Council overspend on high need students’ education
Royal Borough: Council struggling to finance pupils with educational needs
The Royal Borough is struggling to finance the education of high-needs students such as those in special education, a meeting has heard.
At a meeting of the Schools Forum on Thursday, May 26, officers presented a report showing the Royal Borough is running an ongoing overspend of the dedicated schools grant (DSG) reserve.
The DSG is a ring-fenced grant to local authorities from the Department for Education (DfE).
The borough’s DSG budget ended 2021/22 with a net overspend of £257,000.
From 2016/17 to March 2022, the DSG grant deficit has increased from £752,000 to £2million.
This is ‘a direct result’ of pressures within the high
needs block – which saw an overspend of more than £1.5million in 2021/22.
Each year this overspend averages £1million, mitigated by underspends in other blocks.
One issue is a lack of special needs school places. Last academic year, there were 314 applications for 12 places, forcing children to seek placements outside of borough.
Placements outside of the borough cost ‘huge’ amounts just to send one child to school.
In addition, the lack of special school places has created a ‘big increase’ in special needs placements in mainstream schools, creating ‘added pressure’.
Royal Borough officers added that this is a national problem.
In a report, they wrote: “It is widely recognised across local authorities that the current high needs block funding mechanism does not meet the demand.”
Under the conditions of the DSG grant, the borough must agree a deficit management plan, with a recovery period of three to five years.
There is no specific timescale for implementing it – however, if the Borough has to delay this process beyond five years, it may have to ‘revisit’ its plan.
“We’d have to cut some services we don’t want to, or make some difficult decisions,” said James Norris, head of finance at Achieving for Children, which provides the Borough’s children’s services.
In addition, the council is participating with a DfE programme to help reform its high needs systems.
Cllr Donna Stimson (Con, St Mary’s) asked if there was anything councillors could do to help, like approaching the DfE or the local MPs.
“We should do whatever we can to help our Borough, so we don’t find the schools, teachers, parents and children are suffering,” she said.
“Our children, especially our special needs ones, are drastically in need of help.”