Budget is under strain as SEND numbers rise

NEWCASTLE City Council’s budget for children with special educational needs (SEND) is under pressure due to the rising number of children needing additional support.

The number of children requiring an education and healthcare plan (EHCP) in the city rose 14% between January 2023 and January 2024. EHCPs detail additional support required by a child.

Following an inspection in 2021, the city council was told to produce an accelerated progress plan (APP) to show how it was improving services. When this was last reviewed by officials at the Department for Education last May, there was praise for the children’s services department for improvements in a number of areas.

However, the council was asked to focus on improving “ECHP timeliness”. A review presented at Thursday’s scrutiny committee meeting outlined that the council was still not meeting the 20-week target for EHCPs.

Assistant director of education and skills Mark Patton explained the impact on the budget.

He said: “Like most other local authorities our SEND budget has two big parts - one is council funding and the other is the high needs block from Government. Both of these are under pressure.

“Making sure we place children in the right place often means we have to go out of the city which is expensive in terms of transport.

“We are progressing with some work to build a new SEND school which will help, but take time so that problem will remain.

“In the medium to long term, building a new school will help, particularly in the biggest growth area which is children and young people with autism.”

Chairman, Coun Nick Cott, questioned officers on the reasons behind the increase in demand. He said: “I’m really quite interested as to whether there is some issues around Covid that may have led to increased demand.”

Deanne Taylor, head of SEND service, said: “I would have been really optimistic prior to Christmas but February and March have seen demand for EHCPs be the highest it has ever been.”