Plans to plug a £2.5 million gap in funding for children with special educational needs were presented to a schools panel this week, sparking fears that some pupils may suffer in the face of overstretched budgets.

Bucks County Council’s (BCC) portion of ‘high needs’ government funding, primarily for children with special educational needs (SEN), is set to be overspent by £2,496,631 in 2018/19, according to a council report.

BCC has been working to reduce rising pressures on SEN funding, however at a meeting of the schools forum on June 12 concerns were raised over the impact plans will have on children's education.

Director of education at BCC, Sarah Callaghan, confirmed the council has found money to facilitate the millions of additional cash spent – however this cannot be relied on in the future.

Read more: 

The forum received an update on a BCC scheme, known as the Inclusion Hub, which is made up of mainstream and special schools tasked with streamlining SEN services, with a view to reduce funding pressures.  

Plans include reviewing cases where SEN children have been placed in schools outside Bucks, and bring them back into the county for education where appropriate.

The hub also proposed implementing targets to reduce the number of out of county placements to 12 young people each year, according to Ms Callaghan.  

However early years representative on the forum and leader of Manor Farm Pre-School in Hazlemere, Wendy Terry, raised concerns over the impact changes could have on children’s education.

She said: “I do worry that the children are going to suffer.

“We are already seeing in early years that we are getting less money with our education health and care plans (EHCP), which has a knock-on effect with not only the settings, but the children we are working with.”

Ms Callaghan insisted high needs funding is “healthy” in Bucks compared to other authorities across the country, but warned the panel that reducing budget pressures will take time.

She said: “It is not a good starting point, but that is where we are, and we just need to deal with it.

“We do need to put children first, absolutely, and I think that is about looking at resources in the system, looking at the demands and saying how do we make best use of those resources to meet those demands.”