SEND emergency: Unviable system will end in lost generation of children without reform, says PAC

A lost generation of children could leave school without having received the help they need. In its report on support for children and young people with special educational needs (SEN), the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today issues an urgent call for Government to take action to improve a system which is failing the families who need it, and putting almost half of all councils in England in danger of effective bankruptcy within 15 months.

The PAC finds that too many families struggle to access desperately-needed SEN support, with a system inherently favouring parents and carers better able to navigate an often chaotic and adversarial process liable to produce marked inequalities. The report highlights a postcode lottery with massive variation across the country in families' wait times for education, health and care (EHC) plans (see national heatmap on left; national and regional heatmaps attached). Even families in neighbouring local authorities have markedly different experiences - 71.5% of EHC plans were written on time in Lambeth, while only 19.2% were in Southwark. Areas with particularly poor performance can be seen in the South, South-West and East of England.

In the course of the PAC's inquiry, Government attributed lengthening EHC plan waiting times to increasing demand. But the Department for Education (DfE) does not fully understand why demand for support has increased, undermining its ability to deliver it. A further 1.14m children since 2015 receive SEN support in schools (a 14% rise since 2015), while demand for EHC plans has soared by 140% since 2015. The DfE must improve its understanding of demand, before setting out how it will provide support more efficiently.

The DfE admitted to the PAC that it has not looked hard enough at the barriers to encouraging inclusivity in mainstream schools. The report recommends DfE should, within six months, set out the provision which children with SEN should expect, with an articulation of how inclusive education will be achieved, and how schools will be held to account. Earlier identification of SEN, and improved teacher training and continuous development are also key to delivering inclusive education. SEN performance data should also incorporate factors other than academic attainment.

As well as not delivering outcomes for children and families, the Government was unable to provide to the PAC any potential solution to the critical and immediate financial challenges facing many local authorities due to persistent and significant SEN-related overspends. The system also remains unviable with current piecemeal interventions doing nothing to provide a financially sustainable system, which poses an existential threat to the financial status of some local authorities. The situation if left unresolved risks undermining the finances of local government across England. As a matter of utmost urgency, the PAC calls on Government to work with local authorities to develop a fair and appropriate solution.

Alongside the report, the PAC Chair has also written directly (attached) to the Secretaries of State and Permanent Secretaries of the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care, to underline the gravity of the current position.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Committee, said: “Urgent warnings have long been issued to Government on the failing SEND system from every quarter. This is an emergency that has been allowed to run and run. Families in need of help have been forced to spend precious energy fighting for the support they are legally entitled to, and local authorities to bear an unsustainable financial burden.

“The fact that 98% of cases taken to tribunal find in favour of families is staggering, and can only demonstrate that we are forcing people to jump through bureaucratic hoops for no good reason. It is long past time the Government took action matching the gravity of this situation. And yet our inquiry found no sense of urgency amongst officials to do so.

“The immensity of this situation cannot be overstated. As a nation, we are failing countless children. We have been doing so for years. At the same time, we are creating an existential financial risk for some local authorities, caused by that same failing system. This report must serve as a line in the sand for Government. Every day that goes by for families not receiving the right support is another day closer to a lost generation of young people.”

PAC report conclusions and recommendations

The SEN system is inconsistent, inequitable and not delivering in line with expectations, which inevitably undermines parents' confidence in it.  The Department considers parental confidence to be a key indicator of a "good" system effectively supporting children with SEN. However, parents will lack confidence in a system which is currently not delivering. With only half of EHC plans issued within the statutory 20-week limit in 2023, children are waiting too long for support: in 2023, local authorities issued anywhere from 1% to 100% on time. Equally, parents are appealing more SEN decisions, with an increase in the number appealed, from 6,000 in 2018 to 15,600 in 2023. Of these, 98% of decisions found in favour of parents, contributing to low confidence, and which the Department recognises as indicative of poor value for money. The Department needs to learn from tribunal decisions, and whether the tribunal process favours those parents better able to navigate the system. The Department acknowledges the tribunal system could create inequalities, as do the huge local variations in the timeliness of EHC plans and local authorities interpreting SEN needs differently. The proportion of children with EHC plans differs across local authorities. In 2023/24, this varied from 2.7% (Nottinghamshire) to 7.5% (London Borough of Tower Hamlets) for children aged 5 to 15 years.

