This month, I’d like to return to the subject of funding for SEND. A series of highly critical reports (you’ll find a list of them at the end of this post) led to the DfE announcing a comprehensive SEND review on 6 September 2019: link. This review is much needed, but even before Covid-19, there was very little information available on its progress. I’ve asked the DfE what’s happening, and they passed my enquiry on to the SEND team, but I’m still waiting for them to reply.
The general consensus across all the inquiries and reports is that the system for supporting pupils with SEND is broken in every respect. The problems go much deeper than the lack of funding, but the financial difficulties in this area are a significant factor in the struggles faced by local authorities (LAs) and schools to balance their budgets. I’ll be digging into some of the facts later in this post.
In October 2018, I gave evidence to MPs for the Education Committee’s inquiry, so I have a personal interest in their report, which was excellent. However, I was very disappointed by the government’s response to it, which the DfE published on 20 July 2020 (see this link). In answering many of the challenges, it quoted measures already in place, but gave no evidence of their impact. Ofsted would have a field day with their ‘So what?’ questions; if the examples given were working, the inquiries wouldn’t have been necessary.
The response also repeatedly referred to the SEND review as the solution to the most intractable problems raised in the MPs’ report. So it’s doubly worrying that one year on from its supposed commencement, there is absolutely no transparency over how it’s being conducted.
Evidence of activity so far
The only signs of the review I’ve been able to find are these:
- The review lead, Tony McArdle, attended a meeting of the F40 group (which comprises the lowest funded LAs) in January 2020. The minutes can be found here: F40 link. They’re worth a read; Mr McArdle said that ‘not all Local Authorities and schools were spending their budgets wisely and some were managing better than others‘, and ‘EHCPs were a fundamental point of failure within the system‘. He also believed that ‘in some cases, parents and schools were applying for EHCPs when they were not justified by the need presented, meaning money was being wasted.’
- In a response to a Parliamentary question in February 2020 (see this link), Lord Agnew said ‘The SEND review is internal to the government… Our officials are working closely with stakeholders.’ He named the three independent advisers on the cross-government steering group and said: ‘We will provide an update on progress with the review and our plans for further engagement shortly.’ I’ve been unable to find any minutes of steering group meetings.
- In the above response, Lord Agnew referred to the Department’s call for evidence on the effectiveness of current arrangements to fund schools to support SEND pupils. But this was back in May 2019 (link), and it was wholly about mainstream school funding; it didn’t even mention special schools or Alternative Provision. I can’t find any other call for evidence or consultation on the review topics.
- In August 2020, Baroness Berridge replied to a Parliamentary question on when the review would be published (link) by saying: ‘The government remains committed to completing the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) review, taking into consideration the impact of COVID-19 on the SEND system. We will publish the review as soon as it is practicable to do so, working with children, young people, their families and experts across the education, health and care system to deliver our common goal of improving the SEND system.‘
- Edited to add that Gavin Williamson has told the Education Committee that the SEND review report has been delayed due to COVID-19 and will be published in 2021.
So, the review is still happening, but why the secrecy?
I may have missed something due to taking some time out following a recent family bereavement, but I haven’t been able to find out which stakeholders are being consulted and what the detailed questions are across the remit of the review. If anyone reading this has taken part, I’d love to know what exactly is going on. You can email me using the Contact form on this site. I acknowledge that there’s plenty of evidence in the submissions to the various inquiries, but it’s a fluid situation. The pressures are continuing to grow, and new pupils and their families are entering the system all the time; shouldn’t they and their schools have a say?
It’s customary to issue a consultation on proposals for change, which not only allows those affected to have a voice, but also enables providers and LAs to start planning for further reforms. I really hope the DfE will soon share the progress made, and in due course publish a consultation to test out the proposals. The view that this review is ‘internal to the government’ seems to suggest that Ministers don’t think transparency is necessary. I beg to differ.
High Needs funding developments
So, what’s been happening on the High Needs funding front? A Tes article on 25 October 2019 revealed the results of a Freedom of Information request to councils on high needs deficits. It showed that 29 of the 32 councils who had to submit a recovery plan to the DfE (because their deficits were over 1% of the total DSG) told the Department that their budgets would still be in deficit after three years: https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-depth-school-funding-crisis-revealed.
The settlement for 2020/21 brought an additional £780m for the High Needs Block, and we’ve recently had confirmation of another £730m in 2021/22. This is welcome, but without hard evidence from the SEND review, it’s a ‘finger in the wind’ uplift. More on that in a moment.
