# Special educational needs in England: the system under strain

718,838 children and young people in England had an education, health and care plan at January 2026, up 12.5 per cent in a year, the fastest annual rise in the eight years of comparable official data. In school, 1 in 5 pupils now has a special educational need. This page sets out the scale of the rise, the strain on councils and families waiting for support, and the funding gap the National Audit Office has warned could reach 4.6 billion pounds.

Source page: https://britishresilienceindex.com/deep-dive/send
Machine readable data: https://britishresilienceindex.com/data/deep-dive/send.json

## How to read this

Two different official counts run through this page and are never added together: an education, health and care (EHC) plan is a legal document covering children and young people aged 0 to 25 across education, health and care (718,838 people at January 2026), while the school census counts pupils with SEN in state funded and independent schools only (538,547 with a plan, 1,319,780 on SEN support, both for the 2025/26 academic year). SEN support is help a school gives without a legal plan.

## 718,838 EHC plans, up 12.5 per cent in a year

718,838 children and young people aged 0 to 25 had an education, health and care plan in England at January 2026, up from 638,745 a year earlier, a rise of 12.5 per cent. That is the fastest annual increase since the current EHC plan system settled in after the old statements of special educational needs were phased out by 2018. In school, 6.0 per cent of pupils have an EHC plan and a further 14.8 per cent receive SEN support without one, so roughly 1 in 5 pupils, 20.8 per cent, now has an identified special educational need.

- **Ehc plans2026**: 718,838
- **Ehc plans2025**: 638,745
- **Growth pct**: 12.5
- **Total sen pct**: 20.8

## Eight years of the EHC plan count, and its steepest climb yet

The number of EHC plans active in January has risen every year since comparable data begins in 2018/19, from 353,995 in January 2019 to 718,838 in January 2026, a rise of 103 per cent over the period. Growth has accelerated rather than levelled off: this year's 12.5 per cent rise is the largest single year increase in the series. Over a longer run, the National Audit Office puts the rise in EHC plans at 140 per cent between January 2015 and January 2024, from 240,000 to 576,000, a different, longer series than the chart below, which uses only the DfE data downloaded for this page.

**Series**

| year | plans |
|---|---|
| 2,019 | 353,995 |
| 2,020 | 390,109 |
| 2,021 | 430,697 |
| 2,022 | 473,255 |
| 2,023 | 517,048 |
| 2,024 | 576,474 |
| 2,025 | 638,745 |
| 2,026 | 718,838 |

- **Start year**: 2,019
- **Start plans**: 353,995
- **End year**: 2,026
- **End plans**: 718,838
- **Peak year**: 2,026
- **Peak pct**: 12.5
**Nao140**: growth pct 140, plans2015 240,000, plans2024 576,000

## 6.0 per cent of pupils have a plan, 14.8 per cent get SEN support

Across all state funded and independent schools in England in 2025/26, 538,547 pupils (6.0 per cent) have an EHC plan and 1,319,780 pupils (14.8 per cent) receive SEN support, together 1,858,327 pupils, 20.8 per cent of the 8,920,227 pupil population. Speech, language and communication needs and social, emotional and mental health needs are the two largest categories, followed by autism spectrum disorder.

- **Ehc school**: 538,547
- **Ehc school pct**: 6
- **Sen support school**: 1,319,780
- **Sen support pct**: 14.8
- **Total sen**: 1,858,327
- **Total sen pct**: 20.8
- **Total pupils**: 8,920,227
**Needs**

| need | ehc | senSupport | total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speech, language and communication needs | 108,936 | 312,118 | 421,054 |
| Social, emotional and mental health | 83,339 | 301,482 | 384,821 |
| Autism spectrum disorder | 165,399 | 124,247 | 289,646 |
| Moderate learning difficulty | 35,475 | 161,933 | 197,408 |
| Specific learning difficulty | 21,384 | 158,833 | 180,217 |
| Other difficulty or disability | 9,587 | 40,373 | 49,960 |
| Physical disability | 14,918 | 20,154 | 35,072 |
| Severe learning difficulty | 31,246 | 1,592 | 32,838 |

- **Needs scope total ehc**: 493,764
- **Needs note**: Need type figures cover state funded nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, non-maintained special schools and alternative provision; independent schools are not included in this breakdown, so its EHC total (493,764) is lower than the school census headline above (538,547).

