Special education needs in Bedford will be met despite budget pressure, says council

Bedford Borough Council may need to “make some difficult decisions” but the needs of children and young people with special education will be met, a meeting heard.

The Bedford Schools’ Forum heard yesterday (Monday, February 26) that there has been “unprecedented demand” on the “high needs block” and funding has been moved from the “central schools block” to deal with it.

Deirdre Murphy, a representative from the National Education Union, said: “Basically, what we’re saying is that there is an absolute squeeze on the whole SEND provision.

“[And] it is more than likely that we are not going to be able to meet the needs of special needs throughout the borough, both in mainstream and in alternative and special provision, am I correct?” she asked.

Chris Morris, chief officer for education SEND and schools infrastructure, said: “I don’t want it to be stated on record that children with educational needs [that their] needs will not be met in Bedford borough, that is categorically not true,” he said.

Mr Morris added that there had been a 60 per cent increase in education health and care plans over the last five years.

Ms Murphy asked for clarification: “The budget that you receive from central government is not enough to meet the needs of special needs in Bedford borough, so therefore we have to make a decision that the high needs block may have to go into deficit, is that right?” she asked.

Mr Morris said he didn’t want to predict that there would be a deficit and the council feels that it has the budget this year to meet the needs of children and young people with special educational needs.

“I think the challenge is if we have growth next year in demand we have not got the budget to account for that growth,” he said.

“Then we will be in a difficult financial position, what we would have to do is make some difficult decisions around how the allocation of our funding is for other services.

“[But] we won’t have children with special education needs not having their provisions met,” he said.

Ms Murphy said: “It does not take away from the fact that there are not enough resources in order to meet the needs of all the children who have got special needs right across our borough.

“[We need to] say very clearly to the government that there is not enough funding for special education needs right across the board,” she said.

Mr Morris replied: “I want to be really clear about the human impact of this and us having this conversation in Schools’ Forum potentially generating a headline in the local paper that talks about there not being sufficient funding for children and young people with special educational needs.

“Because we’ve seen it time and time again, the generating of headlines from [a] report, [the] misreporting on these things, or [the] sensationalism of it.

“That then has a negative impact where we then have to pick up the pieces of parents and carers reading that and feeling like their children’s needs are not going to be met.

“So I want to be really clear that is not what I’m saying,” he said.