Councils’ debt for supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) could reach £10 billion in the next 18 months, the County Councils’ Network (CCN) has warned. The organisation published the forecast on Tuesday, attributing the rise in debt to the growing demand for support in English schools.
The government has previously written off more than £5 billion of SEND debt for local authorities. Councils are forecasting that this figure will be replicated by April, with the debt doubling by 2028. Without a ministerial guarantee for debt write-downs, they warn that they are exposed to the risk of bankruptcy should accumulated debts be brought back onto the books in April 2028.
The surge in demand for education, health and care plans (EHCPs) reflects, in part, the rush by parents and schools to secure support before changes to SEND regulations take effect. These are legal documents agreed between local authorities and families in England. They detail the support required for children and young people up to the age of 25 and enable access to additional funding or places in special schools. In January, the number of young people with EHCPs reached 718,000, a rise of 12.5 per cent over the past 12 months and the largest annual increase since the plans were introduced in 2014. A further 1.3 million young people have identified special educational needs according to official data.
The review, commissioned by the government and published last week, found that the rise in conditions is real and causes significant distress to many who have them. It concluded that demand for support would be unmanageable without introducing new methods to manage pressure on public services. The growth in EHCPs has outstripped the capacity of the education system to respond. Of the 105,300 assessments conducted in 2024, 94 per cent resulted in the allocation of an EHCP.
A spokesperson for the CCN stated that deficits were not accumulating because councils had chosen to spend recklessly. The cause, she said, was meeting the rapidly growing demand without adequate funding. She stated that taxpayers and local communities would ultimately bear the consequences, with children and young people facing increasingly long waits for support. In her view, ministers must provide assurance that they will deliver a full package of reforms.
The government’s reforms aim to replace the current system in England with a more inclusive approach to SEND support. Ministers have agreed to cover 90 per cent of the debt for English local authorities accumulated by March 2026. However, it is unclear to what extent future debt will be covered. Previously, ministers stated that future support would be “appropriate and proportionate” but that it would not be open-ended. The CCN has stated that anything less than a ministerial commitment to cover 90 per cent of future SEND debt would be “a financial catastrophe” for local authorities. Some councils face insolvency issues if they retain even 10 per cent of their debt.
Publicly available local authority reports show that many are forecasting overspends of more than £100 million in the 2026-27 period. Hampshire County Council, for example, forecasts a deficit of £200 million for this year. Other councils, including Surrey, East Sussex, Kent, Worcestershire and Norfolk, are also reporting significant pressures. Many councils are forecasting double-digit increases over the next three years. Several are estimating that, at current rates of increase, one in 10 children could have an EHCP by 2029.
