IFS report on SEND and education spend: CCN responds

Today the Institute for Fiscal Studies has released a new report, ‘Annual report on education spending in England: 2025–26’ which explores the rise in SEND and other education expenditure.

A key finding from the report is the assertion that rising spend in SEND services to date have been accommodated by squeezing funding for mainstream schools. The IFAS finds that spending per SEND pupil rose by 10% in real-terms between 2019 and 2025, whereas mainstream school spending per pupil increased by 5% over the period.

Below, the County Councils Network responds to the report.

Cllr Bill Revans, SEND Spokesperson for the County Councils Network, said:

“As this new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services are increasingly costly, whilst failing to deliver better overall outcomes, not least for young people. Our research shows that whilst £30bn extra has been invested into SEND over the last decade, educational outcomes have not improved.

“Faced with exponential rises in demand and costs, councils have increasingly had to request that money from mainstream schools is diverted to prop up SEND services, with around £150m re-routed this way last year. This, amongst other reasons, is why national SEND spend per person has risen at double the rate of mainstream pupils. The government’s Schools White Paper must come out in the first few months of 2026 as promised - and must be ambitious in its scope.”

The CCN research cited in this comment was released in October 2025.