The Director for Social Care and Education gave a
verbal update to confirm the detail of the Dedicated Schools Grant
(DSG) report, due to go to the December meeting. He also gave an outline of informal Scrutiny
work on this matter.
The Principal Education Officer joined the meeting to
assist with the discussion of this item.
Key points included:
-
The Local Authority had overspent on the High Needs
Block and was now subject to discussions with the Education and
Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) who required the Council to provide a
recovery plan.
-
There was currently a forecast overspend of
£11.1m for the current financial year.
-
There were pressures due to not having the correct
level of funding and a high level of demand regarding SEND
children.
-
The recovery plan had been submitted by 15 September
following which the ESFA were met with to discuss the
proposals.
-
Data was provided on the future prediction on the
number of children based on demographics and school
placements.
-
Models had needed to be presented showing what the
data would look like both with mitigations and without
mitigations.
-
Feedback on the meeting with the ESFA was still
being awaited despite chasing. It was
difficult to know whether the plan would be robust until feedback
was received.
In response to questions, the Commission were
informed that:
-
The majority of
local authorities were overspent with different
councils at different levels of overspend. Information on this would be provided as part of a
report to be brought to a future meeting.
-
If action was not taken on the overspend,
commissioners from the DfE would make decisions on behalf of the
Council.
-
There was a burden on SEND placements and support in
mainstream schools and the budget was not increasing. The ESFA had required the Council to look at
everything they did. The Council were
looking at every way they could support children in
schools.
-
There was pressure on schools in terms of the number
of children in schools needing a plan, and the Council were in a
similar situation to the situation across the country. Starting from a low base in terms of supporting,
there were a lot of children with needs. There was a legal duty to educate children
and there was less money and more demand.
-
There were many children awaiting health
assessments, including on conditions such as ADHD and
autism. Many children in schools were
struggling and many had a plan but no formal diagnosis. There was an 18-month wait for speech and language
therapy.
-
The ESFA had asked the Council to produce a forecast
based on current demands and what this would look like in terms of
the money needed. This was a particularly high amount. The Council were then asked to look at the figures
taking mitigating actions into account.
There was a need to ensure that the right organisations paid
in order to bring down the
overspend.
-
Children could have good outcomes without an
education healthcare plan. There was
lots of good practice regarding SEND that would be good for all
children in a class.
-
Formula funding in no way matched the needs it was
supposed to, and members needed to consider ways to address
this.
-
Regarding SEND Schools in Academy Trusts, there was
a banding system based on a child’s needs. The bandings had been reviewed two years ago and a
modulation process was being worked on across the city. There was a peer review on banding so that there
was confidence that the banding was fair.
AGREED
1.
That the verbal update be
noted.
2.
That the full report come to the
Commission once feedback was received from the ESFA.
3.
That informal scrutiny work be initiated
following the receipt of this report to a future scrutiny
commission meeting.