Rebuilding special educational needs and disability services in Birmingham

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Special educational needs and disability (Send) provision in England is in deep crisis. Demand has surged as the number of children with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in England rose by up to 166% between 2015 and 2025, up 10% in the last year alone, while state-funded support and school places have failed to keep pace. Too many parents must battle for assessments and appropriate school placements, often navigating a chaotic and adversarial system, leading to appeals and tribunals soaring from 3,000 in 2015 to 25,000 in 2025, with 98% of rulings in parents’ favour. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) concluded last year that the Send system is ​“inconsistent, inequitable and not delivering in line with expectations,” undermining families’ confidence and letting children fall through the cracks.

Current piecemeal interventions and an unsustainable financial framework are incapable of tackling the structural issues. Across England, there was a £900m jump in annual spending on specialist independent school fees between 2015‒16 and 2022‒23, while the number of independent Send pupils trebled. Councils spent £2.5bn on Send in 2025 ‒ more than double the amount spent half a decade earlier. The fiscal risk is looming, as the statutory override allowing councils to exclude Send spending from their requirement to balance budgets expires in April 2028, while the government has still not set out how it will absorb the continuing Send pressure or deal with the historic deficit that will have built up by then. With insufficient state school places, councils feel forced to fund costly private placements even ​“when this may not be the most effective setting”.

This surge in Send recognition and demand without an appropriate response from the government has enabled a vicious cycle of higher costs and growing deficits for many authorities. By March 2023, cumulative high-needs budget overspends across councils in England had reached £1.6bn. A further national funding gap of up to £3.9bn annually is projected by 2027‒28 if this trajectory continues. Meanwhile, Send-specific emergency bailouts via the Department for Education’s (DfE) ​“safety valve” offer only short-term relief and cover just 38 areas across the country. Without fundamental reform, nearly half of all local authorities could risk effective bankruptcy when high-needs cumulative deficits hit their books in 2028.

For Send families, the threat is more immediate and damaging. Two in five parents of children with Send have had to give up work entirely to meet their child’s needs, while many more report huge financial and emotional strain from constantly fighting the system. Over 40% of parent-carers nationally have contemplated suicide while caring for a disabled child. The human cost of an overburdened, under-resourced Send system is felt in lost careers, exhausted caregivers (usually mothers), and children missing out on core development, with consequences that can follow them through school and into adult life as unmet need is associated with poorer attendance, weaker attainment, and reduced longer-term outcomes.

The root of the Send spending problem is structural. Previous reforms to Send introduced in the Children and Families Act 2014 promised choice and better support, but, without matching investment in local provision, they inadvertently funnelled more children into expensive independent schools and out-of-area placements. Private companies ‒ including those backed by private equity and even offshore investors ‒ have stepped into the breach, often charging eye-watering fees for school places. Many private investors are earmarking the system as a business opportunity with strong government subsidy incentives. The Send educational industry as a whole is valued at almost £2.5bn. Meanwhile, new state specialist schools have opened at a glacial pace ‒ of 92 planned special free schools from 2020, only 15 are now ​“definitely going ahead” as central-government-built projects.

This briefing examines the Send extraction crisis through the lens of Birmingham city council’s experience, with lessons that extend far beyond it. It explains the myopia that is currently preventing long-term, sustainable solutions to the Send education crisis, and examines the role of private finance in further damaging local authority finances. These are grounded in Birmingham’s position on places, tribunals, and spend. It elucidates how delays to new provision, and a shift towards ​“resource bases”, have shaped recent decisions, and examines where and why funding is being diverted into independent provision. It closes by testing practical alternatives within reach: expanding maintained special places, growing resource bases in mainstream education, and commissioning from established charities in the city-region, to reduce out-of-area placements and keep more spend local.

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