‘Too many families struggle to get the help their children desperately need.’
Children risk leaving school without the support they desperately need, MPs have warned, with the system for special educational needs (SEND) in England at crisis point.
A new report from the Public Accounts Committee shows that since 2015, the number of children receiving SEND support in schools has surged by 14 percent, with demand for Education, Health, and Care (EHC) plans soaring by 140 percent. Despite a 58 percent increase in high-needs funding over the last decade, funding has failed to keep up with demand.
In 2023, just half of EHC plans were issued within the required 20-week timeframe.
“Outcomes for children have not improved which inevitably undermines parents’ confidence in the system. Too many families struggle to get the help their children desperately need, with long waiting times for assessments and support, and tribunal cases rising,” the report states.
It continued that whether children receive support depends too much on their postcode, or how well their parents can navigate an often chaotic and adversarial system.
The Committee is calling on the government to take action to overhaul SEND support, warning that the current situation is failing families and pushing local councils towards bankruptcy within 15 months.
It urges the Department for Education (DfE) to collaborate with the Department of Health and Social Care to better understand and address the growing demand for support, and to deliver more efficient solutions, such as earlier identification of needs and better value for money in special schools.
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 National Education Union (NEU) described the report as exposing the “full scale of the SEND crisis,” which schools, parents and unions have been telling the government about for years.
The Liberal Democrats said the report “lays bare a wrecked system of SEND provision in this country that is failing children and families every single day.”
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