This is the total a council spent in a year on support for children with special educational needs — specialist school places, extra funding for individual pupils, transport to special provision and so on. It matters because this spending is the main force pushing councils' schools budgets into debt across England. A high number means heavy spending pressure (though bigger councils naturally spend more); comparing it with the money available shows whether the council can keep up.
| name | hn_expenditure_total |
|---|---|
| dataset | 05-dsg-send-deficits |
| kind | constructed |
| type | numeric |
| unit | GBP |
| grain | local authority x financial year |
| role | feature |
| source | Sum of net_expenditure over all 1.2.* lines + hn_place_funding, per LA-year, skipping 'x'/'z' values |
| period | 2015-16 to 2024-25 |
| missingness | unknown |
| score_note | Constructed spend total; mainly a denominator/context, and suppressed lines understate it. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
Total high-needs (SEND) expenditure — the cost pressure driving DSG deficits. Constructed because the file contains no pre-computed total high needs line. Suppressed ('z') component lines mean some LA-year totals are understated rather than missing outright.