COUNCIL leaders across North Yorkshire have made an urgent appeal to the Government to fully-fund education for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

Across the region, council leaders said the system was "buckling" and called on the Chancellor and Secretary for Education to make a full funding increase a top priority for the next spending review.

Councils across Yorkshire and Humberside have seen a collective overspend this year of almost £42.7 million, with plans to use over £32 million from reserves as well as transferring over £10 million from school budgets.

In the four previous years from 2014/15 to 2017/18, councils spent nearly £86 million more than they received in funding, drew on their reserves by over £44 million and top sliced nearly £42m from schools budgets.

County Councillor Carl Les, NYCC leader, said the crisis developed after the Government's legislative reform in 2014, which supported children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities through new Education and Health Care Plans, increasing the age range and demands on budgets, without increasing funding.

The number of children and young people with Education and Health Care Plans has also risen by 46 per cent since 2014.

Cllr Les said: "Unless the Government agrees in the spending review to fund special educational needs provision fully, council overspending in this area will increase further and become totally unsustainable. The system will buckle.

"We are diverting money urgently needed for other vital services as well as seeking to move money from mainstream schools when they are already struggling with their budgets. This cannot go on."