Baroness Barran
To ask His Majesty’s Government how the commitment to fund SEND budgets centrally as announced in the Budget will affect mainstream school budgets.
The Minister of State, Department for Education, and the Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government have been clear that SEND pressures will be absorbed within the overall Government DEL budget from 2028-29, such that the Government would not expect local authorities to need to fund future special educational needs costs from general funds. Budgets from 2028-29 onwards, including the core schools budget, will be confirmed at the 2027 spending review.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I thank the Minister for that Answer. On this side of the House, we genuinely wish the Government every success with their work on the reforms to the special educational needs system. As the noble Baroness knows, the expected annual deficit on the dedicated schools grant is over £6 billion in 2028-29, which is a huge number. While the Government have been very clear that this will come from current RDEL allocations, they have not specified a funding plan to cover this. Anyone who has been involved in SR negotiations will know that finding £6.3 billion, apparently from other government departments rather than the DfE, will be incredibly difficult, if not impossible.
Of course, this is not even about £6.3 billion in one year; in the OBR document, if you look at the three years beyond this SR period, you see that the figure for the projected deficit is well over £20 billion. So I hope the noble Baroness will understand why schools and parents are worried, and why more clarity is needed about who is going to pay for this. I hope she can give us that now.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I take the noble Baroness’s assurance that noble Lords opposite want to support the Government in reforming the SEND system; I believe that to be true. However, it is also the case that there has been a fair amount of misinformation being peddled, not least by some of her colleagues at the other end of Parliament, about the nature and source of the £6 billion, and the way in which it will be dealt with in 2028-29. As I made clear in the original Answer, in the Budget the Treasury was very clear, in careful wording, that future funding implications will be managed within the overall Government DEL envelope—not the DfE’s DEL—and will be part of the spending review that will start in 2027.
The other important point is that that figure assumes no reform of the SEND system, and of course that reform will be focused first and foremost on ensuring that children and their families get better outcomes than they are getting from the system at the moment, and it will be important to ensure that that happens. It will also make system more sustainable.
I hope that all those interested in SEND reform will, for example, take part in the quite extensive engagement activity that is currently under way to help to inform those reforms.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I applaud the intention behind the Government’s announcement, but does the Minister agree that there will be no real reform unless there is capacity within the school system to identify early? This will require training budgets and technology to back it up. If the Government can assure us that this is going to be there, they stand a chance of doing something here.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right. To be clear, the objective here is to ensure better outcomes in a system that at the moment costs a considerable amount of money but is not delivering the outcomes that children and families need. The noble Lord identifies a couple of areas where the Government are already investing additional money, for example into teacher training from early years onwards; into the support available for continuing professional development for teachers; into initial teacher training and the early career framework; and into the national professional qualifications for teachers. All of those have had reform and investment from the Government to ensure, as the noble Lord accurately said, that we are in a better position to identify children’s needs at an earlier stage and to address them in our mainstream schools.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Minister is absolutely correct to suggest that early-stage identification is critical. She will be aware that there have been decades of persistent underfunding and pressures on local authorities about SEND services. Hundreds of thousands of children are still awaiting their final assessment. Can the Minister assure the House, and parents who are waiting for these assessments, that the local authority can be asked to ring-fence the budget, so children receive the care they deserve?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am afraid the situation is even worse than my noble friend has identified. A considerable amount of money is being spent on special educational needs and disability provision, but parents remain concerned about being able to access the support they need, the outcomes for children are not good enough, and local government is facing considerable deficits because of that. That is why we need the type of reform that this Government have undertaken. A test of it will be whether parents feel more confident at an earlier stage that their children are getting the support they need to flourish.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, is more being done to ensure that teachers have the time they need to assess the needs of people with particular educational needs? It takes time: no person is the same and individuals need to be assessed according to their own individual problems.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble and learned Lord is absolutely right about that. That is why, for example, we are improving the ability for staff in early years settings to identify special educational needs. It is why we are also developing a national professional qualification for the special educational needs co-ordinators, who will play an important role in that assessment, and why we have invested in recruiting more educational psychologists, who play a really important role in assessment.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich
My Lords, does the Minister agree that, when there is not enough support for SEND pupils in a classroom, it has a major impact on other pupils in the classroom and on teachers themselves, some of whom are leaving the profession because of the stresses they are under? Does the Minister agree that sometimes it is in other educational provision, such as forest school and play, that these children can really thrive?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
In actual fact, I think all children can really thrive in alternative provision. The important thing here is that we ensure that all of our teachers and schools are able to deliver the inclusive teaching and provision that will ensure that children can not only have their needs identified as early as possible but can then receive excellent teaching, which is what will make a difference. Also, I can reassure the right reverend Prelate that we have actually seen a record low in the number of teachers leaving the profession this year.
Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)
My Lords, I remind the House of my interest in having recently stood down as the leader of the London Borough of Bexley, but I am still a councillor. The OBR has red-flagged the £14 billion existing deficit that local authorities are in, at a cost that is currently unaccounted for in government plans. Some estimates suggest that, by the time SEND spending returns to council balance sheets in 2028, nine out of 10 upper-tier authorities could be forced to declare bankruptcy. How do the Government aim to clear that deficit and solve the problem?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I take the noble Baroness’s point, but perhaps, if it were that serious, more effort could have been made on reform before we got to this Government. Nevertheless, this Government will work with local authorities. By the way, it is not an OBR red flag; it is an OBR assessment of what the costs will be in 2028-29. The OBR has been very clear—including this week in the Treasury committee—that its suggestion about the impact on core schools budget is hypothetical. We will continue to support local authorities, including, for example, alongside an extension to the dedicated schools grant’s statutory override. We will set out further details on our plans to support local authorities with historic and accruing deficits, including conditions for accessing the support we are providing through the upcoming local government finance settlement.