National Audit Office report: Support for children and young people with special educational needs
National Audit Office report: Support for children and young people with special educational needs
A National Audit Office (NAO) report published today highlights that the special educational needs system is in urgent need of reform with declining confidence in the system. The review found:
- 50% of children had to wait for an Education Health and Care plan for longer than 20 weeks (the statutory expectation) in 2023
- Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission found ‘widespread and/or systemic failings’ in 31% of 35 local area SEND inspections between January 2023 and March 2024
- The cumulative deficit in the dedicated schools grant at the end of 2025-26 is estimated at £4.6billion by the Department for Education (DfE), as at October 2024
The report makes a number of recommendations which can be viewed in full here.
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said:
“Although DfE has increased high-needs funding, the SEN system is still not delivering for children and their families, and DfE’s current actions are unlikely to resolve the challenges.
The government has not yet identified a solution to manage local authority deficits arising from SEN costs, which ongoing savings programmes will not address.
Given that the current system costs over £10 billion a year, and that demand for SEN provision is forecast to increase further, government needs to think urgently about how its current investment can be better spent, including through more inclusive education, and developing a cohesive whole system approach.”
Viv Cooper, CEO of the Challenging Behaviour Foundation commented:
“The current system of support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities is failing children, young people and their families with significant consequences. We welcome the call for urgent reform of the system and the development of a cohesive whole system approach.
Children with severe learning disabilities whose behaviour challenges often require support from across health, education and social care. The different departments and public bodies involved in meeting the needs of children with a learning disability often operate in silos, and do not always talk to or co-operate with each other or deliver child centred support. This results in families having to battle to get the support their child needs causing long delays. Delays in accessing support come at a cost – a human cost to the child and their family and a financial cost to the taxpayer of increased needs requiring additional funding It does not reflect policy aims of early targeted support.
The current actions that the Department for Education has set out are unlikely to resolve the challenges, and we urge the government to take a child centred systemic approach, working across departments to implement and monitor a plan to enable children and their families to access timely, coordinated support from across health, education and social care.”
To view examples of good practice in meeting the needs of children with a learning disability please see our report “Investing in Early Intervention”, available here.