Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Children’s Services.  To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Children, Schools and Families.

The Cabinet Member for Children, Schools and Families introduced the report which sought approval for the commencement of a voluntary consultation on the proposed changes to the bandings and top up funding for Early Years, mainstream and special school education settings for SEND.  It was noted that a report on the outcome of the consultation, along with the final decision, would be submitted to the Cabinet for decision at a future date.

In response to questions from Councillor da Costa, the following was noted:

-       There was no target prescribed by the Department for Education to reduce the number of Education, Health and Care Plans.  The Safety Valve programme was introduced to develop proposals which may help to reduce the need for new EHCP as a result of early interventions.

RESOLVED to

1.            Approve the commencement of a voluntary consultation on the proposed changes to the bandings and top up funding for Early Years, mainstream and special school education settings for SEND.

2.            Approve the draft consultation questions to commence over an 8 week consultation period from the 5^th October 2023 to 1^st December 2023.

3.            Note that a report on the outcome of the consultation and final decision on the proposed policy changes will be submitted to Cabinet at a future date.

Reasons for decision

Haringey Council has a statutory duty to deliver support to children and young people with SEND. These responsibilities are described in the Children and Families Act 2014 which sets out the Local Authority‘s duties to assess young people’s SEND needs and to make provision to meet these needs.

Funding to support children and young people who require additional support to meet their SEND needs is allocated to Haringey Council via the Dedicated Schools Grant, with the High Needs Block within this grant being specifically allocated to make financial provision to meet the identified SEND needs of children and young people.

Haringey Council is part of the national Safety Valve Programme which is designed to assist local authorities in reducing overspend in their High Needs Block expenditure and achieve an in year balanced budget. Haringey has agreed a Safety Valve deal until 2027-2028, incorporating 18 projects, which if successful will draw down funding of £30m to clear the projected deficit. As of 1 April 2023, due to the strength of and confidence in the proposals, Haringey has received £11.96m which has reduced the cumulative deficit to £11.8m. Haringey has reported an in year overspend of £2.22m and is forecasting cumulative surplus of £0.1m by 2027/28.(Refer to Haringey Safety Valve Programme report to Cabinet 13 September 2022)

As part of the conditions of participation within the Safety Valve programme Haringey council has committed to review SEND bandings and top-up allocations to ensure that these are needs led, fair, open, transparent.

To inform this work, Haringey Council has worked with key stakeholders, including but not exclusively, parents and carers, schools, specialist teaching staff, health colleagues and education psychology to develop two sets of banding descriptors  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11