Planning SEND provision over the next five years will require local areas to look beyond national trends. With the 2026 reforms beginning to be rolled out, the picture is changing– but it isn’t changing in the same way everywhere.
That’s why we’ve developed Mime’s SEND Benchmarking Club: bringing together our national and regional forecasts for Education Health and Care Plans growth with real-time local authority data. It is currently the only regional dataset for the SEND reforms publicly available.
40% growth but a different regional picture
Nationally, the number of Education, Health and Care Plans is forecast to increase by around 40% over the next five years, reaching over a million children and young people. However, growth is likely to vary significantly between regions, with our forecasts suggesting the East Midlands is expected to see the fastest growth, while growth is projected to be slowest in the North East and London. The forecasts do not assume a substantial impact from the SEND reforms over this period, although successful reform activity may result in lower growth than described.
Understanding that variation matters. Senior leaders benefit from knowing what is happening in similar areas.
Where will the growth in the EHCP cohort happen?
Growth is increasingly likely to be concentrated among secondary-age and post-16 cohorts, together accounting for around three quarters of the growth. Much of this growth reflects the changing size of cohorts already in the school system and, with EHCPs rarely being ceased before a young person reaches 19 years old currently, larger groups of children with special educational needs moving into secondary and post-16 as smaller cohorts leave the school system. While this may change under the reforms, the impact is likely to take time to feed through and affect overall cohort numbers. Growth in the early years has already slowed in recent years with little further growth forecast over the next few years.
This drives home the point that local authority reforms may have limited ability to dramatically slow this forecast growth, and local areas need to plan accordingly.
What type of special educational needs are growing?
Around 90% of the total EHCP cohort growth over the next five years is forecast to come from the three largest primary need groups:
- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
- Speech, Language and Communications Needs (SLCN)
- Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH)
The number of children and young people with SLCN is forecast to see the largest growth, at around 80% by 2031, while the number with SEMH is forecast to grow by more than 50%. Again, there are significant regional differences. For example, the number of children and young people with SLCN could more than double in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber, compared with an increase of around 50% in the South East. Across England, London is forecast to see the lowest growth in SEMH need (32%) while the East Midlands is forecast to see the largest (77%).
This has important implications for the types of provision local authorities plan and budget for. Data shows that, among children and young people with EHCPs, those with a primary need of SLCN are more likely to have their needs met in mainstream schools than those with complex learning difficulties or physical or sensory needs.
How are local areas planning to meet need?
Mime’s SEND Benchmarking Club brings together local authorities that are planning for these changes now, including proactively investing in local provision to meet the growing need.
Across member local authorities, specialist bases in mainstream schools are expected to more than double over the next four years. In addition, mainstream places for children and young people with EHCPs are expected to grow by around 40% across the benchmarking group.
Despite this, local authorities are expecting their High Needs Budgets to increase by 25-30% over the next two years, largely because of continued growth in EHCP cohorts. Most are only planning for inflationary increases in the cost of each individual placements.
Transport spending for the SEN cohort is also expected to increase, although at a slightly lower rate than HNB spending. Anecdotally we know that many of our LA clients have been consolidating and renegotiating transport contracts, explaining why spend isn’t anticipated to rise in line with the overall cohort growth.
Why benchmarking matters
There are almost 20 local authorities already signed up to Mime’s SEND Benchmarking Club and with each new member the tool becomes an increasingly valuable source of shared intelligence across the sector.
As the UK’s leading SEND data specialist one thing we consistently see is the value of shared learning. Which is why we have made the Club free to use.
But the Club is about more than just data. We’ll also be running a series of webinars to bring members together to share learning, exchange ideas and challenge each other on how to improve outcomes and make the best use of resources. We’ll also identify areas of particularly strong practice across the country and connect members directly. For example, if you are interested in how to rapidly expand specialist base places, we will connect you with the local area that has achieved that to understand how.
If you’re responsible for SEND planning, provision or budgets we’d love to talk to you about the Club.
