(UK) Staffs: £20m [$25M] "high needs" overspend in 2023/24, £25m [$31M] 2024/25

Nov 22, 2023, BBC News: Risk to 'irreplaceable' residential special schools https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4n0prgj2kjo.amp

W. Midlands

At a glance Residential provision at five Staffordshire special schools is being reviewed

Staffordshire County Council said the £1.8m [$2.2M] provision was only available to a very small number of pupils

The schools said it provided value for money for the highest-need pupils

The council is considering feedback and schools should hear more early next year

Overnights stays for pupils with complex educational needs are again under threat as a council reviews its budget.

The future of residential provision at five special schools is being weighed up by Staffordshire County Council.

The £1.8m service faced the axe in 2019 but was granted a reprieve after the authority looked again at its wider special educational needs strategy.

The council said the supported sleepovers were only available to a minority of children, but schools said they provided value for money for the most vulnerable….

Paul Spreadbury from Manor Hall Academy Trust, which runs Cicely and Loxley, said pupils in residence made more academic progress and learned how to build "trusting relationships".

He added 95% of children who had returned to mainstream settings from Cicely in the past decade had experienced residential education.

"We know it saves money. For every child we get back to mainstream that creates space in the special school system which is completely overwhelmed at the moment. We’re saving effectively £100,000 [$125K] a year every time we put a child back," he said….

Headteacher Lucy Bloor said the council's latest review had been underway since last month.

"Since that date we've had this hanging over us with very little idea of what the future looks like beyond July 2024," she said.

She urged the council to consider different funding streams to protect the five school's provision, adding: "We all offer something that is totally irreplaceable."

The council said it was considering a large amount of feedback from schools, parents and carers.

Jonathan Price, cabinet member for education and SEND (special educational needs), said: “The challenge is that this opportunity is only open to around 3% of the children in the county who have an EHCP – just the ones who attend the five schools.”

He added the authority would find a "sustainable long-term solution" and it was committed to ensuring any young people affected had a "clear plan of support".

Council documents show the authority's High Needs Block is forecast to overspend by £20m in 2023/24 and £25m [$31M] the following financial year, due to an increase in demand and costs of specialist placements.

With a three-year-contract currently extended for a year, schools hope to hear more in early 2024.