top of page
Search
Jan 24, 20223 min read

(UK) Tavistock: $122M SPED overspend; 'a broken system'

SW England

The boss of Devon County Council has described the funding system for special educational needs as ‘broken’ as the authority’s total overspend looks set to rise to almost £90 million [$122M]. The Government has told councils to put overspends for supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) into separate accounts for three years until April 2023, while it develops a new plan to fund provision. It means Devon’s effective debt on the service – currently forecast to reach £88 million [$119M] by April – does not currently count towards its main revenue figures, However, the council is concerned about what will happen when the ring-fencing arrangement ends next year. At last week’s council cabinet, councillors were told that discussions with the Department for Education were ongoing, and a deal could be reached by the end of March. The county council entered the current financial year with an overspend of £49 million [$66M] in its SEND account. It expects to add a further £39 million [$53M] to the debt for 2021/2, according to the latest budget report presented to the meeting. Speaking on the issue, chief executive Phil Norrey said: ‘We don’t know whether it will come back [onto the balance sheet] at that point or not, or how it will be dealt with, but the expectation is that those local authorities with a deficit, or a significant deficit, will have to work with government to try and reduce that before whatever happens next to that lump of money.’ Dr Norrey described it as ‘a national problem’. He said the Government were expected to publish a consultation paper on changing the system ‘based on the experience of the fact that this is a broken system. It doesn’t actually work. It doesn’t deliver what parents and carers want and financially it is unsustainable across the country’. The high cost of independent specialist provision was cited as one of the main reasons why Devon was spending so much. Dr Norrey told councillors the cost per youngster was £47,000 [$64K], compared to £12,000 in a maintained special school. ‘That gives you an indication of the fact that somehow we’ve got to recalibrate the system,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get more youngsters flourishing in mainstream settings in the first instance, more youngsters being supported in maintained special schools locally and fewer in very expensive independent specialist provision. That’s going to take a long time to do.’ Director of children’s services Melissa Caslake said there was an ‘action plan’ to tackle the SEND overspend, including investment and plans to increase special school places provided by the council. These include a special school currently being built at Okehampton. ‘That will reduce the amount of children that we are having at the moment to place in independent special schools including some in residential special schools as well – the cost of those are far beyond the cost of us effectively providing our own special school places,’ she said. ‘That will have a significant impact, but obviously those places in different schools, different locations, will be coming on stream at different times over the next few years.’ Ms Caslake hopes a deal with the Department for Education, billed as a ‘safety valve intervention programme,’ will be finalised by the end of March.will bring the overspend under control. However, Councillor Alan Connett (Lib Dem, Exminster & Haldon), leader of the opposition, expressed concern about the debt figure, warning: ‘£88.1 million [$119M] is more than 50 per cent of the council’s free reserves – it is a significant deficit that the council is carrying.’


Comments

bottom of page