Newcastle special needs demand up 150% since 2017 amid worry over £14bn national SEND deficit
The number of Newcastle children needing support with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) has sky-rocketed since 2017, figures show.
As of December 2025, there were 3,206 children and young people in the city with an education, health and care plan (EHCP), a legal document setting out their additional needs. That number marks a 23% increase from 2,611 in 2023 and is just under 150% higher than in 2017, Newcastle City Council reports.
There have been severe warnings across the country for years about the rapidly escalating demand for special needs support and the resulting strain being put on both stretched local services and under-pressure council finances.
In Newcastle, local authority officials have apologised in the past 18 months for leaving families waiting beyond the statutory 20-week deadline to issue a child’s EHCP after a request is made. Across the country, councils are expected to rack up a combined deficit in the SEND system of £14 billion by the end of 2027/28.
While Labour’s promised SEND reforms are still yet to be announced, Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget confirmed that the Government will take full responsibility for the costs from 2028. However, it remains unclear how that will be paid for and whether the existing deficits will be written off.
In Newcastle, the city council is projecting that it will have a cumulative deficit in its High Needs Block of £7.8 million by March this year – as a result of growing demand, inflation, and a reliance on special schools run independently of the council due to a shortage of local authority provision.
Mark Nicholson, the local authority’s chief finance officer, told councillors before Christmas that the national SEND deficit was “100%” a matter for Whitehall to resolve and that he could not envisage an “answer where they fund part of the problem and leave part for councils to fund”.
The council has been trying for years to secure funding to build a new school in Byker for children with autism, but has been unsuccessful in efforts to get cash from the Department for Education (DfE).
A report due to be presented to city councillors next week states: “We remain committed to working together to ensure that mainstream schools are equipped to meet the needs of learners with SEND.
“This includes providing schools with the necessary resources, training, and support to deliver adaptive and responsive curriculums and promoting high quality inclusive practice across all educational settings. Thus, enabling children and young people to thrive in environments that understand and respond to their individual needs.
“We also use capital funding provided by the DfE to improve inclusion in mainstream settings – accessibility, adaptations and SEND spaces. Up to September 2025 we have invested in 31 settings, to provide safe spaces, sensory rooms and adaptations to school buildings.
“The offer of therapies such as speech and language and occupational therapy is being recommissioned, so it is available to support all children and young people in mainstream settings without parent/ carers feeling their child requires an EHCP.”