Urgent action is needed to prevent a “lost generation” of children leaving school without receiving the support they need for their special educational needs and disabilities, MPs have warned.

In a highly critical report, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found the SEND system to be “disorganized”, “stuck in red tape, short of funding, and failing to generate value for money”.

An estimated 1.7 million school-aged children in England have special educational needs and disabilities.

The Department for Education (DfE) said the government was making “progress” on the issue with a £1 billion investment in SEND.

Most referred children, who require more educational support than their peers, are taught in mainstream schools.

People who have additional needs may have a legal entitlement to more specialized support, often at a specialist school, through an education, health and care plan (EHCP).

The report by the Committee of Inquiry into Public Expenditure said there were 576,000 children with an EHCP in January 2024.

One of them is Rachel Morgan’s seven-year-old son Max, who suffers from autism and ADHD.

Mum Rachel, from Birmingham, said Max lost most of his schooling during a “never-ending battle” to get support, but he was now “full of confidence” at a specialist school.

Despite this, the lack of specialist places means that school is 45 minutes away.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chairman of the PAC, said that parents seeking help for their children faced a “chaotic” system.

“The enormity of this situation cannot be underestimated,” he said.

“As a nation, we are failing to deliver countless numbers of babies. We have been doing so for years.”

“This is an emergency that has been allowed to go on and on. This report should serve as a line in the sand for the government.”

The committee’s report found that demand for EHCPs had increased by 140% over the past decade – but the government did not fully understand why this happened, limiting the system’s ability to cope with demand.

It also found that many councils failed to provide an EHCP for children who needed it within the 20-week timeframe required by law.

And there were huge regional differences between how local authority areas provided EHCP on time, creating a “postcode lottery” for families.

The report said many councils were facing huge financial deficits due to overspending on their SEND budgets.

It warned that 40% of councils would be “headed for bankruptcy” next year when a scheme allowing local authorities to keep those losses off their financial books ends.

The report said that current “piecemeal interventions” were doing nothing to improve the sustainability of the system, which was in urgent need of reform.

Councilor Arooz Shah of the Local Government Association, which represents councils across England, called for councils’ spending deficit on SEND to be “written off”.

One of the report’s recommendations to the government was to explain how mainstream schools could be more inclusive of SEND pupils.

The government recently announced £740 million for schools Adapting your buildings to make them more accessible.

Ninestyles, an academy in Birmingham, has 45 SEND students in the school’s specialist resource centre.

They spend about 70% of their time in mainstream education and 30% in specialist lessons.

Principal Alex Hughes said the “truly inclusive environment” at the school is central to a “culture of belonging”.

She said the focus of the system should be on “celebrating the fantastic contributions” that students can make to their schools, but she said many families struggled to find support for their children.

Councilor Roger Gough of the County Council Network, which represents councils in England, said the report was the latest to show that the SEND system is “no longer viable”.

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said the committee highlighted “the full extent of the crisis at SEND”.

Schools Minister Catherine McKinnell said the system “has been failing families with children for too long”.

“These problems are deeply rooted and will take time to fix, but we remain committed to our commitment to driving the change that exhausted families are demanding by ensuring better early intervention and inclusion,” she said.