“The government currently has a “statutory override” over councils’ Send high-needs spending until March 2028, which means deficits do not sit on their budgets.
“Somebody at some point will have to pay it, but at the moment it’s sitting in a sort of strange financial black hole,” says Lucy Nethsingha, Cambridgeshire County Council’s Liberal Democrat leader.
The DfE says any “deficit from 2028-29 onwards will be absorbed within the overall government budget”.
This high-needs deficit in Cambridgeshire stands at £98m. If the council was to become responsible for this, Nethsingha says it would leave the authority “in section 114 territory”, where councils effectively declare themselves bankrupt.
“That would be true for about 100 councils across the country, if that statutory override was suddenly taken away,” she says.”
Yeah someone will have to pay for it, us. 100 councils going bankrupt? Nah the system is fine.
finanzbereich345 on
I think the nation needs to have a serious look at the amount of fraudulent and borderline SEND children and raise the threshold for support. Your kid doesn’t need a taxi to and from his special school because he gets slightly anxious now and then.
JJLuckless on
Great, an article which goes through how beneficial SEND provision is to children and parents and how it makes a real difference in lives.
Sadly, all initial comments here are that SEND education is way too expensive and these disabled people are undeserving or charlatans.
What’s funny is the article mentions that the cost of a place at this school is actually cheaper than many private school tuition fees.
SEND provision is a societal good. Just like the NHS, the criminal justice system, police, NHS, etc, all of which are facing funding crises.
The solution is not to continually cut these services and tell those groups to do less with more. The solution is to go after all the uncollected and legally owed tax the ultra wealthy and corporations keep from the state. HMRC put the tax gap at £46 billion for the year 2022-23.
Everyone agrees public services should be regulated and have checks and balances, but services should not be cut, they should be expanded and politicians, the ultra-wealthy and corporations should be held to account and made to pay what they owe.
Punch up and not down.
Ok-Slip-8663 on
Some of these comments are atrocious and show that so many people have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. I work within the SEND system and the suggestion that disabled children shouldn’t get an education is pretty disgusting. It’s concerning the high level of children being classified as SEN and needs exploring but I’m definitely not seeing a system full of “fakers”.
WinHour4300 on
We need more small schools like this sure, but for many autistic kids, home, part-time, or virtual learning can work better for them and is cheaper. Forcing them into a noisy, social unpredictable school via constant 1-to-1 or more support often harms self-esteem.
My brother struggled in secondary school, even with support, but thrived at university and now works from home. We need to try different models and measure long-term outcomes like jobs, independence, and life satisfaction.
D0wnInAlbion on
The principle of inclusion was always an excuse to save money by directing children to cheaper mainstream schools rather than having to fund the specialised schooling they actually need.
theoneandonlyvesper on
why so many autistic kids in the UK it’s horrifying
Federal_Ad_9629 on
It would probably be better and more cost effective for more funding to be provided for TA’s, so ordinary schools can cope with SEND children.
Hollywood-is-DOA on
When will the hovering accept that even stream school isn’t designed or set up to see modern children flourish?
My secondary school says you had a lot of topics that they no longer teach like, Drama for a GCSE, cooking isn’t in all schools( I can understand that one, as the restaurant industry is in life support, Hollywood is also, due to AI), then you’ve got maths forced on most children that I haven’t once used in my adult life.
We make subjects boring, confusing on purpose, not linked to the world as it currently is. My school did brick laying courses through a real college, as in how you got accessed for the tests. We need welders, people who can tell if AI is tripping balls or not( It does that a lot), electrical engineers, structural engineers as a lot of buildings in the uk aren’t fit for purpose.
Not someone doing something that is science, which most jobs in science pay so low, it’s hardly worth getting in debt for the degree, then doing a job that’s only just over minimum wage. I know that some of the jobs that I mentioned need more than basic maths but the way that we teach maths is so confusing for most children, let alone adults.
Rorydinho on
The country can’t afford to provide SEND services to a such a large number of children. Similar for the welfare state in general. It exists to provide additional support at the margins, not for the general population.
The government needs to deal with this.
Ultimately, the threshold where welfare state support is available should be predicated on a relative level of need (across the entire population), rather than an absolute level of need.
Familiar-Woodpecker5 on
A lot of people seem to be missing the point, because there aren’t enough SEND schools people are having to send their children here from all over different counties in England and even Wales! Stop making ill informed comments about SEN children!
Killerninjaz13Two on
The shere number of kids being labelled as special needs or disabled is taking the piss
Most of them are probably gonna be just difficult kids hell im an example of it
By assessment standards when i was a kid i hit all the targets for extreme high level autism the whole shebang meds, care special school 1 on 1 teaching the lot
But was i
Absolutely not i was just a difficult kid
And this is the issue large numbers of kids are being labelled as disabled or special because no one wants to deal with unruly kids anymore
LOUIS_KEWLZ on
As someone who was worked in an SEMH school trust me we need them
13 commenti
“The government currently has a “statutory override” over councils’ Send high-needs spending until March 2028, which means deficits do not sit on their budgets.
