Whisper it, but ‘special educational needs' is becoming an unaffordable racket

Telegraph

07-07-2025

The British taxpayer is being taken for an ever-more-expensive ride. It is seemingly not enough that we must support six million public sector workers, spaff £400 million on legions of DEI staff or pay £200 billion a year for a health service on life support: Whitehall's big spenders are endlessly looking for new ways to empty our bank accounts.
Arguably their most troubling new spending frontier is 'neurodiversity'. It's one of those new age, suitably fuzzy terms which we don't quite understand but have to pretend has always been a part of our lexicon – similar to 'equity', 'intersectionality' or 'microaggression'. Officially, though, it's a spectrum of illnesses, from ADHD to dyspraxia, which must always be validated, never gainsaid, however generic the 'symptoms' may appear. As with all elements of the progressive orthodoxy, the Blob regards any hint of scepticism as akin to supporting the Slaughter of the First Born.
And it is now turning out to be as vexing for Bridget Phillipson as it is for anyone who has secretly wondered whether young Tommy is more dim than dyslexic. In October, the Government is set to overhaul the special needs and disabilities (Send) provision in schools, through which councils provide support to pupils. Given that, of the total spend on 'education, health and care plans' (EHCPs), which legally mandate expensive support and have risen exponentially in recent years, just 4 per cent are going to those with severe learning disabilities associated with physical incapacity, I'd say for once the Education Secretary is right.
But antsy backbenchers, fresh from their Pyrrhic PIP triumph last week, panic that there will be an attempt to save money by scaling back support. As one Labour MP warned, foretelling future rebellions: 'If they thought taking money away from disabled adults was bad, watch what happens when they try the same with disabled kids.'
Just as with the welfare row, the backdrop is an explosion in claimants. Close to two million people under 25 now require Send support. The Department for Education is, according to the National Audit Office (NAO), now spending £10.7 billion providing support to these youngsters. Funding for ADHD claims has risen from £700,000 a year in 2013 to £292 million today: a mind-boggling increase of more than 41,000 per cent in just over a decade. It goes on: autism diagnoses in England have risen by 787 per cent between 1998 and 2018, while ADHD and autism referrals have increased five‑fold since the pandemic.
We have been so sucked into this (who hasn't had a recently diagnosed friend query whether perhaps they might, too, be a 'sufferer'? It's starting to feel like a Ponzi scheme) that at no point have we stopped to ask: who are we helping? Or: where does this end? As Prof Ginny Russell, a researcher in developmental disorders, has courageously suggested: 'I do think it's going to continue until maybe everyone is categorised as neurodiverse'.
Do we dare ask whether providing transportation, including taxis, for these children, is necessary or sustainable? The County Councils Network (CCN) projects that the cost of 'free' transport will reach £3.6 billion a year by 2030. What's truly staggering is that children don't even require a diagnosis to receive this benefit: one eight year old with 'behavioural difficulties' in Gainsborough was given daily private cars to and from school despite never having been assessed.
Then there was the mother in Derby, who bemoaned her child feeling 'distressed' going to school on public transport, adding: 'I could take her in the car but I also have other children who I need to get to school and nursery'. So, like every other parent? It's easy to complain when someone else is paying.
Is this a good use of taxpayer funds, when CCN is also warning 26 of England's largest councils could have to declare bankruptcy by 2027 if the SEND deficits they are grappling with are placed onto their budget books? What's more, the evidence that SEND support works is limited. In 2019 the NAO found there was 'no consistent improvement' in outcomes for children and young people receiving this support.
We have created a system which is patently too easy to game. Almost every student who was screened for ADHD at Oxford University recently was assessed as having it after a 90-minute test. Students were asked such probing questions as, 'Would you describe yourself as a well-organised person?' and, 'Do you tend to be on time to appointments?'As though any 18 year old student could respond 'yes' to either without a smirk.
Records show a frankly ludicrous 42 per cent of pupils in private schools were granted extra time in their exams last year, against an already implausible 27 per cent in non-selective state schools. The incentives for teachers, and parents, to push children towards these diagnoses is self-evident.
But here's the rub. Not only has the DWP forecast that the number of children entitled to disability benefits will rise by a third by 2030 – one of the fastest growing benefits categories. But those children will be trapped in a cycle of dependency: cast as unable to function independently at school, then deemed too mentally unwell to hold down a job. They'll come to see 'neurodiversity' as a part of their identity, something which must be catered for in adult life as it was in childhood, however unfeasible that might be in the Real World.
Not all that long ago, when most readers were young, children were allowed to be eccentric, dreamy or difficult. They could be high energy, imaginative, introverted. Perhaps even – sorry, I'll wash my mouth out – occasionally naughty. But now childhood foibles and growing pains are being pathologised and monetised. Private assessment clinics are booming, with charges reportedly reaching £1,500. Along the way, any sense of resilience is being lost. And such is the diagnostic inflation, that parents of the 4 per cent who really need it get lost in the crowd and may not get appropriate support.
It's almost enough to make you long for the country to get the shocking dose of reality that Ukrainians or Israelis are experiencing. Our state has become a soft touch paying out for every sad story, pandering to every claim of exceptionalism. It's fuelling a culture of entitlement and welfare dependency, and even formerly profligate Labour front benchers are slowly coming to realise it's not sustainable.