News

Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, responds to the announcement by the Department for Education of funding to support children with special educational needs and disabilities.

An “emergency injection” of funding is needed to prop up support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), which faces a potential funding gap of up to £1.6 billion by 2020/21, council leaders say today.

"To tackle the issue, including the worrying growth in in-work poverty, government needs to resource and fully engage with councils to prevent homelessness and support people into jobs to lift themselves out of poverty."

"The Budget contained a number of important changes but the Government needs to ensure they result in the overall apprenticeship reforms being coherent and making sense on the ground."

“These startling figures demonstrate the urgent need to invest new substantial money into children’s services, which face a £3 billion funding gap by 2025 just to maintain current levels of service."

“It is not right when we are trying to educate children around the importance of maintaining a healthy diet, that at the same time they are subjected to a bombardment of junk food advertising.”

Chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, responds to analysis by the Children’s Commissioner on children’s mental health services.

"This reinforces the need for new and long-term significant funding for children’s services, which are fast approaching a tipping point and face a funding gap of £3 billion by 2025 just to keep services running at current levels."

Vital support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is facing a potential funding gap this year of more than half a billion pounds.

"These figures highlight the sheer volume of cases that are being started by social workers on a daily basis, and illustrate the scale of demand for help from children and their families."