Special educational needs services in England face “total collapse”, with councils on course to have run up debts of £18bn by the end of the decade as a result of increasing numbers of children requiring extra teaching support in schools.
Without urgent structural reform of the system, the cost of accelerating demand for special educational needs and disability (Send) support could push about 59 upper-tier authorities into effective bankruptcy by March 2028, councils have warned.
The government is now preparing long-delayed and potentially controversial changes to the system aimed at putting a lid on rising spending while meeting the specialist needs of more children within the mainstream schools system.
A report published on Friday by the County Councils Network (CCN) called on ministers to write off councils’ accumulated Send debts alongside legislative changes and reforms to Send appeal tribunals to reduce access to specialist support. Parents would fiercely oppose such changes.
“The system is heading towards total collapse in little over four years. This could mean families facing even longer waits for support, councils facing a level of demand that the system was never designed for, and local authorities staring down unimaginable deficits of almost £18bn,” said Matthew Hicks, the CCN chair.
The Department for Education said it had “inherited a Send system on its knees” leaving thousands of families struggling to get the right support. “We’re determined to put that right by improving mainstream inclusion so every child can thrive at their local school,” a spokesperson said.
Send spending has ballooned in recent years, triggered by steep rises in demand for and cost of education and health care plans (EHCPs). These give children and young people up to the age of 25 the legal right to support from councils for conditions such as autism, and speech and language difficulty.
According to the CCN report, the number of EHCPs issued rose to a record 638,000 in 2024-25, with as many as 840,000 forecast to have EHCPs by 2028-29, equivalent to one in 20 children and young people.
“This is a level of demand with which the system was never designed to cope, and as such, parents are facing an adversarial system in which they feel they have to battle relentlessly to get assessment and support for their child’s educational needs,” the report says.
Autism and other neurodiversity needs, social and emotional health, and language and communication difficulties account for more than two-thirds of EHCPs in English schools, the report says.
Surging numbers of EHCPs – which in theory guarantee suitable levels of educational support for individual children – have forced councils increasingly to rely on private specialist schools, some owned by private equity investors, to meet demand.
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The CCN report estimates that 34,000 pupils are in special schools at an annual average annual cost per place of £72,000, far higher than the average yearly cost per place of £10,000 in mainstream schools.
A comprehensive survey of English councils using freedom of information requests carried out by the Guardian earlier this year revealed councils’ total forecast accumulated Send deficits at the end of March 2025 was £3.2bn, rising swiftly to £5.2bn by the end of March 2026.
The survey carried out for the CCN report estimates that councils’ total accumulated deficit would rise to £6.6bn by the end of March 2026, £13.4bn by the end of March 2028, and £18bn a year later, suggesting an even more rapid rise in Send spending above the level of funding provided by government.
March 2028 is a pivotal date for councils as at this point a so-called “override” accounting arrangement allowing authorities to keep Send debts effectively hidden off the balance sheet comes to an end. Putting the debts back on the books would instantly render many councils effectively insolvent.
“We often hear of the black hole in public finances but Send deficits totalling billions of pounds are being hidden in local authority accounts. Without prompt government intervention, we risk an unprecedented local authority financial crisis,” said Lorna Baxter, president of the Association of Local Authority Treasurers.
