Clementine Russell looks at the crisis in funding and argues children need full support, not cuts

Government funding for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Send) is at a crisis point.

While the issue often remains unnoticed by much of the general public, to those who have had experience dealing with local councils to try to get the support their children need, the problem is glaringly obvious.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, high-needs spending has been consistently above funding by £200–800 million per year between 2018 and 2022. For many children across the country, this means not getting the vital support they need.

Parents often have to fight with local councils to get their children Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP), and even if they do succeed in this, they sometimes end up having to draft the entire EHCP themselves, and the burden of finding alternative educational provisions is often on them.

This is particularly hard for working-class parents, who do not have the time to do the council’s job for them, and parents whose first language is not English. Moreover, there is less alternative provision for children outside of big cities.

Despite this dire situation with over half of councils saying they could be insolvent next year, Labour failed to do anything about it in the Spending Review. Their plans to ‘transition to a reformed system’ in the autumn sounds alarmingly like an attempt to limit Send provisions rather than fund it properly.

While EHCPs have been described as ‘golden tickets’, in reality, they are the basic requirements: provision must follow to ensure disabled children have the support they need.

All children with learning disabilities, neurological disorders such as autism, and mental-health issues should have access to the support they need to flourish in education, but right now they are being ignored.

Help fight for better funding for Send on 15 September at Parliament Square Gardens.

From this month’s Counterfire freesheet