Dedicated school grant management plan - update for parents and carers

01 November 2023

Open letter from Deborah Woodcock, Executive Director of Children’s Services and Claire Williamson, Director of Education, Strong Start and Integration at Cheshire East Council

Dear parents and carers

You may have read in the local news about deficits or shortfalls in Cheshire East Council’s high needs school funding or dedicated school grant.

Shortfalls in funding for children with an education, health and care plan or EHCP is a national issue with around two thirds of local authorities across the country, currently having a deficit.

We appreciate that this is an anxious time for everyone, and we want to reassure you that we, in partnership with health services, nurseries, schools and colleges, are working as hard as we can, in these challenging times, to ensure that the needs of children and young people are met, and they thrive in all aspects of their lives.

We wanted to share our current position with you following a request from the chairs of the Parent Carer Forum and media coverage of our dedicated schools grant management plan that was approved at the council’s children and families committee in September.

This plan summarises the dedicated school grant or budget for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) in Cheshire East.  For this financial year, ending March 2024, we have a government grant of £56.1million and a forecast spend of £91.2million – this shortfall or deficit is forecast to increase to over £500million by March 2028 if we do nothing. 

We do have plans to reduce the deficit, including increasing the number of places in special schools and resource provisions and further supporting our schools to offer an inclusive education to all children – but they are not enough and will not solve our problems.

We are required, by law, to have a five-year plan to tackle the shortfall and our plan has been in place since 2021. We’ve also taken part in the government’s Delivering Better Value (DBV) programme which provides support to councils and helped us to get under the skin of the challenges we are facing, with a view to having a more sustainable financial position.

As part of the DBV programme, parents, carers and schools told us there were challenges around inclusivity, staff training and children’s transition to primary or secondary school and into adulthood.

All your feedback has been so important in shaping our plan and following a grant of £1m from the Department for Education we have recruited a new transformation team including one transition manager and four advisors.  We have also invested in our staff training offer. 

In addition, the Cheshire East SEND partnership strategy has been refreshed and was also approved by committee in September.  The strategy sets out our priorities in light of the big changes both nationally and locally with a real focus on key actions across council, health and education services.

We know that Cheshire East has a higher number of children with an EHCP than the national average and we’ve seen an 18% increase in the last year. We are in a period of unprecedented financial challenge, at a time where demand is increasing alongside the complexity of needs. As a council we cannot spend more money than we have - our budgets must balance.

We must abide by the SEND code of practice and meet all our statutory duties, so our plan summarises how we can support needs in a different way, that is better for our children and young people, as we aim for schools and settings to be inclusive.  In short, we want to put more support into the SEND system – so children’s needs are met earlier, with the right support in the right place.  This is in line with the government’s SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan (2023).

On 7 September, we accepted an invitation from the Department for Education to start negotiations to join their Safety Valve programme, which will provide more help from the government to balance our budget. Safety valve agreements have already been made with 34 local authorities and are published on the government’s website.

Negotiations with the Department for Education are ongoing and on Monday 9 October we met with their officials. We will now review our plans again and submit this to government in January with any agreement published on their website in March 2024.

We want to reassure you that we are working together with our schools, health and community services to support your children to be happy, healthy and achieve their potential.  Our new SEND family hub opened at Monks Coppenhall in Crewe recently, where families can access advice, and support at the right support at the right time.

Finally, we will be attending the Parent Carer Forum steering group meetings over the next few months to listen to any concerns.  If you have any comments, questions or thoughts please get in touch with your parent carer forum representative either through their Facebook group or email info@cepcf.org  

Kind regards

Deborah Woodcock, Executive Director of Children’s Services, Cheshire East Council

Claire Williamson, Director of Education, Strong Start and Integration, Cheshire East Council