The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) crisis can no longer be ignored and nor can councils be expected to continue to bear the huge costs of ensuring pupils have access to the correct support.

With new data showing that more than 400 young people each day approached their council for special needs support last year, it is clear that the Government must deliver reform. The system as it stands is not delivering for SEND pupils, their peers, teachers or strapped for cash local authorities.

The County Councils Network is right to warn that the “Government can ill-afford to get reform wrong”.

The Government needs to consider all options when it sets out reforms in a Schools White Paper in the Autumn.

School children in a classroom. PIC: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

placeholder image — School children in a classroom. PIC: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

A system which incentivises and allows mainstream schools to better support SEND pupils, reducing the number of pupils who go to special schools, is greatly needed to not only reduce pressure on local authorities but also to prevent a child from being sent to special school located far away from their home.

There is clearly a need to improve screening of children as well. The longer they wait the more they and their families suffer. The impact that it has on parents cannot be underestimated, not to mention the setbacks that a child suffers to their education.

The Government really needs to grasp the nettle with meaningful reform. It cannot afford to tinker with the edges.

Extending the ‘statutory override’ mechanism which keeps councils’ SEND deficits off their budget books can only go so far.