Increased demand for education, health and care plans in Central Bedfordshire puts strain on council

The proportion of children with EHCPs locally is 5.6 per cent, remaining higher than statistical neighbours at 4.6 per cent and the national average of 4.8 per cent, according to a report to Central Bedfordshire Council’s schools forum.

This trend highlights challenges in early intervention, increasing pressure on the high needs block, said the report. “Improvements have been made in EHCP quality and finalisation within 20 weeks.

“There are new processes, such as a revised EHCP template and a multi-agency audit model. But this block faces a growing financial shortfall, with a forecast £28.2m overspend in 2025/26.

“Specialist placements of £22.4m, special schools independent providers at £12.5m, EHCP top-ups of £17.8m and alternative provision at £3.7m are the primary cost drivers.

“Shifts away from mainstream inclusion are evident, with increased spending on specialist provision, alternative provision, and education other than at school (EOTAS).

“A review of funding for autism and social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) additional resource provisions is under way, with a detailed expenditure analysis to inform schools forum decision-making and reduce reliance on costly specialist placements.”

CBC’s service director for education and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) Dan Newbolt explained: “The overall projected high needs block expenditure for 2024/25 is forecast as £68.73m or about £22m above the original budget of £46.7m.

“The financial forecast for 2025/26 shows an even greater overspend of £28.2m, with a total expected expenditure of £78.9m against an allocated budget of £49.4m.

“There are mitigation measures against these pressures which are ongoing, such as delivering better value (DBV) in SEND and the change programme partnership (CPP).”

Primary maintained school governor Rob Merry said: “The overspend was £13m last year, £22m this year, and now forecast at £28m next year.

“Part of financial control is to understand what the increases are, what the strategy is for bringing those deficits down, and when we’re likely to achieve balanced budgets going forward.

“There was a programme a year ago to focus on early intervention and increased special provisions education in the county. We’ve had no update on how successful that is or when it’s going to deliver on bringing down the cost of this block.

“Numbers go up and up, with no management of the process or the strategy to control this situation.”

Mr Newbolt replied: “Schools aren’t being supported to keep children within mainstream as much as other places are.

“There’s been a series of different things in there, but none of then seem to be making any difference to inclusion or meeting SEND need at mainstream level.

“Further input is required from this forum or other school representatives, so we can see what’s not working.”

Church of England diocese representative Caron Earp added: “It’s really disheartening as to how many years we’ve been working on ‘fair share’ and it’s not even mentioned.

“We’re looking at figures going in the wrong direction. There are people in education writing to the local authority and not even getting replies. We desperately need some help.”.