Councils are caught in a “catch 22” as rising demand for provision for excluded pupils hampers prevention and reintegration work, DfE commissioned research has found.

Exclusions that send pupils to alternative provision (AP) are meant to be a last resort, but the new study has found that rising exclusion rates means some authorities simply did not have the capacity to try to keep difficult pupils in mainstream schools.

“In some areas, these challenges were manifesting themselves in something of a catch 22 for LAs [local authorities],” the report by the Isos Partnership says.

“The situation some, particularly smaller, [local authorities] described was one where they knew they needed to create capacity for a more preventative, flexible, reintegration focused approach to AP, but were not able to do so since all of their resources - money and staff time - were taken reacting to exclusions and finding placements in AP.

“Unless this balance could be shifted, however, the pressure on existing provision would worsen, making it even more difficult to turn around the situation and refocus AP on prevention and reintegration.”

As of the middle of the year, there were 41 government-funded free AP schools in the UK and more are in the works.

But previous DfE-commissioned research found that nine out of 10 secondary school headteachers believe there are not enough places in alternative provision for pupils with mental health needs.

In Birmingham, permanent exclusions dropped by 40 per cent across secondary schools after alternative provision was scrapped.

Today’s survey of 118 local authorities found that almost all (96 per cent) turned to AP providers to support students who had been excluded.

Eight out of 10 also moved children out of mainstream schooling because of mental and physical health-related reasons and almost the same amount, 78 per cent, referred pupils for early, preventative support.

Other reasons included using AP to provide positive alternative educational pathways (69 per cent), reintegrating pupils who have been out of formal education (56 per cent), placing pupils who have arrived mid-year (53 per cent), and a lack of specialist provision (52 per cent).