Special school could have been built in Central Bedfordshire years ago - but council turned it down

A new special school for Central Bedfordshire could have been provided years go – but was rejected by the local authority at that time, a meeting heard.

Demand for places for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) locally has put budgetary pressures on Central Bedfordshire Council’s children’s services directorate.

The local authority’s schools forum requested a regular update on the in-year forecasts in the high needs (spending) block.

Headteacher of Oak Bank School in Leighton Buzzard Peter Cohen told the forum: “We’ve a set of figures which seem to be growing, an £11m deficit with a further £8.8m forecast.

“What figure will it reach before we see a reduction?” he asked. “Will £19m be the highest amount or can we anticipate it rising further?

“I’m delighted CBC has been awarded a new special school. The local authority was awarded that same special school in 2016 and wrote to the Department for Education in 2018 to say it didn’t require this.

“Five years later, the council’s saying ‘we did need that’. We’ve been alerting CBC to these problems around capacity for many years.”

CBC’s assistant director SEND Helen Phelan replied: “The paper indicates a further increase before things steady.

“The work we’re doing around the diagnostics and our deep dives relating to the delivering better value programme will give us greater confidence in projecting our level of demand.

“We know we have an issue around sufficiency of specialist provision, which has a knock-on effect to the high needs block and out of area placements to ensure children’s needs are met.

“It’s part of the process around the programme to consider what those mitigating factors and different ways of working might be.”

CBC’s deputy director of children’s services Sarah Ferguson explained: “Plenty of work has gone on to get greater confidence around the numbers. I understand the caution.

“We’re in a stronger position to forecast these figures than perhaps we’d have been a year ago because there’s more information and data at our fingertips.

“It’s not a science, but we’re subject to those changes we can’t always predict. We’ve been responding to a really high increase in demand.

“We wouldn’t want you to come away with the impression it’s all the schools (fault). Of course it isn’t. We recognise and hear the frustration around how hard it is currently to be meeting the needs of those children in your schools.”

Sandy Secondary School principal Karen Hayward, who chairs the forum, said: “We understand it’s a collaboration and we all have to do something differently.

“At the moment, schools are being pushed to their limits. That’s all schools, not just one particular sector.

“I remember that bid Peter put in. It was turned down. It should have been grabbed at because now we’re in a position where we haven’t enough places.

“Peter’s request is a good one,” she added. “How much do we think it’ll peak at? Everything seems piecemeal and that’s the frustration all of us are having.”