The cost of safety valve: ‘widespread’ failing in Bury SEND provision
Ofsted finds ‘systemic failings’ in local authority provision, raising serious questions about Department for Education’s wider bail-out deals.
The impact of the government’s ‘safety valve’ agreements has been called into question after a damning report by Ofsted on the SEND provision offered by one of the first local authorities to take part in the scheme.
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Bury Council was among five local authorities to sign a safety valve agreement in the first year of operation (2020-21). Today, 38 local authorities have such agreements in place.
The idea is simple: authorities with sizeable deficits in their dedicated schools grant (DSG) receive extra funding from the government. The year Bury Council agreed to take part in the new initiative, its estimated DSG deficit was £27.4m, rising to £33.7m for the year 2024-25. That may mean councils have little alternative but to sign-up to the government scheme, other than to go bankrupt. But there are then strings attached.
To get the special valve money, local authorities must commit to what the Department for Education (DfE) website calls ‘reforms and savings targets’ in ‘high needs’ support. This is the support provided at school, college or alternative settings to children and young people with special educational needs of disabilities (SEND). In short, money is dependent on agreeing to cuts in provision.
By signing the agreement, Bury Council received an addition £6m from the Department of Education (DfE) in the first year, a further £4m in both 2021-22 and 2022-23, and £1m every year after that. It will continue to do so until 2028-29, subject to commitments being met.
Continued funding is dependent on assessment by the DfE. As Schools Week reported, in March this year payments to five participating councils totalling some £17.7m were ‘suspended’, subject to further review. Bury Council has continued to meet its commitments – but at what cost? Several commentators suggest that this is precisely what is revealed in the new Ofsted report.
‘The experiences of many children and young people with SEND, and their families, have been poor for too long,’ says the Ofsted report, based on inspections conducted in February. Wait times are too long, it says, while education, health and care plans (EHCPs) are often generic, out of date and ‘typically poor’.
While acknowledging efforts by dedicated staff to tackle these shortcomings with new initiatives in their early stages, the ‘widespread’, ‘systemic failings’ left the inspectors with ‘significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), which the local area partnership must address urgently.’
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