The government faces an “enormous” and “costly” task in establishing inclusion bases in mainstream schools because of patchy data and huge variations in existing provision, ministers are being warned.

The Department for Education has made inclusion in mainstream education a key focus of its plans to reform the support system for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.

It has set a target of every secondary school to have an inclusion base, and for an equivalent number of places in primary schools.

But the number of “informal” support units already in place is unknown, raising questions about how the government will accurately target funding for new inclusion bases.

Meanwhile, a Tes analysis reveals a “postcode lottery” in the availability of formal bases, highlighting the challenge of hitting the target in every part of the country.

The ‘postcode lottery’ of specialist bases

Under the government’s plan, the new inclusion bases would comprise “specialist bases” and “support bases”. The former are commissioned and funded by local authorities, the latter by schools and trusts.

These new terms will replace an existing system of “formal” and “informal” bases.

There are nearly 2,000 schools with formal bases, with some schools having more than one, but these are spread patchily across the country, according to Tes’ analysis using FFT Education Datalab data.

For example, 13.8 per cent of London primaries are recorded as having one, compared with just 4.3 per cent in the East Midlands and 5.4 per cent in the South West.

Formal specialist bases consist of resourced provisions, in which pupils spend the majority of their time in mainstream lessons, and SEN units, where pupils spend most of their time in that unit.

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These stark regional differences are also seen in secondaries, of which around 25 per cent in the South East have formal specialist bases - compared with just 12 per cent in the Midlands.

The figures are 24.1 per cent in the North East and 23.5 per cent in Yorkshire and the Humber, compared with 12.6 per cent in the East Midlands and 12 per cent in the West Midlands.

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Margaret Mulholland, SEND and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “What this data shows is that putting a specialist base that caters for complex needs in every school is a big expectation, and something that many schools will need significant support to set up.”

The analysis also reveals the need for strategic planning across local areas, “involving all schools”, to “ensure available provision matches the needs of the community”, she said.

Ms Mulholland added: “It’s incumbent on the government to put in place the necessary resources that mean this is achievable, including appropriate funding and availability of specialist staff.”

‘Full review needed’

Phil Haslett, who is deputy chair of the f40 group of local authorities, which represents some of the lowest funded councils, and assistant director of education at Gloucestershire County Council, said “a full review of specialist provision in each local authority area” was needed to address the “regional imbalance”.

It will be important for the government to consider that each council will be at a different starting point and that their sizes will differ, he added.

“For example, a council may have 40 secondary schools but only one with a base. Creating and resourcing so many extra, high-quality bases in a short space of time will be an enormous task - and it will be costly,” he said.

The government announced this week that £860 million will be shared across councils in 2026-27 as part of a £3 billion investment aimed at creating 60,000 new specialist places.

Councils can use the funding to create specialist places in mainstream or special schools, but the government has told them to focus on mainstream.

However, the way the Department for Education has allocated funding for the new specialist places does not take into account the number of existing SEN units or resourced provisions in an area. Its allocations are, instead, based on the ratio of pupils to capacity across all types of specialist provision.

‘No solid picture’ of existing provision

Measuring the total number of existing units accurately would be difficult because, unlike with formal units, no information is collected on the number of informal bases.

Dave Thomson, FFT Education Datalab’s chief statistician, said this means “we’re starting from a position where we don’t really have a solid picture of what provision already exists and who is accessing it”.

FFT’s data used in this analysis was based on last week’s school capacity statistics, which Mr Thomson said are more reliable than other sources, such as school census data.

The DfE has committed to new data collection measures “to provide more information oversight”. But Mr Haslett said the government first needs to define what an inclusion base is.

Once the government has set out how bases will operate, it could then “begin to collect the data from all schools and local authority areas on how many current resources qualify as a base”, he said.

Research suggests that informal bases are widely used by schools, but they go by a variety of names and are used in a range of different ways.

Last year in a DfE School and College Voice survey, 22 per cent of leaders in primaries and 68 per cent in secondaries reported having a unit used as a dedicated space away from the mainstream classroom to support pupils’ behaviour.

Of these, around three-quarters were to provide wellbeing or mental health support, while 37 per cent of primary and 50 per cent of secondary units were to provide support for emotionally based school avoidance.

And last month Teacher Tapp asked teachers if there was a room or base at their school “to make additional arrangements or teach different curricula for small groups of pupils for some or all of the day”.

Only 24 per cent of primary school respondents and 23 per cent of secondary school respondents said no.

Among the primary school respondents, 18 per cent said their school called it a “nurture room”, 10 per cent called it an “inclusion base”, 7 per cent said it was a “resourced provision” and 51 per cent said it was called something else.

Only 9 per cent of secondary schools called it a nurture room, while 20 per cent called it an inclusion base and 48 per cent said it was called something else.

Sharing best practice

A Tes investigation in 2024 highlighted the growth of specialist bases in mainstream schools but also revealed concerns that schools lacked funding and guidance to run them effectively.

The DfE has said it expects schools and local authorities to work together to ensure the right support is in place across a local area.

The government will update the SEND Code of Practice and publish partnerships guidance to provide clearer expectations of the role of the local authority and local area partners in transforming the SEND system.

Guidance is expected later in the spring on how councils will be expected to use capital funding to create inclusion bases.

The DfE has also said it will continue to roll out “peer networks of best practice”, which schools will be able to access as part of the universal Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) Inclusive Mainstream programme.

Last year the government commissioned the National Children’s Bureau to develop “best practice guidance for operating and setting up SEN units, resourced provision, and pupil support units within mainstream schools”. The charity told Tes it has now submitted its draft report to the DfE.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “The support available to families and children should not depend upon where children live, but too often funding and facilities for pupils with SEND are subject to an unfair postcode lottery, and this must change.

“To help ensure SEND units and bases are established where they are most needed, they should be planned and established through co-production between councils, school leaders, parents and other key stakeholders to ensure they complement and build upon existing provision.”

The DfE has been approached for comment.