More than one in five councils in England have now been tasked with reforming their special educational needs provision to wipe out deficits after being given government bailouts.
The Department for Education has announced that 20 more councils have agreed these “safety valve” deals - which will involve them receiving around £585 million in total from the government.
As part of this bailout deal, local authorities have “set out the high-needs reforms and savings targets they must follow to eliminate deficits”.
Headteachers’ leaders have raised concerns that these cost-cutting agreements could damage provision for the most vulnerable children.
The latest announcement means there are now a total 34 councils across England with these agreements in place.
The latest deals published show that the majority of the 20 councils have agreed to make changes in their management of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) - the legal documents that set out a young person’s needs.
And several authorities have agreed with the DfE to reduce their “reliance” on EHCPs.
For example, the agreement for Bexley Council says the authority should offer early intervention to children requiring SEN support to reduce the need for EHCPs.
Councils to make SEND changes after bailouts
In Bath and North East Somerset, the agreement says the council should create an “ordinarily available provision” document for all schools, with parental involvement, which it says will “ease the reliance” on EHCPs.
In Darlington, the council is being expected to manage the demand for EHCPs “through building in early intervention and an inclusive culture”.
Meanwhile, the agreement for Haringey says the council will “ramp up early intervention approaches with the aim of reducing the number of EHCPs over time towards national averages”.
There are also deals that set out the goal of reducing the age range for EHCPs.
In Torbay the plan refers to the “cessation of post-16 EHCPs where needs have been met”, while the agreement in Wokingham says the council should implement an early years strategy, which would “ultimately lead to fewer requests for assessment for EHCPs for the under-5 age group”.
The three largest DfE payments will be made to three county councils: Kent is to receive £142 million, Norfolk will receive £70 million and Cambridgeshire £49 million.
The DfE payments will be made over a series of years.
Another key theme in the latest published safety valve deals is councils being told to ensure that mainstream schools are more inclusive.
In Kent the council has agreed to implement a countywide approach to inclusion education.
The deal with Blackpool says the council has agreed to encourage more pupils with EHCPs to remain in mainstream schools “through consistency of advice and guidance”.
And the DfE’s deal with Bolton says the authority should “enhance and embed an inclusive culture across partnerships and within all schools, to enable a reduction of school exclusions”.
Expecting councils to promote inclusion and reduce reliance on EHCPs was a key driver of the government’s original SEND plan last year.
In March 2022 the government’s SEND Green Paper had proposed giving councils powers to direct all state schools in their area to admit SEND pupils - something that ministers said would be a game-changer.
However, this power has not been included in the government’s SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan. Instead, it says the government will look at how it can make the process of applying to the secretary of state for a direction to admit a pupil “as effective as possible”.
The latest councils to be given safety valve agreements are: Barnsley, Bath and North East Somerset, Bexley, Blackpool, Bolton, Cambridgeshire, Croydon, Darlington, Haringey, Hounslow, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Medway, Norfolk, North Somerset, North Tyneside, Slough, Southwark, Torbay and Wokingham.
The DfE says these deals are being agreed with councils with the highest dedicated school grant deficits.
Commenting on the new deals, Julia Harnden, funding specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “While it is reasonable to expect local authority prudence, attaching conditions over cost pressures that may not be in their power to control is not the answer.
“This risks damaging the provision needed by the most vulnerable children and young people. The government must ensure that the level of high-needs funding received by local authorities is sufficient to meet the requirements of all children and young people with SEND.”
