{"id":286856,"date":"2025-11-27T22:19:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T22:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/286856\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T22:19:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T22:19:13","slug":"absorbing-council-send-debts-wont-hit-school-budgets-ministers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/286856\/","title":{"rendered":"Absorbing council Send debts won’t hit school budgets, ministers say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local authorities currently receive a ring-fenced grant from the DfE to pay for special needs support, known as the dedicated schools grant.<\/p>\n

But rising demand<\/a> has led to local councils spending billions more overall on Send than they get from central government.<\/p>\n

The number of young people with council-funded education, health and care plans (EHCPs), which set out the support they are entitled to, has doubled across England since 2016.<\/p>\n

Since 2020, those Send debts have been kept off local authority books by a “statutory override” \u2013 which had been extended to 2027-28, external<\/a>. Without it, many councils have warned they face rising costs and even bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

The OBR has forecast that councils will have cumulative deficits of \u00a314bn by the end of 2027-28, when the statutory override expires. It is not clear how much responsibility for paying this back will stay with councils.<\/p>\n

It was announced in Wednesday’s Budget that the full cost of Send provision will be absorbed within departmental budgets by 2028-29, which means the future cost pressures of the Send system will sit on the government’s books, rather than councils’.<\/p>\n

But the OBR warned that no savings have been identified yet to offset the estimated \u00a36bn of costs they said this move will create.<\/p>\n

If that money had to be taken from existing school budgets, it said it would lead to a 4.9% fall in mainstream school spending per pupil, rather than the 0.5% increase planned by government.<\/p>\n

But the DfE strongly refuted those predictions, with a spokesperson saying they “do not account for the much-needed Send reforms this government will bring forward”.<\/p>\n

“We inherited a Send system on its knees and our changes will make sure children get support at the earliest stage, while bringing about financial sustainability for councils,” they added.<\/p>\n

Full plans for reforms to the Send system are due to be laid out early next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local authorities currently receive a ring-fenced grant from the DfE to pay for special needs support, known as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-286856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}