Recommendation 1: Over the next 12 months, the Department should work with others including local authorities and the Ministry of Justice to:

1. a) better understand the reasons for differences in identifying and supporting SEN needs across local areas and schools;
2. b) routinely identify and share good practice from better performing areas; and
3. c) improve local authority decision-making by analysing tribunal decisions.

Without fully understanding why demand for support has increased, the Department's ability to provide value for money is undermined. Over the last decade, demand for EHC plans has soared. In January 2024, there were 576,000 children with EHC plans, a 140% increase since 2015. A further 1.14 million were receiving SEN support in schools, up by 14% since 2015. This encompasses large increases in certain needs, including autistic spectrum disorders, but the Department could do more to better understand the reasons behind increasing demand. The Department considers that identifying and supporting SEN needs earlier could reduce demand and be more cost effective. It also plans to provide support to cohorts of pupils in the areas of fastest-rising demand, making funding less dependent on agreeing individual plans. The Department has not yet explained how it will evaluate the cost-effectiveness of special schools but has started to compare outcomes for children with similar needs in state special and mainstream schools.

Recommendation 2: Within the next six months, the Department must work with the DHSC to better understand the reasons for increasing and changed demand for SEN support, and then set out how it will provide support more efficiently, such as through group support, identifying needs earlier and ensuring special schools reflect value for money.

The Department has not made clear what it means by inclusive education, a core strand of its approach, or how it will be achieved.A core aim of the Children and Families Act 2014 was supporting children with SEN in more inclusive mainstream schools, but the Department has made little discernible progress. It has not defined or set out what inclusive education should look like, or provided specific funding for inclusivity, despite this being at the heart of its approach. There are few incentives for schools to be inclusive, with performance data focussing only on academic attainment and no separate judgement by Ofsted on SEN. Schools can often feel that others are not accepting their share of children with SEN. Local authorities have limited influence over academies to affect these decisions. This is also an issue in regard to selective education settings (e.g. grammar schools) found in parts of England. The Department acknowledges that it has not looked hard enough at barriers to inclusivity. It suggests that the ongoing curriculum review and proposed changes to Ofsted inspections provide an opportunity. In June 2023, only 56% of teachers felt confident to support children with additional needs, and the Department has several initiatives underway to improve training. It is also funding training for additional educational psychologists to provide both more support within schools and undertake assessments for SEN. The 2014 Act was intended to identify needs earlier, but the Department does not have a defined process or specific funding to achieve this.

Recommendation 3. The Department should, within the next six months, set out the provision which children with SEN support should expect. Alongside this, they should set out what inclusive education means and looks like, and the level of resourcing both to ensure the support for children with SEN and the maintenance of educational provision for other children in the same setting. The Department should also set out how inclusive education will be achieved including through earlier identification of SEN, and improved teacher training and continuous development, and how schools will be held to account. SEN performance data should incorporate factors other than academic attainment.

Accessing health expertise presents a significant barrier to identifying and supporting SEN needs. DHSC plays a critical role in the SEN system. It jointly published with DfE the Code of Practice and 2023 improvement plan and is responsible for overseeing local health service providers. Currently, only 2 out of 32 competing priorities for the National Health Service (NHS) relate to SEN. DHSC recognises it could improve Integrated Care Boards' (ICBs) focus on SEN. Since 2023, it requires each ICB to appoint an executive lead for SEN and recent planning guidance asks ICBs to look at community health services. Despite increasing need, DHSC does not have data to understand current long waiting times for health support, with reports of children waiting years to access children's and adolescents' mental health support (CAMHS). DHSC is still working on a solution - it has committed more funding and aspires to provide more support for speech and language therapy and CAMHS. However, with staffing being considered as part of a wider 10-year plan for NHS recovery, it is unclear when there will be wider progress.