Even if the government puts in a lot more money, it won’t be distributed fairly, due to the shortcomings of the National Funding Formula (NFF), as I said in the Tes article. I don’t have room here to discuss this aspect, but I covered some of the issues in my blog post in December 2019 (viewable here). My take on it is that the High Needs NFF is an unfair distribution of not enough money!
High Needs funding allocations since 2017/18
I have analysed the High Needs Block funding allocations of the last four years and found the following changes. This was the period when the government realised it needed to provide some additional funding, as both the school population and the numbers of pupils with SEND grew:
Education, Health & Care Plans 2017 to 2020
I then did a similar analysis of the volume of EHCPs over the same period. Admittedly these don’t tell the whole story, but they’re probably the best contextual measure available for the expenditure covered by High Needs Budgets, since they are less likely to be wholly funded from core school budgets and they cover both mainstream and specialist education settings.
You can see that over this period, the volume of EHCPs has increased significantly faster than the funding. It’s not only about volume though; spending to support all pupils with SEND (not just the new ones) is subject to cost pressures over time. Specialist settings and organisations providing individual support are subject to pay awards and inflation, just as LAs and mainstream schools are. The mix of provision also affects costs. We should also bear in mind that LAs are taking a variety of approaches to achieve savings, to try to address the shortfall in funding.
Actual expenditure by LAs
Unfortunately, the data from returns on 2019/20 actual expenditure won’t be available until December, and previous years don’t show the place-led £10k element of funding separately, so there are some limitations to my analysis. But all settings receive the £10k per place one way or another, so the real cost changes appear in the top up costs paid by LAs to all types of settings (including mainstream and specialist) from 2016/17 to 2018/19. This is the main area of expenditure within the High Needs Budget outside of place-led funding.
Over this period, which is one year shorter than the other two tables, top up funding increased by 17%.
I revised my funding analysis to match the same period and found the comparable increase in the High Needs Block allocations was only 7.3% (from £5,696m to £6,115m). No wonder there are historic deficits building up from this time.
Will the extra funding be enough?
The DfE has taken action to stop LAs making good any shortfall in high needs funding from their own reserves in the year end accounts for 2019/20 and beyond, following a consultation (see the outcome at this link). It appears that this is to prevent LAs from raiding other budgets, such as social care. It means that from LAs have to carry forward any deficits in the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), which the Department admits are caused by high needs pressures:
‘Until the last few years, few local authorities were recording DSG overspends, and those overspends were small. However, pressures on the high needs budget have led to more and larger overspends in recent years. Local authorities’ budget data for 2019-20 recorded that at the end of 2018-19, about half of all authorities experienced an overspend, amounting to over £250m in all, while others were still carrying forward surpluses. The national net position was an overspend of £40m, and authorities were forecasting that there would be a net overspend of £230m at the end of 2019-20.‘
The same document shows that the DfE is aware the extra funding promised for 2020/21 to 2022/23 won’t be sufficient to wipe out some LA deficits. I know from attending workshops by the DfE last year that they are focusing on getting LAs to balance their high needs budgets in-year, and ‘parking’ cumulative deficits. It’s not clear what can be done about the latter; are Ministers hoping for a magic money tree at some point?
This paper also says: ‘we intend to review the funding formula for high needs over the next year or two, and in doing so will take account of the patterns of expenditure that LAs’ deficits, alongside other evidence, will help to identify; and what they tell us about LAs’ need to spend. As part of the review, we will identify any changes needed to the current formula so that it reflects LAs’ need to spend.’ Given that the current HN NFF includes a factor that locks in half of each LA’s 2017/18 budgeted expenditure into their allocation in a cash freeze, this should at least make it more dynamic, but this intention may be challenging to achieve in a fair way.
So, that’s where we are: no news on the crucial SEND review, a mismatch between funding and the need to spend, historic deficits without a plan to address them, and a delay in identifying exactly how much is needed to make support for pupils with SEND sustainable. I do hope the review is able to make rapid progress and that we see a more transparent approach to it, with adequate time for consultation before final decisions are taken. A lot is riding on it, and I for one will be watching closely.
Until next time, take care and stay safe,
Julie
Reports on SEND
Education Policy Institute: 3 April 2019 EPI link
National Audit Office: 11 September 2019 NAO link
Education Committee: 23 October 2019 Education Committee link)
Public Accounts Committee: 6 May 2020 PAC link