The Government has repeatedly chosen to dispel the impact its VAT raid would have on Send children by maintaining those with an EHC plan, a certificate issued by local authorities that can be used to cover private school fees, will be exempt.
However, the Government’s own data shows that of the 132,500 private school children who received Send support in the last academic year, 99,000 didn’t have an EHC plan.
A landmark report by the National Audit Office (NAO) last week laid bare the Send crisis within the state sector, with specialist schools vastly over capacity, and 40pc of councils at risk of declaring bankruptcy by March 2026 due to spending on Send.
The study also revealed half of all children had to wait more than 20 weeks to receive an EHC plan, and inspections by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission found almost a third of local areas had “widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes” of Send children.
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO said: “The Government has not yet identified a solution to manage local authority deficits arising from Send costs, which ongoing savings programmes will not address.”
Ms Maskell said: “I just visited my local Send school and they are absolutely bursting at the seams. The whole system is imploding, so to introduce it now when we haven’t got the resilience in the system just seems premature.”
