SEND Funding and Strategy
The Liberal Democrats in Wokingham welcome the £1bn of additional funding pledged in the government’s Autumn budget for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). However, they remain concerned that funding increases are not keeping up with the rapid increase in needs. The Department for Education estimates that the cumulative deficit for SEND by the end of 2025/26 will be £4.6bn.
At a meeting of the Executive of Wokingham Borough Council on Thurs 1 Nov, in response to a question from Clive Jones, Liberal Democrat MP for Wokingham, the Executive Member for Children’s Services, Cllr Prue Bray, outlined the biggest challenges to improving the experiences of children and young people with SEND in Wokingham.
Lib Dem Councillor, Prue Bray, said:
“Nationally, as was admitted by the previous government, the SEND system in England is ‘failing to deliver for children, young people and their families’. As the National Audit Office report on Support for Children with SEND, published last week, made clear, the system is not financially sustainable.
“In Wokingham Borough we have in the past two years been making our best efforts to resolve significant issues for children and young people in accessing education, while tackling the funding deficits that we have been left with, and striving to deliver good and consistent outcomes for our children and young people.
“Support for children with SEND requires a whole system approach and is not solely the responsibility of the local authority, but currently this is where much of the accountability sits. We are fortunate in Wokingham that our schools and health systems are now willing partners in addressing the issues.
“The most significant challenge we face is that we are seeing rapidly increasing identification of needs but without matching increases in funding. This acceleration of needs and a lack of historical investment in SEND have placed enormous pressure on our local system, which did not have the range and volume of specialist provision to meet the needs of the local population.
“In response, we and our partners have focused not just on increasing that local provision but on early intervention and prevention. We have also been fortunate to secure funding for two new special schools from the previous government.
“Finally, I must stress that whatever we do locally as a SEND partnership is very unlikely to be enough to make us financially viable in the long term unless there is a fundamental national reform to the SEND system with the right level of funding to deliver consistent outcomes for children with SEND.”
Clive Jones, Liberal Democrat MP for Wokingham, agreed to continue to lobby for fair funding for Wokingham’s educational needs, and for reform of national SEND funding, as per the advice from the National Audit Office, in order to ensure it can be sustainable in the future.
Presenting the Wokingham Area SEND and Inclusion strategy for 2024-2029, Cllr Prue Bray thanked the stakeholders and partners who contributed to the strategy, including the families of children and young people with SEND represented by SEND Voices. The strategy sets out 6 strategic priorities which aim to achieve the best outcomes for our area’s most vulnerable children.
Cllr Prue Bray stated:
“There is a lot in the strategy that I am really pleased to see, a lot about service improvements, better provision, earlier intervention, better support and so on. But it would be foolish to try to pretend that all will be well if we just deliver what’s in the strategy. It would be ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the accumulated – and still accumulating – deficit in SEND funding.
“The National Audit Office report recommends root and branch reform, including “as a matter of urgency”, that the relevant government departments share with local authorities plans for ensuring they can achieve a sustainable financial position for SEND provision. I really hope the government listens. But I am not altogether convinced they will.”