Oct 31, 2024, Open Democracy: Labour let down Disabled children with its budget
The £1bn [$1.3B] Reeves promised for SEND isn't enough to ensure all children have an equal chance at life
“Being able to rebuild schools is fulfilling what I came into politics to do – to ensure children from ordinary backgrounds get a good chance in life,” Rachel Reeves told the Observer last weekend, days before delivering the first Labour budget in 15 years.
Yet when the chancellor unveiled her budget yesterday, it was clear that Disabled children’s chances in life were something of an afterthought. Reeves allocated an additional £1bn [$1.3B] for children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
Initial headlines may suggest this is a positive step. But dig deeper and it’s nowhere near enough to fix a SEND system with a £4bn [$5.2B] shortfall that is expected to rise to £5.9bn [$6.7B] by next year, according to recent research by local authorities’ treasurers.
The victims of that crumbling system are England’s 1.6 million Disabled schoolchildren, who are three times less likely to leave school with any qualifications than their non-disabled peers.
In recent months, politicians and the media have focused not on how to ensure those children have access to an inclusive education, but on conversations about whether private schools should pay VAT and the ostensibly outsized burden that SEND pupils place on councils.
This oversight is hardly surprising – the UK’s education system has always been institutionally ableist, built on an assumption that Disabled children aren’t worth it. It was only in 1970 that a law deeming some students uneducable, and therefore not requiring schooling, was removed from statute books. . . .
In reality, children with autism and ADHD can wait up to five years to be assessed, while less than 5% of children have access to an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), a legal document by a local authority that outlines the special needs of a child or young person and the support they require. Government figures suggest the percentage of pupils with SEND but no EHCP rose to 13.6% this year, up from 13.0% in 2023. . . .
But, as campaigners have pointed out, it often barely covers the one-to-one support kids need, let alone anything else. This year, more than 90% of respondents to a survey of National Education Union members said their school did not have access to enough in-class learning support assistants for SEND children.
One respondent said their school did not have “enough teaching assistant support due to low pay. So even if a pupil has EHCP, they do not always get support”, while another said: “We have more and more children with needs and less staff resources to support them.”
The base level of funding that the government allocates to a school – currently a minimum of £4,610 per pupil for primary schools in England – is often also being stretched to cover support for SEND children who haven’t got access to an EHCP.
The UK is among the richest countries in the world. Yet debates about its SEND system are always limited to its cost, without acknowledging the real problem: the system isn’t even providing most students with the support they need.
Councils have spent more than £425m fighting tribunals against parents and carers who disagree with their decision not to provide support to a child or young person in the past decade. The government’s datan shows that more than 98% of tribunal appeals ruled in parents’ favour in 2022/23, meaning they agreed the local authority had not complied with its legal duties.
Disabled children of all backgrounds and their parents “spend every day fighting for access to rights and inclusion that should be given as standard”, said my colleague at Disability Rights UK, education campaigner Bethany Bale.
Reeves’ budget only further entrenches that improvements to the SEND system will continue to flatline, as they have for more than 11 years, with schools getting less and less, said Tania Tirraoro, co-director of Special Needs Jungle, a parent-led website providing information about SEND.
“This just perpetuates the number of children whose needs aren’t met through a lack of resources and who then may end up requiring an EHCP,” Tirraoro told openDemocracy.
Fixing the SEND system requires a £3bn-a-year cash injection, according to the Disabled People’s Manifesto, which was published in the run-up to July’s general election. But yesterday Reeves showed us that Keir Starmer’s government is committed to its repeated refusal to “turn the taps on” to increase spending.
We all agree that our children are our future but the government seems resigned to the idea that Disabled children and young people are a burden rather than people with rights.
If Reeves was serious about rebuilding schools, she’d be talking about much more than bricks and mortar. We need proper funding and investment for the SEND system, the removal of barriers to accessing EHCPs and support for those who don’t receive them.
And above all, we need to ensure mainstream education settings are inclusive to all Disabled children. Until that happens, the chancellor’s dream of “children from ordinary backgrounds get[ting] a good chance in life” will remain just that.
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