Councils are bracing for another big rise in the cost of transport and administration for SEND pupils, as the impact of rising demand is felt across the system.
Data on expected local authority spending shows councils predict they will spend over £1.5 billion on pre-16 SEND transport in this financial year, up 24 per cent from £1.21 billion last year.
This is on top of a previous 23 per cent rise between 2022-23 and 2023-24, and compares to a 6 per cent rise in overall council funding.
Planned expenditure on SEND administration, including the cost of tribunals, has ballooned to £333.2 million, up 14.3 per cent on the £291.4 million spent last year.
In December, Schools Week reported how the number of parents launching tribunal appeals over local authority refusals to provide SEND support for their child had risen by nearly a quarter in a year to another record high.
Spending on educational psychologists rising
Today’s data is just the latest example of the soaring cost of the growing SEND crisis.
We revealed in June that more than a third of councils with “safety-valve” deals to plug high-needs deficits face bankruptcy, despite being set to receive more than £1 billion in government bailouts before the end of the decade.
Council spending on educational psychologists, who are involved in the process of issuing education, health and care plans to SEND pupils, has also increased.
This year, they expect to spend £172.1 million, up 11 per cent on the £155.2 million spent last year.
It comes after the education secretary Bridget Phillipson hinted at a wider shake-up to the broken system for pupils with SEND, saying “we need to have a conversation about how we look to reform the system overall”.
Speaking at a Labour conference fringe event, she said “the conversation, I think, we need to have as a country is: ‘is the system that we have right now working?’
“Is this the system that we would start from, the system that we would design if we wanted to make sure that we had early identification of need, and the right level of support put in place as quickly as possible that I think we have to take our time to get right?|
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