It also doesn’t give a strong impression that they believe mainstream schools would have much to learn from how and why special schools use that freedom

That is multidimensionally pathetic, yet again

Sure, it's not sustainable. But we notice when leaders only use the language of sustainability with funding, & not with dire outcomes or toxic working cultures

Funding isn't destiny: but it's the SEND risk that matters most: it endangers things that matter more to leaders than this policy problem

Even aside from the deficit, the SEND funding design challenges are immense

No agreed concept of value-for-money

Huge variation in practice: no-one really knows what provision should cost

Endemic accountability vacuums

Ongoing battles about what education should fund, vs health, vs social care

Under the last government, work was underway to design national standards, with national funding levels yoked to the standards

Everything's gone quiet on that - and I'd be quiet too, if I'd been tasked to redesign the Burevestnik missile's nuclear reactor mid-flight. Because that's what it's like

Under reform principles, "every school should be resourced & able to meet common and predictable needs"

...& apparently no pupil will lose 'effective' provision

But there's insane variation: unless someone in DfE has zoom-lens photos from HMT's port & poppers parties, someone is going to lose out

Same goes for special schools: you'd expect more variation here, but it's very, very obvious that some schools catering for the same needs get £000,000s less funding than neighbours in other LAs, because of the vibes-based approach

Lowest band - zero (just £10k place funding)
Highest band - £83,100

Mainstream SEND units seem to be the great white hope / white whale of reform

We looked at banded funded arrangements for these - same story, a Caligulan goat orgy of confusion

Lowest rate of high-needs top-up = zero (several LAs)
Highest rate = ~£36,000

Some LAs dole mainstream funding out at an hourly rate

One north London LA = £15.72 per hour
One of its neighbours = £12.33 per hour

An LA under Safety Valve, 30 minutes up the M11 = £9.78 per hour

The DfE funding formula is obsolete. On top of that, each LA has brewed its own allocation system, each LA is under different financial pressures, & each LA applies demand suppression in different ways - so the funding schools get bears no relation to what's required to meet need

= postcode lottery

But it's hard to see how that pledge can be met - because the level of variation and dysfunction in SEND funding allocations across LAs almost defies belief.

Check this graph - 100 current LA systems for mainstream banded funding, grouped by region: like a spider on crack walked across the page

People are focused (rightly) on changes to SEND legal rights, but there will also likely be huge reforms to how SEND provision is funded

But no-one outside the DfE sweat lodge knows what or how. They announced some principles 2 weeks ago, & said no-one will lose 'effective' (nfd) provision

This pressure (& suppressive financial intervention policies) means that at a per-pupil level, real-terms cuts are being inflicted on schools high-needs allocations

Most LAs dole this out via banded funding systems. The graph shows changes to band values since 2023: 96% of LAs made real-terms cuts

With delegated school budgets under pressure, more mainstream schools need high-needs funding than ever before

The main thing that blew LA high-needs budgets in 2024-25 was mainstream school requests for high-needs top-up, with independent school costs a close second

Most local authorities run a deficit on their DSG funding blocks (usually because of high-needs funding shortages) - the deficit is growing more quickly than DfE predictions

End March 2025 = ~£3.8 billion (provisional)
End March 2026 = >£6.1 billion (forecast)

Nobody knows how much money is spent on SEND provision each year. This graph just covers the education side

People call the red bit 'the SEND budget' - but most pupils w SEND have most of their provision funded out of the blue bit, including mainstream pupils with an EHCP. Amount is unclear

So many of these complaints about ‘power’ are just short-hand for

‘this person, who should know their place, questioned and successfully reversed my professional judgement, using knowledge I should have had if I was genuinely professional in my conduct’