A £5bn debt crisis caused by out-of-control overspending on special educational needs could explode in less than two years, bankrupting scores of England’s local authorities, the UK government has been warned.
The crisis stems from the failure to properly fund a huge increase in demand for Special Education Needs and Disability (Send) services over the past decade, triggering an “existential” crisis for councils which have “no obvious means of paying off the debt”.