## A funding system the NAO calls financially unsustainable

High needs funding, the money for children with the greatest needs, rose 58 per cent in real terms between 2014-15 and 2024-25 to reach 10.7 billion pounds, according to the National Audit Office. But because the number of EHC plans grew so much faster, funding per plan fell in real terms. Many councils now run a deficit on this budget that a temporary accounting rule, the statutory override, has kept off their main books. The NAO's central estimate is that the cumulative deficit will reach 4.6 billion pounds by March 2026, in a range of 4.3 to 4.9 billion pounds, when that override is due to end, with some 43 per cent of councils forecast to have deficits at or close to their reserves.

- **High needs funding202425**: 10.7
- **High needs funding growth pct**: 58
- **Deficit central**: 4.6
- **Deficit low**: 4.3
- **Deficit high**: 4.9
- **Deficit year**: March 2026
- **Gap central2728**: 3.4
- **La share at risk**: 43
- **Source**: Support for children and young people with special educational needs, National Audit Office, HC 299, Session 2024-25, 16 October 2024

## Waits are getting longer, and more decisions end in a tribunal

Two indicators of a system under pressure, both from DfE's own data. The share of new EHC plans issued within the 20 week statutory deadline has fallen from 60.4 per cent in 2019 to 46.1 per cent in 2025, meaning most new plans now take longer than the law allows. Those figures exclude cases where a permitted exception applies, the basis DfE uses for its own headline. Counting every plan issued, including those with an exception, the 2025 figure is 45.5 per cent. The rate at which families take an EHC decision to the SEND Tribunal, the final step when they disagree with a council, rose from 6.1 per cent of appealable decisions in 2024 to 6.6 per cent in 2025.

**Timeliness**: variant excluding exceptions, label New EHC plans issued within 20 weeks, excluding cases where exceptions apply, start year 2,019, start pct 60.4, end year 2,025, end pct 46.1, note DfE publishes this measure on two bases. The chart uses the basis that excludes cases where a permitted exception to the 20 week timeframe applies, matching DfE's own headline of 46.1 per cent for 2025. Counting every plan issued, including those with an exception, gives 45.5 per cent.

## What the data does not settle

- Why is growth accelerating rather than levelling off? The 12.5 per cent rise this year is the fastest in the series, not a sign the system is stabilising after the post-pandemic surge some expected.
- Can funding reform outpace demand? High needs funding has risen 58 per cent in real terms since 2014-15, yet the NAO finds real terms funding per plan has fallen, because the plan count has grown faster still.
- What happens when the statutory override ends? The accounting arrangement that keeps council SEN deficits off their main budgets is due to end, and the NAO estimates a large share of councils will then have deficits at or close to their reserves.
- Will the 2026 white paper proposals change these numbers? The consultation has closed but no changes to EHC plans are due before September 2030, so the pressures on this page are set to continue for years under the current system.

## Sources

- DfE: Education, health and care plans: England 2026 (reporting year 2026, published 25 June 2026) (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans) · OGL v3.0
- DfE: Special educational needs in England, academic year 2025/26 (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england) · OGL v3.0
- National Audit Office: Support for children and young people with special educational needs (HC 299, 16 October 2024) (https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/support-for-children-and-young-people-with-special-educational-needs/) · NAO report, © National Audit Office

## Caveats and data notes

- Two different official counts appear on this page and should never be added together or conflated: the 718,838 figure is all EHC plans for people aged 0 to 25 across education, health and care at January 2026; the 538,547 figure is school pupils with a plan in the 2025/26 school census. They measure overlapping but not identical populations and come from separate DfE collections.
- The need type breakdown excludes independent schools, so its EHC total is 493,764, lower than the 538,547 school census headline that does include independent schools.
- The funding and deficit figures are the National Audit Office's own figures from its October 2024 report, not recomputed from DfE data, and use a different, longer time series (2015 to 2024) than the DfE EHC plan chart on this page (2018/19 to 2025/26).
- The 2026 schools white paper proposals for SEND reform are under consultation, not enacted, and no changes to existing EHC plans are due before September 2030. No financial figures from the white paper are shown here because they have not been verified from a primary government document.
- DfE publishes the 20 week timeliness measure on two bases. The figures on this page exclude cases where a permitted exception to the statutory timeframe applies, which is the basis of DfE's own headline (46.1 per cent for 2025). Including those cases gives 45.5 per cent for 2025. The two bases diverge partly because some councils class a large share of plans as exceptions: DfE records that Norfolk classed all newly issued plans as having permitted exceptions in 2025, as did Dorset and City of London in 2024.
- The SEND Tribunal appeal rate is calculated against total appealable decisions from the DfE SEN2 collection and appeals data from HM Courts and Tribunals Service; it is a rate of appeals per decision, not a share of families affected.

---

British Resilience Index, a non-partisan UK civic data project. Every figure is
reconciled to its primary official publisher before it is shown. Free to cite with
attribution: https://britishresilienceindex.com