Agenda item

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

 

Following public consultation, Cabinet approval is required to implement the new SEND Top Up and High Needs funding bandings for children and young people with SEND.

The Leader introduced the report, which sought approval to proposed changes to the banding descriptors used to allocate funding to children in Early Years and of statutory School age in Haringey.

 

The following was noted in the introduction of the report from the Leader of the Council:

 

-       That funding to support children with special educational needs and disabilities is part of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) from central government was located within the High Needs Block (HNB). Ensuring these resources were allocated fairly and transparently to support all children with special needs was a critical task and had underpinned this report.

 

-       That in entering into the Safety Valve agreement with the DfE, and as a condition of participation, the Council committed to review the way in which resources for children with SEND were allocated. This had led to a review of the funding structure involving bandings and top-up allocations to ensure these are fair, open, and transparent.

 

-       The review has been extensive, detailed and wide ranging, and officers had worked with many vital and key stakeholders over a long period to develop new proposals with the aim of allocating funding more equitably. The working review group had included parents and carers, representatives from mainstream and special schools, specialist teaching staff, health colleagues and education psychology. The aim has been to develop two sets of banding descriptors, designed to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND more effectively and accurately than the current system.

 

-       The proposals had been consulted on.

 

In response to a question from Cllr Emery on whether recommending these changes to the banding would have come forward without the requirements of the Safety Valve programme, it was noted that the decision allowed for fairer, equitable banding funding arrangements for children and young people with SEND in the borough. This was also a transformation programme, which enabled the Council to expedite planned work for supporting children and young people with SEND.

 

In further response to a second question from Cllr Emery on learning from other boroughs that had already implemented the Safety Valve Programme and the positive impacts it has on outcomes for children, the meeting noted that the nationwide programme was still in its early stages and impact across the country not yet assessed. Assurance was given that the Council were learning from areas that have implemented the Safety Valve programmes successfully. The Council had been implementing this programme for 12 months and were starting to see more children supported at an earlier stage and less children requiring specialists and the high-cost statutory support.

 

RESOLVED:

 

To approve the proposed changes to the banding descriptors used to allocate funding to children in Early Years and of statutory School age in Haringey as outlined within section 4.12 of the report, Appendix Five: Proposed Early Years Inclusion Banding Descriptors and Appendix Six: Proposed SEND Bandings for School aged children and young people.

 

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 children and 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 (DSG). Included in the DSG, is the High Needs Block which is specifically allocated to make financial provision to meet the identified SEND needs of children and young people.

 

Funding for children and young people with Education and Healthcare Plans (EHCP) in mainstream schools is comprised of three elements. The first element is the Age Weighted Pupil Unit (AWPU - the individual money for pupils) which is approximately £4,000 per child; the second element is the notional £6,000 Special Educational Needs (SEN) support money. These elements are allocated directly to schools from their DSG allocation based on the national schools funding formula. If a child has an EHCP, additional financial top-up is allocated by the Local Authority from the High Needs Block. The SEND Bandings are the way in which the Local Authority provides transparency about the amount of top-up money being allocated and the

rationale for this. This is a local arrangement, and each Local Authority has its own system based on its evaluation of local need and allocation of funding within the DSG.

 

Funding for special schools is comprised of two elements; place funding (£10,340) which is paid for every child at a special school and top-up money. In Haringey, this is either £24,000 or £27,000 depending on where the child attends. All the money for special schools comes from the High Needs Block of the DSG. Top-ups for special schools are allocated and agreed locally.

At present Haringey only has one band of top-up to Special schools so the amount of money allocated from the High Needs Block to support children in special schools is based not on needs of the child but on the type of school they are attending.

 

The SEND top-up funding for Early Years is applied for by settings when they identify a child with additional needs. Currently the setting can apply for either medium or high top up funding which is paid at a different rate per hour. The Local Authority has a number of commissioned SEND places for Early Years in the Nursery Schools, LA maintained Children’s Centres and Broadwater Farm which are for high needs children and paid at a higher rate than

the high top up funded children. As part of our Early Years Strategy, we are reviewing all the funding rates to ensure that the process is equitable and fair for all children in Haringey.

 

Haringey Council is part of the Safety Valve Programme which is a transformation programme 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, with 18 projects designed to firstly, improve outcomes for children and young

people with SEND and secondly, deliver services within a balanced budget. If successful, this will reduce the projected deficit of £80m to £30m and draw down additional funding of £30m to clear the projected deficit. As of 1 April 2023, the deficit was £23.8m. Based on the strength of, and confidence in the proposals within our plan, Haringey has received £11.96m to date

which has reduced the cumulative deficit to £11.8m. As of December 2023, Haringey is reporting an in year overspend of £2.22m which is within the financial target set for 2023-2024 and is forecasting cumulative surplus of £0.1m by 2027/28. Haringey has successfully drawn down a further £2m for 2023-2024, which is 66% of the funding available to date within this year. It is

anticipated that we will draw down 100% of the funding to offset against the accumulative deficit as per our agreed Safety Valve plan for this financial year.

 

As part of the conditions of participation within the Safety Valve programme Haringey council have committed to review their bandings and top-up allocations to ensure that these are fair, open and transparent and calculated within the existing budget allocated to the Council to meet such needs.

 

Accordingly, 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, which are designed to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND.

