Plans to shake up special educational needs funding for people with disabilities could see special units close. Cuts from £10,000 to £6,000 a year would be ‘disastrous’ and would not address the wide disparity in funding for children with similar needs. The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said that the proposals do not address the so-called ‘top-up’ funding for children with very complex needs, where there are variabilities in funding levels for children with very similar needs (£2,000 of education funding in one local authority but £20,000 in another). The Department of Education needs to develop parameters and controls to ensure that funding is fairly distributed within local authorities. Recently, a primary school excluded thirty disabled children. Tory councillor John Lines has claimed that the 'unusually high' exclusion rate was part of a ploy to improve behaviour figures in a 'rush to become an academy'. See: