Ministers face calls to account for £6bn black hole in Send funding

The rising cost of financing special educational needs provision is set to be reduced through an overhaul of the system, with ministers facing calls to explain how a £6bn funding hole will be paid for.

- Rowena Mason Richard Adams

The government is under pressure to clarify how it will pay for special educational needs and disabilities (Send) spending, which is rapidly increasing, after Rachel Reeves said in the budget that she will take over full responsibility for the costs from local councils from 2028.

Ministers have been working on changes to the Send system for months, with a white paper due to be published early next year. Both the chancellor and Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, say it is intended to benefit children and parents, who are frustrated by a broken system, rather than being aimed at saving money.

However, senior government sources said the changes would also substantially bring down the growth of the Send budget. Spending on the Send system by councils has reached £12bn this year - a 66% increase over the past decade - with billions of pounds spent in excess of their budgets on meeting their legal duties to children.

The Office for Budget Responsibility highlighted a £6bn shortfall in funding in 2028-29 rising to £9bn in 2030-30. This comes on top of a cumulative £14bn of extra spending since 2020 that is still being held off balance sheets by English local authorities.

The watchdog said it was a "significant fiscal risk", as the Treasury has not said how it would be paid for and it could be equivalent to a 4.9% cut in the schools budget per pupil.

Phillipson reassured Labour MPs yesterday that the extra costs of Send would not fall on the core schools allocation but on the government budget overall, and suggested the OBR's presentation was misleading.