Agenda item

The Strategic Director or Social Care and Education submits a report detailing the findings on the proposed reduction in high needs block funding for Ash Field Academy’s Residential Provision.

The Chair introduced the item. She asked officers to provide the Commission with as much detail as possible on the consultation findings on withdrawing the £400k funding per annum to Ash Field Academy, from 1 September 2024.

The Chair invited Mr Barker to address the Commission.

Mr Barker had requested to present the petition to the meeting. The petition had 1261 signatures and was in the following form:-

“We, the undersigned, request Following a city-wide review of funding for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), Leicester City Council is consulting on a proposal to withdraw the funding provided to Ash Field Academy to support its residential education services. The withdrawal of this funding is very likely to force Ash Field to close its residential setting. Ash Field does not receive sufficient funding from other sources to maintain the service without it. There are no comparable services offered by any other state1funded education setting in the city. This will have a devastating impact on the highly vulnerable pupils who attend, all of whom have complex special educational needs. It will also cause enormous upset and stress for their families and communities, and represent an immeasurable loss to the education landscape in Leicester. We believe that the withdrawal of this funding is a grave error. We call upon Leicester City Council to reconsider their proposal, and work with Ash Field and its stakeholders to preserve this badly needed service.” The Monitoring Officer advises that this petition has received 1261 verified signatures. Under the Council’s Petition’s Scheme, the petition has met the requirement for a senior officer to provide evidence at the meeting in relation to this petition. The Lead Petitioner has been asked to introduce their petition, to which a senior officer will respond.”

The Chair allowed Mr Barker 5 minutes to address the Commission.

Members were advised that Scrutiny Procedure Rule 9 (a) (ii) (e) stated that if a petition was presented at the same Committee meeting at which there was a report on the agenda on the same subject, a Councillor may propose that the petition be considered with the report. Otherwise, the petition would be accepted with debate and referred to the Monitoring Officer for consideration and action as appropriate.

RESOLVED:

That the petition be received and referred to the Monitoring Officer for consideration and action as appropriate. Leicester City Council have offered to work alongside Ash Field Academy, the offer had been declined at present.

The Strategic Director of Social Care and Education submitted a report providing an overview of the findings of strategic review of residential provision at Ashfield Academy and the associated consultation proposal to cease funding with effect from September 2024

The Director of SEND and Early Help introduced the report. The Consultation had run from 26 September 2022 to 9 January 2023, it was extended by 2 weeks, as requested by the school to give people time to send in their responses. 378 responses had been received through the Councils Portal and further information and testimonies had been received from families with children attending the school. Two visits had been made by Council Officers and Councillor Cutkelvin to talk to parents, pupils and staff members.

Members noted that:

·       Concerns raised in the report were that Leicester City Council had been clear in stating that the provision is not educational in terms of academic learning. The Council do understand as stated by Mr Barker that it provides social independent skills.

·       Use of the provision would need to be included in the children’s Education, Health and Care Plan, out of the 160 pupils at the school, none of them have it recorded in their plan , the information is detailed in the report in terms of where it fits in to the Code of Practice, in the Children’s and Families Act.

·       There were currently 1000 children across the city in special schools. The central government did not provide enough funding for the care required and additional funding was not available to support the provision.

·       The Council has a Disabled Children’s Service which is used by 283 children that receive support. If a child or young person is eligible for assistance the parents can apply for a direct payment to  activities and clubs such as Memphis, which is specifically for disabled children.

·       Barnes Heath is a Council owned provision that can offer required support for families with disabled children.

·       There are 2 children who attend Ash Field, who live at Barnes Heath on a permanent basis. The manager of Barnes Heath confirmed the position of those children and there isn’t a need for them to use the residential provision, but because they want too.

·       The Council could not respond in terms of redundancies as the proposal is to withdraw funding and not to close the facility. It would be down to the academy to make that decision. The Council will work with them to look at alternatives before it gets to that point. The funding is not due to be withdrawn until September 2024, so it would enable time to consider potential opportunities.

·       The Council recognise the value of the provision, but there are also increasing numbers of children and young people with special needs and disabilities and therefore priority needs to be given to  providing  education to this group.

After a discussion and in response to members questions, it was noted that:

·       Lead Elected Members had come together with both the East Midlands and Childrens Board through the LGA to reinforce what the ADCS (Association of Directors of Childrens Services) are saying regarding the way the funding was being put together, the increase in need local authorities were seeing and trying to spread out resources that were not sufficient.

·       Executive Members were trying as many ways as possible, including working with the LG Childrens Board, letters had been written to Minsters and inviting them to meetings to be challenged directly. MPs had been lobbied at regional and national conferences.

·       The ADCS had recently had their annual conference and the national SEND System was a major topic of event. A very clear agreement across the sector from all Directors in the room was that the changes introduced in 2014 were seriously flawed and there was an urgent requirement for the government to review the whole process in which EHCP’s were developed, as they pushed people into an adversarial medical diagnosis approach to special educational needs, which doesn’t put the child at the centre of their support.

·       Conversations that had been held with Education Skills Funding Agency, who ultimately review and controls the high needs block and they were clear that they don’t regard the residential provision as education. If they were to believe we were using funding for something which they don’t believe is educational funding or educational provisional they could take action against the authority and say in effect that the authority were misusing funding and any costs should come from the general fund, which is in a very difficult position.

·       If the Council were to argue that provision remained funded from the High Needs Block, it is already several million pounds overspent. There are national schemes to reduce spending and bring those over spends back into balance. There isn’t any extra money available and the pressure is to reduce expenditure.

·       School transportation is not education and is not covered by the funding. It is the single biggest cost pressure in the whole Council and the team are actively working to ensure we are able to meet the statutory obligations in terms of enabling children with EHCP’s to access education.

·       The Council have been working on a recovery plan for the last few months and are under pressure to get it returned to the Department for Education (DFE) it isn’t just about the position today, it is about projecting forward based on the fact more and more EHCP requests had been received. Part of the plan will describe changes already in place and the spend across the board, which includes the following:

·       A review of the banding that is given to schools with children with disabilities was completed 2 years ago, to make it a more open and transparent process and to ensure that the funding was being directed in the right areas.

·       In terms of element 3, this is a top up that we give for children that are in mainstream schools. An amount is given for a 12 month period to support a child that has additional needs for the school to be able to support that child. We had looked at the costings and the way the funding is provided to make it more equitable and there was also an increase in the amount of money available for those children.

·       Millgate School had a residential provision and the funding had also been withdrawn from there.

·       Disperse Special School placements had been looked into, there is a high demand for our special school placements, due to more children being approved for an EHCP. Work was being undertaken  with mainstream schools to look at how they can have onsite support units that will enable children to remain at that school with support.

·       There are 180 children who are in a 16 plus provision, and work is in progress to look at  opportunities to  support young people  in a further education college rather than a special school, which would help release places for younger pupils.

·       Other authorities have seen success in working with families to build bonds and peer experiences with each other outside of school, to continue leisure activities and life skill learning, with support from personal budgets or direct payments. This will help to support young adults in their lives outside of education to focus on a greater independence.

AGREED:

1.     Lead Officers to revisit this issue and with the view to explore further options and solutions with Ash Field Academy.

2.     The Council takes a city-wide review of provision related to the High Needs Block funding.

3.     The comments from Members of this Commission to be taken into account by Lead Officers.