Funding for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is failing to keep up with the demands on schools in Brighton and Hove, educational leaders said.
Budgets for support services are expected to go into the red for the first time this year, a report to Brighton and Hove City Council’s Schools Forum said yesterday (Monday 23 June).
In this financial year, the council has been allocated a “high needs block” of funding worth £41.5 million – more than previously but an in-year deficit of £1.4 million has been forecast.
The high needs block funds provision for young people with SEND who need extra support or medical help to keep them in education whether in mainstream or special schools.
Over the next two years, there is a risk of the high needs deficit rising to £5 million.
At the schools forum meeting, which included heads and governors, the council’s director of education and learning Georgina Clarke-Green said that the council was putting together a multi-year management plan to balance the budget.
Aaron Barnard, finance director at Aldridge Education, which operates the Brighton Aldridge Community Academy (BACA) and Portslade Aldridge Community Academy (PACA), said that although funding had increased, it was not meeting costs.
He said that the situation was “terrible” for children because there was not enough money coming from the government to support the growing number of children with an education, health and care plan (EHCP).
He contrasted the £11,000 cost of funding an average student with an education, health and care plan with the £7,500 funding, leaving the school to make up the shortfall.
A growing number of children have an EHCP and Mr Barnard said: “It’s unworkable for schools which is probably why we find ourselves in the city with so many schools in deficit.
“In addition to that, the challenge we have at the moment is we are submitting provision maps for students who have been named but the rates that we are being paid for those are not keeping up to meet the needs of those students.
“We will list all the interventions and we’ll cost them as appropriately as we can and we use at-cost rates and we are being told by the SEND teams that these are not the approved rates.”
He also gave an example of a grade A teaching assistant (TA) who has a higher level of responsibility and experience working with young people with special educational needs.
Schools are told to pay £13.30 an hour but the real cost of a grade A TA is £20.33 an hour, he said, resulting in a £7 an hour shortfall.
Mr Barnard said: “If we’re taking students back into schools and to mainstream education, which is definitely the right thing to do, we need to be funded appropriately to do that.
“Because schools won’t be able to survive financially and meet the needs of those students and they’ll end up failing themselves.”
The Local Government Association and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy have raised concerns that the increasing costs of high needs education provision would result in more councils facing bankruptcy.
The council’s principal accountant for children’s services Steve Williams told the meeting at Hove Town Hall that the council was in a better position than some others.
The deficit was about £5 million over two years but some councils had overspends running to £100 million.
He said that the government had announced national reform for special needs funding, promising a white paper in the autumn.
