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Answer:

At the moment, there is a belief that once a child has an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), that will continue. For some children that is entirely appropriate, but for other children getting the right help early on should result in a reduction in support. But school staff and parents would need to be ready for this change. For children who need more support, the Annual Review process does seem to be effective.

Answer:

The Divisional Director for Education and Partnerships and Head of Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) meet parents twice a year and hear from them about pressing issues.

Parents can make their views known, through the:

  1. Parent and Carer Council,
  2. various groups run by the Parent and Family Support Service
  3. SEND Information and Advice Service
  4. Parent and Carer Survey and Pupil Survey.

The council has trained local parents to become SEND Ambassadors. Their role is to provide outreach and attend events to promote Parent Participation. Their aim is to ensure a strong parental voice at a strategic level.

Tower Hamlets has supported the setting up of an independent SEND Forum and we have both a parent and student representative on the SEND Improvement Board. The student representative has recently presented a report with recommendations from the Our Time Forum, an all ability youth forum run for and by young people between the ages of 16-25 with SEND.

Before having a public consultation, we ran 15 pre-consultation engagement events to explain SEND funding. These were attended by 170 people, mainly parents.

Three examples of areas that parents and young people have influenced decision making include:

  1. our current increased focus on pathways into employment so that now TH has more than half of all the supported internships across the whole of London,
  2. our planning to invest more in intervention in the early years and
  3. planning to establish more support for pupils who have Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) but are academically able.
Answer:

The overall funding for SEND, the High Needs Funding Block (HNFB), will continue being spent on SEND, but we need to make some changes.

There is a big overspend that needs to be reduced, but also we want to spend more on early intervention and post-16. We can’t do that without reducing or changing some of the current spending. We want to hear from people and to consider their views, as there may be factors we have not thought of.

Answer:

No.

In addition to the funding schools already get for all pupils, there is an annual grant from the Government, called the High Needs Funding Block (HNFB). This is funding is for children and young people with Special needs and children and young people in alternative education provision.

 

Last year the council received about £49 million in the HNFB.

Children’s social care and health services also have funds for children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND).

All of these strands of funding will continue each year. However, School budgets as a whole are reducing annually as a consequence of overall fall in government funding.

Answer:

We have been talking with Head teachers about what work we can do to help all mainstream schools be equally inclusive, resulting in a more even spread of children with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) attending these schools.

The Local Authority will be developing guidance on our expectation of all schools with regard to SEND inclusion and giving help to schools to develop in this way. There are options in the consultation about the size of the reduction. A bigger reduction in funding (5% or 7%) would enable us to give schools that have a large number of children with EHCPS some extra funding.

Answer:

All the funding in the High Needs Funding Block (HNFB) will continue going to schools and into services.

Reductions to school SEND budgets, alongside the other cuts to schools, will have an impact on activities and may result in less staffing. However, children and young people with an Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) will still have the support outlined in their plan.

With regard to changes to services, the council will continue providing at the very least a statutory range of services. Services would become more focused and targeted on working with school staff to help mainstream schools become more inclusive.  For services that have funding that the council holds, we want to have a clear basis so schools know what they are entitled to access and there is greater equity in support across the range of SEND and age range than is at the moment.

Answer:
Yes, the council is actively campaigning to increase funding for SEND.
Answer:

The High Needs Funding Block (HNFB) is increasing each year.

However, the number of children and young people with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) is also increasing. The number of children with EHCPs is increasing much faster than the funding.

In addition to this, a change in the law in 2014 resulted in young people with SEND being eligible for support up to the age of 25. So this meant that councils had a new duty to provide support for up to an additional 6 years without additional funding.

We know the average amount spent on each child with an EHCP has remained steady over the last few years.

This means there is a growing funding gap and last year the budget was £7m overspent.

In previous years, there has been enough money in schools budgets to off-set any overspend, but this is no longer the case. This means we need to make changes to how we spend the budget going forward or the overspend will grow every year.

 

Answer:

The public consultation asks three sets of questions about:

  •  Reducing funding to schools
  • Reducing the difference in funding between different types of schools
  • Making changes to some council services.

 

The first set of questions is about the top-up funding to schools. This is because the majority of funding goes to schools, so making a change here would make the biggest difference. 

The questions ask for views about reducing the amount of funding. We have provided some information about the level of funding schools in other similar Local Authorities get.

The consultation asks about making a 2% cut, a 5% cut or a 7% cut.

A 2% cut means a reduction of £2 in every £100

A 5% cut means a reduction of £5 in every £100.

A 7% cut means a reduction of £7 in every £100.

 

If the council makes a 5% or 7% cut, then a part of that money can be used to spend more on intervention in early years. For example providing more children with Speech and Language Therapy before they start school. 

The second set of questions is about differences in funding to special schools and resource bases.

The third set of questions is about some of the services the council provides paid for by the High Needs Funding Block(HNFB). The council is seeking views on whether we should just provide a statutory service, more than a statutory service, or carry on spending at the current level and off-set some of the costs from other budgets.

Answer:

The way the council spends the money is regulated by law.

The requirements that have to be met are described in the SEND Code of Practice, statutory guidance published in January 2015.

The majority of the funding goes directly to schools, which is about £45m of the total fund.

The rest is spent by the council on services which include the Support for Learning Service and a Speech and Language Therapy contract.

Head Teachers have asked the council to reduce the amount of money that is retained. To do this we need to change and reduce the services that this money pays for.

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