The famous American screenwriter Aaron Sorkin once wrote that “the first step to solving a problem is to recognise that there is one”. Labour has, to their credit, grasped that England’s Special Educational Needs (SEND) crisis is one that requires action — what remains to be seen is how far they will be prepared to go to solve it. Their long-trailed SEND White Paper, due later this month, will show how committed they are to pursuing the radical reform the system needs.
SEND spending has shot up 58.5 per cent in real terms in just six years
Policy Exchange’s report, published today, clearly shows the scale of the impending crisis that the Government must grapple with. Too often SEND is treated solely as an educational budget line, but every year local councils also spend billions on other SEND-related expenses, from educational psychologists to home-to-school transport. The total cost of all this expenditure hit £13 billion last year — more than two and a half times what we spend on prisons.
SEND spending has shot up 58.5 per cent in real terms in just six years — growing by an average of 10.3 per cent annually since 2021 — forcing councils to run mounting deficits whilst slashing spending on road repairs and libraries. Without reform, by 2028 — when the Government has committed to bring council SEND spending onto the central balance sheet — this spending could hit over £18 billion annually.
With reform proposals looming, the Government has found itself at a crossroads. To date its impulses have been promising. They took the bold step to appoint the impressive and long-standing champion of reform, Tom Rees, as their “Inclusion Tsar” back in 2024. In December, Bridget Phillipson took the controversial yet courageous decision to scrap a new wave of free schools to fund a £3 billion expansion of special school provision. Those encouraging reform have signalled that they understand that a new approach is needed to offer more effective and accessible support that delivers better outcomes as well as savings.
Equivocation and half-measures are no longer an option
Yet the inevitable push back from the SEND lobby has made their next steps treacherous. Earlier this week the Government was forced to assure campaigners that no child’s existing support entitlement will change under their plans. On Tuesday they announced billions in new spending in the autumn to pay off the SEND deficits councils have already accrued, with further support over the next few years — but few details about the reform conditions of this relief. Amidst challenging political headwinds, it would be all too easy for the Government to decide to simply tinker around the edges.
However, equivocation and half-measures are no longer an option. By increasingly assuming responsibility for the costs of SEND spending, the Government can no longer rely on council accounting tricks to hide the scale of this crisis. The eyewatering increases this report highlights — real terms spending on SEND administration alone up 135 per cent in six years, SEND transport spending up 81 per cent — equivalent to £800 million more in additional spending — are simply unsustainable. Spending patterns also paint a worrying picture, with growth in these ancillary areas coming at the expense of frontline support. In the same period specialist support services funding fell in real terms in 30 per cent of local authorities.
Alarmingly, this sharp growth in spending lays bare the inequality ballooning within SEND, which calls into question the validity of the forces driving this unrelenting rise. Since 2018 SEND spending in the richest 50 per cent of council areas grew by 14 percentage points more than in the 50 per cent most deprived local authorities. This is despite long-proven links between disadvantage and SEND need.
Instead, spiking spending is being driven by those with sharp elbows able to muscle through a system that rewards those who shout loudest rather than those who need it most. 9 out of the 10 councils which saw the highest number of applications for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) last year are actually in the top 50 per cent most affluent local authorities. The SEND lobby, insistent that all spending hikes stem from soaring need, are unable to explain why the most affluent have emerged as the main beneficiaries of the current funding system.
Given this context the Government must take bold action and make both the moral and fiscal case for reform. It has already committed to shoulder the burden of SEND spending and debt in the coming years and should therefore ensure that this remains a sustainable and fair burden on taxpayers. As Policy Exchange has previously argued, the system needs thorough reform to make support earlier and more easily accessible, whilst ending the litigious and bureaucratic process for EHCPs that bind the hands of professionals and have failed to improve outcomes for young people.
Earlier this week Keir Starmer insisted to his colleagues that he’d never been in a fight he had not won. For the sake of the future of England’s SEND system, we must hope that the Government’s reforms can still represent another victory — and a fight that they are ready for.