“Somebody at some point will have to pay it, but at the moment it’s sitting in a sort of strange financial black hole,” says Lucy Nethsingha, Cambridgeshire County Council’s Liberal Democrat leader.
The DfE says any “deficit from 2028-29 onwards will be absorbed within the overall government budget”.
This high-needs deficit in Cambridgeshire stands at £98m. If the council was to become responsible for this, Nethsingha says it would leave the authority “in section 114 territory”, where councils effectively declare themselves bankrupt.
“That would be true for about 100 councils across the country, if that statutory override was suddenly taken away,” she says.”
Yeah someone will have to pay for it, us. 100 councils going bankrupt? Nah the system is fine.
I think the nation needs to have a serious look at the amount of fraudulent and borderline SEND children and raise the threshold for support. Your kid doesn’t need a taxi to and from his special school because he gets slightly anxious now and then.
Great, an article which goes through how beneficial SEND provision is to children and parents and how it makes a real difference in lives.
Sadly, all initial comments here are that SEND education is way too expensive and these disabled people are undeserving or charlatans.
What’s funny is the article mentions that the cost of a place at this school is actually cheaper than many private school tuition fees.
SEND provision is a societal good. Just like the NHS, the criminal justice system, police, NHS, etc, all of which are facing funding crises.
The solution is not to continually cut these services and tell those groups to do less with more. The solution is to go after all the uncollected and legally owed tax the ultra wealthy and corporations keep from the state. HMRC put the tax gap at £46 billion for the year 2022-23.
Everyone agrees public services should be regulated and have checks and balances, but services should not be cut, they should be expanded and politicians, the ultra-wealthy and corporations should be held to account and made to pay what they owe.
Punch up and not down.
Some of these comments are atrocious and show that so many people have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. I work within the SEND system and the suggestion that disabled children shouldn’t get an education is pretty disgusting. It’s concerning the high level of children being classified as SEN and needs exploring but I’m definitely not seeing a system full of “fakers”.
We need more small schools like this sure, but for many autistic kids, home, part-time, or virtual learning can work better for them and is cheaper. Forcing them into a noisy, social unpredictable school via constant 1-to-1 or more support often harms self-esteem.
My brother struggled in secondary school, even with support, but thrived at university and now works from home. We need to try different models and measure long-term outcomes like jobs, independence, and life satisfaction.
The principle of inclusion was always an excuse to save money by directing children to cheaper mainstream schools rather than having to fund the specialised schooling they actually need.
why so many autistic kids in the UK it’s horrifying
It would probably be better and more cost effective for more funding to be provided for TA’s, so ordinary schools can cope with SEND children.
When will the hovering accept that even stream school isn’t designed or set up to see modern children flourish?
My secondary school says you had a lot of topics that they no longer teach like, Drama for a GCSE, cooking isn’t in all schools( I can understand that one, as the restaurant industry is in life support, Hollywood is also, due to AI), then you’ve got maths forced on most children that I haven’t once used in my adult life.
We make subjects boring, confusing on purpose, not linked to the world as it currently is. My school did brick laying courses through a real college, as in how you got accessed for the tests. We need welders, people who can tell if AI is tripping balls or not( It does that a lot), electrical engineers, structural engineers as a lot of buildings in the uk aren’t fit for purpose.
Not someone doing something that is science, which most jobs in science pay so low, it’s hardly worth getting in debt for the degree, then doing a job that’s only just over minimum wage. I know that some of the jobs that I mentioned need more than basic maths but the way that we teach maths is so confusing for most children, let alone adults.
The country can’t afford to provide SEND services to a such a large number of children. Similar for the welfare state in general. It exists to provide additional support at the margins, not for the general population.
The government needs to deal with this.
Ultimately, the threshold where welfare state support is available should be predicated on a relative level of need (across the entire population), rather than an absolute level of need.
A lot of people seem to be missing the point, because there aren’t enough SEND schools people are having to send their children here from all over different counties in England and even Wales! Stop making ill informed comments about SEN children!
The shere number of kids being labelled as special needs or disabled is taking the piss
Most of them are probably gonna be just difficult kids hell im an example of it
By assessment standards when i was a kid i hit all the targets for extreme high level autism the whole shebang meds, care special school 1 on 1 teaching the lot
But was i
Absolutely not i was just a difficult kid
And this is the issue large numbers of kids are being labelled as disabled or special because no one wants to deal with unruly kids anymore
As someone who was worked in an SEMH school trust me we need them