Dedicated Schools Grant

Debate between Tom Gordon and Sarah Dyke

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate and to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) on securing the debate and on his powerful speech. I alert Members to my position as one of the vice chairs of the f40 group, which represents 43 local authorities with historically low funding for education and campaigns for fairer funding for schools and SEND provision.

Somerset is one of those 43 councils. Its 2025-26 dedicated schools grant allocation is just £8,500 per student, while some councils get nearly £5,000 more than that per pupil. The launch in 2018 of the national funding formula for mainstream schools introduced a minimum per pupil funding level, which was designed to level up funding. However, that has continued to lock in historical funding elements, preventing some local authority areas from receiving more funding. The Liberal Democrats understand the need for regional variation to ensure that schools can operate successfully, but that should not come at the expense of schools elsewhere, which often struggle to make ends meet.

As other Members have stated, the DSG is made up of four blocks, one of which is the high needs block, which supports SEND provision for children in both mainstream and specialist schools. Somerset’s 2025-2026 allocation of high-needs block funding is £1,250 per student—more than £2,000 less than the highest-funded local authority. It has been stressed many times that the SEND system is broken; the variance and unequal DSG funding is a big reason for that. My inbox, like that of many other Members, is full of correspondence from parents who all desperately want the best education for their children, but are concerned and deeply upset that their children’s needs are not being met by their schools.

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

My area of Harrogate and Knaresborough is covered by North Yorkshire council, which is part of f40, which my hon. Friend mentioned. On high-needs funding, we are 146th out of 151. That is causing real challenges in that rural setting, with children sometimes having to travel for hours to get to school. Does my hon. Friend share my concerns about those low levels of funding, which are compounded by the cut to the rural services delivery grant that local authorities receive?

[Sarah Dyke]

I will touch on that. Delivering education in a huge rural county has so many pressures and complexities and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to bring that up.

Let me give a couple of examples of children who are suffering and whose educational needs are not being met in my constituency of Glastonbury and Somerton. One of them is Jensen from Ilchester. He is only seven years old, but has been experiencing severe mental health distress while awaiting a long overdue neurodevelopmental assessment. His mother told me that he has lost all enjoyment in life. He misses his education and his friends, and all the while he is being passed between services. Jensen is not alone in that situation.

Many other children in Glastonbury and Somerton face similar challenges: Charlie from Castle Cary, for example. He has an EHCP, but his school is simply not able to meet his needs. His mother said that he has been left for months without his educational needs, as specified in his EHCP, being met. As a result, his behaviour at school and his mental health are declining. The differential in DSG funding means that children like Jensen, Charlie and many others heartbreakingly cannot get the support that they deserve. Families are being left to suffer alone, fighting a system that is just not working for them.

We know that the system is broken. The Isos report released last year found that all actors within the system are behaving rationally—schools, councils and parents—but the system is just not up to scratch. The funding model needs to be reformed to make it more responsive to changes so that individual schools can receive funding based on need. I urge the Minister to consider reviewing the funding formulas for both schools and high needs.

The Liberal Democrats have a plan to invest in our education sector above the rate of inflation so that we can ensure that all schools have the capacity to operate sustainably. We must also give our local authorities the financial support that they need. The previous Conservative Government left schools to crumble and forced councils to do more with less, impacting our children’s education. The persistent budgetary strain does not allow local authorities to create long-term plans for children with SEND, so we would also set up a dedicated national body for SEND to act as a champion for children with complex needs and ensure that they receive tailored support.

Without major reforms and changes to funding, we will continue to see a landscape with uneven funding where children are badly let down and schools cannot provide the support that is needed. I urge the Minister to take action, invest in education, invest in our children and invest in our future.

Education and Opportunity

Debate between Tom Gordon and Sarah Dyke

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome you to the Chamber, as I do the Secretary of State and her team. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) on his maiden speech. He joins two other Darrens. I am one of many Sarahs in the House; until recently, we formed nearly 30% of the Liberal Democrats. I am happy to say that we are now more diverse in our names.

I welcome the opportunity to speak about education and opportunity, but the sad reality is that many children across Glastonbury and Somerton are missing out on the opportunity to have an education, as they have additional requirements that their schools are simply unable to accommodate. After the Conservative Government’s cuts to school and council budgets, education, health and care plans have become the only avenue for families seeking to access support. They face a postcode lottery and are forced to wait months to get the support that they need. Demand for EHCPs has tripled since covid, and local authorities are struggling to meet demand. Only half of EHCPs are issued within the statutory 20-week timeframe. At this point I must declare an interest as a serving Somerset councillor.

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

Today, North Yorkshire council has moved to restrict the services that it offers for home-to-school transport, which will have a disproportionate impact on rural schools and families. The Conservatives have been swept from power in Parliament, but they are still having a damaging impact on local government in areas such as mine in North Yorkshire. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should provide rural families and schools with more support, not less, to tackle the challenges that they face?

[Sarah Dyke]

My hon. Friend makes a really powerful point. Likewise, Somerset council is forecast to spend £140 million this year on children and family services, including on special educational needs and disabilities provision—a 14% increase on last year. The increase in EHCPs has also increased the cost of home-to-school transport. The high costs are further exacerbated in Somerset because it is such a large, rural county, like Yorkshire. The average cost to Somerset council of travel for one passenger with SEND is over £7,000 a year.

Cumulatively, the local authority high-needs budget deficit is estimated to be £2.3 billion, and the figure is ever increasing; the latest estimate is that the deficit will increase to £3.6 billion by 2025. There are many local authorities working with the Department for Education through interventions such as the safety valve programme. Those programmes demonstrate that local authorities, despite employing best practice, are still struggling to cover the deficit, and any savings made are likely to be lost through inflation.

The Liberal Democrats want to end the SEND postcode lottery that families face by giving local authorities extra funding to reduce the amount that schools pay towards children’s EHCPs. This is urgent, because children are suffering. They are unhappy, they are missing their friends, and they are missing their education—and as a result, their families are suffering, too.

I spoke recently to the parents of a child in Wincanton who had an EHCP that needed an urgent review. It did not happen, and the child’s school could not meet their needs. That resulted in them being absent from school and missing months of crucial education. I have also been working with a group of parents of children with SEND, and one mother from Curry Mallet told me that she believes our education system will see a rise in attendance problems and adverse mental health, and an increased need for SEND support, due to the inflexibility of the system and its inadequacy for meeting the needs of young people in modern times.

It is a total disgrace for any child to be left without an education, because—if I may return to the title of this debate—it strips them of opportunity. Children with SEND will continue to suffer as a result of the lack of places at special schools. Government statistics from earlier this year revealed that around two thirds of special schools are full or over capacity, with Department for Education data showing that there are around 4,000 more pupils on roll in special schools than there is reported capacity. In Glastonbury and Somerton there are two special schools, and I hope that a third will be ready to open near Ash for the start of the new school year, providing much needed extra provision.

Children and their families across the country face a crisis caused by the lack of specialist provision, and it will not go away. Cuts to council budgets under the Conservatives have made the situation intolerable, and we must act urgently to reverse them. Liberal Democrats will work with the Government to ensure that all children can access the tailored learning and support that they need. I believe that we must set up a dedicated national body for SEND, to act as a champion for children with complex needs and ensure that they receive tailored support.