Councillors and committees

Agenda item

National Autistic Society / Cullum Autism Centres in Surrey Schools

Decision:

1.       That entering into a development and commissioning agreement and a service level agreement with the National Autistic Society to set up four resource centres at secondary schools for young people with autism and to provide £50,000 funding for a development contribution for each centre be approved.

 

2.         That the statutory notice be determined for the inclusion of an SEN unit at Salesian School, for which the representation period ended on 12 September 2014.

 

3.         That the capacity of the centre at Salesian School be increased, providing funding of £321,902 to include updated and fit for purpose facilities for its existing SEN pupils.

 

Reasons for Decisions:

 

The Learning Difficulties Review (2012) identified an ongoing shortage of Surrey maintained provision for young people with high functioning autism (HFA) and related conditions. There is currently no autism-specific resource centre at secondary level.

 

This proposal will increase the capacity of SEN provision for high-functioning autism in Surrey by 40 places in the first phase and by 80 places on completion of the second phase.  It will develop improved integration with mainstream schooling. The four schools where centres are proposed indicated their willingness to work with the project and on the basis of their geographical spread offer equality of provision across the county.

 

Surrey currently places approximately 250 students with autism in non-maintained independent (NMI) schools. Additional high quality maintained provision within Surrey is expected to reduce these costs.

 

The NAS is a nationally respected provider of autism education. A partnership offer will enhance the credibility and quality of Surrey autism provision. Parental confidence will be increased, reducing parental preference for NMI.

 

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Children and Education Select Committee]

 

Minutes:

The Cabinet Member for Schools and Learning was pleased to present this report which detailed the culmination of the work of the Assistant Director of Schools and Learning and his team working in partnership with the National Autistic Society (NAS) and four nominated secondary schools to develop four Centres of Education Excellence for young people with autism, with funding up to £4m being provided by the NAS specifically for the delivery of the facilities.

 

She said that the centres would be delivered in 2 phases: - phase 1, Salesian School, Chertsey and Rodborough School, Godalming had each agreed to host an autism-specific resourced provision for 20 students aged 11-16 with a proposed opening date of Easter 2015 for the Salesian Centre and September 2015 for the Rodborough Centre. Phase 2 centres were planned to be located at Howard of Effingham School and Hinchley Wood School the timescales for which were to be finalised with NAS.

 

She said that the Authority was extremely grateful to the Cullum Family Trust who were providing upto £1m for each centre and approval was being sought from the County Council to provide a development contribution of £50K for each centre as requested by the NAS and also to fund updating existing SEN facilities at Salesian School.

 

Finally, she drew attention to a typo in paragraph 22 of the report – the average annual cost of a non-maintained or independent day place for a pupil with autism was £74K not £43K, as stated in the report. Also, referring to paragraph 29, she confirmed that no representations, relating to the new SEN centre at Salesian School, had been received by 12 September deadline.

 

Other Cabinet Members strongly supported this initiative and expressed their sincere thanks to the Cullum Family Trust.

 

RESOLVED:

 

1.       That entering into a development and commissioning agreement and a service level agreement with the National Autistic Society to set up four resource centres at secondary schools for young people with autism and to provide £50,000 funding for a development contribution for each centre be approved.

 

2.         That the statutory notice be determined for the inclusion of an SEN unit at Salesian School, for which the representation period ended on 12 September 2014.

 

3.         That the capacity of the centre at Salesian School be increased, providing funding of £321,902 to include updated and fit for purpose facilities for its existing SEN pupils.

 

Reasons for Decisions:

 

The Learning Difficulties Review (2012) identified an ongoing shortage of Surrey maintained provision for young people with high functioning autism (HFA) and related conditions. There is currently no autism-specific resource centre at secondary level.

 

This proposal will increase the capacity of SEN provision for high-functioning autism in Surrey by 40 places in the first phase and by 80 places on completion of the second phase.  It will develop improved integration with mainstream schooling. The four schools where centres are proposed indicated their willingness to work with the project and on the basis of their geographical spread offer equality of provision across the county.

 

Surrey currently places approximately 250 students with autism in non-maintained independent (NMI) schools. Additional high quality maintained provision within Surrey is expected to reduce these costs.

 

The NAS is a nationally respected provider of autism education. A partnership offer will enhance the credibility and quality of Surrey autism provision. Parental confidence will be increased, reducing parental preference for NMI.

 

Supporting documents: