Jan 30, 2025, Daily Gazette: Colchester MP to submit evidence to SEND Inquiry admist funding crisis
SE England
COLCHESTER MP Pam Cox will submit a report to the Education Selection Committee inquiry on special education needs provision.
Essex County Council says it is pressing the Government to resolve special education needs (SEND) funding in schools as a “matter of urgency”.
County Hall’s special educational spending is forecast to be £30.3million [$38M] in deficit for the next year, and that figure is expected to rise to £243million [$303M] by 2028-2029.
Last year in Essex, just one per cent of children received special educational needs and disability reviews for an educational health care plan (EHCP) within the legal time limit of 20 weeks – the worst rate in any county.
Requests for assessments have increased by 143 per cent between 2015-16 and 2022-23, with almost 4,000 requests made between 2022 and 2023 alone.
County Hall chancellor Chris Whitbread said this was a "national issue" and that the system for SEND was "flawed and stretched far beyond capacity and resources available at a local government level".
National - Councillor Chris Whitbread, Chancellor for Essex, said SEND was a national issue that needs government support (Image: PAUL STARR Photographer)He said: "In the 2023 to 2024 academic year we issued more EHCPs than in any previous year and the percentage of requests for assessment that were agreed continued to rise.
"Further work is planned as part of our wider, ongoing SEND improvement journey. This includes working with parents and carers to design new support and initiatives for families."
Ms Cox said: “Wednesday marked the next phase of my team's much-needed work on SEND and EHCP.
“Essex County Council has very poor record on EHCP processing.
“I spoke in a parliamentary debate on EHCPs and urged ministers in the Department for Education to listen to the frontline voices of parents, teachers and families caught up in Essex's SEND crisis.
“My team are working with local parents and teachers on a submission to the Education Select Committee’s inquiry on SEND.”
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