Pupil referral units (PRUs) across a large part of the North of England could face closure because a council is cutting their funding in a bid to halt rising pupil exclusion from mainstream schools.
North Yorkshire County Council’s cuts are also being blamed on a £5.5 million funding shortfall it is facing for high needs pupils.
It is planning to cut back funding to its pupil referral service by up to £1.5 million and create new school partnerships to make decisions about children’s education.
However, PRU headteachers in North Yorkshire have told Tes that the proposed cuts would make them unviable.
John Warren, head of the Grove Academy, in Harrogate, said: “We get three different bits of funding, but a large part of discretionary funding we get from the council, which has always effectively been our core funding, would go.
“The council have said they would still be funding places for pupils through these new partnerships but these changes are supposed to be coming into effect in April next year so in January I am going to be expected to start to set my budget based on the decisions of organisations that don’t exist yet.
"I worry that if this goes ahead we would not be viable.”
Les Bell, the headteacher of the Rubicon Centre pupil referral unit in Selby, said: “It is not exaggerating it to say that pupil referral services across the county could go.
"We are looking at a 50 per cent funding cut and we wouldn’t be able to provide proper provision for that money.
"If Ofsted came in they would shut us down as we would not be meeting our statutory responsibilities.”
He said zero tolerance policies in some North Yorkshire schools has led to an increase in students being excluded.
Mr Bell told Tes the situation was a “perfect storm of reduced funding, schools under pressure excluding pupils and other preventative services being cut back".
There are currently seven pupil referral units across the county.
North Yorkshire County Council is consulting on plans to create local partnerships made up of leaders from local primary and secondary schools and post-16 providers who would be allocated a sum of money to pay for alternative provision of pupils at their schools.
The county council claims this approach will cut down exclusions and save money.
North Yorkshire was ranked 14th out of 152 authorities nationally for the increase in fixed term exclusions between 2015-16 and 2016-17.
Jane le Sage, North Yorkshire’s assistant director for inclusion said: “We know that permanent exclusion has a negative impact in terms of educational outcomes and options in later life.
"So wherever possible we believe children should remain within mainstream education, in their local school with support to meet their needs.
“The proposals we are now consulting on are designed to help us to achieve that vision. We want to put spending power into the hands of local education leaders who best understand the needs in their area.
“We want to enable schools to utilise the resources available for alternative provision more flexibly to meet children’s needs in the best way, with the goal of reducing the number of young people permanently excluded and improving outcomes for them.”
She said the proposals would still provide enough places for the education of young people permanently excluded from school.
The council currently provides £4.6 million in funding to pupil referral services and alternative provision, of which £2.7 million is “non-statutory or discretionary funding”.
Ms le Sage added: “By changing the way we commission this provision, we would expect to save between £1.3 million and £1.5 million each year.”
