Responding to the National Audit Office's report, Support for children and young people with special educational needs, Paul Whiteman general secretary of the school leaders' union, NAHT said:

“Today’s statistics are the catastrophic legacy of the last government’s failure to get a grip on the crisis in SEND. Despite soaring costs and more children being identified as having additional needs, school funding has remained largely static in real terms. Furthermore, per-pupil funding for pupils in special schools has been frozen for over a decade. We are dealing with a system that, despite the best efforts of those working in schools, is buckling under pressure and letting children down. Children with the most severe needs, in particular, are subject to an unjust postcode lottery, despite our repeated calls for a national approach to high-needs funding and a set of universally applied standards.

“The cost of inaction is measured in lost potential. Children with SEND deserve better – a system that supports them, not one that sets them up for failure.

“When the Conservative government published the SEND and Alternative Provision plan last year, we were clear that while we supported some of the measures, such as early intervention, increasing the specialist workforce, and improving the Education, Health and Care Plan process, these plans would fail if they were not backed up by significant additional funding and more detail on how they would be implemented. Sufficient extra funding was never provided, and this data shows that councils have either overspent or been forced to raise the threshold for support – with many children still not getting the help they need, and crippling shortages of vital staff, including educational psychologists and speech and language therapists, continuing.

“The warning lights are flashing red – without proper investment, things will get even worse, and the system may face complete collapse. High-needs deficits must be written off, and urgent, targeted investment is needed to stop children in different parts of the country from being left behind. The F40 campaign, which NAHT supports, estimates that SEND funding needs an additional £4.6 billion a year, and we urge the government to prioritise this at the budget.

"NAHT stands ready to work with the government to help find urgent solutions to this ever-growing crisis.”