Special education spending surges 70pc amid autism wave

The cost of supporting schoolchildren with special needs has jumped by more than two-thirds since lockdown amid a surge in pupils with autism.

Local authority spending on children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) has risen by 70pc since 2018-19, from £6.9bn to £12bn, according to Telegraph analysis of Department for Education planned spending.

The sharp jump in costs also comes alongside an increase in the number of children with autism who are entitled to support.

One in 100 primary schoolchildren are now entitled to formal council support as a result of autism, up from one in 200 before the pandemic.

To qualify legally for council help, children must be granted an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) – a legal document that entitles a child or young person to extra help in school.

The number of students in receipt of an EHCP because of autism has increased by 60pc since the start of the pandemic, hitting 132,249 in state-funded schools in 2023-24.

Experts say that figure likely understates the true scale of the issue as waiting times for a diagnosis continue to grow.

NHS data shows there were a record 187,567 patients with an open referral for suspected autism in June, with almost 90pc waiting more than 13 weeks for a diagnosis. Many have been waiting more than nine months.

The rapidly rising figures and the associated cost threaten to worsen a council debt crisis. Soaring demand from parents for services have left dozens of local authorities facing bankruptcy within the next 18 months when emergency provisions expire.

Almost £12bn – or a fifth – of the £61.5bn education budget distributed by English local authorities in the last financial year was earmarked for children with Send.

Funding allocated to pupils with special educational needs has risen three times faster than standard funding since the pandemic.

The money goes towards classroom funds, transport for students – such as taxis for pupils who struggle to get to school – and structures in place for administering and supporting claims.

Separate figures published by the County Councils Network (CCN) show that children with autism, social, emotional and mental health needs or speech, language and communication impairments account for 88pc of the total increase in special educational need since 2015, when reforms were rolled out designed to give the parents of children with special needs more control over their education.

Worryingly, the number of children with special needs achieving GCSE-level qualifications has also fallen since lockdown despite the increased spending.

‘The system is broken’

Kate Foale, CCN spokesman for Send, warned that councils faced a £5bn “crisis” in their finances unless urgent action was taken.

She added that parents were becoming increasingly frustrated by an “adversarial” system that is failing parents, councils and taxpayers.

Ms Foale said: “The system is broken. It does not work for families, pupils, nor councils. We are calling for action that includes building new capacity to create inclusion in mainstream schools, alongside moving away from the adversarial nature of the current system.”

In 2015, the Conservative government raised the maximum age at which people could qualify for Send support from 16 to 25 years old, creating an increasing black hole in council budgets.

In 2020 it allowed councils to temporarily keep ballooning deficits on spending for children with special educational needs and disabilities off their balance sheets. This “statutory override” will be in place until 2026.

However, 38 councils with the biggest Send deficits have had to strike deals that give them annual cash in return for austerity plans. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council warned in January that it could face insolvency this year as a result of rising deficits.

A recent CCN survey found that a quarter of respondents said they would be insolvent within a year if the statutory override was removed, with a further quarter saying they would likely go bust within three years.

Separate figures show the number of disabled youngsters in Britain has more than doubled in the past two decades, amid a wave of poor mental health.

Almost 15pc of 11 to 15-year-olds say they have a disability, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), compared to 6.3pc 20 years ago.

It means this age group is now more likely to be disabled than a typical 35 to 44-year-old was in the early years of this century.

Health services are under growing strain from the combination of the ageing population, worsening ill-health and dire productivity growth, the OBR warned this week.

The crippling cost of Britain’s autism wave

By Szu Ping Chan and Ben Butcher

It was meant to improve children’s lives: the introduction of a new system to support young people with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in 2014 was designed to give parents more say over their children’s future, as well as enhanced support for their journey into adulthood.

Instead, the combination of increased recognition of conditions like autism and ADHD, a post-pandemic surge in demand and overstretched council budgets has pushed some local authorities to breaking point.

Parents, meanwhile, have been living through a decade of distrust in a system that council leaders admit has become “adversarial”.

Even worse, academic outcomes have gone into reverse.

The crisis at Labour’s doorstep comes even as more money than ever before is being invested in Send.

Local authority spending on children with special needs now totals £12bn, 70pc more than it did before the pandemic. 

The number of children granted a so-called Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), a legal document that entitles a child or young person to extra help in school, is rising quickly, particularly among children with autism or ADHD.

The total number of EHCPs related to a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has increased by 60pc since the start of the pandemic, hitting 132,249 in state-funded schools in 2023-24.

Reforms a decade ago extended the maximum age of young people who qualify for Send support from 16 to 25 years old, which has also led to greater levels of demand.

