The increasing demand for special educational needs provision is compelling local authorities to buy in services from expensive private providers. The result is some truly staggering charges and huge profits for foreign investors, and sometimes sub-par educational provision.
Sky-High Fees...
LEAs are statutorily obliged to provide SEN provision for those kids with complex needs which cannot be met in mainstream schools. This can mean paying a small fortune for provision in a specialist school.
Pontville School in Lancashire, for example, charges up to £116,611 per student per year—almost double the cost of an annual place at Eton College. And this is apparently pretty typical!
Despite these RIDICULOUS FEES the quality of education in some of them is below par. Reports by Ofsted from Pontville revealed some serious issues, including bullying and excessive use of physical restraint. Parents and councils are paying premiums for childcare that is anything but superior in the majority of cases.
And to rub salt in the wounds of us UK tax payers many of them are privately run and owned by foreign investment funds. Pontville, for instance, is owned by a firm connected to an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund. Essentially, British taxpayers are sending millions of pounds into the coffers of some of the planet's wealthiest families—through a public system designed to assist children in need.
And this money isn't even being looped back into the country.
A System That's Broken by Design...?
The root of the problem here is your underfunded local authorities - they've stripped back their own SEN provision and are now dependent on the private sector, and we are getting RINSED as a result.
Special needs provision to the UK is seen by foreign investors and private equity firms as a money-making opportunity. Depending on the area, councils may have NO CHOICE but to pay up because they have no capacity to provide this education themselves and there may only be ONE CHOICE of school...
I mean think rural here: where I live there simply aren't that many SEN schools in the area, and it's unlikely the market is going to fix this... while I'm sure I could put together a school which could educate kids with complex needs for less than £100K per head.... there probably ISN'T the demand around where I'd build that school, which would have to be within a reasonable distance of the children it's going to serve.
One would imagine this is less of a problem in denser population areas where competition will drive down prices.
I think in rural areas, the LEA should be providing this, not the market, it's bound to be cheaper!