Early years settings struggle to access funding for rising numbers of young children with SEND

The findings come from a survey by the Early Years Alliance of 1,300 settings, published to coincide with the publication of the Government’s SEND green paper.

The survey into special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision and funding in the early years found that while children are now being identified as having additional needs at a younger age, the focus on SEND is almost exclusively on schools. There is 'very little attention' paid to the huge difficulties that early years providers are facing to ensure they can offer the right support that children need.

The Alliance said that insufficient government funding for children with SEND in the early years, alongside a sustained lack of adequate investment into early years 'free' entitlements for parents, is putting the early development of a generation of children with SEND at risk and the sector under unsustainable pressure.

The survey found that during the past two years, 74 per cent of respondents reported an increase in the number of children with formally-identified SEND , while 82 per cent reported an increase in the number of children who they believed may have SEND that has not yet been formally identified.

Many settings struggle with the bureaucracy of accessing any extra funding, and find it does not cover the cost of staffing.

Highlighting the difficulties providers face, Vanessa Linehan, manager of Sandbrook Community Playgroup in Stoke Newington, Hackney, who contributed to the survey, said, ‘Often children start at an early years setting without any diagnosis of SEND; sometimes their parents haven't even realised that their child may have additional needs.

'That means that it's the setting that has to take on the full responsibility of supporting the child, and their family, without any funding in place. It's an impossible situation.

‘We want to be able to take children with SEND but we know that we aren't able to give them the help and support they need because we simply can't afford to do so. Children with SEND deserve better.’ 

Neil Leitch, chief executive officer of the Early Years Alliance, said, 'All children should be able to have the best possible start in life – and children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are no exception. 

'Early years provision is absolutely fundamental to this, and yet, all too often, talk of support for children with SEND focuses on primary education onwards, and totally ignores the fact that more and more children are presenting with additional needs earlier and earlier.

'Nurseries, pre-schools and childminding professionals are committed to delivering quality care and education to children with SEND, and yet, as our research shows, far too many are struggling to do so while remaining sustainable, because the levels of funding they need simply aren’t there.

'The fact is that delivering quality provision to children with SEND is costly: whether that be due to a need for high levels of support, specialist staff, additional resources or time spent completing additional paperwork or liaising with external agencies. Early years providers are doing all they can to meet these needs – but as our survey highlights, many are being pushed to breaking point. 

'We know that early years funding rates are wholly insufficient and have been for many years now. Add to this inadequate funding to support SEND provision, and you have a recipe for disaster.'

The online survey of 1,331 early years settings carried out by the Alliance in January and February also found that:

• 40 per cent of early years providers providing care to children with SEND don’t receive any extra funding specifically to support SEND provision. 

Of those providers that do receive funding for SEND: 

• 87 per cent say that the SEND funding they receive, along with their general early years rate, isn’t enough to provide the quality of care for children with SEND that they want 
  
  
• 92 per cent have had to fund additional support for children with SEND out of their own pocket
   
• 56 per cent have experienced delays in receiving SEND funding 

Unsurprisingly, Covid has also taken a toll, with 60 per cent of respondents delivering places to children with SEND stating that the pandemic has had a negative impact on their ability to deliver care and education to those children, and around one in six (17 per cent) describing that impact as ‘very negative’.

Measures in the long-awaited SEND Green Paper include setting new SEND national standards, creating a simplified and digitised Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and increasing the number of staff with an accredited Level 3 qualification in early years settings.

The paper also states that the Government ‘will work with local authorities, providers and stakeholders to establish whether changes to the SEND Inclusion Fund or the current early years funding system more widely are needed’.

Commenting on specific plans in the SEND green paper, Leitch said, ‘While we welcome proposals to boost the number of Sencos in early years settings and review how SEND inclusion funding is structured, without a significant and targeted increase in targeted SEND funding for the early years, it's hard to see how providers will be able to offer the kind of support that the Government is arguing all children with SEND should be able to access. 

‘Children deserve better, their parents deserve better and the sector deserves better. The Government has set out an ambitious vision for SEND, but for this to have a genuine, tangible impact on children and families, it simply has to include a greater focus on the early years and early intervention. As such, we urge ministers to make our vital sector a priority, and to commit to investing what is needed into SEND provision, and the early years more broadly, as a matter of urgency.’

In response to the report’s findings, the Alliance is calling on the Government to commit to a substantial increase in both early years and high needs funding levels.

The organisation has also made a number of recommendations to help tackle the issues raised in the report sooner, including:

1. Ensure that children with SEND receive additional funding for all the hours that they take up at an early years setting, not just a proportion. 
2. Create a faster, simpler and more consistent process for applying for SEND funding to minimise the administration burden on early years providers.
3. Ensure that SEND funding is backdated to cover the cost of providing care during the often-lengthy funding application process. 
4. Improve the clarity and transparency of the funding system, so all providers are clear about what funding is available to which children in their care.

Early years provider comments

The funding process is so long. We often have two-year-olds who have specific needs and require extra staff for 1:1, and yet no one is willing to support this until they are three.

We also have pages and pages of paperwork to complete, while also trying to support parents by providing information about their child, speaking to them about visits to doctors and speech and language therapists, creating handouts for them and encouraging to get them to sign the necessary documentation so you can get funding - funding that doesn't even cover additional wage costs or the cost of staff training to ensure the child’s specific needs are met. 

I love all my children with superpowers, but sadly supporting them comes at a high financial cost in a profession where we are already undervalued, underappreciated and majorly underpaid for all that we do.

Samantha Blakeman, manager and owner, Small Explorers LTD, Croydon

SEND funding has become increasingly hard to access and involves copious amounts of paperwork, time and uncertainty due to funding being allocated through panels. The money that should rightfully be contributed and shared around all settings has been allocated to a small number who have the time and the experience to successfully bid for it.

Due to the pandemic, we have seen an increase in two-year-olds with speech and language and PSED [personal, social and emotional development] delays, and due to the shortage of professional therapists, it has been left to early years practitioners to support and 'fix' the problems with limited support and expertise.

During this period, a large number of children were left undiagnosed due to services being temporarily suspended and so as practitioners we have had to work tirelessly to support these children to enable the best outcomes possible.

We do not receive enough additional funding to enable that we have suitable staffing levels and this undoubtedly has an impact on our staff and our SEND children, as well as children who need universal support.

Sylva Joffe, Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO), Wick Pre-school, Bristol