Training materials for teachers of learners with severe, profound and complex learning difficulties

Any provision management has to take place in the context of the special educational needs/disability budget.

 

The National Funding Model was implemented in April 2013 and introduced changes to funding for Academies and Mainstream schools. Funding is based on a combination of place and pupil led funding, known as the 'place plus' approach. This has been applied across all types of schools, academies, colleges, settings and alternative provision.

 

The Dedicated Schools Grant funding is now split into three distinct funding blocks for schools, high needs and early years. These are notional and not ring-fenced.

Further information on funding is available in the 0-25 SEND Code of Practice (2015):

• Early years providers: sections 5.59 - 5.60;
• Schools: sections 6.95 - 6.99;
• Colleges and 6th forms: sections 7:28 - 7:35.

For further information, read:

 

Department for Education (2012) Funding Reform: Next steps towards a fairer system. London: DfE. [Online: https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio
ns/school-funding-reform-next-steps-towards-a-fairer-system; accessed: 14.2.15]

'High Needs Pupils are those whose learning needs are:

• Significantly "additional to" or "different from" the differentiated approaches and learning arrangements normally provided as part of high quality, personalised teaching;

AND

• When offering that support, there is irrefutable evidence that the cost to the school, per annum, is more than the Average Weighted Pupil Unit + £6,000 from the school's devolved additional needs funding;

AND

• When having been offered that support, there is evidence from school progress data and a compelling argument that more accelerated progress could be made if additional resources were provided, and the school has a specific, costed action plan (which might be part of an Education, Health and Care Plan) which outlines how High Needs Funding is to be spent and the targeted gains and outcomes;

OR

• When offering that support, there is irrefutable evidence that the cost to the EY setting, per annum is the 15 hours free entitlement funding + £500 from the group settings notional SEN [budget].'

(Northamptonshire City Council, 2014)

(Department for Education, 2012)

Schools can choose to spend their notional special educational needs budget in a flexible way to meet the needs of most pupils with special educational needs/disabilities, including most pupils with high incidence special educational needs.

 

The formula agreed between schools and local authorities usually allocates more money to schools with a higher number of pupils with special educational needs/disabilities, and where there are more children receiving free school meals. The Government requires that schools are given enough money through the local funding formula so that they can meet the costs of special educational provision up to a nationally agreed sum and, in some authorities, a maximum number of hours support.

 

Special educational provision is anything that is provided to meet a child’s special educational needs that is additional to or different from provision made for all children.

 

(Dyslexia-SpLD Trust/Department for Education, 2014)

'Personal Budgets are a way of helping local authorities to use money better so more people can get support in a way that suits them.'
(East Sussex County Council, 2011)

 

A Personal Budget is an amount of money identified by the local authority to deliver provision set out in an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan where the parent or young person is involved in securing that provision. The funds can be held directly by the parent or young person (Direct Payment), or may be held and managed on their behalf by the local authority, school, college or other organisation or individual.
(See 0-25 SEND Code of Practice, 2015 (CoP), Glossary of terms, p. 284)

 

Their Local Offer must provide children/young people and their parents with access to the local authority’s Personal Budget Policy and with information about how to secure a Personal Budget. It should also describe the services across education, health and social care that 'currently lend themselves to the use of Personal Budgets' (CoP, 4.58).

Direct Payments – where an individual or their parent/nominee receives cash themselves to contract, purchase and manage services identified in an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan – is one of six different ways of controlling a Personal Budget (0-25 SEND Code of Practice, 2015, section 3.38; East Sussex County Council, 2011). Direct Payments can be made only to either a person over compulsory school age who has the capacity (see Mental Capacity Act 2005) or assistance to manage them or to a parent or 'nominee' with authority to act on that person's behalf.

 

Before Direct Payments can be made, the local authority will need to be satisfied that:

1. The provision agreed will be secured appropriately
2. The provision will be secured in the child's/young person's best interests (if Direct Payments are made to a parent/nominee)
3. That Direct Payments will not adversely affect other services
4. That it is an efficient use of resources.

(Special Educational Needs (Personal Budget and Direct Payments) Regulations 2014, nos 2, 6)

Find out the likely current levels of delegated special educational needs funding in your area by consulting the Department for Education's most up-to-date edition of the 'Schools Revenue Funding' and your local authority website operational guide.

Plan ways in which, as a SENCO, you might strategically link the use of the Local Offer to provision mapping in the context of your school's delegated budget and maximise value for money.