£54m bailout Whitehall to foot bill for part of council’s SEND deficit
THE Government has agreed a massive bailout plan to rescue Bristol’s spiralling schools budget with a cash injection of over £50 million. Bristol City Council has racked up a huge deficit after years of spending more money on education than it receives in funding, due to rising demand.
The Department for Education has promised to give the council £53,790,000 over seven years, writing off most of the accumulated deficit.
In return for the money, the council must carry out reforms to its support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Without the bailout or reforms, the black hole in the schools budget could reach a whopping £133 million in two years. This is due to an increasing number of children needing expensive SEND support, while government funding has not kept up with the ever-growing costs.
A council spokesman said: “The agreement with the DfE provides an opportunity for Bristol to help improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND, while operating in a financially sustainable way. It also
means that BCC will invest up to £46.5 million as part of the programme. The current DSG deficit for Bristol is over £53 million and, if it remains unmitigated, is expected to rise to over £133 million by 2025–26.
“The council will also work to co-design, with schools, a standard practice of excellence in supporting children and young people with SEND via local authority-commissioned SEND School Improvement Officers. BCC will work closely with parents, carers, school leaders and partner organisations to develop and implement the Safety Valve programme together and will engage closely with stakeholders in the coming weeks to answer any questions.”
Across England, 38 councils are now part of the SEND bailout programme, known as Safety Valve agreements. Bristol was one of four new councils signed up to the programme, announced on Thursday, March 21. More details of the reforms will be revealed next month in a cabinet report, including how they will affect children and young people.
Writing on X, Liberal Democrat Councillor Tim Kent said: “To clarify: SEND is not receiving one penny of extra funding. The funding is only for reducing a deficit already incurred. The council has overspent on SEND as the government has failed to fund it sufficiently. This debt has built up and now the government is willing to pay some of it off, if we agree to reduce spending on SEND – which they continue to underfund.”
According to Schools Week, the government launched the Safety Valve programme in 2021, and bailouts come with strict strings attached, meaning councils have to make sweeping cuts to SEND provision. In Bristol, mothers of children with SEND recently warned the upcoming reforms would “make life a whole lot harder” for them.