Every time a chancellor sits down after delivering their budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) releases their ‘economic and fiscal outlook’. What seems a boringly-named Whitehall document is actually a treasure trove of information about the state of the country. It reveals more about how we live our lives – and what lies ahead, than perhaps any other document apart from the decennial census. Buried within its pages are harbingers of the problems future governments will face.
Page 129 of the nearly 200-page document carries one such alarming warning: a huge surge in the amount local authorities are likely to have to provide to fund children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Research by The Spectator’s data hub shows that the DWP has forecast that the number of children entitled to disability benefits will rise by a third over the next five years – one of the fastest growing benefits categories.
Last week, the OBR put in black and white what a rise like that could mean. They show an almost exponential rise in the number of children on so-called ‘education, health and care’ (EHC) plans. A measure that puts significant financial pressure on the local authorities who must fund them. The pressure is so much, the OBR warn, that ‘some local authorities may be placed in financial distress or be unable to set balanced budgets’ in two years’ time.
But why are so many children either already or forecast to be so unwell or unable to function that they need additional funding to support their schooling? In the last year, the number of English school kids with special educational needs (SEN) increased by over 100,000 – with the majority of the most common conditions requiring support being autism or speech and language issues.
In the five years to 2015, SEN numbers had been in decline – partly in response to an Ofsted report that claimed SEN was being over-diagnosed. Could that be happening again? There’s certainly been more awareness of SEN conditions such as autism and ADHD. Another report found that children born in the summer were over-represented in SEND simply because health ‘assessors’ were not taking into account how much children can develop over a 12 month period…
Meanwhile, other data suggests that another Labour policy – VAT on private schools – could be making the spike even worse. Local authority insiders told the i newspaper that since the announcement that private school fees would not be exempt from VAT, a growing number of parents had applied to EHC plans. Most of these will be genuine claims from parents who were once happily paying for their children's SEND support but will now claim it from local authorities instead.
What’s more, the OBR’s comments don’t come on their own. A report from the National Audit Office last month had already warned that the system has already become ‘financially unsustainable’ and that two in five local councils are at risk of going bust within 18 months. Data from the Department for Education shows that one in five privately educated pupils receives SEND support with 33,500 of those pupils with an EHC plan. It’s easy to see how just a fraction of those students moving to the public sector could quickly cripple things.
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