140 per cent since 2015 to 576,000 while funding has not kept pace. Another 1.14 million children are receiving some special educational needs support in schools, up 14 per cent since 2015.
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