Kent SEND Deficit More Than Doubles to Nearly £300m as KCC Forecasts Another £110m

Kent County Council made a decision on 5 August to accept £12.155 million of new Government money for SEND reform. But several pages into the accompanying report sits the figure that matters rather more. KCC says its Dedicated Schools Grant overspend was nearly £60 million last year, taking the accumulated deficit to nearly £300 million by 31 March 2026. This year, it expects to add nearly another £110 million. In 2027/28, it says the deficit will be higher still. The decision is due to take effect on 13 August.

There is Government help on the table — potentially a very large amount of it. KCC estimates a new High Needs Stability Grant could be worth about £290 million. But that money is intended to deal with the historic deficit built up to March 2026. It is conditional on the Department for Education approving Kent’s SEND reform plan. Meanwhile, the machine producing the deficit is still running.

The plan that was meant to stop this

Wind back to March 2023 and the numbers were already grim. KCC entered the Department for Education’s Safety Valve programme because the council was spending significantly more on high needs than it received. Its cumulative High Needs deficit was forecast to reach £147 million by the end of 2022/23. The deal required Kent to reshape its SEND system so annual spending and annual grant funding came back into balance by 2027/28.

By February 2025 KCC was recording the same history in starker terms. Its annual High Needs overspend had grown to more than £50 million by 2022/23, producing an accumulated deficit of nearly £150 million. Under Safety Valve, the DfE was to contribute £140 million and KCC £82 million, while Kent pursued more mainstream inclusion, greater local specialist capacity and less dependence on expensive specialist provision.

Three years after that £147 million forecast, KCC’s accumulated figure is now nearly £300 million, roughly a 104% increase. The old Safety Valve programme itself was closed nationally from 1 April 2026 and replaced by the High Needs Stability Grant. Kent consequently moved £61.1 million of previous council Safety Valve contributions and another £20.2 million of planned future contributions into a new earmarked SEND reserve.

Nor did the latest warning suddenly appear in August. At KCC’s Scrutiny Committee on 1 April, officers told councillors that if Kent continued operating at its current capacity, the SEND budget could be overspending by around £100 million in 2027. They also made the crucial distinction: Government support dealt with historic overspending, while continuing annual deficits would still grow unless the system changed. Four months later, KCC’s formal forecast stands at nearly £110 million for 2026/27, with an even bigger deficit expected the following year. DOLGE hasn’t stopped the numbers heading north so far, and there’s nothing in KCC’s latest forecast to suggest it will stop them climbing higher still.

What the £300m actually means

The Dedicated Schools Grant, or DSG, is ring-fenced education funding from Government. One part — the High Needs Block — pays for much of the additional provision for children and young people with SEND. The accounting position is slightly more complicated than simply saying Kent “owes £300 million”: the Government treats the deficit across the whole DSG, and under the statutory override it is held in a separate unusable reserve rather than immediately falling on the council’s ordinary General Fund. The deficit nevertheless exists; the accounting rule postpones its impact, it doesn’t magic it away.

The £290 million estimate also deserves care. Ninety per cent of £300 million would ordinarily be around £270 million, not £290 million. But Kent was a Safety Valve council, and the Government has created a separate calculation for those authorities, taking account of previous Safety Valve payments and local contributions so they aren’t disadvantaged by moving into the new scheme. The final eligible deficit is also subject to DfE and MHCLG checks against council accounts, Section 251 returns and other financial records. So £290 million is KCC’s present estimate, not simply 90% punched into a calculator.

£290m depends on a plan the public hasn’t seen

Here comes the awkward bit. The High Needs Stability Grant will only be paid once the DfE approves Kent’s local SEND reform plan. Government says those plans must establish a clear route towards an inclusive and financially sustainable system and must be developed collaboratively across the local area. Payments are expected during 2026/27 once the conditions are met.

Kent submitted its first version by 19 June, but it hasn’t published it. KCC says the document isn’t final, may change after Government feedback and could require further work after September. Its report says publishing it now could cause “confusion, wasted effort and potentially anxiety without reason”. KCC intends wider publication once the DfE has agreed the plan and required changes have been made.

That means a plan carrying consequences worth hundreds of millions of pounds remains, for now, beyond public scrutiny. There may be perfectly sensible reasons for keeping a working draft under wraps. But once Government approval of that plan becomes a condition for releasing roughly £290 million towards Kent’s historic deficit, what eventually emerges deserves rather more attention than the usual council consultation fanfare.

The new £12m isn’t a bailout

The Experts at Hand money is separate. Kent’s confirmed allocation for 2026/27 is £12,155,170. KCC estimates another £21.2 million in 2027/28 and £24.027 million in 2028/29, although those later figures are indicative and future grant conditions haven’t yet been published. Nationally, Experts at Hand is intended to give mainstream schools and other settings quicker access to educational psychologists, specialist teachers, speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and specialist outreach.

It isn’t £12 million that KCC can simply throw at its existing deficit. At least 80% is expected to go on direct Experts at Hand delivery, with up to 10% for administration and up to 10% for wider SEND transformation. Nor can the grant pay for provision already named in an Education, Health and Care Plan, EHCP assessments, things schools should provide themselves, or wider family and social-care support. Government says it must enhance existing capacity, not substitute for existing spending.

The theory is straightforward enough: intervene earlier, give mainstream schools specialist backup, prevent some needs escalating and reduce reliance over time on costly individual placements. But KCC’s own financial report carefully avoids promising instant savings. It says improvement will be incremental, with “cost avoidance in the first instance” by slowing rising expenditure before medium and long-term savings become possible. It also says Kent is still expected to overspend its High Needs allocation while the reforms take effect.

Children’s rights don’t disappear into a spreadsheet

That distinction matters. The Government’s 2026 SEND proposals aren’t yet the law. The existing SEND Code of Practice remains statutory guidance for councils, schools and relevant health bodies. The Government’s own consultation says new legislation isn’t expected to take effect until September 2029 and that, until then, existing duties, rights and funding routes remain in place. An EHCP remains a legal plan, not a discretionary expense that can be quietly pared back because the spreadsheet is red.

Shepway Vox readers already know what sits behind those spreadsheets. Our March investigation found KCC-funded independent EHCP placements rising from 1,214 pupils costing £47.2 million in 2021/22 to 2,496 costing £143.8 million in 2025/26. The number more than doubled; the bill more than tripled. That doesn’t explain every pound of Kent’s High Needs deficit, but it shows why talk of building effective local and mainstream provision isn’t simply Whitehall jargon. Expensive demand is already landing somewhere.

And the problem isn’t children with SEND. Nor is the answer to shove children into mainstream schools that don’t have the staff, therapies, expertise or suitable space to meet their needs. Experts at Hand is supposed to build precisely that capacity. If inclusion is to save money as well as improve outcomes, the support has to arrive before expensive provision becomes unavoidable — not afterwards.

The real test starts now

The figures leave Kent with an uncomfortable sequence. Nearly £60 million was added to the DSG deficit in 2025/26. Nearly £110 million is forecast in 2026/27. KCC says 2027/28 will be worse again. The old Safety Valve programme had been built around reaching an in-year balance by 2027/28; the latest council document instead anticipates an in-year deficit that year exceeding £110 million.

The Government may now remove most of the historic burden. That is significant. But writing off yesterday’s deficit and fixing the system that created it are two different jobs. Kent’s own figures say the second remains unfinished.

Nearly £290 million may deal with much of Kent’s SEND past. The test of these reforms is whether Kent can stop the next £110 million becoming its SEND future.

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