Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Funding

Priti Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir Gary. I commend the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) on securing what is a really important debate. It is a real privilege to be here today among colleagues to cover the issues of funding. Local authorities, including Essex County Council, are facing real pressures in meeting the needs of pupils, especially those with special educational needs and disabilities. There is no doubt that all of us who visit our local schools and engage with parents and pupils understand where the real pressures lie.

It is important to recognise that the Government have announced additional funding for high needs of £125 million, which is welcome. For Essex, that means another £3.3 million for this and next financial year. The reality is, however, that that is not enough, because of the new pressures caused by the increase in pupils who have additional needs, adding greater burdens and pressure to a local authority that is in a budget-setting cycle at this very time, as all local authorities are. With that comes the challenge of the overspend in special needs funding that Essex County Council is experiencing. A new banding matrix for funding pupils with SEND in special schools is causing a £2.3 million overspend. Increased growth in education, health and care plans is driving an overspend of more than £700,000. In addition, the number of young people in the EHCP category has gone up by 22%.

Local authorities are of course desperately trying to meet their statutory obligations and to find innovative ways of doing so. That obviously includes working across health budgets, which is the right thing to do, and looking at ways in which they can integrate support for care and educational provision.

In total, Essex County Council anticipates a £15 million overspend on the high needs block by the end of 2019-20. The council is investing through its capital programme in new schools, including planning a new autism special school in Witham, which we all welcome and support. In addition to plugging some of the funding gaps, the council has recently asked the schools forum if it would agree to transfer 0.5% of the schools block allocation—approximately £4.3 million—to SEND. Quite understandably, that is going to cause tensions and is causing concern among local schools, and the council has asked the Secretary of State to approve the transfer. Rather than encouraging tensions and anger within our local schools, and leaving the schools and council at loggerheads, I encourage the Minister to take the opportunity to intervene and review the situation, not just by encouraging more financial support, but by encouraging a better way of working so that we can address some of the long-standing issues.

I hope that the forthcoming comprehensive spending review can support local authorities to come together and look at how we can invest in new provision, join up networks and increase integrated provision, so that we can bring education and health more closely together, wrapped around the needs of each pupil. While more funding is needed and is absolutely welcome, we want to maximise the benefits through greater integration of working across local authorities and Government Departments, so that we can give young people the best start in life and so that they can fulfil their potential.