{ "title": "Council pressure across England", "standfirst": "English councils face real and rising pressure from duties driven by demand: Education, Health and Care plans, the cost of getting children with special educational needs to school, and children in care. Thirty councils needed emergency bailouts in 2025 to 2026. But comparing five official datasets shows the link is weaker than the headlines suggest. The councils that needed a bailout are, on average, no more pressured by high needs than those that did not, and that pressure does not track deprivation. For one specific cluster of councils, though, the two clearly collide.", "period": "2024 to 2026", "headline": [ { "value": "538,547", "label": "children and young people have an Education, Health and Care plan, the fastest-growing duty councils must fund", "period": "2025/26", "sourceOrg": "DfE", "sourceUrl": "https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england" }, { "value": "£1.38bn", "label": "in emergency exceptional financial support to 30 English councils in a single year", "period": "2025/26", "sourceOrg": "MHCLG", "sourceUrl": "https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptional-financial-support-for-local-authorities-for-2025-26" }, { "value": "50 vs 50", "label": "the average high needs pressure of bailed out councils and solvent ones is identical: there is no aggregate link", "period": "2025/26", "sourceOrg": "British Resilience Index analysis", "sourceUrl": "https://britishresilienceindex.com/methodology" }, { "value": "0.09", "label": "correlation between a council's high needs pressure and its child poverty rate: in other words, essentially none", "period": "2025", "sourceOrg": "British Resilience Index analysis", "sourceUrl": "https://britishresilienceindex.com/methodology" } ], "sections": [ { "key": "demand", "eyebrow": "The demand", "title": "The demand is real, and it is rising fast", "summary": "Three demand driven duties sit at the centre of council budgets: Education, Health and Care plans, home to school transport for children with special educational needs, and children in care. All are growing. To compare councils we built an indicative pressure score from four official measures (the five year growth in EHC plans, the share of special needs transport carried by taxis, how few EHC plans are issued on time, and the looked after children rate). It is an analytical construct, not an official statistic, but it lets us rank where the strain is greatest.", "chart": { "caption": "Highest high needs pressure (indicative composite of four official measures)", "unit": "pressure score (0 to 100)", "color": "accent", "source": "British Resilience Index analysis of DfE home to school transport, EHC plans and children looked after data.", "bars": [ { "label": "Tameside", "value": 91 }, { "label": "Derbyshire", "value": 86 }, { "label": "Nottingham", "value": 84 }, { "label": "Cheshire West and Chester", "value": 84 }, { "label": "Sandwell", "value": 81 }, { "label": "Wirral", "value": 78 }, { "label": "Shropshire", "value": 77 }, { "label": "Wigan", "value": 77 } ] }, "stats": [ { "label": "Children and young people with an EHC plan", "value": "538,547", "period": "2025/26", "sourceOrg": "DfE, Special educational needs in England", "sourceUrl": "https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england", "note": "More than one in five pupils now have some form of special educational need." }, { "label": "Typical growth in a council's EHC caseload over five years", "value": "+65%", "period": "2020/21 to 2025/26", "sourceOrg": "British Resilience Index analysis of DfE EHC plans data", "sourceUrl": "https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans", "note": "This is the median across councils. Nine councils saw their caseload more than double in five years." }, { "label": "Average cost of a taxi to school for a special needs pupil", "value": "£10,700", "period": "2025/26", "sourceOrg": "DfE, Home to school transport", "sourceUrl": "https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/home-to-school-transport-la-data-collection", "note": "58 per cent of pre-16 special needs transport users travel by taxi or private hire, accounting for 67 per cent of the spend, roughly 1.15 billion pounds a year." } ] }, { "key": "distress", "eyebrow": "Finding one", "title": "But high needs demand is not what is bankrupting councils", "summary": "It is tempting to blame the wave of council bailouts on rising special needs costs. The data does not support it. Across the councils we scored, those that needed exceptional financial support have an identical average pressure score to those that did not: 50 against 50. And the very biggest bailouts go to councils with below average high needs pressure, because their problems lie elsewhere: equal pay and IT at Birmingham, commercial property and investment bets at Croydon, Thurrock and Woking.", "chart": { "caption": "The biggest council bailouts, and why most are not about high needs", "unit": "£m", "color": "worsening", "source": "MHCLG, Exceptional Financial Support for local authorities 2025 to 2026.", "bars": [ { "label": "Birmingham (low pressure: equal pay, IT)", "value": 180 }, { "label": "Bradford (high pressure)", "value": 127 }, { "label": "Croydon (low pressure: commercial)", "value": 110 }, { "label": "Southampton", "value": 90 }, { "label": "Havering (low pressure)", "value": 88 }, { "label": "Woking (commercial collapse)", "value": 75 }, { "label": "Plymouth (high pressure)", "value": 72 }, { "label": "Thurrock (low pressure: investment)", "value": 62 } ] }, "stats": [ { "label": "Councils on exceptional financial support", "value": "30", "period": "2025/26", "sourceOrg": "MHCLG", "sourceUrl": "https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptional-financial-support-for-local-authorities-for-2025-26", "note": "Up from 19 the year before, totalling about 1.38 billion pounds. Of the councils we could score, 25 are on the