Concerns have been raised that the speed at which extra funding for schools was allocated could mean that money is ‘wasted’.
And Bedford Borough Council’s chief officer for education, SEND and schools, told the Bedford Schools’ Forum that if there had been more time the allocation of £1million would have been carried out in a more “consultative way”.
The council had been awarded an additional dedicated schools grant (DSG) allocation of £1.060 million for the High Needs Block for 2022/2023.
A report presented to the Forum yesterday (Monday 21 February) said the extra funding recognises the additional costs that local authorities and schools will face in the coming year, which were not foreseen when the original high needs block allocations were calculated.
Ben Pearson, the council’s chief officer for education, SEND and schools presented a summary of where the funding will be allocated.
“The additional funding that we received from the department for education, just over a million pounds, specifically recognizes the additional pressure for children with additional needs over the last couple of years,” he said.
“About a couple of months ago, but probably actually six weeks ago, we were told that we had this additional funding.
“We’ve spoken to colleagues across the council, we’ve spoken to our SEND improvement board as well to ask what we could do with one-off funding to recognise the pressure of the last couple of years on the cohort of children with additional needs,” he said.
Deirdre Murphy, National Education Union, asked if the funding could be used to avoid some redundancies.
Mr Pearson said: “This is one-off funding we are talking about, we’ve got one opportunity to try and respond to the backlog or the pressure that’s been caused by a couple of years.
“What we couldn’t do then is fund people or posts that we would look to be carrying on in perpetuity because we couldn’t do it in 12 months’ time.”
Stuart Lock, Bedford Free School Academy, said: “You said that we can’t fund posts in perpetuity, and of course, that’s true because it commits to future spending.
“The first item on training for travel appears to fund posts.
“That, of course, contradicts what you just said.”
Mr Pearson said: “The proposal there is to recruit those additional people to set a scheme up, to get that scheme up and running.
“It’s a one-off, it’s to bring some people in to do some train the trainer, that’s the approach, and to leave those skills behind,” he said.
Mr Lock asked what the council had decided not to spend money on.
Mr Pearson said: “We did look at some other schemes to try and reduce where there are backlogs or where there are pressures.
“I think this is an appropriate cut of that funding.
“If we would have had more time to develop this we would have come out an in a more consultative way, as we do with things like the Early Years.
“This was a very late announcement that we’ve responded to as quickly as possible,” he said
Mr Lock said: “My concern is about money that might be wasted by a quick decision.
“I don’t know what the mechanisms are to be able to get more information and discuss further, or if there are any.
“If it’s a yes-no clearly I’m going to just say yes [to the proposal], but otherwise I feel uncomfortable saying this is okay with the amount of information we have on it.
“In some cases I’m getting that we haven’t quite worked it out.
“If it’s going to be spent over the year it might be a good thing to put back on the agenda with where are you up to, what are we doing,” he said.
Mr Pearson said: “I wish we did have this earlier, and I wish we had more time to come out and to the whole structure and develop it in a different way.
“We didn’t, we got this announcement very late after our previous meeting.
“I’m very happy to bring a report back around how the money is being used and the impact it’s having,” he said.
The forum voted to approve the proposal that set out how the funds will be allocated in 22/23.
by John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
