Lib Dem MP for Carshalton and Wallington calls for profit cap on “profiteering” private SEND providers

The Liberal Democrat MP Bobby Dean, has criticised “profiteering” by many private special educational needs providers, and pushed in parliament for a cap on their profits to end the scandal.

House of Commons Library research, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, has revealed that the top private equity companies providing SEND schooling have seen their annual profits increase as the SEND crisis has worsened, with some making margins of over 20%. 

The SEND crisis has led to many local authorities facing exorbitant costs for private provision, while further figures have revealed that home-to-school transport for SEND young people cost £1.42 billion between 2023 and 2024.

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Bobby Dean MP:
I'm fully aware that this is a crisis that was inherited by this government. but it was one that was not unforeseen. We're 18 months into this government now and we've heard that their major reform plans have been pushed back again. So that is a disappointment to us on those benches. We're seeing councils going bankrupt over this, teachers are in despair, families are being held in legal limbo, and ultimately we're failing children at the end of all this. And I do appreciate that there are some really tricky issues to resolve. We need to balance the legal entitlements on paper with the quality provision in reality- And we do need to adjust to this world where there are greater diagnosis rates than there were before. But I think there are some actions that the government could take right away, in particular in relation to, Madam Deputy Speaker, the private placements that are ongoing. These have trebled in the last decade. They cost more than double the cost of a state placement, around about 60,000 pounds. And what we do know is that private equity have been really aggressive in this space, taking on institutions, eating up market share, and are reportedly making profit margins around about 20%. Now in the Children Well-being of Schools Bill, the government did introduce the idea of profit caps on those that are being exploitative in the children's social care sector. So I wonder if the leader can ask the relevant minister if this could be extended to the SEND schools as well? Hear, hear. Speaker.
Rt Hon Sir Alan Campbell MP:
He's right to raise concern about the SEND system because the government has acknowledged,, that it is broken. It doesn't work for parents and it doesn't work for children either. He's also right to say, that there were signs that things were,, not as they should be, but it's one of the many issues that when we came to government, we discovered was even worse, uh, than we'd anticipated beforehand. I'm not going to comment on what might or might not be in the budget, but I would gently point out that we've already invested an additional 1 billion pound into, uh, SEND, uh, and we're also creating more specialist places in mainstream schools with an additional 740 million pounds on top of the 1 billion. We will be bringing forward the school's White Paper. He may wish to, uh, keep some of his, um, suggestions, uh, to that or maybe call a debate, uh, on it p- to give, uh, uh, further, uh, clarity to what he's, what he's saying. Uh. We're bringing that forward early in the, uh, next year- uh, early next year. I know it is frustrating. It's frustrating for our constituents as well, but the important thing is we need to work with parents and we need to work with teachers. And it's, the most important thing is that we get it right.