Priyanka Tiwari
Share
We’re told that England’s special education needs and disabilities (SEND) system is on the brink of collapse, with 60–70 councils facing effective bankruptcy by March 2026 owing to charging SEND their ballooning deficits. Chronic underfunding, increasing demand for support services, and reliance on expensive private specialist schools have turned the crisis into what local government officials term as ‘a ticking timebomb’.
The council SEND deficits across the country are cumulatively predicted to top five billion pounds in the next year. Some councils are already showing particularly worrying trends. The SEND deficit of West Sussex County Council currently stands at a staggering cumulative debt of 131 million pounds. It is projected to double to 225 million pounds by 2026, and then become 459 million dollars by 2029. The authorities used to have surpluses in certain areas of SEND funding, but expensive state funded education is shattering all other budgetary constraints.
The phenomenon of mass insolvency has to this point been circumvented through an accounting action termed “override,” which enables councils to hide SEND shortcomings from their balance sheets. This action does not last indefinitely, though, as it will virtually come to an end in March 2026. After that, many councils will find it impossible to settle their debts. Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole Council, which has a looming SEND deficit of 165 million pounds, recently resorted to draconian measures such as putting a freeze on new EHCP assessments or said it might take the more extreme step of stopping sending business rates to the Treasury—a move it admitted would be “unpalatable” and illegal.
The rising cost of private specialist schools
Another component aggravating SEND expenditure is the increased dependency on private specialist schools, which charge two to three times the fee paid by sending places into state schools. Initially, Warwickshire County Council estimated that 470 children would utilize independent Special schools and budgeted to pay roughly 55,000 pounds for each child. By the year’s end, however, they have had to revise this figure to 556 children at an average price of 66,000 pounds, resulting in this year’s 11 million pound overspend. Given that state-funded SEND schools are all at maximum capacity, councils have no option but to send children to these expensive schools resulting in accusations of profiteering in this sector.
A financial burden does not stop at school placements. The SEND transport expenses from home to school in Hampshire alone went from £40 million, to £105 million in just two years. A continuous construction slowdown of new specialist schools, emergency intra-school fund reallocations, and growing backlogs of EHCP applications is further accentuating the problem. Efforts to regulate SEND costs through local strategies have been largely unsuccessful, with councils overspending and failing government goals.
Diminished trust between parents caused by crices
This problem has caused parents to lose all trust they have in the SEND system with councils rationing their services due to funding shortages. Complaints towards SEND provision have dramatically increased, with councils spending over £100 million on legal tribunals in 2022-23 to try and deny support for children, only to lose 99% of the 10,000 they fought against. More dependencies are arguing over the increased bureaucratic barriers that are aimed at restricting service access, leading to significant discontent with the system.
Rethinking SEND Systems
In order to revamp the SEND system, there needs to be a combination of attending to deficits, implementing structural alterations, and investing in the mainstream provisions to lessen the dependence on private schools. The attempt to balance council requirements to minimize spending against parental attempts to safeguard their legal protections to SEND Services are always going to be politically delicate. Ministers maintain that they are all in for ‘first principles’ system-wide reforms, with one Whitehall official saying, “We are embracing a reality that has been neglected for a very long time.” Repairing the SEND system, they said, remains one of the defining problems of the government.
One key issue for many councils is looking like they are insolvent…and fast. The government is under increasing pressure to resolve the crisis before the SEND funding deficits including working restrictions deteriorate further out of control.
Read More: Pakistan and Afghanistan Border Tensions Flare Up with Night Long Heavy Firing