list." }, { "label": "Average pressure score: bailed out vs solvent councils", "value": "50 vs 50", "period": "2025/26", "sourceOrg": "British Resilience Index analysis", "sourceUrl": "https://britishresilienceindex.com/methodology", "note": "Identical. High needs pressure has no aggregate relationship with whether a council needed a bailout." }, { "label": "Birmingham's bailout, the largest, at a below average pressure score", "value": "£180m", "period": "2025/26", "sourceOrg": "MHCLG", "sourceUrl": "https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptional-financial-support-for-local-authorities-for-2025-26", "note": "Birmingham's score is 37 out of 100. Its crisis stems from an equal pay liability and a failed IT system, not special needs demand." } ], "qualitative": [ { "label": "The honest reading", "quote": "The wave of council bailouts is mostly not caused by special needs demand. For a specific cluster of councils, however, it clearly is part of the story." } ] }, { "key": "deprivation", "eyebrow": "Finding two", "title": "And it is not a story about poverty", "summary": "High needs pressure is also not concentrated in deprived areas. The correlation between a council's pressure score and its child poverty rate is 0.09, which is to say there is none. Affluent shire counties such as Cheshire East, West Berkshire and Shropshire are under as much high needs strain as deprived cities. Demand for special needs support, transport and care is broad based, not a function of poverty.", "stats": [ { "label": "Correlation between pressure and child poverty", "value": "0.09", "period": "2025", "sourceOrg": "British Resilience Index analysis (DfE and DWP data)", "sourceUrl": "https://britishresilienceindex.com/methodology", "note": "Pearson correlation across 121 single tier councils. A value near zero means the two are unrelated." }, { "label": "Child poverty in the most deprived councils", "value": "50%", "period": "2024/25", "sourceOrg": "DWP and HMRC, Children in Low Income Families", "sourceUrl": "https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2022-to-2025", "note": "Tower Hamlets and Hackney have around half of children in low income families, yet sit only mid-table on high needs pressure." } ] }, { "key": "collide", "eyebrow": "Where they meet", "title": "Where demand and distress do collide", "summary": "For one cluster of councils the two stories genuinely overlap: high needs pressure is real and so is the financial distress. These are the places where rising special needs demand is plausibly part of why the budget broke, and the ones worth watching most closely.", "chart": { "caption": "Councils that are both high pressure and on a bailout", "unit": "pressure score (0 to 100)", "color": "worsening", "source": "British Resilience Index analysis; MHCLG exceptional financial support list.", "bars": [ { "label": "Nottingham (£25m)", "value": 84 }, { "label": "Wirral (£8m)", "value": 78 }, { "label": "Cheshire East (£25m)", "value": 75 }, { "label": "Medway (£28m)", "value": 68 }, { "label": "Worcestershire (£34m)", "value": 68 }, { "label": "Plymouth (£72m)", "value": 66 }, { "label": "Bradford (£127m)", "value": 63 } ] }, "stats": [ { "label": "Nottingham: every special needs transport user on a taxi", "value": "100%", "period": "2025/26", "sourceOrg": "DfE, Home to school transport", "sourceUrl": "https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/home-to-school-transport-la-data-collection", "note": "Nottingham is on a 25 million pound bailout, has issued a section 114 notice twice, and carries all its pre-16 special needs transport users by taxi or private hire." } ] } ], "sources": [ { "org": "DfE", "title": "Home to school transport: local authority data collection 2025/26", "url": "https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/home-to-school-transport-la-data-collection", "period": "Special needs transport spend, users and mode" }, { "org": "DfE", "title": "Education, health and care plans in England", "url": "https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans", "period": "EHC caseload, growth and 20 week timeliness" }, { "org": "DfE", "title": "Children looked after in England including adoptions", "url": "https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions", "period": "Looked after children rate per 10,000" }, { "org": "MHCLG", "title": "Exceptional financial support for local authorities 2025 to 2026", "url": "https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptional-financial-support-for-local-authorities-for-2025-26", "period": "The bailout list and amounts" }, { "org": "DWP and HMRC", "title": "Children in low income families: local area statistics 2022 to 2025", "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2022-to-2025", "period": "Child poverty rate by council" } ], "caveats": [ "The pressure score is an indicative analytical construct, not an official statistic. It is the mean percentile rank of four official measures (five year EHC caseload growth, taxi share of special needs transport, the share of EHC plans not issued within 20 weeks, and the looked after children rate), each weighted equally. Different weightings would shift the ranking, but the two headline findings about distress and deprivation are robust to it.", "The analysis covers upper tier councils, the bodies that actually hold these duties. 145 councils were scored.", "Exceptional financial support reflects many causes, including governance failures, commercial losses and demand pressures. Some amounts are agreed in principle and may be revised. The point here is not that high needs is irrelevant, but that it is not the dominant cause.", "The deprivation comparison covers single tier councils only, because child poverty is not published at the county-council level. Counties are therefore excluded from that correlation.", "The five datasets cover slightly different periods and populations, so their figures are not directly additive." ] }