Demand on resources has put pressure on both specialist and mainstream schools.

Nigel Minns, of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), which represents council leaders in the sector, said the situation was an emergency.

“It’s a crisis and I’m not sure the problem could be much worse.”

Minns says councils in England are moving away from a principle of integration towards sending children with complex needs to specialist schools amid a surge in demand for support.

The number of children receiving support in mainstream schools has doubled to 220,000 over the past decade, while the number of pupils in state-funded special schools is up by 50pc. 

Yet still it is not enough.

Such is the demand for support that parents are increasingly turning to private schools. The number of pupils attending independent and non-maintained special schools has more than doubled from just under 13,000 in 2015 to almost 30,000 this year.

“Mainstream schools are supporting a lot more children than they were four to five years ago,” says Minns. “But the levels of need are so great that there’s a massive number who can’t be supported in mainstream schools so all our special schools have filled up too. 

“Of course, when these become full, the only alternative for those who can’t be supported in mainstream schools is to go into the independent sector.”

In some cases, councils are resorting to sending children with specialist needs to private schools when state-funded facilities are full. The average cost of sending a child with an EHCP to an independent school is £58,500, according to research by the County Councils Network (CCN).

The cost of specialist support in mainstream schools is £8,200, while supporting a child in a state-funded special school was £25,000.

Children with EHCP also get support for getting to and from school and the cost of transport is also mounting. The budget for Send transport has grown 74pc to £1.9bn over the past five years.

The money is given to parents to help pay for the fuel it costs to drive their child to school or a bus pass. But funds are increasingly used to pay for taxis, sometimes covering huge distances. Unlike ring-fenced EHCP funding, Send transport is funded by council tax as local authorities must always balance the books.

Analysis by the BBC earlier this year showed Buckinghamshire Council was paying £952 per day for “two complex medical passengers” to travel to school by ambulance with a nurse.

Another council official says: “I know of one local authority that’s supporting two children who are from the same family.

“The parents said they don’t believe the children should be allowed to travel in the same taxi because they might hurt each other. So you’re paying for two taxis to transport them on a two-hour journey to go to a school, and that’s been given to them by a tribunal.”

Kate Foale, Send spokesman for the CCN, says urgent action is needed. “Overall, the system is broken. It does not work for families, pupils, nor councils,” she says.

Councils are already facing a multibillion-pound “high needs” deficit linked to EHCP provision, she says, which is likely to hit £5bn within two years.

The previous government took action in 2020 by allowing councils to temporarily keep ballooning deficits on special educational needs and disabilities spending off their balance sheets.

This “statutory override” has been extended until 2026. However, 38 councils with the biggest Send deficits have had to strike so-called “safety valve” deals that give them annual cash injections in return for agreeing to austerity.

Foale says: “Special educational needs services are in crisis, with costs continuing to spiral and are projected to rise to £5bn by 2026.

“This threatens the financial viability of even well-run councils, with councils staring at a cliff edge in 2026 if the statutory override ends then.

“Indeed, a recent survey from the County Councils Network found that if the override ended tomorrow, one in four councils would declare bankruptcy within a year, and half of local authorities surveyed would be insolvent within three years.

“Therefore, it is vital the Government sets out root-and-branch reform to the system, alongside the Chancellor setting out at the Spending Review how the Government will address these deficits once the statutory override comes to an end.”

‘Adversarial and combative’

Minns at ADCS says the result is a system that has become more combative and hostile.

“It’s the inevitable result of a parent wanting what is best for their child and local authorities who are conscious that they have a set budget and number of children, and that they have to try and balance those different demands. 

“You get into a position where you’ve got the individual against the collective need, and it’s impossible for that not to get into that adversarial arena.”

As a result, the number of cases brought to tribunal because parents are dissatisfied with the system has surged. Of cases that made it all the way through the process, 98pc of decisions ruled in favour of those making the appeal.

Minns says it’s time to take a different approach: “Most parents that I talk to would much rather their children were educated in their local mainstream school – if they had confidence that mainstream school could meet their needs.

“The problem is the confidence in the system has been eroded.”

He believes England should move back towards a system of integration that would keep costs down and ensure brothers and sisters stay in the same school. The share of Send pupils who are getting GCSE qualifications has actually fallen since reforms were introduced.

“The answer isn’t just to increase the money,” he says. “We need to look at how we spend it effectively, because it comes back to the fact that we’re actually spending all this extra money but outcomes aren’t getting better.

“We need to improve the ability of mainstream schools to support children with special educational needs. That means we need to look at the way we train teachers and the support services they can access like speech and language therapy, which schools find they can’t access.”