A councillor that used to oversee work with Warwickshire's children and families has questioned whether some children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are "just really badly behaved".

Cllr Jeff Morgan, the portfolio holder for children and families until May 2023 and now vice-chair of the council, also suggested such children may need "some form of strict correction". 

It was part of the county's children and young people overview and scrutiny committee's in-depth discussion of SEND provision, specifically the spiralling financial bill the council is facing to keep up with demand, and Cllr Morgan was not alone in querying the numbers. 

Multi-million pound shortfall

Council officers presented a SEND analysis to highlight the challenges faced and work being done on projects to address a shortfall that is predicted to be £17.5 million for the financial year 2023-24 alone.

There are more than 15,000 children and young people with SEND in Warwickshire's state-funded schools, almost of 12,000 of which are supported through funding allocated to directly schools. 

The rest – 3,632 – have an education, health and care plan (EHCP) with their additional, often more complex, needs funded through the high needs block, a pot of money allocated to the council by government. 

ECHPs don't just cover those of school age, they are there to cover needs from birth or the point needs are identified to the age of 25 and there are now just shy of 6,000 children or young people in Warwickshire receiving help overall – an increase of 37 per cent over the past five years.

Cllr Brian Hammersley described the figures as "pretty astounding" and asked: "Does anyone know why this is increasing so rapidly? Is it something in the water? 

"Why are there so many people now jumping out with these needs, where were they in the past when I was at school? I never heard of SEND (at that time). 

"This then creates a problem of money, it all comes down to money… This is not affordable for WCC and it is not affordable to other councils.

"Although we are obligated to supply this cover for the needs of these people, it appears to be a bottomless pit, a hole that we are throwing loads of money into that the council has little to no control over.

"My question is do we go back to find the source of the problem, (which) is why are so many people having this badge of SEND and special needs?

"The problem appears to me to be why so many people now are having all these issues when there were very few when I was at school having these special needs. 

"I know that was long ago but to stop this spend, fix the problem at source."

Better understanding, bigger numbers

Ross Caws, head of SEND and inclusion at Warwickshire County Council, replied: "Part of that is increased need and part of that is the increased understanding of need.

"There is an increased rate of diagnosis of children with autism, increased understanding of mental health conditions and increased survival of children with conditions at birth, so there are many good reasons for that in terms of understanding those needs. 

"On top of that, we have to look at how we meet those needs early, identification and intervention, and whether needs are escalating because the right support isn't being put in place at the right time."

Cllr Jill Simpson-Vince advocated the improved understanding but acknowledged the knock-on effect.

"We didn't have special needs when I was at school either but when I look back at some of the classmates I had over time, I am sure some of them would have come under EHCPs and SEND if they had existed at the time," she said. 

"The children have always been there, it is just we are now better at identifying. That then starts to become the victim of its own success in a way because parents look at SEND as a way of getting more funding for their individual child.

"Whenever parents contact me, and presumably other councillors as well, they know about the £6,000 (government funding that schools receive to help a SEND pupil), that's the thing they hone in on but there is a lot more around it than that.

"I think we need to set clear expectations with parents over what that means."

She was also keen to address wider societal perceptions of SEND.

"These children aren't second-class citizens, they should be treated the same as everyone else," she said.

"How they get there may be a bit different but they still get there."

Understanding or misunderstanding? 

Cllr Morgan then joined the debate.

"What worries me is the consequences of what my colleague (Cllr Hammersley) is saying," he said. 

"It seems to me that the system for judging intervention, therapy, special needs, additional support, the threshold just keeps going down and down. Surely it cannot always be the case that just because demand is increasing that there is a genuine need. 

"I don't know how you (deal with) that apart from being tougher, asking more penetrating questions, not automatically accepting the plea of a mother saying that little Willy has ADHD when in actual fact little Willy is just really badly behaved and needs some form of strict correction.

"I don't want to be too 'Daily Mail' on this but I think there is a real issue in the system, it automatically seems to reduce the threshold all the time. Are there any checks and balances on this? Is there anything we can do?"

Executive director for children and young people Nigel Minns pushed back.

"I don't agree that the threshold has come down, I think it is where it has been since the current scheme has been in existence," he said, running through how a "medicalised model" of dealing with what is now SEND was replaced in the early 1980s and noting that it was estimated at that time that around 20 per cent of children would need some sort of assistance. 

"That is slightly more than we have now, so I think that recognition has been there for some time," he said. 

"Identifying who those children are, what their needs are and how we best support them has become much more sophisticated over time which leaves us in the position that we are in now."

Cllr Clare Golby called for a thorough look into more detailed data to address whether there were "hotspots" or missed areas, or regions or demographic groups where SEND had become conflated with other societal problems. 

She asked: "One of the questions is maybe about what comes down to parenting and what comes down to SEND issues – how do we identify that and what pathways do we put people on that perhaps don't have an SEND need but do have parenting skill shortages?"

She also queried whether the 37 per cent rise in demand had been driven by social media sites she had found where "families are swapping tips on how to get their children diagnosed". 

"We need to not only look at the outcomes but the pathways to how we get to them," she concluded.

Mr Caws said research was being conducted nationally on such issues but that he hadn't come across the tip-swapping on social media.