receive \u00a310,000 for each commissioned place and then top-up funding from their council<\/a>, based on the child\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSpecial school business leaders told Goldman and David Withey, chief executive at the Education and Skills Funding Agency, their budgets were stretched or in deficit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the logic behind place funding, Goldman said it was thought to give \u201ca position of certainty\u201d compared to \u201cvariable and volatile\u201d top-up funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he said the failure to increase the \u00a310,000 with inflation has \u201cshifted the balance away from the certainty\u201d for budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShould the \u00a310,000 change over time? Probably,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While he said increasing it might create \u201cfurther complexities\u201d around how top-up funding is set, he added: \u201cIt does create the very odd situation of \u00a310,000 having been chosen back in 2013 and not changing, so that is something we are actively looking at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DfE has said before that the \u00a310,000 funding is \u201cnot intended to reflect schools\u2019 cost increases\u201d, which instead should fall to increased top-up rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But analysis by Special Needs Jungle revealed top-up funding levels had remained stagnant in a third of councils between 2018 and last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Aim is to avoid’ bankruptcy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n They estimated the static \u00a310,000 funding means schools have faced an estimated real-terms cut of \u00a31.3 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goldman said some had proposed to the DfE the “more radical step” of removing place funding, and instead use the national funding formula \u201cand you build on that obviously because that\u2019s not going to be adequate for these children\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat is something again we will think about going forward, we need to think about that in the context of the wider SEND policy reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don’t want to design a funding system which might be a better fit for today and introduce it at a time when it\u2019s not a better fit for the system that\u2019s actually coming into place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The DfE plans to introduce a national approach to delivering funding bands and tariffs for more \u201cconsistent funding\u201d across the country after 2025 as part of its SEND and alternative provision improvement plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several councils have issued section 114 notices \u2013 declaring effective bankruptcy \u2013 in recent years. Goldman said while none of these relate to high needs deficits now, \u201cthere could be and our aim obviously is to avoid that happening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thirty-eight councils current have safety valve deals with government, where they agreed sweeping reforms in exchange for bailouts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Deputy director Tom Goldman tells conference funding should ‘probably’ change over time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311127,"featured_media":92020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"post-theme":[],"class_list":["post-203492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t