Last month, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson admitted that the special needs system is “broken” and in “desperate need of a long-term renewal”. She was quoted saying: “We agree that far too often education does not meet the needs of children with SEND and too few EHCPs are delivered on time.”
Parenting is challenging. Parenting children with SEND is more challenging. Finding the right education for your child is hard but finding the right education for your child with SEND is much harder.
As they say, you are only as happy as your unhappiest child. Driven to desperation and failed by the system, many parents of SEND children have turned to the private sector where they often saw their children’s attainment and mental health improve dramatically. Many of these children have gone not only through Covid related disruptions but also multiple exclusions, school refusal and prolonged periods of home schooling. Unable to cope with large classes, sensory overload in noisy crowded environments or inflexible schedules, for many of them private education was not a luxury but a lifeline. It did not provide any unfair advantage but it helped address and diminish many “baked in” disadvantages that living with SEND brings.
For many of these families, a move to the private sector meant life changing financial decisions and sacrifices, with families forgoing holidays, cutting down on life essentials, taking out loans, stopping pension contributions or even remortgaging. Many have been supported by grandparents. These are not families striving for luxury or unfair advantage but families striving for a relative normality and a chance to give their children adequate education that will allow them to be independent in the future.
The announced plans to add 20% VAT on all private education is a massive blow, pushing many already strained families over the edge and pushing many children with SEND back to the already struggling state sector. With the state sector’s SEND provision lacking or next to non-existent for many children without EHCP, the influx of SEND children now forced to move back into the state sector will further dilute what little resources are already in place.
The system, which is already “broken” by Phillipson’s own admission, will break even more. Investment in the state sector is clearly of paramount importance and will hopefully disproportionately benefit the SEND population of children which has been neglected and disadvantaged for far too long. However, breaking the private system which offloads the state sector before the state sector is fixed is comparable with taking the crutch away from a person with a broken leg before the leg heals.
According to the government report published by the House of Commons Library,
in January 2024, there were around 1.7 million school pupils in England only with identified SEN (18% of all pupils). Of these pupils, around 1.2 million receive SEN Support, and only around 0.4 million have Education, Health, and Care plans (EHCP). Only those with EHCP whose education is already financed by local councils will be exempt from VAT, leaving the remaining 1.3 million not eligible for exemption.
In 2023, the Independent School Council (ISC) reported that 103,337 of its pupils, or 18.6% of all ISC pupils, were identified as having SEND. Of those, 55,000 were identified as having Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD) and only 7,000 had EHC plans. This leaves over 96,000 private school pupils with SEN who will now be subject to VAT.
Over the last years, government cuts affected SEND provision more than it affected many other areas of education, disrupting the lives of many children in the process. It's widely accepted, including the Education Secretary and the Department of Education themselves, that the SEN provision needs dramatic improvement. This improvement is essential but the children with SEND are too vulnerable and not robust enough to face the upheaval and disruption it will bring in the interim period, before this provision is fixed. They should be encouraged into the state system only once the SEND provision is adequate. The state sector education must be reformed but not at the cost of its weakest and most vulnerable pupils.
Whether private or state, the education these children receive must be adequate and must remove their inherent disadvantages. It is after all, as per Labour manifesto, about breaking down barriers for everyone, including breaking down barriers for them. Only then will they become productive and healthy members of the society. If we don't provide it or actively block it, any perceived short term fiscal benefit will be heavily outweighed by the cost of later supporting these people throughout their entire lives. According to Ofsted more than 30% of prisoners in the UK have learning difficulties or disabilities and a joint review by criminal justice inspector area estimates that half of those entering prison have some form of neurodivergent condition. These are hard figures that also touch other public sectors and need not only a degree of compassion but also a long term thinking.
When we talk about the importance of “removing baked in inequalities”, we must remember that inequalities come not only from poverty or background, but also disability or neurodiversity. And that children are not political pawns.
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