In today’s newsletter: Despite a 58% increase in funding over a decade, there has been no improvement in outcomes, a new report reveals• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. The annual budget for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in England now stands at £10.7bn, an increase of 58% in a decade. Despite that, there has been no improvement in outcomes, and many parents say that their children are being sold short. The need for services is so great against the backdrop of years of council cuts that two in five local authorities are at risk of effectively declaring bankruptcy by 2026. In other words: the system is somehow underfunded and financially ruinous at the same time, and failing the children it is supposed to support.That is the grim diagnosis contained in a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) published this morning, which warns that system-wide reforms are needed to keep councils afloat. And there is no doubt that the figures it contains are eye-watering.Budget | Rachel Reeves will announce at the International Monetary Fund a plan to change Britain’s debt rules that will open the door to more borrowing for long-term capital investment. After weeks of speculation, the change could release up to £50bn extra for infrastructure projects.France | Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman who has become a feminist hero for insisting that the rape trial of her ex-husband and 50 other men should be held in public, has told a court in southern France she was driven by her desire to change society and expose rape culture. She said: “I wanted all woman victims of rape … to say: Mrs Pelicot did it, we can do it too.”Police | The identities of armed police officers charged after opening fire at suspects are likely to stay secret in future unless they are convicted, the home secretary has announced. Yvette Cooper’s statement came after the acquittal of the Metropolitan police sergeant Martyn Blake for shooting dead Chris Kaba.US | A former model who says she met Donald Trump through the late sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein has accused the former president of groping and sexually touching her in an incident in Trump Tower in 1993. Trump’s presidential campaign called the allegation “unequivocally false”, calling it a fake story “contrived by the Harris campaign”.Dementia | Tens of thousands of dementia patients are to be enrolled in clinical trials designed to dramatically speed up the hunt for a cure, leading scientists have announced. The initiative is intended to challenge “historically low” numbers enrolled into trials in the UK. Continue reading…
Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/24/thursday-briefing-first-edition-send-special-education-needs-disability-england
Author : Archie Bland
Publish date : 2024-10-24 06:09:00
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Thursday briefing: How the state is failing children with special needs – and what it costs
