Councils SEND further education to the back of the queue

Councils are being lured by a carrot – submit a successful SEND reform plan and 90 per cent of their dedicated schools grant (DSG) deficit gets written off.

The three-year plans, currently being assessed by the Department of Education as a way to replace the ‘safety valve’ scheme, had to be submitted in June.

And to promote transparency, FE Week is today publishing 40 SEND reform plans on an interactive map after scouring local authority websites and requesting drafts from local officials.

Most English local authorities refused to reveal their plans to us ahead of receiving a DfE decision. But analysis of the 40 made available reveals 17 contain scant details on post-16 provision.

The plans will be scored across eight areas on a four-point scale, so thin post-16 detail could still result in proposals being passed if the rest of the document is strong. Meanwhile, councils that fall short must revise their plans and resubmit, which would likely delay their deficit write-off.

The DfE said: “We’re proud of our once-in-a-generation reforms and are working alongside local government to make sure every child gets the right support, early on, without a fight.”

The reforms are backed by £4 billion over three years, including £200 million to build council capacity.

Read your local SEND reform plan

A joint investigation by Schools Week and FE Week collected all available local reform SEND plans across the country.

Quiet on FE strategy

The DfE’s guidance asks councils to set out how they will strengthen pathways to adulthood, supporting young people into education, training, employment and supported internships.

Our analysis found 23 of the 40 plans engaged seriously with that requirement. The other 17 followed standard DfE template language and failed to add local detail.

“A lot of them didn’t really bring their area to life,” said Natspec chief executive Clare Howard.

Five councils admitted their post-16 arrangements were not yet embedded, though none listed it on their official risk registers.

Nottingham City Council said its post-16 internship work needed “development and a sufficiency audit”.

David Holloway, senior SEND policy manager at the Association of Colleges (AoC), said the findings were “disappointing” but unsurprising. An AoC survey of colleges published last week revealed only 37 per cent said their local authority consistently engaged with them in strategic numbers planning.

“The reforms are supposed to take away the negotiation over the price of an individual student’s support and bring in a requirement to do proper numbers planning, not just of overall high needs numbers but of numbers in each different cohort,” he said.

Matt Keer, a columnist for SEND news website Special Needs Jungle, said local authority plans mirrored the financial pressures they face, but warned: “If the DfE doesn’t like what it sees, then the LA won’t be getting a 90 per cent reduction in its DSG deficit.

Councils ready to expand

Not every local authority has failed to flesh out plans for post-16 SEND provision. Eight listed targets for extra post-16 places in mainstream settings, including new SEND centres and expansion of FE college places.

Hounslow Council is planning a “skills and employability hub” to accommodate 200 additional post-16 places.

Hertfordshire County Council has committed to up to 100 additional specialist post-16 places within the college sector. That is a fraction of the 1,150 places its £140 million provision plan will deliver by 2029, with at least 650 in specialist resource provision and SEND units, and up to 500 in special schools.

Oxfordshire County Council calculates it needs £4.3 million for 126 new places within further education, and it’s the only council of the 40 with a costed post-16 expansion strategy.

‘SEND more to FE’ policy risks a raft of problems

Elsewhere, six councils set out plans to grow supported internships.

Jerry White, AoC’s SEND reform lead and a former FE college principal, said councils that prioritise school building are sleepwalking into problems with post-16 placements.

“The capital that funds those high-needs places is up to the age of 25,” he said. “Yet in most local authorities, it goes into the children’s services department and the children’s services department thinks schools.

“The only demographic growth for the next five years is post-16, so you’ve built all these new complex needs schools. Where are they going to go at 16?”

Making Sense?

Norfolk County Council receives £6 million a year under its safety valve rescue deal, approved earlier this year, provided it builds two new special free schools.

Its reform plan reveals it will not expand Sense College Centre Dereham – the county’s only independent specialist college – and leaders believe the need for capital investment in post-16 is “less compelling” than the needs of schoolchildren.

Asked about its post-16 strategy, the Reform-led council told FE Week that over 300 young people were enrolled in special school sixth form provision across the county, a detail absent from the plan.

But Sense College Centre Dereham has already seen an “influx” of demand for this academic year and next from families whose disabled young people are being required to leave secondary school at 18 instead of 19.

Harriet Edwards, the charity’s director of influencing, said: “We believe this is because schools are under increasing pressure to find spaces for new, younger students coming in and therefore need to free up staff and physical space.”

Risky business

Under the DfE’s SEND reforms, councils had to disclose up to five risks and their mitigations. Of the 40 SEND reform plans we analysed, 36 raised concerns about staffing for the Experts at Hand service, which aims to provide external support for SEND learners in mainstream FE.

Of those, 28 warned workforce challenges would “likely” undermine their plans, and two said this risk was “very likely”. Most said a national shortage of educational psychologists, speech and language therapists and occupational therapists would have a “critical” impact – defined as “significant and sustained” disruption to activity.

Donna Wiggett, general secretary of the Association of Educational Psychologists, said the “grow your own” schemes put forward by six councils were “helpful” but “unlikely to enable enough recruitment to meet government plans unless they are backed by a funded national workforce strategy”.

Capping specialist places

At least 16 councils flagged risks to their financial sustainability, citing rising education health and care plan (EHCP) numbers and below-average funding rates. Two have gone further and propose capping placements at specialist colleges.

Cornwall Council, which its plan describes as “one of the lowest-funded local authorities in England for high needs”, will limit specialist placements to 90 from 2027, redirecting additional demand to mainstream provision. Its in-year DSG deficit hit £35.8 million in 2025-26 and is forecast to reach £56 million in 2026-27. An internal document called its post-16 costs the “tail wagging the dog”.

A spokesperson said the limit was “more a projection than a hard cap” and placement decisions would still follow statutory duties and assessed needs.

Meanwhile, Barnsley in South Yorkshire has proposed a ceiling of 60 specialist places a year, up from its current 43.

SEND colleges teach 11 per cent of all FE learners with an EHCP, whereas 41 per cent of schoolchildren with EHCPs are placed in specialist settings, according to Natspec.

“All they’re doing is shifting the problem elsewhere,” Howard said. “They’re just going to have more needs. They won’t address the underlying crisis.”

Get FE involved

Councils were advised to involve FE representatives in the delivery of their reforms. But only eight of the 40 plans confirm a dedicated post-16 seat on core partnership boards, and just four of those – Solihull, Bath and North East Somerset, Wirral and Shropshire – name a specific individual or institution. Another 24 describe some form of “engagement”.

“It would be a good idea to see colleges on local boards,” said Holloway, adding that one large college voice could be outflanked by 100 school voices in one area.

Mark Dale, Portland College principal, sits on the provider assurance and implementation group for Nottinghamshire County Council, which has not published its plan yet. He said SEND colleges were ready to lend their expertise to other post-16 providers.

“We stand ready to use our expertise with the post-16 sector, but we’re going to need clarity on how that would be resourced. At the moment, people can ask for our help and advice, but that can’t be unlimited.”

Dale warned that local government reorganisation, paused this week, and devolution of 16-to-19 funding to mayoral combined authorities could complicate post-16 SEND commissioning further.

Nottinghamshire and Nottingham City authorities have historically had a “reasonable” level of alignment, he said, despite the city council recently moving out of special measures and the county swinging from Conservative to Reform.

“There is no political will towards cooperation, but at an officer level, there is a degree of pragmatic alignment and joint working,” he said. “It’s U-turn after U-turn. I just think this has got U-turn written all over it.”