Amid growing concerns about rising numbers of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), the government is to give councils an extra £250m to increase support in schools over the next two years and £100m to invest in better facilities.
The move, announced by Education Secretary Damian Hinds in December, came a day before the publication of latest Local Government Association (LGA) research on the scale of the cost pressures in council SEND budgets. It calculated that the funding deficit in the SEND budget would be £800m this year rising to £1.6bn by 2021.
In addition to extra funding, Hinds revealed plans to make it easier for special free schools to be established, to create a leadership board to oversee SEND policy (see box), to commission new research on the issue, and train more educational psychologists.
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