England’s SEND deficit totals at least £1.3bn while thousands attend schools outside council area

Funding for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in England has reached a deficit of at least £1.3 billion, a new investigation has revealed.

The statistics, uncovered by the Bureau for Investigative Journalism, also found some 43,000 children have been placed in education settings outside their local authority due to a shortage of school spaces.

The Disabled Children’s Partnership (DCP), a coalition of more than 100 children’s and disability charities including Sense and the National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS), said the Bureau’s investigation “exposed worrying data about the distances disabled children are travelling just to go to school”.

DCP spokesperson Stephen Kingdom said: “Non-disabled children would never be expected to spend three hours on school transport every day.

“The longest journeys are often undertaken by children who need the most specialist provision. The Disabled Children’s Partnership therefore welcomes the plans in the Government SEND Green Paper to increase the number of specialist school places if this means that children can go to a school nearer to home than meets their needs.

“We are very concerned that the green paper proposal to offer parents a choice of school from a ‘list of appropriate placements’ is a cost cutting measure that will actually restrict families’ options.

“The Government has committed to ending the postcode lottery this investigation highlights, but that must not mean reducing the choice for families or lowering the quality of education for disabled children.”

The £1.3 billion figure was produced after totalling the deficits of England councils’ Disabled Schools’ Grants (DSGs), with Kent County Council (KCC) topping the list with a shortfall of £103 million.

More than 460 deaf children are reported to be living in Kent according to NDCS data, with the council’s director for education Christine McInness telling the Bureau: “There are children spending two hours being transported to a special school – to what benefit?

“I’m not saying that should never happen, but it should only happen in extreme cases because actually, you’re taking 10 hours a week out of that child’s life when they should be doing after school activities, meeting with friends, and having a life.

“Instead, they’re spending it being transported around.”

Last month the UK Government confirmed it had reached agreements with nine local authorities to meet savings targets in a bid to tackle their DSG deficits.

In the same announcement, the Department for Education said: “There should be no doubt that local authorities are responsible in accounting terms for their DSG deficits, and authorities will know that DfE regulations allow the deficits to be carried forward from year to year.”

Meanwhile councils in Thurrock, Somerset and North Somerset – which house 125, 263 and 901 deaf children respectively – saw a 20% increase in the number of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans in just 12 months.

On the journeys carried out by disabled children from their local authority to their educational setting, the longest distance unearthed by the Bureau was an estimated 412 miles from Cornwall to Newcastle.

In a statement to the Bureau, a Local Government Association spokesperson said: “Meeting the year-on-year increase in demand for Send support is one of the biggest challenges that councils are dealing with. Councils lack the levers to bring this spending under control and this is a key issue that needs to be addressed.”

The organisation’s findings are the latest figures to reveal the ongoing crisis in SEND support, with the UK Government publishing a consultation on its delayed SEND review at the end of March.

Yet almost a month later, the Department for Education has come under fire for not providing versions of the consultation in an easy-read format or in British Sign Language (BSL), despite stating on the official website the materials would be ready by “early April”.

In a tweet addressed to Children and Families Minister Will Quince MP on Monday, the campaign group Special Needs Jungle wrote: “Can you please tell us what has happened to the easy read and BSL version of the SEND review that have been promised? How can young people and those who rely on BSL participate without them?

“We now only have 10 weeks left. Please act now!”

Mr Quince replied: “I am sorry that this has taken longer than I had hoped. I want as many people as possible to participate in the SEND and Alternative Provision consultation.

“The team is working as quickly as possible to make accessible versions available in the coming days.”

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.