 

Appendix Four describes the proposed new Banding descriptors for children aged 0-5 in Early Years settings. Key changes are outlined as follows:

a) These bandings are applied fairly and equally across all early years settings in Haringey.

b) there will be an increase from 2 to 4 Bands allowing for a better description of children’s needs.

c) that these bandings are applied until children reach the end of the Early Years Foundation stage allowing support for children to be extended until the age of 5 in line with developmental stages with regular 6 monthly progress reviews.

d) that these bandings are funded jointly from the Early Years block and the High Needs Block of the Dedicated schools Grant (DSG) to ensure that sufficient funding is available to support children at the earliest point of intervention but that the amount of support from the

High Needs Block (HNB) is reviewed in accordance with the terms and conditions the council’s Safety Valve agreement and what is allowable within the HNB grant and conditions.

e) bandings will be agreed at ‘Early Years Review’ meetings held by the Early Years provider and parent and based on evidence supplied and supported by relevant health and local authority education specialists. The decision to award the top-up band will be agreed at this meeting and subject to a termly review to ensure parity and equity of funding across settings.

f) the amount of funding which each of the individual 4 bands is allocated will be calculated annually based on the financial allocation within the DSG and will be published annually in April to allow for budget setting for settings by academic year.

g) each band will be clearly described with the highest financial award being allocated to children with the most complexity of need.

h) it is proposed that the services move incrementally into the new system over a 3-year period to ensure minimum disruption to children and settings, with the new system being incrementally introduced through settings as new children are assessed.

 

Appendix three describes the new bandings formulations for children and young people aged 5-19 who attend a mainstream or special school located within the London Borough of Haringey (either maintained or academy) but not Independent Schools (which are subject to different funding arrangements). Key changes are outlined as follows:

 

a) There will be an increase from 4 to 8 bands with 3 bands describing SEN support available to children prior to consideration of an education, health and care plan (EHCP),

b) That the Bandings are used to describe children and young people's needs on a continuum.

c) That there is an additional band introduced which allows for additional financial support to schools to allow for early intervention and support, to prevent a child’s needs from escalating further and without the need for an EHCP.

d) The amount of money allocated to each of the individual bands is calculated annually based on the financial allocation within the High Needs Block of the Designated Schools Grant and each banding amount will be published annually in April to allow for budgetsetting

for settings by academic year. The methodology for this calculation and oversight of this is via a Stakeholder Steering Group of schools, Local Authority SEND Leads and Haringey SEND Power (Parent Carer Forum), this will be repeatedly annually. It is not anticipated that any school will be disadvantaged by this methodology, but should schools receive lower funding than previous years the Local Authority will work with the Head and

school business managers to understand risks and make mitigation for this. The intention was to provide a fairer distribution of resources, and also create resources to support the Local Authority’s intention to provide early intervention and support.

e) Bandings and top-ups will be reviewed at each child’s SEN or EHCP annual review, in accordance with the SEND Code of Practice and Children and Families Act 2014.

f) The amount of money allocated to each child (Top-Up funding) will be agreed by Haringey SEND Panel based on considering the evidence and recommendations of the parents,

Special Education Needs and Disability Co-ordinator (SENDCO) and specialist education

professionals who are responsible for supporting the child or young person.

g) During the current transition year, September 2023 – August 2024, every child or young person who currently has top-up funding from the High Needs Block of the DSG will have an EHCP audit. A new banding allocation will be made based on the needs evidenced within the child or young person’s existing plan, and any banding which deviates from the

existing scale by 2 or more points will be taken to Haringey SEND Panel for further moderation following an Annual Review.

These policy changes were subject to public consultation via an on-line consultation form published on the Haringey SEND Local Offer website for a period of 8 weeks to ensure that families, schools and other parties have sufficient time to respond to the proposed changes. The

consultation ran from 5th October until 1st December 2023.

 

The consultation, whilst not a statutory duty, was promoted via the SEND Newsletter, Special Schools and Parent Carers’ Forum and a range of other relevant networks within the education, health and care sector. Appendix Three: Bandings and Top Ups Consultation Report describes in detail the work which took place to undertake the consultation and the responses

recorded via the web-pages. The consultation responses indicated broad agreement with the proposed changes with some useful suggested amendments and indicated that SEND consultations, whilst offering an outlet for expressing wider discontent in the system also offer a useful opportunity for the Local Authority to ensure that it has access to wider opinions and a

chance to develop good practice informed by both practitioners, parents and carers.

 

Consultation responses were mainly received from parents and carers of children and young people with SEND with some comments from practitioners. A summary of the key responses are outlined below. Refer to: Appendix Three: Bandings and Top Ups Consultation feedback and responses. As a result of the responses to consultation amendments have been made to the original Bandings Framework.

 

For ease they are marked in red on Appendix Five and Six (Proposed Bandings) A summary of the key responses are outlined below.

a) Recognition of the wider SEND improvement agenda of which these Bandings form a part.

b) Inclusion of the importance of impact as well as severity of Hearing Loss in determining children’s needs in this area.

c) Recognition and consideration of the impact of ‘masking’ behaviours for children with social communication difficulties.

d) Recognition of the interface between the Early Years Bandings (Which apply to children in earlier stages of their development assessed by their good levels of development) and the school-age Bandings which assess older children’s ability to function within a schoolbased learning environment and achievements in relation to the National Curriculum (including entry-level learning).

 

EHCPs will continue to clearly outline in detail, the provision required for children and young people with sufficient flexibility to meet individual and assessed needs which will be monitored through the statutory annual review process.

 

The financial envelope for the High Needs Block Grant is based on a national formula based on pupil numbers. Funding allocations to the bandings are agreed by the Schools’ Forum. Where schools may be adversely affected financially as a result of the new bandings, financial modelling support will be provided by Haringey Schools Finance to Schools to assess the impact

of any changes and any options to minimise impact. This may include adopting a phased incremental approach and/ or a review of pupil numbers.

 

Alternative options considered

 

Consideration has been given to retaining the bandings in their current form with no changes made. This option is not considered to be sustainable in light of the feedback from stakeholders regarding developing a more equitable system. This option is not sustainable and requires review in the context of the Safey Valve programme.