As the budget for Island schools is set for the next year, worries about funding needs for special education pupils continues.
Despite the government giving the Isle of Wight Council more than £3.6million additional funding for schools, for the year beginning this April, there could still be a funding gap of £1.33million for special education needs or disabilities (SEND) pupils.
Through the schools’ funding formula, the Isle of Wight Council has been able to identify just how much will be spent on education, given to schools or early years providers.
In 2021/22, the council received £104,198,000 from the Department for Education, which has now increased to £107,855,000 for 2022/23. Once divided into the specific funding allocations, however, a ‘significant gap’ in SEND funding has been identified.
A reason for the shortfall, the council says, is that the funding formula does not fully account for the Island’s higher SEND demand.
To meet the funding shortfall, it has been agreed through the local schools’ forum, for 0.5% of the main schools fund — approximately £210,555 — to be transferred to help the SEND funding difficulties. The remaining £1.12 million gap will have to be found through savings.
The council says it will continually review the provision throughout the year, taking account of recent or upcoming changes. Some of those changes include additional special school places and new resources within mainstream schools to avoid the use of specialist on-Island and mainland provision placements, where appropriate.
One crucial hope the council is relying on is a government SEND review, set to be published later this year, and expected to have an impact on funding methods.
Councillor Debbie Andre, cabinet member for children’s education, said at Thursday’s cabinet meeting the authority would be looking closely at the review’s outcome to see how it may help. Cllr Andre said, however, the Island was not alone in having the funding shortfall.
Cabinet papers say the Department for Education is undertaking conversations with local authorities about their deficits but the Isle of Wight has not yet met that threshold.
perhaps they should cut some of the bloated social care budgets or cut the bloated SEND offering instead of making regular kids suffer.
I doubt there is any shortfall….just too higher salary and other cost demands.
Here we go again, …
Another Shortfall Another excuse to put our Council Tax up.
Not that they need Another excuse, there are plenty of obvious reasons ,pension pot ! Non floating bridge ! Etc etc
Get a grip wages haven’t gone up (although I expect you will have a tidy rise ) but utilities have food petrol all have .
Tell someone how £20 can stretch, if I had £20 last year ,what’s it worth today ?????
Less for your money that’s for sure.
Same old excuse we inherited debt ,well a lot of you created it so that old chestnut doesn’t wash anymore ….
Are we talking real disabilities here or the “lets jump on the bandwagon” designer disabilities. Give it a label and suddenly becomes real, even though there is no medical evidence or proof, exemptions anyone. The council should really be putting money into finding out if parents are just making stuff up or not. Pump the kids full of all kinds of labels will just make things worse. Oh yes and some treatments for autism, which are banned in the U.S.A.
Very true, since certain problems were added to the increased benefits list. Apple I phone sales may fall.
If they hadn’t wasted all the money on a new website and FB6 amongst other things then there wouldn’t be a problem
If they really want to find savings, I suggest they look no further than County Hall. The electricity bill for that monstrosity has been around £9000 per month…… and that was during lock-down when most people should have been working from home. What are they running in there, a Large Hadron Collider?
No the air conditioning !!!!
Hearing all the nonsense spewing out of County Hall, I be its Cannabis plants they are growing
Or maybe look at the taxi fares for the SEND pupils…. another £1.4 Million for the year Oct 20 – Oct 21.
perhaps the parents should be paying for taxi’s for the kids they brought into the world instead of us.
exactly – shortfall £1.3m – taxi costs £1.4m – there is the answer – cut all freebie cabs