Tag Archives: SEND policy

Funding SEND – is the current system fair?

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The DfE has just published data that sets the context for the expected White Paper, due this autumn. Looking at the data on the High Needs Block that has been the basic building block for the funding of SEND (special needs and disabilities), I can see why there must have been some very intense discussions between the DfE and the Treasury. Section 251: 2025 to 2026 – GOV.UK

The data on individual special school funding only refers to maintained schools where local authorities are responsible for oversight of the budgets. It would be really helpful to see similar ‘cost per place’ data for academy special schools and alternative provision, including Pupil Referral Units, even though they have a different financial year to maintained schools.    

The data for the municipal financial year of 2025-26 for Oxfordshire was set while I was still the cabinet member for Children’s Services, including maintained schools. The data on funding per place for the three maintained special schools in Oxfordshire is illuminating. There is a total of 522 such schools in England listed in the data. The most expensive costs £8.2 million per place, and judging by its website does a great job educating some very challenged young people from the start of their education journey to adulthood.

Now special schools come in many different forms with clearly different funding needs. A school for pupils with hearing loss and no other disability might need less funding per place than a school for non-verbal young people with physical disabilities in addition

The three Oxfordshire maintained schools were placed 74th, 155th and 170th in the list of 522 schools, with funding per place ranging from £840,000 to £1,2 million. Schools with £2,000,000 per place of more were ranked 373 of higher in the list. Does this mean that Oxfordshire is efficient or under-funded compared with some other local areas? I do wonder.

Even allowing for issues such as higher salary costs in London and surrounding areas, the range of cost per place for similar types of school seems worth looking into more closely, and that is where the academy special schools’ data would be useful in order to allow full consideration of cost per place by local government areas.

The current High Needs block distribution formula clearly isn’t working, and I wonder whether equity of funding is an issue for the team putting together the White Paper? How does anyone judge what is fair in funding levels? Wiser heads than mine will know the answer to that question.

Of course, the other key funding issue for SEND, especially outside of the urban areas, is the cost of transport. The Section 251 budget statement for planned expenditure during 2025-26 by Oxfordshire at Line 175092 of the DfE’s spreadsheet suggests expected spending on SEND transport, including for post-16 students of around f£26.4 million. This compares with expected home to school transport costs of just under £21 million for all other pupils entitled to fee transport.

How will the White Paper deal with this cost? Hopefully, it will recognise that such costs should be met by government up to age 18 or even 19 for all such pupils, and not be discretionary beyond age 16. Could a government funded driver scheme for unemployed adults with a driving licence remove the profit element from such expenditure or would the administration costs be more than the saving made by not using private sector firms?

These are not easy issues to grapple with, but starting with some values about the needs of children with SEND would be a good basis for the outcomes in the White Paper. However, as my earlier analysis of Pupil Teacher Ratios demonstrated, funding and values are not common cause in government spending, regardless of the political persuasion of the government in power. Oxford Teacher Services -publications

What Lib Dems want for SEND pupils and their families

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I was delighted to see the Liberal Democrats weighing in on the SEND debate by writing to the Prime minister and setting out five key principles behind any reform of the SEND system. This is what their letter to the Prime minister said:

Our five principles and priorities for SEND reform are as follows:

  1. Putting children and families first Children’s rights to SEND assessment and support must be maintained and the voices of children and young people with SEND and of their families and carers must be at the centre of the reform process.
  2. Boosting specialist capacity and improving mainstream provision Capacity in state special provision must be increased, alongside improvements to inclusive mainstream provision, with investment in both new school buildings and staff training.
  3. Supporting local government Local authorities must be supported better to fund SEND services, including through:
    1. The extension of the profit cap in children’s social care to private SEND provision, where many of the same private equity backed companies are active, and
    2. National government funding to support any child whose assessed needs exceed a specific cost.
  4. Early identification and shorter waiting lists Early identification and intervention must be improved, with waiting times for diagnosis, support and therapies cut.
  5. Fair funding The SEND funding system must properly incentivise schools both to accept SEND pupils and to train their staff in best practice for integrated teaching and pastoral care. Our five principles for SEND reform – Liberal Democrats

These principles come from a motion debated at last year’s Party conference and represent a check list against which specific policies can be measured, such as increasing the supply of educational psychologists to deal with both the annual reviews and initial assessments of EHCPs.

If there is anything missing from the list, it is the role of the NHS, and specifically around mental health and education. This is the area of need where the system has really broken down. Many of the other issues are cost related due to inflation and more young people living longer as well as increased demands from an age range of support than can now reach up to the age of 25. The issue of mental health has swamped the system and the NHS must play a part in helping define what is needed.

With the main opposition at Westminster disinterested in the issues of education that are facing most families, the Lib Dems should be leading from the front. This letter should have been sent at least a week ago.

As my earlier posts of today have shown, the Lib Dems next education campaign can be around securing enough teachers for schools in our more deprived areas. Such a campaign can take on both labour councils and Reform voters to show there is a radical alternative in the Liberal democrats.

Education may not feature very high in polling about issue in elections, but on a day-to-day basis it isn’t far away from the conversations in many households. From mobile phone to AI, funding for school meals to citizenship, Liberal Democrats should be calling the government to account.