Decision details

RESOLVED:

1.    That Cabinet approves in principle the use of SEND Capital funding against the programme of adaptation and refurbishment of Surrey County Council (SCC) owned assets and state maintained schools for Phase 4 of the programme. This is in order to deliver up to 872 additional Specialist School Places in Surrey from September 2023 onwards.

2.    That Cabinet delegates the decision to transfer the £60m SEND Capital funding from pipeline to budget to the Capital Programme Panel, based on approval of individual business cases once schemes, locations and costs are confirmed.

3.    That Cabinet approves the delegation of authority to allocate resources from the approved £60m budget required for individual projects to the Cabinet Members for Education & Learning, Resources and Land & Property, following Capital Programme Panel approval.

Reasons for Decisions:

Following national legislative changes brought about by the 2014 Children & Families Act and revised Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Code of Practice, 2015, Surrey has seen the number of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) as a percentage of the 4-19 general school age population increase from 3.4% to 4.1% between 2018-2021. This figure is projected to increase to over 5% of the 4-19 general population by 2024, resulting in the projected demand for up to 6,000 maintained specialist school places. (Annex 3)

The sustained increase in demand for specialist provision has resulted in over-reliance on the independent school sector and out of county placements, which frequently also involves excessive home to school travel distances for EHCP pupils outside of resident districts and boroughs.

The Department for Education expects Local Authorities (LA) to manage their specialist estates efficiently to avoid detriment to schools’ educational offers, creating disadvantage to children and young people who have SEND or to the LA’s financial position. This means ensuring the availability of maintained specialist school places that are appropriately matched to SEN need-type, phases of education and geographic location so that all of Surrey’s statutory school age children with an EHCP that require a full-time specialist setting in either a mainstream SEN Unit or Special School have a named placement, ready for the beginning of each academic year.

The recommended Phase 4 SEND Capital investment completes the planning for sufficiency of specialist school places from September 2023 to 2031.

(The decisions on this item can be called-in by the Children, Families, Lifelong Learning and Culture Select Committee)