Agenda item

The Chair agreed to hear the Cabinet Member Update from Councillor Paul May, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services at this point in the meeting as he had a prior engagement to attend later in the morning.

Councillor May addressed the Panel and highlighted the following points from his update. A copy of the update will be attached as an online appendix to these minutes.

·  The proposal is to re-purpose the now closed Charlton House into a new SEND School providing 12 residential places and an additional 18 day places for young people aged 11-17 with complex special educational needs in the area of autism with social, emotional and mental health difficulties.

·  This project is directly linked with the Safety Valve work which includes the commitment from B&NES to increase the sufficiency of places for children and young people with an Education Health & Care Plan (EHCP). The project will reduce the overspend in the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) and increase the local offer, preventing expensive out-of- county placements and allowing the pupils to be educated within their own community.

·  The average cost of an out-of-county day placement at an Independent Special school currently stands at £96k.  The cost of residential SEND placements currently stands at £318k (average placement costs with a mix of 38 & 52wks).  This project will result in estimated savings to the Council of £2,171,075 (education and transport) and £2,043,859 (residential) per annum, the latter directly benefitting the Children’s Social Care budget.

·  The proposed new school would be opened under the Dept. of Education’s ‘Free School Presumptive Route’, where a local authority identifies a need for a new school in its area. If approved through the PID and SMD process, the next step will be to publish the specification for the school and engage with prospective proposers (single or multi-academy trusts) who may wish to apply to establish the new free school.

Kevin Burnett asked if the funding involved was separate to that received through Safety Valve or was it all tied in together.

Councillor May replied that it was understanding that it is tied in with the Safety Valve funding. He added that a £4m grant had already been allocated to the Council by the Government and that an additional £6m Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) funding has been added for this project.

He added that he still intends to bring to the Panel an update on Safety Valve once he has received further information from the Department for Education (DfE).

Councillor Joanna Wright asked the following questions of Councillor May.

How many ECHPs within B&NES are not issued within the statutory timescale of 20 weeks, after the decision is taken to carry out a needs assessment?

How does this number compare with the national average?

What are the main causes for B&NES not to issue ECHPs within the statutory timescale?

As VAT is soon to be included onto fees for private schools how will this affect young people with special needs in B&NES?

Councillor May replied that he would respond to those questions in writing.

The Chair asked if it was the expectation that the new SEND School provision would be for use by B&NES children only.

Councillor May replied that it was his view that that is the intention, to provide a better solution for the children and their families that live within B&NES.

Kevin Burnett said that he would welcome clarity on what the admission criteria would be for the new SEND School as he was of the opinion that for SEND schools they were not able to state it would only be B&NES children that could attend.

Councillor May replied that he would reply on this matter at the next meeting of the Panel.

The Chair thanked Councillor May for his update on behalf of the Panel.