Bristol City Council given £1m to reform SEN spending

Demand and costs for special educational needs is rising across the country

The huge amount of cash spent on providing expensive special educational needs (SEN) is "unsustainable", a mayor has said.

This year, Bristol City Council budgeted £78.5m for SEN, increasing to £86.5m next year.

But a deficit of £44m is expected this year, rising to £63m next year.

Mayor Marvin Rees said the government was giving the council £1m to help it "to achieve high needs spending sustainability".

"Like so many other councils, Bristol is accruing a significant deficit in the dedicated schools grant budget.

"In Bristol the overspend on the high needs block budget has been increasing year on year to the point at which it has become unsustainable," Mr Rees said.

'Sustainable services'

"The DfE (Department for Education) is running some intervention programmes to assist local authorities with deficits to achieve high needs spending sustainability.

"This funding aims to support local authorities to improve delivery of SEN services for children and young people while trying to ensure services are sustainable," Mr Rees said.

The government funding is to explore what reforms can be brought in, such as increasing specialist places, providing extra funding to schools for early intervention work and ensuring therapies are good quality.

While details of the reforms are not fully clear they're expected to begin by April and will affect thousands of children.

As of October 2022, 11,892 pupils in Bristol had special educational needs, almost one fifth of the total school population.

Of these, 9,284 are receiving support for SEN and 2,608 have an education, health and care plan.

Liberal Democrat councillor Tim Kent said the reforms should not damage the education and support given to SEN pupils.

He also raised concerns about the lack of parent involvement in designing education services in the city, following a row with the Bristol Parent Carer Forum.

He said: "We need reforms in this area but we need to make sure we're bringing parents and children with us, and making sure at the heart of this we're protecting our most vulnerable children."