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Safety Valve Raises Finance Concerns at Bristol Schools Forum

Same concerns about Send finances raised for second meeting in a row

Financial concerns over the escalating High Needs Block spend has been raised once again in Bristol Schools Forum.

In November 2024, Simon Eakins of Cathedral Schools Trust, raised questions about the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Send) funding being £10m worse off than before Bristol had joined the Safety Valve scheme.

In the meeting of 26 November 2024 he asked: “Is it right to assume that it’s those savings that haven’t yet materialised because there’s a lag in some of those changes? I guess, the question is, we’re already a way off the Safety Valve agreement. Does that have any implications or not until the end of the programme? And where are we with those savings and mitigations?”

Finance manager, Steven Goodwin who had presented the update on the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) replied: “From my perspective, it’s basically a combination of the savings not being achieved because of the delays in developing provision through the capital strategy, developing resource bases, special school provision and by doing that we stem the flow of children going to all those higher cost external provisions. So that’s part of the issue there.”

He also said it was due to “significant increases in volumes of demand over and above what was originally estimated in the Safety Valve agreement. Backlogs of EHCPs coming through the system and again, the higher cost of supporting those children with those specific circumstances.”

Bristol Schools Forum on 26 November 2024

But in the Bristol Schools Forum meeting on Wednesday 15 January 2025, Eakins once again asked questions over Safety Valve.

He asked: “I know it’s obviously a multiple year program but we’re we’re way off where we said we’d be in that original plan. At what point does the DFE step in? Can they step in? And also we are hearing that the Labour government don’t want this. They’re scrapping it. Does that mean that there’s no future ones given? And do they still kind of honour this?”

Director of Education and Skills at Bristol City Council, Vik Verma said: “Firstly I believe there has been an announcement that there won’t be any new Safety Valve agreements. Government are reviewing Safety Valve as a program to support local authorities with significant deficits.

“We meet with the Department for Education quarterly. We go through the progress that we’re making on both the conditions which is the various projects. And this is you know, this is in the public domain. But the several projects that we are running to support and improve the financial position alongside actually looking at the financial deficit itself. And whilst we’re making very good progress on various conditions that we have – so we’re just about to launch our strategy next week hopefully – subject to committee approval, you know etc. Those are parts of the conditions.

“There are challenges in the financial position and fundamentally a significant portion of that comes from ensuring that children have an appropriate placement. And often then that’s using then a sufficiency that we don’t have as a council. So where we don’t have sufficient special school places or resource provision – and schools have supported very helpfully to expand provision – we then have to use the private market. That can range from multi- thousands of pounds it could be you know whilst our local provision is £30,000, private provision could be anywhere from £40,000 to say £100,000.

“So it’s a significant financial pressure but we obviously have a duty to make sure we meet those children’s needs. That’s alongside us also expanding our own provision but it takes time to build the capital, the schools and provision that we need as well. So this is all part of that. I suppose what we don’t know is where government will land in terms of the future of Safety Valve.”

Headteacher of St Matthias Academy, Aileen Morrison also had questions.

She said: “The opening balance for 2025 was originally 20 per cent -28 per cent over what was originally predicted. So for 2025/26 we’re expecting a closing balance of £62.563m. If we’re as much out for next year as we are this year, we’re looking at £82m over. Which would mean we are at the position where we were worried about two years ago without any mitigations at all. So it’s just sort of clarification on why the predicted deficit, or the predicted in-year overspend continues to rise more than we’re predicting?”

Steve Goodwin replied: “I think that’s part of the the timing of developing all transformation of high needs developing a provision. So we have agreed with the Department for Education that the deficit will increase over the next period of time you know a few years until 2029/30 when we balance within the high needs block.”

Goodwin said it was part of a ‘trajectory’ of acknowledging that the LA would need to spend money to develop provision which would then save on children and young people with Send going to “external high cost provisions.”

Continuing: “So you can see the in year overspend is forecast to decrease but it in compared to the current year but there is still an increase overall and it’s because of that investment that’s required to then ultimately make the Savings in the future years. And like I say, that’s all agreed with the Department of Education.”

Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) update paper

An update on the Safety Valve had been expected at the January meeting. This was reflected in the meeting minutes of November 2024.

The minutes state: ‘Concerns were raised regarding the £10 million savings anticipated from the safety valve, which have not materialized. Further questions were raised about what actions Bristol City Council could have taken to achieve additional savings. Officers suggested presenting an update on the safety valve initiative at the next forum to share progress on these matters alongside wider national concerns and ensure full transparency.’

The action that arose was for ‘Finance officers to present an update on the Safety Valve initiative at the next forum to share progress on these matters alongside the wider national concerns and ensure full transparency.’

In response to the agenda action, Vik Verma said: “We have an update on the DSG which will come through the report today and we are preparing a report on the Safety Valve and the various projects that are happening underneath that so we’ll bring that to the next meeting with written updates. We’ll put that as an agenda for the next meeting.”

The next Safety Valve monitoring return is due at the end of March 2025.

An upcoming court hearing of a judicial review challenge against Bristol City Council’s Safety Valve Agreement is due to be heard in Bristol at the end of the month.

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