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"Councils have been working hard with their partners to respond to changing and emerging threats to children and young people, including criminal exploitation, through online and virtual contact and resources, as well as high priority home visits."

“It is vital the Government’s SEND review urgently tackles the increasingly adversarial nature of the SEND system since the 2014 reforms and minimises the need for legal disputes and tribunal hearings, providing the support that every young person and their family needs."

More than 130 extra children and young people with special needs are being supported by councils every day, new figures reveal, prompting calls for government funding to tackle a growing “national special needs emergency”.

The high needs system for further education is not working and requires a radical shake-up, council and college leaders say today in a new report. The report, commissioned by the Local Government Association, the Association of Colleges and Natspec, the membership body for specialist colleges, highlights that the system is overly complicated, resulting in young people, their parents, councils and colleges facing challenges which have a detrimental impact on those students in further education with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). It finds that key elements of the current

“The Government’s announcement of an increase in schools budgets by £7.1 billion will help give certainty up to 2023, and an additional £780 million for council high needs budgets to support children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) for next year is good news."

The LGA’s report shows that some independent providers of children’s residential and fostering placements are achieving profits of more than 20 per cent on their income.

“It is absolutely vital that the Autumn Statement ensures that children’s services are adequately funded."

“Childhood obesity is one of the biggest public health challenges we face and these figures are yet another sad indictment of how we have collectively failed as a society to tackle it"

The number of children in England waiting for a place in a secure children’s home (SCH) has doubled in a year, new figures show, underlining the urgent need for the Government to tackle the severe lack of provision that supports some of the most vulnerable young people in the country.

New figures show that the number of children in care has risen by 28 per cent in the past decade with the system reaching breaking point, the Local Government Association reveals today.  The LGA is warning that this huge increase in demand is combining with funding shortages to put immense pressure on the ability of councils to support vulnerable children and young people, and provide the early help that can stop children and families reaching crisis point in the first place. The figures show that 78,150 children are now in care, up from 75,370 in 2018.   The Government’s manifesto promise