(England) SPED "rising demand"; "forecasts suggesting it will only grow"
- Sep 13, 2025
- 3 min read
Sept 12, 2025, IFS: England’s SEND crisis: costs, challenges and the case for reform
The system of support for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in England is broken. Costs are spiralling, the quality of provision is patchy, and almost everyone involved – schools, councils, parents and children – is at breaking point. . . .
The government has signalled a desire to provide more core support for SEND within mainstream schools. In principle, this could mean better provision at a lower long-run cost – but achieving this will need both a careful strategy to build provision and a commitment to building on the (very thin) evidence base for what works to support children with SEND. . . .
Rapid rises in numbers and spending
The rise in the numbers of children with SEND has been staggering. Since 2018, the number of pupils with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) – legal documents guaranteeing tailored support for individual pupils judged to have the most severe needs – has increased by nearly 80%, from under 3% of pupils to over 5%. Over the same period, high-needs funding has risen by over £4 billion [$.54B] – or more than 50% – in real terms, absorbing more than half of the total increase in school funding since 2019.
And even this big increase in funding has not kept pace with what is actually spent. This is because EHCPs create legally binding entitlements to specific forms of support – with little regard for affordability or whether high-quality support exists. As a result, councils have been running deficits each year. These have accumulated over time, with the latest estimates putting the cumulative total around £8 billion by March 2027. The government is allowing these overspends to be kept off the books to avoid financial collapse. This accounting fudge (technically known as the statutory override) has recently been extended to March 2028, but this is just putting off the inevitable date when these deficits will have to be addressed (almost certainly with a bail-out from central government). . . .
What is driving the rapid rise in numbers?
Almost all of the growth in the number of EHCPs reflects rising diagnoses of autism, ADHD, and speech and language needs. These trends are not unique to England; many high-income countries are seeing similar increases in autism and ADHD. There is some evidence of rising needs, but much of the increase reflects improved recognition of needs that were always there. In particular, greater awareness and lower diagnostic thresholds mean that more needs are recognised and understood than was previously the case.
Figure 1. Number of pupils with Education, Health and Care Plans by primary need
With such large rises in numbers, concerns have been raised about ‘over-diagnosis’. However, the key question is whether greater diagnosis and awareness are leading to intervention and support that allow children to thrive and achieve better outcomes. . . ..
Capacity in specialist provision
A lack of capacity in state-funded special schools has also increased costs. Over the last decade, the share of pupils attending state-funded special schools has risen by half, from 1.2% to 1.8%.
This rapid rise in demand and a lack of capacity in the state-funded sector have meant that councils have become increasingly dependent on independent special schools. The number of pupils with EHCPs attending specialist independent schools tripled between 2016 and 2025 (from 10,000 to 30,000). And since this provision is legally mandated, it can be extremely expensive. Per-pupil costs are more than twice as high in the independent sector (£62,000 per head, on average) as in the state sector (£24,000). The growth in spending on fees for independent schools accounts for nearly a quarter of the total rise in high-needs spending since 2018. . . .
The government is planning to publish a White Paper on reforming the SEND system later this autumn. This is long overdue, but it is bound to spark debate. . . .
This could still be controversial and costly. But doing nothing is not a cheap or neutral option either. According to the projections, spending on high needs is forecast to rise by £2–3 billion [$2.7B-$4B] between now and 2028 without any reform. Spending pressures on this scale are entirely credible. The previous government never planned to spend an extra £4 billion a year on SEND – it simply drifted into it. If that money had been invested in a coherent transformation of provision, the system would be in far better shape today. Policymakers cannot afford to miss the opportunity again. . . .
With the schools budget already set through to 2028, the real challenge now is how to use that money better.
Improving supply-side capacity
Given the rising demand for specialist provision – and forecasts suggesting it will only grow – one obvious solution is to build more state-funded special schools. This could help meet demand and reduce costs compared with relying on independent provision. . . .
Comments