Action call over ‘unfair’ SEND funding

Children in Devon with special educational needs get just a third of the funding of those in big cities. South Devon MP Caroline Voaden has called the system ‘completely unfair’ and urged the minister for school standards to take action at Westminster.

Children in Devon with special educational needs receive just one third of the funding of their big city counterparts.

Now one of the county’s MPs is calling on the government to correct what she calls a ‘completely unfair’ system.

During an education committee session at Westminster, South Devon Liberal Democrat MP Caroline Voaden called on the minister for school standards, Catherine McKinnell, to address the problem.

She said there were ‘significant disparities’ in the national funding formula which governs how much schools receive for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

In Devon, she said, a child who receives a high needs funding block will get £1,245, compared to £3,565 for a child with the same needs in the London borough of Camden.

“Effectively, that child is worth three times less in Devon than in Camden,” she said. “I spoke to a head teacher who had moved from London to Devon, who was absolutely horrified at the level of support she could provide to the children with SEND in her classes – things like speech and language therapies and educational psychologists.

“She said in Camden she could just bring it all in because she had the money, and she just doesn’t have it in Devon. It’s completely unfair.”

Mrs Voaden asked the minister what steps were being taken to reform the funding framework and fix the problem.

Ms McKinnell said it would take time to make the changes. Work was ‘ongoing’ but would need to be done in a ‘gradual’ way.“

I can reassure you that there is no intention whatsoever from the Department for Education to allocate funding in a way that is unfair,” she said. “But it is a complex funding system.”