The urgent need for reform of the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system in England is arguably the greatest challenge facing the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson. A crisis that built up over the past decade, and whose full impact was eased but also disguised by Conservative measures, has escalated to the point where it is impossible to ignore.
The number of children with education, health and care plans (EHCPs), which grant statutory entitlements to support, has risen by 180,000 or 71% in six years, and now makes up 5% of all pupils in English schools. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) set out last week, around half the overall increase in school funding over the past decade has gone towards helping these pupils and around 1 million others who have high needs but not an EHCP. But despite funding increases, waiting times for assessment remain high while children’s needs go unmet, and parents are driven to distraction by their struggles to access suitable provision.
