SEND Provision and Funding

Selaine Saxby Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

Devon is in the middle of a special educational needs pandemic, unrelated to the pandemic. I taught briefly before being elected to this place, and I was shocked by the number of children with special educational needs. I had entire classes where every single child had a special educational need. A newly qualified teacher simply cannot do anything beyond what a more experienced colleague advised, which is to treat every child as special, as indeed they are.

I start by paying tribute to all the parents, teachers and students who are battling the system to get what they believe is right for their child back home in North Devon. I recognise those frustrations, and my inbox is full of those concerns, but my words today are not about individual cases. When looking at this issue, we need to aggregate to try to better understand what is happening. In Devon, we seem to have far too many children being given a label, rather than the help they need to fulfil their potential.

An excellent report by the South-West Social Mobility Commission found that the south-west has the fewest children from disadvantaged backgrounds reaching the expected levels in reading, writing and maths at age 11 of any region, at just 37%, compared with 53% in London. The region also has the fewest young people from any background going on to level 4 or above education or training. Progression rates among those from disadvantaged backgrounds are just 50% in the south-west, compared with 76% in London. Within those statistics, Devon is an enormous education authority. On average, it clearly does not look too great from these figures, but even that hides the variance of what is going on in the northern part of the county, where our social mobility is significantly worse than the south.

Devon is diagnosing SEND and giving out EHCPs at twice the rate of our neighbouring councils. In Devon, the number of children and young people with an ECHP has grown from 3,718 in 2017 to 8,400 in 2023: a 126% increase. Families in Devon pursue an EHCP as they know that will gain them better support than being without one, but it is no wonder that budgets are under pressure given this explosion. I would like to see far more work being done to understand why that is the case, how we can reduce it and how we can raise the educational attainment and social mobility of our young people rather than increase the number of labels they carry.

The situation in Devon has gone on for years. We now have a cohort of young people leaving school with few qualifications, a special educational need and limited support to move forward. The situation is so severe that a recently arrived academy trust has had to adapt its normal processes because of the level of SEN and the high number of pupils unable to cope with its discipline regime. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that regime, that things are so different in northern Devon from elsewhere in the country does ring alarm bells. That is particularly because, being so sparsely populated, it is not like a city where a child can switch to another school if something goes really badly wrong at school.

My schools have some of the biggest catchments in the country, and if children and their parents feel that they would be better served outside their existing school, that results in children being home educated. For some families, that is ideal; for many, it is not. Having been the home education for a child while I taught, I do not believe that the one hour a week that I provided replaced a school education. No one seems to be able to track fully where these children are, how many have opted out of school or been off-rolled, and what provision they are receiving.

For those who have particularly complex needs and require a special education, we currently have 140 applications for every 30 places. Children are travelling halfway across the county to get to school. Ninety minutes in a car is no way to start the day. It also means that any friendships are unlikely to extend beyond school, and the costs involved are astronomical. Devon’s SEN transport costs have risen from £10.4 million to £26.8 million: a 157% increase.

There is clearly an argument that Devon needs more funding as we receive an average of £790 a head compared to the national average of £886, ranking 122nd out of 151 local authorities. We budget far too much funding, at £289 per capita, for independent specialist providers—double the English average—and in 2022 we budgeted 25% larger per capita spend. Against that backdrop, I warmly welcome the Government’s work and their commitment to work with Devon County Council to tackle that, with the Minister’s engagement and that of his predecessor.

I warmly welcome the commitment to build new special schools in Devon. However, the delay on two of them is putting further pressure on council budgets. The arrival of the new, proactive chief executive at Devon County Council, with her experience of delivering in rural areas, does give me hope for the future, but the rate of growth in SEN is not sustainable. Rural per-pupil funding—particularly for transport—does need addressing, and we need better, sustainable early years support and intervention so that pupils can avoid the need to apply for an EHCP. I hope that the Minister will be able to find time to meet me and Devon colleagues to discuss the challenges that our constituents and councils are facing.