Recommendation 4. Within six months, DHSC should set out how ICBs will consider SEN alongside wider priorities; how its longer-term workforce plans will address current and forecast SEN skill shortfalls; and its processes, plans and targets for reducing related waiting lists.

Departmental witnesses could not provide any potential solution to the critical and immediate financial challenges facing many local authorities due to persistent and significant SEN-related overspends. The impact of these are being deferred under the temporary "statutory override" scheme, which is due to expire in March 2026. This is currently expected to cause nearly half of all English local authorities to be at risk of effectively going bankrupt. With increasing demand for EHC plans, most local authorities have overspent their annual high-needs budget each year since 2016-17. This has contributed to growing cumulative deficits for many local authorities within their dedicated schools grant budgets, with others using reserves to cover SEN costs. Since 2020, local authorities have been able to exclude these deficits from their main revenue budgets, so avoiding these overspends impacting their overall financial position. However, this only hides the deteriorating financial situation.  When this arrangement ends in March 2026, 66 local authorities (43%) could be at risk of breaching their statutory duty to set a balanced budget, and so would be effectively bankrupt. Despite the obvious urgency, there is no solution in place to what will be an estimated £4.6 billion cumulative deficit. The Department is discussing the issue with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and HM Treasury, but says the issue is complicated given local authorities' differing financial situations. There is a real risk of unfairness in the treatment of local authorities given some have accrued SEN-related deficits and others have avoided doing so. Left unresolved the issue risks undermining the whole of local government finance.

Recommendation 5: Given the risks to local authorities' finances, central government must urgently involve local authorities in conversations to develop a fair and appropriate solution for when the statutory override ends in March 2026, clearly setting out these plans as a matter of urgency and no later than March 2025.

In the longer term, the SEN system remains unviable with piecemeal interventions, such as Safety Valve, doing nothing to provide a financially sustainable system. Based on the Department's current forecasts on the need for SEN support, the annual gap between funding and forecast costs across local authorities will grow to between £2.9 billion and £3.9 billion in 2027-28. Since 2021, the Department has introduced the 'Safety Valve' and 'Delivering Better Value' financial support programmes for those local authorities with the worst deficits. However, these do not include all local authorities and will not deliver enough savings, merely acting as a short-term sticking plaster. The Department argues that the situation would be worse without these programmes but also recognises that more needs to be done. Due to a state sector capacity being unable to meet rising demand, local authorities are spending more on costlier independent school placements for children with EHCs - £2 billion in 2022 (46% more than 2018-19) - although the Department wants to rely less on these settings. Home to school transport for children with SEN has seen a 77% real terms cost increase since 2015. The Department needs more granular data so it can work with local authorities to better manage these pressures.

Recommendation 6. Moving on from its 'Safety Valve' programme, the Department must provide specific support and guidance so all local authorities can effectively manage their SEN-related spending sustainably in the longer term. To ensure investment allocation decisions maximise value for money, demand forecasting is vital. This joint work by the Department and local authorities should include differentiating between the number of places to be provided in mainstream and specialist state settings. It should also ensure that any spending on independent schools and transport costs reflects value for money. The Department should work with local authorities to identify ways in which more accountable provision could be developed offering better value for money.

The Department's ability to reform the system is hindered by a lack of data, targets and a clear, costed plan. The Department accepts the need for major change, but lacks a clear, costed plan to push forward reforms and measure progress. Despite taking years to develop a plan to address recognised challenges, the Department recognises it needs to be much clearer on what it needs to achieve, how and when, through a costed plan with interdependencies and metrics for progress and benefits. In setting out metrics, the Department conceded it needs to further develop how it will look beyond educational attainment to understand if the system is working, such as by considering attendance which may indicate children feeling supported. The Department has a long way to go to build data across a range of areas, such as on SEN mainstream schools places, home to school transport and whole system costs. It continues to test dashboards across 32 local authorities, but it is unclear how these data will be used and when.

Recommendation 7. The Department should urgently improve its data, and then use this information to develop a new fully costed plan for improving the SEN system, with concrete actions, and clear interdependencies, alongside metrics to measure outcomes.