Debate on SEND provision, House of Commons, 5 September 2024

• Councils aspire to help create a truly inclusive education system, and urgently want to improve support and transform outcomes for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their families. Councils, parent/carers and wider partners all recognise that the current SEND system is systemically broken. Nothing short of fundamental reform is urgently needed. 
• As the National SEND Review identified, ‘the SEND system in England is ‘failing to deliver for children, young people and their families’ and ‘despite the continuing and unprecedented investment, the system is not financially sustainable.’ 
• The national high needs block for SEND rose from £5.3 billion in 2014-15, to £9.4 billion in 2024-25. On top of national funding, councils have spent an additional £950 million on SEND support in 2023/24 alone. We estimate that nationally local government’s cumulative high needs deficit now stands at £3.15 billion, which is now threatening the financial viability of some councils. Despite record investment and the high rate of assessment and identification of needs, there is no clear evidence that outcomes for children have been improving. Across some measures they are declining. 
• Our recent joint report with the County Councils Network, sets out a bold vision and eight implementable proposals to transform support and outcomes for children and young people with SEND and put the system on a sustainable footing. Our proposals are built on the core principle of putting inclusion at the heart of every aspect of our education system. Central to this ambition is building capacity and expertise within the mainstream system so that more children can access the universal and targeted support they need; wholesale reform of education policy to support inclusion; and a cross-government, multi-disciplinary workforce strategy for inclusive education, additional needs and preparation for adulthood.
• Alongside this, we are calling for urgent reform of the statutory system to ensure local partners have the right powers to improve local SEND systems, and deliver quality, integrated services for children who require specialist support. As local SEND system leaders, councils currently lack the powers and strategic oversight to hold partners to account for delivering services and improving outcomes. 
• We want to work with Government, parent/carers and wider partners to urgently take these reforms forward and transform lives. Inaction will only increase the cost of reform – both the financial cost for the public sector and the cost of missed opportunities and continued negative experiences for children and their families.

The SEND system is struggling to respond to ever-increasing volume

More children than ever before are seeking support through the statutory SEND system. Since 2014, the number of children and young people with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in England and Wales has risen by 115 per cent, from 240,183 in 2015 (which includes EHCPs and statements) to 517,049 in 2023. As a result, the system is dealing with an unsustainable level of need for which it was not designed.

The increase in need is driven partly by a change in the growing complexity of children’s needs, compounded by failures in the system which mean children are not receiving the right support at the right time. While the drivers of these needs are complex and individual, there is a relation between some needs – particularly social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) and speech, language and communication (SLCN) needs – with the impact of rising child poverty, material deprivation and adverse childhood experiences. Needs are not always identified early enough, and the right form of support (which may be for needs other than SEND) is not always available. As a result, some children’s needs are escalating to the point where they need more intensive support. 

The increasing demand for specialist support within the statutory SEND system also been driven in significant part by developments over the last decade which have reduced the capacity of the mainstream system to support children with additional needs. Education reforms have disincentivised inclusion. While cuts to support within schools and wider public services has reduced the targeted support that is available without an EHCP. With the mainstream system failing to meet many children’s additional needs, EHCPs are increasingly seen the only way to access additional support, or secure proper accountability for that support. 

The rise in numbers of children and young people with EHCPs has been accompanied by a similarly steep increase in the number of pupils placed in specialist schools, highlighting the reduced capacity of schools to meet children’s needs within mainstream settings. Between 2014/15 and 2022/23, there has been 51 per cent increase in placements in state-funded special schools, while placements in independent and non-maintained special schools (INMSSs) have risen 164 per cent. 

Weaknesses in the statutory system

There are also critical issues within elements of the statutory framework that require urgent reform. Namely, there is a fundamental misalignment of roles, responsibilities and accountability, which mean local authorities, as the local SEND system leader, do not have the powers or strategic oversight they need to respond to issues or improve support. 

While SEND services are a multi-agency responsibility, local authorities are held accountable for the effectiveness of local SEND arrangements and the outcomes of children and young people with SEND. Yet, local authorities have no clear mechanism to hold health and mainstream education settings accountable for the level or standard of support they provide to children with SEND. This can result in parent/carers feeling like they have to battle individual services for support and have limited rights of redress. 

All partners agree that the 2014 SEND reforms, that established the current system, have not forged genuinely joint working across education, health and care. This is despite widespread efforts to foster partnership working in local SEND systems across the country. In particular, the failure to create a single, joint, place-based budget for SEND partners had meant that debates about who should pay for what have persisted, particularly between the NHS and local authorities. 

To truly transform outcomes for children and young people with SEND, nothing short of fundamental reform is urgently needed. The LGA recently published a joint report with the County Councils Network, that sets out a bold vision and eight implementable proposals to create a sustainable and effective SEND system. 

Our report proposes radical action to put inclusion at the heart of every aspect of our education system, so that more children can access the support they need, when they need it, within the mainstream system. This will require:

• Government setting a new national ambition for inclusion that embeds inclusion across all aspects of education policy and practice.
• A new “national framework” for additional needs to set out what support should be provided in mainstream settings and develop best practice, to drive up standards.
• Rapidly rebuilding capacity within mainstream settings so that more children can access the support they need, at the right time, without the need for statutory assessment or plan. This should include developing of a new “core offer” of targeted, multi-disciplinary support – from therapists, educational psychologists (Eps), mental health and wider services – that all education settings can access.
• Wholesale reform of education policy to support inclusion, including curriculum, qualifications, accountability, workforce training and development, leadership, and buildings.
• A cross-government, multi-disciplinary workforce strategy for inclusive education, additional needs and preparation for adulthood, specifying the skills and practitioners needed to deliver, for example, the core wraparound targeted offer.

Alongside this, reform of the statutory SEND system is urgently needed to improve support for children who will continue to need specialist provision. Councils have long been highlighting that there is a fundamental misalignment of roles, responsibilities and accountabilities, which mean local SEND system leaders do not have the powers or strategic oversight they need to respond to issues or improve support. 

The roles of councils, health and education partners need reconfiguring, so that they provide a robust foundation for joint working and delivering integrated and accessible local SEND services. We propose creating new statutory “Local Inclusion Partnerships” to lead the strategic planning and commissioning of a continuum of support to meet local needs (including the targeted offer of support and specialist provision), and decision-making regarding statutory plans. The partnership would include named partners from the LA, health services and the education sector, who would have joint powers and responsibilities and a pooled budget to deliver local SEND services. This would help to overcome current silos and establish proper oversight and accountability for outcomes.

Megan Edwards, Public Affairs and Campaigns Adviser, [email protected]