raised questions about the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Send) funding<\/a> being \u00a310m worse off than before Bristol had joined the Safety Valve scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the meeting of 26 November 2024 he asked: \u201cIs it right to assume that it\u2019s those savings that haven\u2019t yet materialised because there\u2019s a lag in some of those changes? I guess, the question is, we\u2019re 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?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finance manager, Steven Goodwin who had presented the update on the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) replied: \u201cFrom my perspective, it\u2019s 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\u2019s part of the issue there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also said it was due to \u201csignificant 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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